thoth sighting in music video

Associated Press

While watching music television late last night, AT member Laura Borealis saw something that caught her attention.

The video was "Devils and Angels" by Toby Lightman. Borealis had never heard of the artist, but was enjoying the bluesy song when she thought she saw tarot cards in the background. "I was half-asleep, but when I saw those cards I woke right up," the tarot enthusiast reported. "I only saw them for a split second at first, but I was sure that it was an entire tarot deck pinned to the wall in the apartment in this video."

Watching closely, Borealis waited for confirmation. She didn't have to wait long. "After they showed that scene again, I knew. And I had a suspicion it was the Thoth. Finally near the end of the song, they held the shot a little longer and I definitely saw the Devil -- it's such a distinct card."

The video had other elements with an esoteric feel, such as pictures of Hindu deities. But despite having the world "Devil" in its title, the song itself does not seem to relate to tarot. The use of the Thoth appears to be set dressing in Lightman's video. Borealis was excited, regardless. "I just thought it was cool that they used it. The song wasn't bad, either."

The video "Devils and Angels" can be seen on VH1's website.

It was painful to watch, since the site was so slow that it kept buffering every five seconds, but I think I caught a glimpse of it. Gee, it really is the whole deck, and the singer is good. I'll see if i can download the video someplace, and then see if I can pay more attention.

But still, Who would put a Tarot deck on the wall? Its like, desecration...

I didn't try to watch it online... sorry it was so much trouble. I saw it on VH1 last night (or really, very early this morning).

I had that same twinge of discomfort at first, like it was desecrating the deck -- but actually if a deck is reasonable cheap and not likely to go out of print, it's kind of a neat idea. Just the repeated shapes make a strong graphic statement, even without the added artistic qualities and meaningfulness of the art.

Another option is color-xeroxing and using the copies on the wall, if one didn't want to use an actual deck.

screen shot

I got a screen shot; unfortunately it is small and fuzzy, but such is the nature of downloaded video. You can see the cards on the wall to the right of the singer. It's hard to tell it's the Thoth in this pic, but I'm practically positive that it is.

Also uploading the pic as an attachment as our server goes down now and then.