Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
This week, I was somewhat waylaid as I tried to set an intention to write an article about the Sevens in tarot. Rather willingly, I admit. I think it’s sometimes useful to set a cat among the pigeons when a routine becomes — well, a routine. It allows for spontaneity and a certain unexpectedness to creep into the proceedings.
I was about to sit down and draw out the four Sevens from the Rider-Waite Smith deck (which I will be covering in the next few weeks), when I felt a strong sense of — how to put it? — “Nooooooooooooo!” at the prospect of writing an article about them. My intention was there, albeit at less than full throttle. But my will was not. Where did my will want to take me? To Debauch, apparently — occultist Aleister Crowley and artist Lady Frieda Harris’s interpretation of the Seven of Cups.
I’ve found that some cards, more than others, have the ability to provoke a reaction in people. I am drawn to Debauch, but I’m going to suggest that I am probably far from the only one. Debauch, I am certain, catches the eyes, minds and emotions of many people who come face-to-face with it. And I’m not saying you have to love it to be drawn to it. No, indeed. Repulsion is also a sure-fire indicator that something in the card is worthy of exploration.
And that name. Debauch. Not “debauchery.” The absence of the lighter tone of that final “ery” prevents us from dismissing it quite as easily as we might want to; there is no escaping its sound, which is flat, dissonant.
This is the entry for “debauch” on dictionarygeek.com:
– verb-transitive
1. To corrupt morally.
2. To lead away from excellence or virtue.
3. To reduce the value, quality, or excellence of; debase.
4. Archaic: To cause to forsake allegiance.
– verb-intransitive
5. To indulge in dissipation.
– noun
6. The act or a period of debauchery.
7. An orgy.