Every Star that I’ve ever seen is a beautiful card. It’s such a powerfully positive energy, it’s hard not to be biased and choose it as a favourite. Especially the Thoth Star. It stands out even within that remarkable deck because it’s different – it is its own (star) system.
There are only a couple of cards in the Thoth deck that are this shade of Aquarius purple, which Crowley calls violet. It’s like a pinky-purple to me. The 5 of Swords and the 7 of Swords are two other examples, but it’s the Star where we really see it shine, as Aquarius rules the card on its own and the colour permeates the entire image. The other colours in the card are the bluey-white of our goddess and the periwinkle blue of the sky. Together, they feel perfectly otherworldly, as though we are looking at another planet through the haze of its own electric atmosphere.
The Thoth Star
The woman in the card is the goddess Nuit, the Egyptian goddess of the sky, but here she is in human form. Nuit is usually shown arching her body across through the sky, with her feet on the ground on one side and her hands on the ground on the other. Every night she swallows the sun and gives birth to it again every morning. She is a divine conduit for celestial blessings.
Nuit is very important in Thelema. In Crowley’s Book of the Law, where he records the transmission of this new religion (‘religion’ for the sake of convenience), Nuit appears and speaks first, talking of Love:
Had! The manifestation of Nuit.
The unveiling of the company of heaven.
Every man and every woman is a star. […]
Come forth, o children, under the stars, & take your fill of love!
I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy.[1]
In the Thoth Star, the manifested Nuit pours ‘ethereal water’ onto her own head. It flows through her and then out via the silver cup. It has become ‘amrita’, the nectar of the gods that brings endless blessings to us here on the physical plane. The ‘celestial globe’ behind her includes all of the levels of the Tree of Life. Outside of it is Ain Soph, which we can describe as Divinity in a place before any kind of definition or conception can describe it.[2] That’s where the ethereal water is coming from, and then through the celestial globe and on to us after it’s travelled through Nuit herself.
Seven-pointed Star of Babalon
If you look closely at the seven-pointed star in the upper left-hand corner of the image, you can see a vesica piscis in the centre. This particular seven-pointed star is the symbol of Babalon, Crowley’s rectified Divine Feminine – not only unashamed of her sexuality, but incorporating the joy of spiritual desire, our Divine Will. (Crowley illustrates this concept in the Lust card.) In fact, there are three seven-pointed stars in The Star; the other two are on the celestial globe and within the ethereal water. This gives us 777, the number Crowley assigned to Babalon, the Divine Feminine.[3] There are butterflies flitting near the ground on the right to symbolise the transformation of Divine to Mundane, and roses to remind us not only of the Divine Feminine, but of the sacred rose at the core of our existence (the Rosy Cross; there is more detail on the Rose Cross in my earlier post on the 6 of Swords).
So, so gorgeous! And The Star on the Tree of Life is surrounded by even more beauty. The Star, as ATU XVII, resides on path 28 (remember to add 11 to the Major Arcana’s ATU number to find the path), which connects Netzach and Yesod (also recall that while Crowley switched the letter assigned to this card with that of the Emperor, he did not actually move the location of the cards). Netzach is ruled by Venus and Yesod by the Moon, two more connections to the goddess energy of Nuit. Yesod is called Foundation because it is where everything is organised for the last time before it becomes ‘real’ here on earth. It’s where everything is gathered and collated from its progress down the Tree. The diamond-looking geometric shapes on the ground are solidified amrita, so to speak – what happens when divine blessings are filtered through Yesod and transform into something we can perceive here in Malkuth.
Baby, you’re a Star
The role of the Star is to transfer the bliss that we experience in Netzach into a form that we can understand and accept. And here I’m also thinking of the pinkish tone to the planet in The Star card, pink being Venus’ secondary colour. So perhaps we can see the planet behind The Star as not just the celestial globe, but one that is glowing brightly from Venus, the final Sephira to touch The Star from the top. And maybe she is sitting on Yesod, transferring all those blessings into proto-diamonds that will travel down the last path, The Universe, to us in Malkuth.
[1] Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law (Red Wheel/Weiser, 2018) pp. 25-6. “Had!” is a way of indicating an instantaneous appearance, the kind of soundless manifestation of divinity that you also get in Buddhist practice.
[2] Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth (Red Wheel/Weiser, 2020) pp. 109-11.
[3] 777 is also the title of his book of correspondences (available as 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley, Red Wheel/Weiser, 1977).