One Deck Wonder: Favourite Thoth cards

I thought I'd start the week by picking my favourite card images.

Thoth Tarot

So I chose favourite court, favourite major, favourite minor and favourite ace. My real favourite court card is Knight of Disks, but I showed you that card recently, so I picked my second favourite, Queen of Wands. You may be aware of my feelings about the Queen of Wands. (Not good). But I like this image. If the Statute of Liberty had a drunk night out with the Silicon Dawn Tarot, she might be their love child. (Apparently, Crowley didn't like her much, either. He suggests she is a snob, and also a bit vicious: 'When she misses her bite, she breaks her jaw,' he said.)

My favourite major is The Hermit. He's gorgeous. I like how his body curves around, and all those angular rays of light stabbing in all directions like broken glass. Then of course, who can resist a card with a 3-headed dog and a giant sperm cell? ha ha ('In this trump is shown life in its most secret workings,' said Crowley. Hmm)

My favourite suit in this deck is the Sword suit, they are all beautiful. But I think 2 of Swords is my favourite. I really like the pinwheel thingies in the background. They remind of those 'atomic' symbols, sort of. I like the elegance of the composition, it's very symmetrical. I like the colouring going yellow to green.

And finally, my favourite ace is Ace of Disks. It looks sort of like a flower opening, sort of like naughty ladies' bits, sort of like a kaleidoscope. DuQuette points out that 'one can see, with very little imagination, a bird's eye view of the three  main characters of male genitalia'. Oh, yeah. Actually, I'd missed that. Never mind, ignore it! ;) The more you stare at it, the more you start to hear 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' playing softly in the background. Or maybe that's just me. (Turns out, this card is Aleister Crowley's 'signature' card. The middle bit says 'To Mega Therion', 'The Great Beast', and has '666' and his personal Thelema symbol. See, I don't know why Crowley felt compelled to nick all these phrases from the Bible that have all these very emotive associations with them. This is one of things that has always freaked me out about him. It's so hard to overcome my aversion to these phrases and images. Why did he have to be such a shock jockey, going around saying inflammatory crap like, 'Satan is the saviour of the world.' But we'll come to that when (if) I end up drawing the Devil card. Weird guy, but what else can you expect from someone in the habit of making the 'A' of his first name into a stylized drawing of an erect penis when he signed his name. Adolescent if you ask me. *roll eyes*)