The first decan of Sagittarius corresponds to the tarot Eight of Wands known as the Lord of Swiftness. Sagittarius is Jupiter ruled, and there is a doubled Mercury influence as both the decan and the Eights are ruled by Mercury.
The magical image description of the decan is a strange one. Per 777: “A man with 3 bodies – 1 black, 1 red, 1 white“. This is similar to the description in Picatrix: “Three bodies of men of which one is yellow, another white, but the third red.” The switch is curious – but so are a few other changes Crowley made to these magical images. For the most part the descriptions in 777 seem to be mostly based on Picatrix. Sometimes they diverge in small ways, like this one, but other times they don’t seem to align with Picatrix at all. Was it merely that 777 was indeed compiled by Crowley over a long weekend, directly from memory, and he was trying to recall Picatrix? Or was he tuning in to his own thing, or purposely making changes? I’ll probably never know! But for the purposes of this deck, I’m using 777 as the starting point.
This “3 bodies” thing, combined with the doubly Mercurial influence along with philosophical Sagittarius, makes me think of Hermes Trismegistus, or “Thrice Great Hermes”.
Due to piracy events I’m still debating how many of these tarot images to show and how much of the thoughts on these to post, so for now, this is just a placeholder.
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Mel, Thanks for the response. As to social media…much larger forces surely guide your way. Your creativity in isolation will lead to a form of integration and then-the reveal. I’m sure I speak for many when I say “looking forward.”
Mel, just stopped by your site to see how the deck is progressing. I totally respect your caution as to revealing your art to potential pirates. So here’s support your way, esp as I’ve noticed so few comments over the months in response to your remarkable previews.
Hi Constance – thanks so much! For both the kind comment and understanding. I actually really dislike keeping them under wraps, as I feel good about them and want to share. Probably will show some more soon; I just didn’t want to reveal all due both the pirating and my feeling that it is good to leave some surprises! As to the few comments, well that is what I get for not having a social media presence! I haven’t even been good about sending out progress updates via newsletter. As long as I keep getting each one done within its appropriate decan, I’m on the job and that is what matters. I hope you have a Happy Solstice and a cool Yule!
Well, I know I’ve made a few complimentary comments here myself that, for whatever reason, have never appeared. So that could be another reason for so few comments, because people aren’t going to see the point, if nothing they have to say ever shows. 😉
I’m sorry if your comments have ever not appeared. There will always be a delay between posting the comments and them appearing, because they have to be manually approved as so many bots try to insert spam comments. They all are added eventually, every one that isn’t spam, so check back a few days after posting and they should be there. It is possible that things are getting put into a spam filter sometimes, and thus not seen.