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Meditations on the Tarot 7: The Chariot

(This post is seventh in a series on the book Meditations on the Tarot. See the first for explanation.)

7. The Chariot

• The number 7: The number 7 can remind us of the "seven archetypal miracles" in the Gospel of John and "the seven aspects of the name of the Master: 'I am the true vine', 'I am the way, the truth and the life', 'I am the door' . . . ." The number also represents the seven colors of the rainbow and the seven distinct tones of a musical scale (150).

• The charioteer: "The charioteer . . . is the victor over trials, i.e. the temptations, and if he is master, then it is thanks to himself. He is alone, standing in his chariot; no one is present to applaud him or to pay homage to him; he has no weapons--the sceptre that he holds not being a weapon. If he is master, his mastership was acquired in solitude and he owes it to the trials alone, and not to anyone or anything external to himself. The victory achieved in solitude  . . . what glory and what danger it comprises at one and the same time! It is the only real glory, for it in no way depends on human favour and judgement; it is intrinsic glory . . . . It is, however, at the same time the most real and the most serious spiritual danger which exists. 'Pride" and 'vaingloriousness', the traditional names which one gives to it, do not suffice to characterise it in an adequate way. It is more than this . . . . a kind of mystical megalomania, where one deifies . . . one's ego, and where one sees the divine only within oneself and becomes blind to the divine above and outside of oneself" (152). "The personage on this seventh Card signifies at one and the same time the 'triumpher' and the 'Triumpher'--the megalomaniac and the integrated man, master of himself" (164-65).

• The columns: "The four columns supporting the canopy on the chariot . . . signify the four elements taken in a vertical sense, i.e. in their analogous meaning through the three worlds--the spiritual world, the soul world and the physical world" (165).

• The canopy: "The function of a canopy . . . is to protect the person who is found beneath it. . . . Taken in its spiritual sense, at which one arrives by way of analogy, the canopy above the man wearing a yellow royal crown expresses two contrary things: that the crowned man is a megalomaniac in the condition of 'splendid isolation', separated from heaven by the canopy, or else that the crowned man is an initiate in the mystery of spiritual well-being and that he does not identify himself with heaven, being consciousness of the difference which exists between himself and that which is above him" (165). "Tabernacles . . . are these not tents, baldachins, canopies under which man is united in love with the Divine, without identifying himself with it or being absorbed by it?" (166).

• Overall: "The 'triumpher' of the seventh Arcanum is the true adept of Hermeticism, i.e. an adept of mysticism, gnosis and magic--divine, human and natural. He is not running. He stands upright. He is not seated, deep in meditation. He hold a sceptre which serves him to bridle the two horses (one blue and one red) which draw his chariot. He is not absent, plunged into exalted ecstasy. He is on his way and he goes forward, standing upright all the while in his vehicle. The two horses, the one blue and the other red, have relieved him of the effort of walking. The instinctive forces of 'yes' and 'no', attraction and repulsion, arterial blood and venous blood, trust and mistrust, faith and doubt, life and death and, lastly, 'right' and 'left'--symbolised by the pillars of Jachin and Boaz--have become motive forces in him, obedient to his sceptre. They serve him voluntarily as he is their true master. He trusts them and they trust him--this is mastership according to Hermeticism. For in Hermeticism mastership does not signify the subjugation of the lower by the higher, but rather the alliance of superconsciousness, consciousness and instinctive--or sub-consciousness.This is the Hermetic ideal of peace in the microcosm--the prototype of peace within a humanity divided into races, nations, classes and beliefs" (168).

In this Letter, the author summarizes the lessons of the book so far:

1. "The Magician is a warning against the intellectual jugglery of the metaphysician, heedless of experience, and against charlatancy of every kind--and at the same time it teaches 'concentration without effort' and the use of the method of analog.
2. "The High Priestess warns us of the dangers of gnosticism in teaching the discipline of true gnosis."
3. "The Empress evokes the dangers of mediumship and magic in revealing to us the mysteries of sacred magic."
4. "The Emperor warns us of the will-to-power and teaches us the power of the cross."
5. "The Pope confronts us with the humanistic cult of personality and the magical pentagram in which this culminates, and opposes to this holy poverty, obedience to the Divine, and the magic of the five wounds."
6. "The Lover warns us of the three temptations and teaches us the three sacred vows."
7. "The Chariot, lastly, warns us of the danger of megalomania and teaches us the real triumph achieved by the self" (164).

