Lust

The thelemic doctrine on which this entire deck is based comes from Liber Al vel Legis known to most as the Book of the Law. In it we find this most liberating, yet spiritually binding decree.

Do what thy wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will.

“Do what thy wilt” applies to every inclination of your true being. You should always try to expand your horizons challenging what you think you like or dislike by trying new things. But if something doesn't resonate with you, you must be true to yourself. Struggling with sexual identity has been a long burden imposed on men and women of all ages by society's moral norms. Among them, young people are the most tormented as they're really trying to find and define their identity. Society doesn't help when it constantly tries to label and categorize people pigeonholing them in definitions such as gay, straight, bisexual, transgendered and such. You are not defined by any of these labels! Your sexual preference is simply an expression of your divine Will. Much like a genuine religious ritual, not a banal dwelling on the superficial act, but the meaning of the act to your libido, in other words - what gets you off. If you were to stop and reason through the exchange of saliva and other bodily fluids it seems gross to the mind, yet in the heat of passion we transcend these limitations of cold reason and don't question what turns us on. This sexual “turn on” switch is subjective and unique to every person, exactly like the experience of spiritual enlightenment (This is probably the best allegory to explain the enacting of True Will uninhibited by reason). It would be frustrating and counterproductive to be caught up in minutia, your sexual preference is the means to an end, you're not defined by the mean but the end - the climax that unites us all. Sex between two or more consenting individuals is the crux of freedom and the pursuit of happiness.

So if you're troubled by your culture's view of what you do in the bedroom, let's dispel these social pressures right now! To paraphrase Crowley, 'we are all one in essence and many in manifestation'. By observing the unique individual nature in each other, we're learning something new about the whole, the supreme nature of the universe. God - The Supreme Deity, Manifest Universe, learns about it's own nature through us, therefore homogeneity is the enemy of all nature. Succumbing to external pressure to normalize the individual to a common denominator is often a direct violation of one's True Will.

In the Book of the Law the feminine receptive principle manifested as Nuit describes that the “Word of sin is restriction” As Queen of Infinite Space she states:

“...I love you! I yearn to you! Pale or purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me!” -Al 1:61

Hadit, the manifestation of the innermost God within all of us responds in part two.

“I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight and bright glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness. To worship me take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, & be drunk thereof! They shall not harm ye at all. It is a lie, this folly against self. The exposure of innocence is a lie. Be strong, o man! lust, enjoy all things of sense and rapture: fear not that any God shall deny thee for this... I am the secret Serpent coiled about to spring: in my coiling there is joy. If I lift up my head, I and my Nuit are one. If I droop down mine head, and shoot forth venom, then is rapture of the earth, and I and the earth are one.” -Al 2:22;26

The Lust card is a depiction of this sacred ritual that unifies all consciousness through the unique expression of the Self in its various forms, but always with the essence of the Yin and the Yang in ecstasy.

Sex is a powerful magick tool available to all of us. In a figurative sense we're all pubescent children playing with each other. It can be just casual fun or it can be our embodiment of the primordial creative forces of the universe. Either way the spiritual principle behind the depiction of male and female intercourse is NOT to be taken strictly as a literal heterosexual coupling. This divine state of ecstasy is always a result of intercourse between a projector and a recipient, men and women can play both roles. If it's two men, one is the recipient and he becomes the scarlet woman or a manifestation of Nuit, infinity beckoning to be filled. The projector becomes the beast, or Hadit, answering the call and filling infinite space. Its the same with two women or men/women role reversal. This principle can be extended to include poly-amorous sex where a group of projectors are worshiping the recipient who embodies the priestess of infinity. I know for sure, that its against my Will that anyone should ever use my artwork as a basis for discrimination against anyone else. The important point of all this is that Lust is universal, there is no discrimination, the whore Goddess depicted in this card is Babylon, the refuser of none.