Here are some unpublished initial sketches of Thoth Tarot cards by Lady Frieda Harris, the artist who painted The Thoth Tarot with the guidance of Aleister Crowley.
Four unpublished paintings by Lady Frieda Harris (via)
These are so fascinating especially for those of us who have pored over these cards for years. The Four of Wands that made it into the deck doesn’t seem to have changed much from the painting here, but the Aces of Swords and Disks are pretty different.
The Magus (This would be #4, for those keeping score) is fascinating. I particularly enjoy the “cyanocephalic ape” of Thoth behind the Magus, and the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari-like expressionist houses (B, Beth, House, remember?) in the background. I’ve not quite sorted out what the object is in his upper left hand on the top right of the painting though. A sistrum perhaps?
It has been a very long time since I created this, but a post on the Pagan tag today reminded me of it. I thought it was time to trot it out again and let people get a kick out of it.
In case The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy has become a bit saccharine for you this season, let chronarchy’s animation of The Dance of the Thelemites prove a balm for your soul.
These cards from the Tarot are arranged in the order of the paths they are assigned to on the Tree of Life, as shown below on a variant of the “Tube Map” created by John Coulthart:
In other words, the instructions for this journey between different states of awareness are as follows:
Take the “Aeon” line from the Kingdom (Malkuth, the sensory world of Earth), to Splendour (Hod, the Mercurial sphere of language & thought).
After experiencing that place for a while, take the path of Pan (The Devil, Baphomet), to Beauty (Tipareth, the Solar realm of the Self).
After learning what you can from this central location, you then have two choices:
Take the Death line to Victory (Netzach, the Venusian sphere of Emotion), or …
Follow the path of Art (Creativity, Imagination), to the Foundation (Yesod, your “sub-consciousness” or what you are not normally aware of).
If you find some of these ideas & symbolism interesting, but are not very familiar with these topics, my advice is to treat all this as a very long running game or “Lila”.
In this “Game of Life” you have to discover the rules as you go along, and the study of science, the arts and hidden (occult) knowledge will help you to detect correspondences and patterns in the world (using different symbolic symbols to describe these).
The more you can learn about how the system you are a part of works, the more value & enjoyment you will get out of the game, as described in the “Dream of Life”, by Alan Watts.
Occult Aspects 