AUTHOR’S NOTE: Here is another essay in my informal series of “stretch” definitions (as in “Wow, that’s a stretch!”) that brings a fresh set of eyes to cards I’ve already examined. This time, as an outgrowth of my ongoing interaction with the online tarot community, I’m presenting the 9 of Pentacles (Thoth Disks), which is almost always described as a positive card when it appears in a reading. But I continue to believe that it has an implicit darker side.
It may just be a sign of my native cynicism, but the obviously-wealthy woman in the Waite-Smith card seems entirely too self-absorbed and self-satisfied to endure for long at her current level of complacent comfort, and she also appears to be oblivious to the fact that there is no apparent way out of (or more importantly, into) her cloistered garden; once she exhausts what she has, there is no convenient avenue of resupply. Starvation could be coming down the road, and belt-tightening now would be prudent to stave it off, if she only knew. But the scene reminds me of the urban myth of “boiling a frog.”
On the other hand, a workable alternate title for the Thoth version would be “Obesity.” The situation “waxes fat” and some kind of morbid increase looks to be likely. Although the causal link between rich diet and gout has been debunked, the thought remains compelling. Intake can exceed outlay to a burdensome or even unhealthy extent. Bin this one with the population of “if it seems too good to be true it probably is” and “too much of a good thing” cards (unless you happen to be a multi-billionaire who strongly disagrees). Aleister Crowley inferred that the Nine represents the “completion” of its suit and the Ten is just a postscript that has overstayed its welcome, but in the suit of Disks this perfection is already poised to decay.
I covered this card at length in my esoteric “Tarot 101” course material (posted elsewhere in this blog and linked below), but here is an updated Thoth-based excerpt from the earlier text that adds a few more insights:
“There is a languorous complacency about this card that invites eventual decline into decadent self-indulgence leading to the material excess of the 10 of Disks. Like the residents of The Eagles’ Hotel California, those who pursue material gain above all else can become ‘just prisoners of (their) own device.’
Representing the harvest time of September, Virgo stands on the doorstep of winter with scythe in hand, but Venus is the ‘don’t worry, be happy’ planet and channels the blasé Grasshopper more than the industrious Ant of Aesop’s fable. I get the impression that winter will find the subject unprepared, and I’m reminded of the lyrics from the country-rock song Ventura Highway: ‘This town don’t look good in snow.’
The colors employed by Harris in the Thoth card look earthy and fruitful as befits its title of “’Gain.’ There is nothing remarkable about the card from a story-telling standpoint, it is stable and neutral; steady accumulation seems to be assured without extraordinary effort.”
I have to keep reminding myself to stay away from the ice cream and beer. No good will come of the indulgence beyond “instant gratification” and extra “cold-weather padding.”
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