What does Death mean reversed?

The Thoth Tarot is traditionally read without reversed cards: the reader judges from the cards around it whether a card is well or ill dignified. This is its ill-dignified or blocked reading: Resistance to an inevitable ending; a change postponed that becomes slow wear and tear.

What are the Kabbalah and astrology correspondences of Death?

In the Golden Dawn system Death corresponds to the Hebrew letter Nun, path 24 of the Tree of Life between Tiphareth and Netzach, the element Water and Scorpio in astrology.

Thoth Tarot · Major Arcana

Death

transformation · ending · rebirth · putrefaction · renewal

A reflective starting point

What is Death asking you to look at?

Meaning changes with the position, the surrounding cards and your question. Take what follows as a language, not a verdict.

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Upright

Something is closing to make room for the new: accompany the transformation instead of resisting it.

At first sight

Deep transformation, the end of a cycle, irreversible change. It almost never points to a physical death: more often the necessary closing of a phase.

Within you

The process of letting old identities and attachments die; the mourning that makes rebirth possible.

On the path

Path 24 from Tiphareth to Netzach, the letter Nun (the fish, 50) and Scorpio, the fixed water of Mars: the alchemical putrefaction that precedes all regeneration. Scorpion, serpent and eagle are the three degrees of the same energy transforming itself.

The shadow

Ill-dignified, it signals fear of change, stagnation, attachment to what has already ended.

Reversed

In the Thoth tradition a reversed card is read through its dignity with the neighbouring cards; this is its shadow side.

Resistance to an inevitable ending; a change postponed that becomes slow wear and tear.

In love, work and spirit

Love. The end of a phase of the relationship, or a radical transformation of the bond.

Work. The closing of a project or a role; restructurings that prepare a new beginning.

Spirit. Dying to yourself in order to be reborn: transformation as initiation.

Correspondences

Nun נ · path 24 (Tiphareth – Netzach) · Water · Scorpio

Crowley's note

Crowley paints a crowned skeleton dancing and, with his scythe, raising bubbles in which new forms sprout: death is a moment in the dance of life, not its opposite.