Meditations on the Tarot 6: The Lover

(This post is sixth in a series on the book Meditations on the Tarot. See the first for explanation.)

6. The Lover

• The number 6: For the author of Meditations on the Tarot, this sixth arcanum is the card of chastity. He writes, "One is chaste only when one loves with the totality of one's being. Chastity is not wholeness of being in indifference, but rather in the love which is 'strong as death and whose flashes are flashes of fire, the flame of the Eternal'. It is living unity. It is three--spirit, soul and body--which are one, and the other three--spirit, soul and body--which are one; and three and three make six . . . ." (124). Six is also the number of the three temptations of Eve, of Jesus, of us all--power, richness, and debauchery--plus the three corresponding vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity (137). "This," says the author, "is the practical meaning of the hexagram or seal of Solomon" (137). 

• The figures: The woman on our left is the temptress, seizing the shoulder of the young lover. However, the arrow of "the winged infant archer" is aimed at the woman on our right, the true love, making "appeal to his heart with a chaste gesture of her left hand" (123). Chastity, the devotion to the true love, in an acceptance of the other as a whole. "Carl Gustav Jung re-established the principle of chastity in the domain of psychology--the other psychological schools . . . being contrary to chastity, since they break down the unity of the spiritual, psychic and physical elements of the human being. He discovered the divine breath at the core of the human being" (128).

Meditations on the Tarot 5: The Pope

(This post is fifth in a series on the book Meditations on the Tarot. See the first for explanation.)

5. The Pope

• The number 5: The number 5 stands, according to Eliphas Levi, for "the domination of the mind over the (four) elements" (106). For the author of Meditations on the Tarot, the number also represents the five wounds of Christ, and the five senses "though which the objective world, withot regard to our will, imposes itself on us." The author continues, "But the senses are organs of perception, not of action. Imagine that the five organs of action--the limbs, including the head in its function as a limb--were to have analogous wounds, i.e. that the five currents of will of which they are an expression were to give access to an objective will which would be to personal desires what sense perceptions are to play of fantasy" (110).

• The Pope: The Pope is performing a blessing, a benediction: "the putting into action of divine power transcending the individual thought and will of the one who is blessed as well as the one who is pronouncing the blessing" (100).

• The two columns (and the two acolytes): "The Cabbala compares the role of prayer and benediction to the double movement, ascending and descending, similar to the circulation of the blood. The prayers of humanity rise toward God and, after having been divinely 'oxidised', are transformed into benedictions which descend below from above. . . . The two blue columns behind the Pope symbolise in the first place this twofold current." They also symbolize "the two columns of the Sephiroth Tree [of the Kabbalah], the pillar of Mercy and that of Severity, and similarly the two pillars of the Temple of Solomon, Jachin and Boaz" (100).Just as prayer and benediction are analogous to the circulation of the blood, they are also analogous to respiration, breathing out and breathing in. Respiration, says the author, can be "horizontal" (taking place between "outside" and "inside") or "vertical" (taking place between "above" and "below"). "The 'sting of death' . . . is the abrupt passage from horizontal to vertical respiration. Yet he who has learnt vertical respiration whilst living will be spared from this 'sting of death'" (100). "The law of horizontal respiration is: 'Love your neighbour as yourself'"; that of vertical respiration is "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind'" (101). 

• The Pope's triple cross: The three-level cross represents the "three levels of horizontal respiration . . . : love of Nature; love of one's neighbour; love of the beings of the spiritual hierarchies," and "the three stages of vertical respiration . . . : purification (by divine breath); illumination (by divine light); mystical union (in divine fire)" (101). Two other sets of three are also featured in this chapter. One set comprises the traditional monastic vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity (112-114). The other set comprises the journey "from the natural state ('limbo') and from the state of human suffering ('purgatory') to that of the blessedness of the divine state ('paradise')" (115-16).  [This journey parallels Dante's journey, as well as Joseph Campbell's monomyth, the journey of the hero. It is also the pattern of open systems, moving from a relatively organized status quo, through the threat of disorganization, to a new level of organization.]

Meditations on the Tarot 4: The Emperor

(This post is fourth in a series on the book Meditations on the Tarot. See the first for explanation.)

