1944 · CLOSE READING
The Book of Thoth
The Book of Thoth (1944), PDF p. 207
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INDOLENCE
EIGHT OF CUPS
The Eight, Hod, in the suit of Water, governs this card. It shows the influence of Mer‐
cury, but this is overpowered by the reference of the card to Saturn in Pisces. Pisces is calm
but stagnant water; and Saturn deadens it completely. Water appears no longer as the Sea but
as pools; and there is no florescence in this card as there was in the last. The Lotuses droop
for lack of sun and rain, and the soil is poison to them; only two of the stems show blossoms at
all. The cups are shallow, old and broken. They are arranged in three rows; of these the upper
row of three is quite empty. Water trickles from the two flowers into the two central cups, and
they drip into the two lowest without filling them. The background of the card shows pools, or
lagoons, in very extensive country, incapable of cultivation; only disease and miasmatic poison
can flourish in those vast Bad Lands.
The water is dark and muddy. On the horizon is a pallid, yellowish light, weighed down
by leaden clouds of indigo.
Compare with the last card; it represents the opposite and complementary error. The
one is the Garden of Kundry, the other the Palace of Klingsor.
In the psychopathology of The Path, this card is the German Measles of Christian Mys‐
ticism.
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