Five of Disks (Tarot Triptych)
Name: Worry, the Five of Disks
Number: 5
Astrology: Mars in Taurus
Qabalah: Gevurah of He
Chris Gabriel November 30, 2024
In the Five of Disks, the Earth quakes and cracks, structures crumble and confusion comes. This is material instability, a crash.
In Rider, we find two beggars enduring a snow storm. The man is lame and using crutches, his head is bandaged as he looks up in agony. The woman is barefoot, covered in a shawl and thin skirt, she looks down in defeat. They are passing a stained glass window made up of five pentacles pointing up. The material comforts enjoyed by the previous 4 figures in the suits have withdrawn, there are now distinct haves and havenots.
In Thoth, we have five cracked disks forming a downward pentagram. They bear the symbols of the five Tattvas, the magical elements that form reality. Astrologically the card is Mercury in Taurus, an unhappy position, quick and agile Mercury here is weighed down by the laborious Bull.
In Marseille, we are shown our most pleasant image, five simple coins and two flowers. Here the disruption to the stable four is seen as a growth: they are not moving up or down as in Rider and Thoth, but remain balanced. This Growth can be good, like a flower, or bad, like cancer. Qabalistically, this is the Anger of the Princess.
This card reminds me of chapter 77 of the Tao Te Ching, in which the Tao of Heaven is likened to a bow, the high is made low and the low is made high, but the Tao of Man brings the high higher and forces the low lower. The Five of Disks is an excellent expression of this.
As Mars in Taurus it raises to mind Sigmund Freud and Salvador Dali, who make excellent use of their fallen Mercury through science and art. The Parapraxis or Freudian Slip is an idea that could only arise from Mercury Taurus, the worry that our words reveal ulterior motives is exactly the kind of paranoia that flourishes in the sign.
Dali develops the “Paranoiac Critical Method” through which he follows paranoid fantasies as far as they can go. Psychoanalysis, and its town crier Surrealism, shook the very foundations of civilization by revealing their true basis in the terrifying and inhuman Unconscious.
Materially, this is a stock market crash and economic collapse, the stable power of the Four of Disks is broken. The money goes up, leaving the poor to suffer, as in Rider, or the system itself crumbles, as in Thoth.
When we pull this card, expect your comfort to be shaken, for it harkens a breaking down and collapse. Trust your suspicions. This can be a failed investment, a car crash, a break up, or a job loss but it can also be the positive risk of a new opportunity.
