The Aeon (Tarot Triptych)
Name: Judgment, the Aeon
Number: XX
Astrology: Fire (Pluto)
Qabalah: Shin
Chris Gabriel June 29, 2024
“The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell. For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite and holy, whereas it now appears finite and corrupt.”
-William Blake
This card is the cleansing fire, the revelatory force that undoes what was. Each version features a large divine figure above three smaller ones. It depicts Apocalypse, literally unveiling, or revealing itself. This is both the Christian Revelation and in Thoth, the Thelemic Aeon.
In Marseille, we see an Angel coming through a halo, emitting great rays. He is winged, and blowing his trumpet, raising the dead from their graves. A man and woman are praying, as a corpse rises they are all naked. The Angel has a seal upon his head, and a nimbus over him. His trumpet bears a cross flag.
In Rider, the Angel is rising from clouds, his hair is fiery, he is blowing his trumpet, beneath we see the story of Revelation 20:13 play out… ‘“
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”
Here caskets rise above the water, and the many dead raise their arms to the angel. All are grey.
In Thoth, we have the most drastic departure in the whole deck. While Apocalyptic imagery has appeared in Lust, here the Apocalypse is undone. As in the Blake quote we began with, the end of the world is not an end, but a renewal, a clarification. The card depicts a fiery scene. Nuit, Goddess of the night sky and the cardinal directions, arches over a throne upon which the Elder Horus sits. Beneath the throne is the rising winged sun, and the Hebrew letter Shin, within which three babes reside. Superimposed over the whole scene is Harpocrates, or Horus the Child.
This is one of the most significant cards in the Thoth deck, certainly the most ‘religious’. For here we are given the telos of the Tarot, the end point of our journey, while the World or Universe will remain, the Judgment comes.
Marseille and Rider maintain the Christian view of Apocalypse, a nightmarish and literal end to the world, an end to the Universe in divine war, and subsequent Judgment according to God. Thoth concurs with William Blake, in that the end is not an end, and that Christianity misinterpreted the nature of Aeonic precession.
Christianity asserts a 6000 year age to the Earth, a set beginning, a few ages, from Judaism to Christianity, and an impending end. Thelema, however, finds the entirety of history and religion to be a cyclical movement. Thus the appearance of Harpocrates, the solar infant who despite being threatened by great beasts, snakes and scorpions, overcomes and continues.
I see this solar myth reflected perfectly in the fairy tales of Tom Thumb, a little boy constantly being eaten by creatures and coming out, a narrative known as a Swallow Cycle. This is the nature of the Sun, who is swallowed by each creature of the Zodiac, and keeps going.
When we pull this card, this is what we are tasked with. To see clearly what has swallowed us, be it an idea, job, or person, and to judge accordingly, to overcome what is by seeing it clearly. The Fire of this card will burn away those imperfections. Whether we are the risen dead being judged, or the solar child overcoming the past, we must see our situation clearly, and in doing so, see ourselves clearly.
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
1 Corinthians 13:12
“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
-William Blake