4. The Emperor

• The number 4: The number 4 reminds us again of the four stages of Christian Hermeticism (introduced in Letter 2): mystic experience, gnosis, sacred magic, and Hermetic philosophy. In Letter 2, Hermetic philosophy is represented by the book; here, by the authority of the Emperor. "Hermetic philosophy . . . has a human ideal to which it aspires. Its spiritual exercises, its arcana, follow the practical aim of realising the man of authority, the 'father-man'. This is the man who is more human than all others . . . the man worthy of 'the throne of David'" (96).

• The Emperor's crown: The crown "is the sign of legitimacy, on the one hand, but it is also the sign of a task or a mission by which the crown is charged from above" (78). "The crown of the Emperor signifies the renunciation of freedom of intellectual movement" (79).

• His stance: "The Emperor has renounced ease, being not seated. He has renounced walking, being in a leaning position and having his legs crossed. He may neither advance in order to take the offensive, nor move back in order to retreat. His station is by his seat and his coat-of-arms. He is on sentry duty and as such he does not have freedom of movement. He is a guardian bound to his post" (78).

• His hands: "The Emperor has . . . renounced all action having pledged his right hand to the sceptre that he holds before him, whereas his left hand holds his fastened belt. It is no longer free, because the Emperor restrains himself with it. It serves the function of holding the impulsive and instinctive nature of the Emperor in check, so that it does not intervene and divert him from his post as guardian. The Emperor has therefore renounced movement by means of his legs and action by means of his arms" (78).

• His sceptre: "The Emperor has renounced compulsion and violence. He has no weapons" (78). "The Emperor reigns by pure authority; he reigns over free beings, i.e. not by means of the sword, but by means of the sceptre. The sceptre itself bears a globe with a cross above. The sceptre therefore expresses in as clear as possible a manner the central idea of the Arcanum: just as the world (the globe) is ruled by the cross, so is the power of the Emperor over the terrestrial globe subject to the sign of the cross" (85).

• His shield and throne: "The shield bearing an eagle rests on the ground at his side. The Emperor does not hold it with his hand, as the Empress does. The shield is certainly there, but it belongs rather to the throne than to the person of the Emperor. . . . The Emperor does not have a personal mission; he has renounced this in favour of the throne. . . . This is the fourth renunciation of the emperor [the others being freedom of intellectual movement, of physical movement, and of action]--the renunciation of a personal mission or a name, in the esoteric meaning of the word" (79).

• The field in which he stands: "The Emperor is alone in open air in an uncultivated field and with a tuft of grass as his only company--save for the sky and the earth. The Card teaches us the arcanum of the authority of the Emperor, although it may be unrecognised, occult, unknown and unappreciated. . . . It is authority as such and it is the post of authority as such which is expressed here. Authority is the magic of spiritual profundity filled with wisdom. Or, in other words, it is the result of magic based on gnosis due to mystical experience. Authority is the second HE of the divine hame YHVH. But it is not the second HE taken separately; it is only when the whole divine name manifests itself. For this reason it is more correct to say that authority is the completely-manifested divine name" (87).

Meditations on the Tarot 3: The Empress

(This post is third in a series on the book Meditations on the Tarot. See the first for explanation.)

3. The Empress

• The number 3: This number reminds us that the third stage in Hermetic Christian practice is sacred magic. (See the discussion of the High Priestess's tiara for all four stages.) Sacred magic is the sublimation of "lower" human nature--and conscious participation in the evolution of the Cosmos. "Instead of aspiring to power over the forces of Nature by means of the destruction of matter, Hermeticism aspires to conscious participation with the constructive forces of the world on the basis of an alliance and a cordial communion with them" (68). The number three also reminds us of the Trinity, of course, and of Jesus's statement "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John xiv, 6). "This formula is at the same time the summation of the first three Arcana of the Tarot, i.e. the arcanum of the true way of mystical spontaneity, the arcanum of revealed truth or gnosis, and the arcanum of transforming life or sacred magic" (66). The role of the sacred magician is to align his or her "human will" with "divine will" (56).

• The crown of the Empress: "The crown is the divine authorization of magic. It is only magic crowned from above which is not usurpatory. The crown is that which renders it legitimate" (54). "The crowned head indicates the power of the Divine over consciousness" (54).

