Aleister Crowley's "The Book of Thoth", his discussion of the Tarot (especially the deck he designed and made by the hand of Lady Frieda Harris) contains vast amounts of information on occult lore of every kind: numerology, astrology, color symbolism, geomancy, QBL and, yes, alchemy. His notes on the Temperance or, in his deck, Art card with its references to VITRIOL are most enlightening, although, like much of his work, it is necessary to study and work with the material for some time to come to full understanding of it. He gives hints rather than a step-by-step manual and the student is expected to use these notes to discover the truth for himself. Only in this way, can anyone truly understand the mysteries. So "The Book of Thoth" gives us an initiation through the medium of words, as the Tarot is an initiation by the medium of images. And surely the fact that Crowley renamed the Temperance Trump, calling it "Art", may be understood as a reference to the Royal Art of Alchemy.

The path of wisdom is long and winding, full of hints that will rest, forgotten, until some future date at which a "chance" incident will suddenly reveal the truth behind all the hints and open the narrow hunam mind to the full glory of divinity. As the "Book of the Law" puts it: "thou hast all in the clear light, and some, though not all, in the dark." The meaning of this just now became clear to me two sentences back. The placing of light before dark is a bit misleading. The darkness of ignorance should come before the light of initiation. Once you look at it from the point of the IAO formula, it becomes clear that the initial, Isis phase, is when we first read the text and don't understand it. The hints contained in the words drop down into the unconscious mind to be studied and pondered below the threshold of conscious awareness, often for years, in the dark, Apophis phase. Then, in the Osiris phase, some apparently "chance' happening will bring the mystery back to waking consciousness with the force of divine revelation like the assurance of the resurrection promised in Osiris--and the seeker has found the light of truth. This happens again and again on the path, each small step bringing us closer to the glory of metaphysical noontide.

Or so it now seems to me. May we all survive long enough to arrive at the gates of Eden and enter them in peace. Shalom, salaam, shanti, shanti, shanti.

With love under will,

Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville