The Tarot of Eli, LLC-Major Arcana: Thoth Tarot- ATU 11-Lust & The Declarative Tarot-Path 11-Inner Fortitude.

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Above all things, know thyself!

To those of magic, lust is not obsession with the opposite sex. It is obsession with being complete. It is the luster of Will- that ejaculated this universe of I AM Energy into Self- manifestation in the womb of “To Be”. It is the indivisible creative strength of I Am The Divine Image/Child that radiates through us, outward, as a Sun of creative passion that restores life in the dead. Therefore, even in the most imposed mundane indolence, we still can dance!

-1988 speech on "enfleshenment"-Eli

Grace Sequoia

In this world of the Military Industrial Complex (coined by Dwight Eisenhower), which indoctrinates by propaganda and dividing and conquering through dogma and media controlled "word hypnosis", we have forgotten our Lust for being by dividing our spirit and mind from our bodies as if spirit was an achievement rather than the harmonic spiral of energy animating us and/or our higher mental nature into the coagulation of Light we call matter. Because of this "false ego" divisionism we have become automatons of our perceived environment who are reaction instead of the powerful positive active expression of I AM God (whole spirit) who changes environment by the strength of Will and the powerful Lust of Being that began with Kether-Eheieh (I Will Be!). This card represents the powerful purpose of the Divine Hermaphrodite- the Immortal Solar Being that is our Soul, before our identity was lost in a Paper Mache' mask of authoritarian pasted on words and a media created "false ego" that mimics our True Ego.

On the Thoth Card, the scarlet woman and/or Red Goddess is shown with the Grail held high, filled with the "Scarlett womb" energy that is the primal force of Life and/or "The Cleansing Blood of Mother". The High Priestess (key 2) is seen riding the Lust for life that is all around us, through us and is us. The Solar Lion of Many Sainted Heads is seen as the Lion-Serpent. The anima, (female) and animus (Male) of Earth species manifest as individual separated gender although Life is a collective and we all belong to each other, and the human brain is both male and female. Hence, separation is called an illusion. Therefore, here on the Lion body, are the many sainted faces of life that all are under the leadership of the Active Goddess/ The Creatrix. This is the universal principle of Passion, awareness, and aliveness! This is self-esteem, with the strength and the courage necessary to acknowledge the whispered convictions of the Inner I AM, so necessary to manifest as the Passionate Creative-Self. Deep In all of us is this irresistible strength of Spiritual Will; this Divine Frenzy of I Am Divinity! On bottom right of the card, is the Hebrew letter Tet or Teth, meaning "Serpent", for it is the serpentine solar frequency of energy based at the "root of the spine"- a Primal Power that we call Kundalini, and which is being "tamed" here and is shown as a lion headed serpent tail.

The Power of this card comes from Courage (from the Latin-cor-meaning "heart") that comes from the Soul and/or "heart" to tame the predator in mankind/all of us, with the love of vigorous motion. We are beasts of our own passion, so that we become Saints of the Divine's Passion, which is fulfillment of the Universal "I Will Be' (Eheieh)! Here the Sun of God, is Christened in the Homo Sapien Sapien by the inheritance of Greater Self as vigorous Life throughout the Cosmos. Our aggressive nature is not to be errantly oppressed, chained by shame or caged in religious embarrassment, becoming a "false ego" of fear and oppression, which lies hidden in the subconscious and yet influencing our false identity of self. For it began as an innocent (just look into the eyes of your dog or cat) that is also created by Spirit. It is to be gently controlled by respect and love of its very nature. Without this inner lion/beast, none of us would have the instincts necessary to "climb the next mountain" or take the next risk necessary to move forward. We must tame it with Wisdom, respect and love, knowing that its animal experiences have been honed to "purr-fection" by 3.6 million years of evolution.

Only our imagined fear and devaluation of the "animal-within" has profaned it in our "I's" and the animal instinct then goes ferial, becoming a parasite known as the "False Ego" or Shadow Self within the subconscious. It really is the inner-earth child, innocent and lover of play and joyful motion... it is pure in its activities but when abused by our ignorance and oppressive indoctrination, it will fear its survival and fight back by trying to take control of the brain. Therefore, it also can come to your rescue when "shit hits the fan", for it will defend the body. Subconsciousness is the body's instinctual intelligence, Self-Conscious is the Soul's/Psyche's intelligence, and the Universal Collective Unconscious is the Mind of Spirit. Our consciousness must observe the "false ego", making the subconscious more consciously aware. Hence, our whole -self, is a trinity of Spirit (Will)-Mind (Imagination/intuition)-Body (Soma). The Self-Conscious must adopt this wonderful instinctual-self and change its outlook of fear-based survival thinking, and show it love-based creative thinking. When you are loving and gentle towards your body, you will find that the Subconscious wishes to please you as well. This makes sense as you are the Life-Energy of Spirit that makes it live! You are the True Ego of Light who must look upon the Dark ego of the animal----light vanquishes the dark and brings the beautiful animal into understanding and love.

The Strength/Lust-Key speaks to us of the power of Love and how the impulsive, animal self is embraced and soothed in the softness of the feminine Yin, and/or Anima-Spirit. Hence, inner strength is much more about empathy, gentleness, and grace than brute force and violent ferocity. The Sexual nature of Spirit is not the just fierce and aggressive sexual nature of the animal. It is also the loving union of all as one I AM Spirit intercourses with us as Love and Respect. Spirit sees no good nor bad, it sees only experience as Life as a gathering of knowledge. Knowledge is neither good nor bad, it is power to do your work; It is knowing what doesn't work and what does. When we know the Dark isn't alive, unless the Light enlivens it, we understand that I AM LIFE and not seeking one, nor earning one from the Military Industrial Complex. Life is ALL, and each of us is quantumly connected, as well as, mentally, emotionally, and physically connected.

However, in most of us, the Divine-frenzy is oppressed as we are divided against ourselves and devote the creative power of lust to the faux reality of good and bad emotional-Patriarchy-indoctrinated-worded identity or lacking identity at all and trying to find it in the outside world. This seeking of self-results in division of forces and unable to call upon the inner power that cleaves us from our chains of fear-based reactions which create our indoctrinated manmade-identity of imposed slavery thereby creating maddened animals that strike out at each other, leaving us in a world of depression, slavery, and "seeking" what we already have i.e., Divinity. We are born to be the Children of Divinity, dancing in matter as the active images of Goddess and God and/or The Divine Creative, whose self-expression is "Being". I AM Spirit should be shouted above the animal's fear-based whining! To Crowley (and myself), the Lust card replaces Strength, for it is more about the Love of Vigor, (vigorous life motion) rather than suppressing the vigorous courage of the predator to move forward, a motion stopped by mentally chained passivity and the mental/emotional abuse of the "false ego". Here passion is the Love of Being...I AM Divinity, not to be confused with " I am trying to be a me" in a world of words and illusion.

When this card falls in a reading, it means that you are in union with or you should be listening to, the passionate roar of I Am Divine that resides in your very essence of soul to find the bliss within that radiates you as it’s highly creative and unashamed Self. We live now! We are not to be "wanna-be's" who are the faux life of the past, still running around in yesterdays', hoping for a pretend future, and therefore, not living the truth of today's passionate expression of I Am All! Our definition belongs to no one, not our environment, not our parents, not our rulers, and not our theologians, not our words; our definition belongs only to our passionate Creative- Self as the Divine grant of “freedom of choice”. Divinity, not a mask of "Words", gave you the right to define yourself as an image of the Supreme Being (Qabalah tree of life). Peer pressure, culture, and language, deny your freedom to choose and are not your definition! Spirit defines you as Itself!

We see in the Thoth Tarot card the universal myth known as "beauty and the beast". This key and/or the 19th Path of Teth, represents the Beauty (Tiphareth The 6th Sephiroth on the Qabalistic Tree of Life) that is represented in all of us as a Soul built of combinations of talent, gifts, and creative resources from inherited Divinity, which can quell our body's bestial natures, and the mind virus of the "false ego", by play rather than the self-torture of suppression. We have exceptionally good instincts and should practice reserving them when a Real life or death situation arises rather than an imagined false jeopardy (Drama Queens). When our Spirit, Mind, and Body are in a balanced combination of movement and repose--we manifest Divine Beauty. While the divided play only a tune of discord, whereas the undivided are a melody of Creative joy. The Spirit, I AM, daily kisses the body awake with the Divine Love of Being. This is Lust as Crowley states:

"Lust through the joy of Strength exercised".

The multi-headed lion represents the saintly beasts within which Beauty has tamed to do her creative bidding, thus transforming the lion's head into "the heads of the Saints" (Crowley). She expands and liberates the living from their past bonds of survival thinking onward to greater achievements of courageous and vigorous and eternal creation. Our word Lust comes from the Latin root word Lustre which is radiance. We cannot shine if we are not in our strength when divided by obfuscation and therefore, weak because of our ignorant fear of the survival mind of the "beasts within", which is the founding "nightmare" of the "false ego". Inner Strength is steadily weakened by daily divisionism, until we cannot radiate our purpose on this earth. The Beauty of Divine Communion between "Goddess-God" (The Sun/Son of the Divine Creative, 2=1, is our soul) created the Soul /Solar Sun/Son that is our true "us" to radiate ourselves into the movement of vigorous life across the galaxy. We all have much more purpose than we can see in a world of slaves and masters, a shadowy world of the "mind parasite"! Strength and Lustre are inseparable partners in creation.

This lust to be this strength, can easily demonstrated as the inner power of a soft and spongy mushroom as it pushes through hard concrete as if this solid surface was mere soggy tissue paper. In all of us live this quiet manifestation of strength that can push through what are imposing blockages.

The Thoth Deck LUST card, ATU-11, replaces the traditional STRENGTH card which is often the Key-8 in the old Tarot Decks. Strength is key 8 in the Triple Goddess Tarot, Golden Dawn, Rider-Waite-Smith, Spiral Tarot, Haindl Tarot, Modern Witch and Manara Tarot Decks, to name a few. So, it may be confusing when I place it in the Path of Teth (path of the serpent), which is normally called STRENGTH-Key 8. (The Golden Tarot goes along with Crowley's numbering as Key-11 as does the Notoria in Light Tarot). As I stated, I agree with Aleister Crowley's expansion of the STRENGTH card, into the LUST card, because it is the Passionate Vital Force of Universal Self-Construction---"the motion within the movement" of everything and the indivisible strength of I AM. Lust is the Passionate expression of the- I AM as Two (0=2), the I-phallus and the Am-womb, who then Join to become One Passion (2=1) that creates all, and is in all of us, i.e., The Active and Passive force of Kundalini, and/or of the Lion-Serpent. This lion serpent is shown as the "Holy Serpent" tail of the beast on the Thoth Card. It can also be called "Serpent theory" instead of the Quantum Physics "String Theory", where every particle has a serpentine string of active, vigorous energy within it. In other words, there are within all vibratory strings of Vital Fiery strong Atomic Will to Force and Will to Form manifestation. The Hindus call it the sound/vibration of OM. What you may have forgotten, the human brain is a copy of your Psyche/Soul. Left side is Male-Animus and Right side is Female-Animus. The Soul is a Divine Hermaphrodite, as is our brain an imitation of. Hence, you are not limited to the gender of the body you operate in the name of "I AM".

Thus, Lust, where active and passive forces come together, seems a more appropriate understanding of the underlying "motion" of Life. The Kundalini, or Fiery Lion Serpent is the vital aspect of Life Force, which in manifestation is duality of passivity and activity. Kundalini is known as the Sacred Fire, when in its active phase, purposely unleashed by Spiritual- Will which is another way to say, " Solar Courage". But a "house divided" must never seek to unleash the magnificent roar of the inner Sun, for it will feed the most self-centered- concentrated on emotions of victimization. It would be a mind melting, emotional dysfunctional disaster when released in a "drama queen". One must own all of themselves before the "Sun" within is invoked. You cannot be a victim of your indoctrination or dogma under the control of the "false ego", if you wish to "Above all things, Know thyself".

The Thoth UNIVERSE -ATU 21, is the completion of the LUST CARD, and you'll see the Woman figure riding the Lion Serpent on the Lust card, dancing with the Serpent Force in the Universe card. Both illustrations are veils, concealing creation principles, though at different ends of manifestation. LUST is the beginning of Microcosm and THE UNIVERSE is the completion of it. Both cards are of that which is Womb, at the Highest Level, the womb-man who has tamed the Lion-Serpent and the womb-man who dances in space surrounded by the Cherubim of the four elements are both expressions of that which is the EMPRESS- Key 3. So once again, we are reminded that this is an immensely powerful path and those of sensitive self-absorbed false psyche will be profoundly affected in the negative and fear life's transformative motion. Therefore, they must avoid exposure to this vigorous energy. One must appreciate the fact, that this Path of Teth (meaning- serpent), Lust Card, is a statement of methodology; whereby the Spiritual Will controls the Vital Life Energy, rather than the lesser- or false ego, and if we are of divided will, this energy will empower what we "will the most" and if that is "emotional dysfunction" and/or fear based identity, we will crash and burn with vital energy going to "self-destruction". Let go and let the inner goddess (love) control this force.

We must also remember, that the word Power, means "the ability to do work" and our body, if loved as a master Craftsman loves and adores one's favorite-tools, gives us the Soul's- Will- to-Power- and/or be Absolutely Present, without reservation, in this dimension of crystallized energy; a power to weave our very own Vital Life Force into our own masterpieces of movement and repose! So let us all ride the “Lion Serpent” or Inner Dragon/Sun, with the powerful presence of loving control, fearless, and shameless presence! With this "fire within" we can resurrect our Divine Identity from the ashes of slavery and profaned mind, and fly in the solar glory of the Phoenix as opposed to crawling on our bellies like some fear-soaked lizard.

This is the Divine Frenzy that obliterated "Alone" (0) and split into 2. It is an Self-annihilation, of 0 that is also the process of becoming 2, Will to Force and Will to Form; the I and Am, who then become the Dragonish expression of Frenzy and Form, when the Red-Babalon (Crowley’s spelling for purposes of Gematria) unites with the Golden Fiery Force of the Solar Husband, the offspring are Beautiful Celestial Children., not some chimera of a profaned identity made by the brain parasite "false ego".

All about us on Earth, in pictographs, statues, and written words do we have proof of being genetically modified Organisms derived from Galactic/ Angelic/DNA splicing from "Those who from the Heavens that came to earth", known to Sumerian's as Anunnaki. This Angel-Alien- hominid-interbreeding, creating the biblical Nephilim and/or children from the "sons of god" (all beings who came from the sky are given wings by ancient artists) and hominid breeding. However, because of the well documented *"War of the Gods", we the "Meek" (slaves) have inherited the Earth. The Souls of the Creators, are Us and the body of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, is our new "will to form": form is our Merkabah (Throne of god), and/or our physical and intimate expression of "I AM Divinity "; a fiery Solar Body of light. Some of us have yet to "love" this beast-body we operate in our name of "I AM". However, to reject the body, is to divide the Spirit,-Mind- Body connection that makes us a "Heavenly Being", as we are all quantumly entangled and/or connected to the Universal Creative Being, the One- I AM who is many in Self-Reflection.

*(War of the Gods, documented in Vedic, Nordic, Greek, Sumerian, Jewish, African, Native American, Chinese, Japanese, and Assyrian literature, to name a few)

To be Whole requires a focused willful spiritual intelligence, and not some "Mad Hatter" type of personality, which can't even control its own thought, as it is told what to see and be by those who control worded identity. Scry the Lust card only after you can hold one thought or image focus during an entire meditation! Any Psyche that Touches the Lust of The Great Father/Mother, will be profoundly charged, changed, and expanded beyond comfortable perspectives; all of which can be dangerous to our delicate denial based false egos. In other words, one must be diligently trained in channeling higher and higher vibratory levels of Vital Life Force, before they "Ride the Lion-Serpent". That is why A. Crowley calls the Traditional Strength card Lust. For even the "little lust" of the manifested (Microcosm) seems to be beyond the cultural-false ego's control, as every politician, and most theologians "secret life" of greed and sexual conquest will show. It is hard to imagine, what the Macrocosmic Lust would do to such a weak psyche... but then again, we have examples in Adolf Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc., where lust becomes a violent form of masturbation.

Lust represents an especially important initiatory formula dealing with Serpent/Vital Solar Power. This Spiraling Power is the Force that opens, stimulates, or spools up all the Chakras (energy centers) in the Human body. The principles embedded in the Lust Card, tell us how to use this power. This is a "Divine Frenzy" which when stated alchemically becomes; “the heat of the furnace makes the Stone" or if religious; “inflame thyself with Prayer". The Heat applied is the Great Passion held with friction in the confines of a condensed magnetic field that is the human. This Heat or burning is experienced often in Tantric and Taoist exercises, or the exercise of the Middle Pillar (Aleister Crowley's book, 777), all which study is recommended to the interested party who wish to "Above all things, Know thyself".

Crowley's imagery may shock some, as he presents the Whore of Babylon, taming the Lion-Serpent but then he understood that the epitome of virginity (sign of Virgo), was the Sacred Virgins of the Temples, before Christianity, made them "evil women", whores or Saints, of which all 3 perspectives were confusingly and dogmatically applied. The Christian word 'Whore" is a bastardization of the Greek word, Hetacrate, meaning female companion. Something more for the diligent student to investigate as the Goddess is the mother of Form and is indeed our Feminine Companion as Anima and the Highest Form of Mother-Life!

The Declarative Tarot-Path 11-Inner Fortitude is about applying our will to the tasks at hand. Hence, there is a lioness looking over the card's imagery. She is both confident and peaceful, she knows herself and is not confused by anybody's identity regarding her. She owns her day. This sign of inner strength is carried forth in the leaf ant, who carries a dandelion bud that is twice its size and greater in weight. This budding dandelion also implies that the future comes from seeds of completion.

A plant of potency and great inner fortitude is shown as seaweed and/or green algae. Processing the sunlight while buoyantly floating on the sea. All these beings remind us that inner strength comes from "knowing yourself" and being true to that Self. Each has unique qualities that enhance the spiral flow of Life as do we all.

The fungi are shown in various states of growth, pushing through the soil showing a formidable strength which is even more surprising as their "outside" is soft and spongy. Yet their inner power can push them through the concrete and asphalt of our city streets! Hence, they are an example of our great inner power "to be" no matter what obstacles are at hand. It is time to acknowledge your resourcefulness, resilience, and ability to thrive in extreme situations. The Divine Lust to be, is unstoppable in those who "above all things, know themselves".

When the Lust/Strength Card is thrown during a divination, it implies:

•  The querent is relying on spiritual powers to manage the situation at hand and is receiving the strength to overcome.   
• Following one’s own inner light, doing what their "heart of heart".  
• Inner self says it is right.  
• There can be an experiencing of a "gut level" driving force, instinctual and compelling for protection or survival.  
• Also, possessing the courage of one's convictions. 
•   The strength of Passion, in Higher Nature, is dragon like power, courage, energy, action and magnanimity.  
• One is experiencing the Law of Self-Domination, self-rule, and self-control.
• This card represents the querent’s' passion, awareness, and aliveness.
•  A symbol that you have a strong faith in your abilities. 
• You have no qualms about relying on the spiritual powers within to handle the situation at hand. 
•  In other words, you radiate your inner beauty and the ability to give love.
• Mind over matter.

• If ill defined by the surrounding cards it implies:

• Feeling blocked from one's power.
• Weak.
• Overwhelmed.
• You need some form of meditation or relaxation which may help restore strength.
• Egoic mania.

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