Path Spread

Path Spread #1

 

 

Difficulty: Easy

For the Path, the querent asks for suggestions on how to behave properly in order to achieve a desired result. The Current column shows how the querent has been acting, and the Suggestedcolumn suggests how the querent should act in order to achieve a certain goal. The chart-like spread uses the standard 3 levels: Rational, Emotional, and External Stance (how one projects one’s self outwardly). When comparing the Current to Suggested cards, the most important thing is to notice the differences between the 2 cards. It is these differences which hint at the behaviors that you should think about changing.

Card #1 is the significator, the card which should reflect the nature of the query and/or the desired outcome.

Card #2 shows the way you are and have been thinking. Card #7 shows how you need to change the way you think in order to serve yourself better.

Card #3 tells you about your emotional attitude. Though it may seem difficult to manipulate one’s own emotions, it can be done if you put your mind to it. For example, acting a certain way such as smiling intently for a few minutes will lead the emotions to follow. If you try this, as silly as the exercise seems, you will find that this evokes the emotion of happiness. For this reading, you should try to make yourself feel the way that Card #6 tells you.

External Stance means how you act outwardly, how you hope others see you. Card #4 tells you how you were acting, while #5 indicates how you should act outwardly, for other people’s sake. It is the differences between these cards that hint at what behavior patterns should be altered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Path Reading with the Thoth Tarot

Current
The Significator

The Moon
Suggested
Thought

Princess of Wands

Queen of Swords
Emotion

9 of Disks

2 of Disks
External Stance

Prince of Swords

The Empress

 

 

 

 

The Significator

The Moon

Pisces

Let the Illusion of the World pass over thee, unheeded, as thou goest from the Midnight to the Morning.

Illusion, deception, bewilderment, hysteria, even madness, dreaminess, falsehood, error, crisis, 'the darkest hour before the dawn', the brink of important change.

 

 

 

 

Current Thoughts

Princess of Wands

The Princess of Wands represents the earthy part of Fire; one might say, she is the fuel of Fire. This expression implies the irresistible chemical attraction of the combustible substance. The Princess is therefore shewn with the plumes of justice streaming like flames from her brow; and she is unclothed, shewing that chemical action can only take place when the element is perfectly free to combine with its partner.

This card may be said to represent the dance of the virgin priestess of the Lords of Fire, for she is in attendance upon the golden altar ornamented with rams' heads) symbolising the fires of Spring. The character of the Princess is extremely individual. She is brilliant and daring. She creates her own beauty by her essential vigour and energy. The force of her character imposes the impression of beauty upon the beholder. In anger or love she is sudden, violent, and implacable. She consumes all that comes into her sphere. She is ambitious and aspiring, full of enthusiasm which is often irrational. She never forgets an injury, and the only quality of patience to be found in her is the patience with which she lies in ambush to avenge.

 

 

 

 

Suggested Thoughts

Queen of Swords

Libra

The Queen of Swords represents the watery part of Air, the elasticity of that element, and its power of transmission. She is enthroned upon the clouds. Her helmet is crested by the head of a child, and from it stream sharp rays of light, illuminating her empire of celestial dew. In her right hand, she bears a sword; in her left hand, the newly severed head of a bearded man. She is the clear, conscious perception of Idea, the Liberator of the Mind.

The person symbolised by this card should be intensely perceptive, a keen observer, a subtle interpreter, an intense individualist, swift and accurate at recording ideas; in action confident, in spirit gracious and just. Her movements will be graceful, and her ability in dancing and balancing exceptional. If ill-dignified, these qualities will all be turned to unworthy purposes. She will be cruel, sly, deceitful and unreliable; in this way, very dangerous, on account of the superficial beauty and attractiveness which distinguish her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current Emotions

9 of Disks

Venus in Virgo – Gain

The number Nine, Yesod, inevitably brings back the balance of Force in fulfilment. The card is ruled by Venus in Virgo. It shows good luck attending material affairs, favour and popularity.

The disks are arranged as an equilateral triangle of three, apex upwards, close together; and, surrounded at some distance by a ring, six larger disks in the form of a hexagon. This signifies the multiplication of the original established Word-by the mingling of 'good luck and good management'. The three central disks are of the magical pattern as in earlier cards; but the others, since the descent into matter implies the gradual exhaustion of the original whirling energy, now take on the form of coins. These may be marked with the magical images of the appropriate planets.

 

 

 

 

Suggested Emotions

2 of Disks

Jupiter in Capricorn – Change

The number Two, Chokmah, here rules in the suit pertaining to Earth. It shows the type of Energy appropriate to Two, in its most fixed form. According to the doctrine that Change is the support of stability, the card is called Change.

The card represents two Pantacles, one above the other; they are the Chinese symbols of the Yang and Yin duplicated as in the Hsiang. One wheel is dextro- and the other laevo-rotatory. They thus represent the harmonious interplay of the Four Elements in constant movement. One may in fact consider the card as the picture of the complete manifested Universe, in respect of its dynamics.

 

 

 

 

Current External Stance

Prince of Swords

Aquarius

This card represents the airy part of Air. This chariot is drawn by winged children, looking and leaping irresponsibly in any direction that takes their fancy; they are not reined, but perfectly Capricious. The chariot consequently is easy enough to move, but quite unable to progress in any definite direction except by accident. This is a perfect picture of the Mind.

The operation of his logical mental processes has reduced the Air, which is his element, to many diverse geometrical patterns, but in these there is no real plan; they are demonstrations of the powers of the Mind without definite purpose. In his right hand is a lifted sword wherewith to create, but in his left hand a sickle, so that what he creates he instantly destroys. A person thus symbolised is purely intellectual. He is full of ideas and designs which tumble over each other. He is a mass of fine ideals unrelated to practical effort. He has all the apparatus of Thought in the highest degree, intensely clever, admirably rational, but unstable of purpose, and in reality indifferent even to his own ideas, as knowing that any one of them is just as good as any other. He reduces everything to unreality by removing its substance and transmuting it to an ideal world of ratiocination which is purely formal and out of relation to any facts, even those upon which it is based.

 

 

 

 

Suggested External Stance

The Empress

Venus

This is the Harmony of the Universe, that Love unites the Will to create with the Understanding of that Creation: understand thou thine own Will. Love and let love. Rejoice in every shape of love, and get thy rapture and thy nourishment thereof.

Love, beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, completion, good fortune, graciousness, elegance, luxury, idleness, dissipation debauchery, friendship, gentleness, delight.

 

 

 

 

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Card meanings quoted from The Book of Thoth (Egyptian Tarot) by Aleister Crowley
Card images conceived by Aleister Crowley and executed by Lady Frieda Harris
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