| Solve et coagula (dissolving and bonding): the reunion of what has disintegrated at a new level. | |
| Stone of philosopher (last material). | |
| Appropriate measurement (balance and harmony). | |
| Excessive (conflicts, squandering), extreme trends. | |
| Completion, peace, harmony. |
Menu of Contents
I. Background of the Thoth Art Tarot card
Alchemists call their profession “art” (the art of perfection or philosophical art), its main task is to combine contradictory elements on a higher level so that it can transform the basic into a higher one. Among the four elements (Fire, Air, Earth, and Water), Fire and Water are the most extreme pairs of discrepancies, so their unification represents the highest art. This connection, shown on the Fool Thoth Tarot card on his head, now moves to the center of the drawing. The mixture of Fire and Water, however, is not only in appearance but also an internal process.
The connection between the Emperor and the Empress, which is still self-reflection (because they do not look at each other but only look at themselves in the painting) that can now be completed. The Thoth Art Tarot card represents the completion of a marriage represented by the Lovers card. These two representatives now form a bisexual character, originating from the Greek God, Artemis (God with many breasts). Even the bees and snakes on her dress are also united. The lion and eagle also grow in size and exchange each other’s colors.
Based on our own stages of transformation, we know that such changes occur not without pain. Everything of the darkness and thoughts surrounding the self will have to die before an individual is born again as Phoenix reborn from ashes. This is also manifested by the influx of steam from the boiling kettle as they rise in rainbow colors and flow around the shoulders of this bisexual dual character.
An arrow shot up and pinned into the center of the light. The outfit of the character is green – the color of nature. Behind it, there is a giant sun shining with the words:: VISITA INTERIORA TERRAE RECTFICANDO INVENFIES OCCULTUM LAPIDEM (please visit the inner part of the earth; by refining, you will find the hidden stone). Alchemists created the word “Chyma” based on the word “Kemet” of the Egyptian word, meaning black, and as “primitive matter”, it is considered to be on par with the Nile’s mud, the top black soil of life or the body of Isis.
II. Analyze and describe the Thoth Art Tarot
1. Subject (contradictory elements)
a. Humanoid (dual)
This bisexual figure symbolizes the completion of the Chymical marriage of the Lovers. Just as the couple was drawn separately in this Thoth Art Tarot card, the black king with a golden crown and a red lion, a white queen with a silver crown and a white eagle – they were now unified.
According to the exchange principle, the queen now has a black head, and the king has a white head; and through tight twisting (the swap is inserted into the balance), the white face of the right part focuses on the white arm’s activity on the left while the black face on the left towards the black arm on the right held a lantern that turned into a torch. The fire turned water into steam, and the water put out the fire.
b. The white lion and red eagle
In the tradition of alchemy, sulfur and mercury are the two basic ingredients – which can be merged together appropriately – turned into gold, and it symbolically corresponds to the opposing pair of king – queen, red-white, sun-moon, fire-water, men-woman, fixed-changeable, dry-wet, etc. At least it is an aspect – an obvious one. However, there is also wisdom in which two streams of light need to be handed over before the great work (large artwork) is merged.
On the cognitive level, this task is precisely reversed. From this perspective, white corresponds to male semen, and red is women’s blood. On the other hand, position change means that rigid insistence based on a one-way perspective will not lead to desired results. On a deeper level, it is assumed that each side contains an attribute of the opposite polarity that needs to be included in the transformation process.
This understanding is probably reflected in German, one of the few languages that recognize femininity in the sun and masculinity in the moon. So, the Thoth Art Tarot card shows us that the eagle and lion have colors that are the opposite of their colors in card number VI, the Lovers.
c. Ability to change
Love longs for unity, and as such it demonstrates the alchemy process on the emotional level. According to ancient magic traditions, a lover created the inner image of him/her according to the image of the other person. This means that the average emotion in women becomes more masculine, and in men, it becomes more feminine, shown by C.G. Jung in the term animus/anima (the male part of the female/feminine part of the male), which he called the corresponding subconscious of the opposite sex in humans.
