What does Art 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: Elements that will not fuse, impatience, excess or lack; the alchemical process is interrupted before completion.

What are the Kabbalah and astrology correspondences of Art?

In the Golden Dawn system Art corresponds to the Hebrew letter Samekh, path 25 of the Tree of Life between Tiphareth and Yesod, the element Fire and Sagittarius in astrology.

Thoth Tarot · Major Arcana

Art

alchemy · synthesis · temperance · integration · aspiration

A reflective starting point

What is Art 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.

Read this card in a ritual Draw it from your own deck

Upright

Find the right combination: the solution is born from fusing what seemed irreconcilable. Patience and a sense of measure are needed.

At first sight

Balance, moderation, a successful combination of different elements. It points to creative solutions, healing and harmonisation.

Within you

The ability to integrate opposite parts of yourself into a new synthesis; creativity as a process of inner transformation.

On the path

Path 25 from Tiphareth to Yesod, the letter Samekh (the prop, 60) and Sagittarius, the mutable fire of Jupiter: the arrow of aspiration rising along the central pillar. Here the alchemical work begun in the Lovers is accomplished.

The shadow

Ill-dignified, it signals confused mixing, lukewarm compromise, wrong doses that spoil the work.

Reversed

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

Elements that will not fuse, impatience, excess or lack; the alchemical process is interrupted before completion.

In love, work and spirit

Love. Integration, creative compromise, a mature union between different characters.

Work. Innovative solutions, a synthesis of different skills, well-calibrated projects.

Spirit. Solve et coagula: the Work as a path of self-transformation.

Correspondences

Samekh ס · path 25 (Tiphareth – Yesod) · Fire · Sagittarius

Crowley's note

Crowley renames Temperance 'Art': an androgynous figure, a fusion of the king and queen of the Lovers, pours fire and water into a cauldron, and the alchemical formula V.I.T.R.I.O.L. appears in the background.