the purpose of the Thoth deck

Crowley gives instructions for Tarot divination in The Book of Thoth, as does Mathers in Book T, Case in Oracle of the Tarot (and elsewhere), and Waite in Pictorial Key. Divination is not forbidden, but there may be an issue about fortune telling as a profession.

I used to read the posts about divination in the Tarot sections of the forum, and most of the time I was amazed that it works at all, particularly readings using free association (intuition), which can easily reveal more about the reader's own psyche than about the client's query. If a Christian reader draws the Heirophant, they may interpret it positively, whereas an anti-Christian reader will tend to put a negative slant on the card. If a reader hates their father, the Emperor is bad; but if they had a good relationship with a male authority figure, the same card might be good. The list goes on and on. It seems to me that free association can't possibly be a reliable divinatory technique.

At this point I have a negative attitude toward Tarot divination, but Carla is welcome to tell my fortune any time (as long as it is good news, such as winning the lottery).

Carla said:

LOL That made me laugh. Sorry, but Crowley calling something 'black magic' really cracks me up. He can try to get his wife to have sex with a goat and that's okay, but if someone else uses a tarot deck to help someone find clarity on a life situation, that's black magic. That's funny.

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I don't say my opinion. I just remember that he has wrote that but i am not sure.

"Every Will and act except the surrender to the beloved is black magik"

A.Crowley

"Nearly all professional astrologers are ignorant"

A.Crowley

and other but i don't remember

Carla said:

LOL That made me laugh. Sorry, but Crowley calling something 'black magic' really cracks me up. He can try to get his wife to have sex with a goat and that's okay, but if someone else uses a tarot deck to help someone find clarity on a life situation, that's black magic. That's funny.

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But why? It is actually quite consistent with his other writings. Divination in and of itself isn't black magick, fortune-telling is. It also depends how you define "clarity on a life situation." If a battered wife needs Tarot to tell her to leave her husband, that's black magick, and using Tarot the way a slave would. Spiritual slavery is among the most detestable things there are.

On the other hand, using divination to discover your True Will in life, and how that ripples through even the most minute of occurrences in your life, a consequence of which the battered wife does leave her husband not because Tarot told her she should but because her True Will demands it, that's not black magick.

Contemplation yes. Divination yes. Divination =/= Fortune telling.

I asked this question several times and found a sort of answer in a letter by Aleister Crowley to Mr pearson in 1942. It was quoted in Lon Milo DuQuette's book on the Thoth Tarot.

It seems important that you should understand my motive. To me this work on the Tarot is an Encylopedia of all serious "occult" philosophy. It is a standard Book of Reference, which will determine the entire course of mystical and magical thought for the next 2000 years. My one anxiety is that it should be saved from danger of destruction, by being reproduced in permanent form, and distributed in as many distant places as may be. I am not anxious to profit financially, if I had the capital available in this country, I would send (say) 200 copies to State Libraries in all parts of the world, and as many more to my principle representatives.

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Only 44 years have passed since the coloured deck arrived on the shelves.
So the Thoth has 1956 years to go....then the direction of the entire course will be.....
(install your own prediction for the year 3969)

~Rosanne

closrapexa said:

But why? It is actually quite consistent with his other writings. Divination in and of itself isn't black magick, fortune-telling is. It also depends how you define "clarity on a life situation." If a battered wife needs Tarot to tell her to leave her husband, that's black magick, and using Tarot the way a slave would. Spiritual slavery is among the most detestable things there are.

On the other hand, using divination to discover your True Will in life, and how that ripples through even the most minute of occurrences in your life, a consequence of which the battered wife does leave her husband not because Tarot told her she should but because her True Will demands it, that's not black magick.

Contemplation yes. Divination yes. Divination =/= Fortune telling.

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Maybe it's a matter of semantics, then. It struck me as funny. As I've never used tarot tell anyone what to, and in fact warn against such things, I guess I'm safe from being Crowley's version of a practitioner of black magic. (Which I refuse to spell with a k). Not that I would ever worry what Crowley thought of me, an attitude which perhaps he would approve of, funnily enough.

Crowley just had a thing about charging money to tell fortunes. Fortune telling is not black magic.

It is, if it is not an act of ' surrender to the beloved '.

This post is an act of black magick if not a similar act of surrender.

We are all doing black magick. What's the solution?

Make every act (and each moment and all of life) an act of surrender to the beloved ... then you can practice whatever magick you like

Black magic may be different from black magick ... not sure about black magik though.

MasterJm said:

and other but i don't remember

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This might jog your memory. But read with care.

(MTP chp.XXI)

Aleister Crowley said:

There are, of course, entirely black forms of magic. To him who has not given every drop of his blood for the cup of BABALON all magic power is dangerous. There are even more debased and evil forms, things in themselves black. Such is the use of spiritual force to material ends. Christian Scientists, Mental Healers, Professional Diviners, Psychics and the like, are all "ipso facto" Black Magicians.

They exchange gold for dross. They sell their higher powers for gross and temporary benefit.

That the most crass ignorance of Magick is their principal characteristic is no excuse, even if Nature accepted excuses, which she does not. If you drink poison in mistake for wine, your "mistake" will not save your life.

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The opening remarks from the same chapter are very important too.

Aleister Crowley said:

As was said at the opening of the second chapter, the Single Supreme Ritual is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. "It is the raising of the complete man in a vertical straight line."

Any deviation from this line tends to become black magic. Any other operation is black magic.

In the True Operation the Exaltation is equilibrated by an expansion in the other three arms of the Cross. Hence the Angel immediately gives the Adept power over the Four Great Princes and their servitors.

If the magician needs to perform any other operation than this, it is only lawful in so far as it is a necessary preliminary to That One Work.

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I am a little surprised to see Crowley use "evil" like this. Isn't it about the same as "devil"? Maybe I'm knit picking? I am always interested what different people mean by evil.


AW

I suspect that evil in his case was not living up to one's full potential, fulfilling one's True Will. Being anything less than a God is to besmirch (how I love that word!) your spirit, to grind it into the wheels of materiality. In one sense everyone is a black magician, including Crowley himself (as he admitted he was not "Thelemically perfect").