2. The transferability
a. The alchemy process
The goal of alchemists is to refine the material and turn it into a more advanced form by burning it. The two basic elements for this purpose are mercury and sulfur, whereby the mercury typically represents a quality that can melt (water) and sulfur as a flammable quality (fire). Depending on the proportions of the ingredients, all seven metals are made up of the two main ingredients. However, if someone follows the instructions for mixing mercury and sulfur literally, the results will only be mercury sulfur (poor quality)!
b. Kettle (skull)
Crowley writes:
The ritual of this great work is in a mixture of opposite elements in the cauldron used for cooking. This is expressed as gold or the sun because the Sun is the Father of all Life and (especially) controlling the distillation. The fertility of the soil is maintained by rain and the sun. Rain is formed from a slow, gentle and effective process by evaporation of Air, which is the result of the alchemy of marriage between Fire and Water. Thus, the formula of life is also death or decay. Here, it is symbolized by Caput Mortuum (dead head) on a cauldron and a crow perched on the skull.
c. Ash (salt)
For the first time in the Middle Ages (around the 16th century), alchemy renounced dualism and developed the Tripitaka, adding salt as a third element. It corresponds to the remaining ash after the sulfur has burned and the mercury has evaporated in the smoke. These three elements are called philosophical elements to distinguish them from the four classical elements. For the three philosophical elements corresponding to the four classical elements (sulfur = fire, salt = Earth, and evaporation mercury such as Water and Air), the description of the situation is both a triangle and a square, quite confusing, so it means that anything that is expressed in this way can be found in the three philosophical elements as well as four classic elements.
d. Light lines, arrows
Steam is formed through the bond of Water and Fire, embodying the sparkling soul during the alchemy. The soul flew away from the kettle like a stream of light and flowed into a rainbow-colored flower around the character’s shoulders. That light softens the old problems because, as the body is reflected in the mind and the soul, the soul and mind are also reflected in the body.
By applying alchemy to our own bodies and souls, we can proceed through the scum of stored behavior patterns, and discover areas of repression of illness and resignation, whose mind becomes blind. The arrow is shooting upward from the middle of the stream of light (the symbol of Mercury), emphasizing the effort to find souls hidden in matter and symbolizing the inner process to become conscious as a result of this great work.
e. Kundalini
Because the symbolism of (Kundalini) Yoga expresses a strange coincidence with the path of alchemy and the symbolic meaning given here, we will quickly touch the principle of solid fire. (Kundalini of Cognitive Behavior) The purpose of the Yoga practitioner in this exercise is to bring Prana energy from two external channels (Nadi) into a central channel. The energy of the sun (Pingala, the red channel) and the moon (Ida, the pale-colored channel) flow through two external channels. The fire-colored channel in the middle called Sushumna, also the Path of the King or the joy of practicing Yoga. It corresponds to the inner part of the spine and extends from the bottom of the spine to the pituitary.
The aim is to awaken Kundalini, the power of the snake that often sleeps at the bottom of the human’s middle channel in a state of alertness, by squeezing out the source from the external channels into the middle channel. Through this exercise, Yoga practitioners spark Kama fire and awaken Kundalini. It whistled and hummed with sweet sounds, like the sound of a bewitching swarm of bees. Being led by the desire to meet his wife Shiva, he began to go up through the middle column (arrow). When Shiva kissed her lips, the flow of life poured and energized into every part of the world (rainbow). This type of sexual activity is commonly known in Asia. In Tantric rituals, it is not only the instinctive liberation seen in the union of sexuality but also the passion in the strong power of a person who unleashes a large fire of the inner cell with the flame of mixing.
