Hi all. It's a short answer with a very long explanation, so get a beverage and make yourself comfortable.

Alrighty then.

Coming up with an answer requires first figuring out what the question is. The order of band member names listed in the credits is the same order their photos appear in after the title page, with Danny first. Actually Danny’s detail picture is the first image in the puzzle sequence and in it we see his Tarot deck featured prominently. The cards are fanned out toward the viewer with the card on top of the deck almost separated.

My theory is that the question presented by the artwork is, "Which Tarot card is on top of the deck in Danny's picture, begging to be flipped over?"

I bet they even took a photo of it flipped, to show us when the puzzle is solved.

Answer: ATU VI, The Lovers.

Why this card? Maybe that's the next nut to crack. But once you know what you’re looking for, the whole thing becomes a simple matter of consulting your handy copy of Crowley’s 777, or any other table of Cabalistic correspondences. It’s very traditional Cabalistic symbolism, and I wouldn’t expect anything else from a puzzle that Danny Carey had a hand in.

Not every item in the photos is related to the puzzle. Most of it is just reflective of the band member’s personal interests. But in each photo there are embedded clues which together point clearly to Tarot Trump 6.

In Cabala, everything in nature is related to other things, which are seen to have the same energetic qualities, (colors, animals, stones, plants, planets, incense, etc.). These are organized by the Tree of Life diagram seen on the wall behind Danny and are encoded in the tarot. That’s your crash course.

Each tarot card is related to a path on the tree. Trump card VI, the Lovers or Brothers is path 17, connecting the sphere of Tiphareth to the sphere of Binah.

The clues (or some of them, anyway):

In Danny’s frame we see orchids everywhere, the plant cabalistically attributed to the seventeenth path. When I asked Blair about it, he tried to make them seem insignificant, mocking me about how next, I’ll ask what they had for lunch. Nice try.

The Lovers card is ruled by Gemini, the twins and the Hebrew letter Zayin, which means, ‘sword’. In Danny’s photo there are two skulls facing each other (twins), and two daggers (swords).

Justin’s frame shows us either a cinereous vulture or a black eagle--I’m not sure which. This stark picture is the toughest one to extract the symbolism from, but if it’s a vulture, then it relates to the sephira Binah, also known as the Great Mother. In Egyptian myth, the Vulture is sacred to the goddess Maat, and according to wikkipedia:

“In Southern Africa, the name for a Nubian Vulture is synonymous with the term applied to lovers, because these vultures are always seen in pairs, mother and child remaining closely bonded together. Pairing, bonding, protecting, and loving are essential attributes associated with the vulture's size and its ability to soar high up in the sky. The Egyptians considered the vulture an excellent mother, and its wide wingspan was seen as all-encompassing and providing a protective cover to its infants”

Or, if it’s an eagle, there is an eagle on the Lovers card, but its opposite is the lion, as always in alchemy, and I can’t find a lion in the artwork.

But I bet the incense smoke in the air that starts in Justin’s photo and fills the room in Maynard’s photo is wormwood, the scent of the 17th path.

Maynard's photo makes the twin symbolism of Gemini more overt with two phones, two glasses of wine two boxes, and reflected in the mirror, twins of himself and the woman. The woman caresses the phallic Empire State building, which reminds us of the missing twin towers. She then touches Maynard's skull to impregnate it with the fetus we see in the skull elsewhere. She represents the divine mother, Binah and the fetus represents the child, the son or sun of Tiphareth. Maybe this next bit goes too far because I think not everything in the photos is part of the puzzle, but maybe the reason the wine was bottled in 1963 is because that's the year Maynard was conceived.

The alphabet of daggers used in the poster doesn’t reveal much in translation, but the alphabet itself, made up essentially of swords is another reference to the sword Zayin, identified with this tarot card. In Crowley’s ‘The Vision and the Voice’ this alphabet appears in the vision of the 19th Aether in which the Priestess of the Silver Star, “catches me up to her as a mother catches her babe, and holds me up in her left arm, and sets my lips to her breast. And upon her breast is written: Rosa Mundi est Lilium Coeli.”

The priestess in Maynard’s picture seems to be offering her breast to his mouth. The phrase means, “the rose of earth is the lily of heaven.” Which Crowley commented on as meaning “Malkuth is Binah.” Pretty esoteric, but another reference to the sphere that the 17th path connects to.

Adam's photo shows a magpie, which according to 777 is the animal correspondence for path 17, Trump 6. The light fixtures on the wall behind Adam are also arranged in relation to each other in the same positions as Binah and Tiphareth on the tree of life, again the sephira joined by this path. Other elements in the photos also mirror this pattern, such as the two documents on the wall behind Danny.

All of this dual symbolism of the twins is related to the stereoscopic concept itself (two images on every page) as well as to Zayin, the dividing sword, featured in the lyrics of Right In Two. And as others have mentioned here, Jambi also references the “two become one.” Of course, this all carries on a theme from Lateralus, particularly from Schism (between supposed lovers, between supposed brothers) and the Grudge with its emphasis on Saturn, the planetary attribution of Binah. In the Lovers card there are two children, and one of them holds a club. He is said to be Cain, who beat his brother down.

As for the importance of this path to the current album, it seems clear that the Wings for Marie suite is all about the connection between the Son and the Mother.

Alchemy has been a big theme for Tool and Crowley states that there are two cards in the Tarot that depict the alchemical process. They are card 6, the Lovers and card 14, Art. Together these two cards show a complete symbolism of the Great Work. The numerical value of the Hebrew letter attributed to the Art card is 60. That could be why Blair said they had 60 sandwiches for lunch that day, a claim I find hard to swallow.

-Doug