By Princeofcups518
In his Book of Thoth, Crowley insists upon the difficulty of these two trumps, as well as the necessity to evaluate them as an inseparable pair. Opposites must always be understood together and not separately, and this applies particularly strongly for these two cards because they espouse the philosophical doctrines of solve et coagula, the process by which the Universe divides itself into opposites and reunites itself into something like the original substance but entirely different. These two cards have always fascinated and confused me, as they are the most symbolically dense of all Crowley’s trump cards, but now after re-reading those passages in the BoT, I feel I have a better grasp on them. In this post I will be doing a close reading of those very passages, and hopefully will demystify some of Crowley’s esotericism.
VI. The Lovers [Or: The Brothers]
This card and its twin, XIV, Art, are the most obscure and difficult of the Atu. Each of these symbols is in itself double, so that the meanings form a divergent series, and the integration of the Card can only be regained by repeated marriages, identifications, and some form of Hermaphroditism.