3. Circumstances (other symbols)
a. Sun, moon, and stars
The golden sun in the background is interrupted by the silver moon hanging on the edge of the Thoth Art card in the form of two semicircles. When combined, they are a symbol of our ancestors – Adam and Eve – because that is the form of eternity (blue constellation in the blue sky).
b. The words were written
At the same time, the sun is also a melting pot, the Latin inscription on this combined with the first letter of each word forming V.I.T.R.I.O.L – alchemy symbol for transformation (turning base metal into a high-class type). In a narrower sense, it is the term for all sulfates that are soluble in water and sulfuric acid. It symbolizes the above and below combinations and shows the rise of the human soul and seeks the core of things. (the philosopher’s stone).
4. Notes about Art of alchemy
The alchemist understood that he constantly changed himself through his experiences: through his increased consciousness level, His body and spirit are continually refined to adapt to the universe. Martin Luther wrote:
The art of alchemy, truthfully and authentically, is of wise and older philosophers, which to me are very attractive, not only because of its effectiveness and usefulness in distillation and sublimation of metals, herbs, water and oil, but also because of the wonderful beautiful comparison with the revival of death on Judgment Day.
III. Interpretation of the Thoth Art Tarot card
1. Background of the Thoth Art card (alchemy)
The art here is definitely understood in an ancient sense, a possibility that not everyone has, or at least, not everyone is born with. The purpose of alchemy is to bring substances in an incomplete condition into a complete state through refining. In this process, it handles procedures outside the laboratory, but it is primarily the internal transformation of the lab worker. “Solve et coagula” (dissolving and binding) is the principle applied by alchemy.
To reach a higher level, things must first be reduced to its own components: the body, the soul and the mind. Then, individual parts will be transformed, so that during the alchemy, the body of a tree (body) turns into ash until the white salt is crystallized from it, the essential oil (soul) is distilled to the purity level, and the alcohol extracted through fermentation becomes a mental mind. The components that are metabolized in this way can re-aggregate on a higher level according to the alchemist’s intentions, whereby all properties of the material on a mental basis still exist.
2. Overview of the Thoth Art card
The meaning of the alchemy card (Art – Thoth Art card) will be better understood when we call it a high measure of balance or proper mixture. Harmony, balance, calmness, and peace in the soul are its properties. The card also explains the need to activate inactive aspects up to the present time, and continuously put opposite pairs into action to extend the inner chain with a new perspective.
3. Awareness
On the level of consciousness, this Thoth Art card means we learn a lesson from the Hanged Man Thoth, in which we must have a different perspective on things, and now that we understand the world looks different and more balanced when we exchange two light streams, we can evaluate it in a way that we did not do before.
The Thoth Art card, thus, represents the harmony of the body, the soul and the mind, and means that we have advanced the times associated with ourselves, or in harmony with the great whole because we neutralize the meaning of each situation and evaluate it objectively.
4. Career
In terms of professional life, this trump card – Thoth Art shows a period of peace and quiet development. The tasks should have been pressured and enthusiastic if at other times, now can be done in a relaxed and calm manner because mixing and merging make it easier to associate contradictory things than when we do it in other periods of life.
In other words, since we are aware that every matter is equally important (Buddhist words), the balance of the Thoth Art leads us through adaptations to achieve victory. However, a custom in alchemy suggests that a person who deliberately attempts to acquire gold will not succeed. Only those who understand that when the goal is completed, the power to refine metal will be given. Once this condition is met, he will no longer care about mundane gold.
5. Relationship
On the gender level, the Thoth Art card refers to the subtle interaction of the alchemist and his mysterious partner. It does not emphasize direct penetration, but rather expresses the vibrations achieved through the practice of true Tantra or similar sexual activities. This state expresses the balance of the heart, in which even the seemingly non-uniform is trying to achieve a combination of pleasure.
These are not superficial acts, but intimacy with profound experience; not the splendor and glamor outside but the humble grace that has made the qualities of this experience. In the sense of the principle of alchemy “dissolving and bonding”, this is also a challenge to let go of the positions that are stuck and receive a more specific perspective to combine in a new way.
More The Temperance Cards from Famous Tarot Decks
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Temperance – Tempérance Tarot de Marseilles, number 14, depicting an angel. This card appears after the work of Major card XIII scans out useless things, creating the needed space to reset the inner circle.
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