• Her right (to us) arm, holding a sceptre: "The right arm . . . , which bears a sceptre topped by a cross mounted on a globe of gold, represents the power of consciousness over force" (54). The globe of the sceptre "is formed by two cups, one [symbolizing the Divine will] upside down, supporting the cross and turned downwards or 'below', the other [symbolizing the human will] turned upwards and supported by the staff, is open towards the 'above'" (59-60). The power of sacred magic "results from the influx from the cross which flows from the upper cup into the empty lower cup and from there descends through the staff in order to be concentrated at its extremity as . . . a drop. Or to express it in other words: the Holy Blood from above concentrates itself and becomes a 'drop' of human blood by the human word and action. Perhaps you will say: but this is the Holy Grail, it is the mystical Eucharist of which you speak! Yes, this is exactly to do with the Holy Grail . . . . For it is there, and only there, that the power of sacred magic resides" (60).

• Her left (to us) arm, holding a shield: "The left arm, which carries a shield bearig an eagle, signifies the power of energy over matter" (54). "The aim of sacred magic . . . is represented by the shield that the Empress holds in place of the book which the High Priestess holds. Sacred gnosis has as its aim the communicable expression (or 'book') of mystical revelation, whilst the aim of sacred magic is liberating action, i.e. the restoration of freedom to beings who have partially or totally lost it. . . . it is nothing other than to give the freeedom to see, to hear, to walk to live, to follow an ideal and to be truly oneself" (61).

• Her throne: "The throne on which the Empress is seated represents . . . the role of sacred magic in the world. . . . It is . . . the mineral, plant, animal and human realms of Nature--in a word, Nature in its entirety--which constitute the domain of sacred magic. The reason for the existence of sacred magic stems from the Fall and the whole domain of the Fall--comprising fallen Nature, fallen man and the fallen hierarchies" (62). "Browning was right in having said, 'Nature is supernatural'. For its supernatural origin still manifests itself in its vital elan. To want to live! Good Lord, what a profession of faith, what a manifestation of hope and what ardour of love!" (72) The throne is the phenomenon of the whole of sacred magic as it has manifested itself, as it is manifesting itself, and as it will manifest itself in the history of mankind. It is the historical body which reveals its soul and spirit. By 'body' I mean that which makes possible direct action in the world of facts. . . . This body is like a tree which has a certain number of branches which bear many leaves, but whose roots are in heaven. . . . Is this the Tree of the Sephiroth of the Cabala? . . . . Or, again, the Tree of Life?" (65) "The Tree of Life is the source of the miracles of generation, transformation, rejuvination, healing and liberation. Conscious participation with it, ad perpetranda miracula rei unis [to accomplish the miracles of the one thing] as the Emerald Table expresses it, is the 'great work' of sacred magic" (67).

• The "wings" of her throne: "The throne of the Empress has a back. It strongly resembles two wings . . . . Could not one see the back here in the form of two petrified and immobilised wings, but which had once been genuine wings and which are again potentially so?" (63)

May the links of the network shine

I just came across a list of "the solutions to all our problems (guaranteed!)" by Michael Ventura. The list, originally in the March 9, 1990, issue of L.A. Weekly, was reprinted in the July-August 1990 issue of Utne Reader. Three "solutions" strike me as especially appropriate for this blog:

16. Dance. Jesus said, in one of the Gnostic gospels, "He who does not dance does not know what happens."

32. Stop looking for other people to supply the solution. You're the solution. If you're not, there is no solution.

33. Be aware of the Network. We live by a network of connections and links. Your connection to yourself, to your intimates, to your place, to the collective, to the planet, to the Infinite. (Each is a distinct connection.) Equally powerful are the collective's connections to you (not at all the same as yours to it), to groups of intimates, to itself, to the planet, to the Infinite.

All the links or connective points of this network (call them the acupuncture points of our universe) both take and generate energy. Any link out of sync weakens the others. (The West, for instance, has concentrated too much on the individual, the East, too much on the collective; both approaches have been catastrophic on every level of the network.) This network, from you all the way to the Infinite, is a living whole, ceaselessly changing. Some of these changes take millions of years. Some happen instantaneously.

May the links of the network shine.

Meditations on the Tarot 2: The High Priestess

(See my post on Arcanum 1 for explanation.)

2. The High Priestess

• The number 2: This number reminds us that the goal of Christian mysticism is not loss of the self but the "unity of two," the self and God, through love. This love is symbolized in Genesis by "the divine Breath and its Reflection" (33), the creative act of the Spirit moving across the reflective face of the water. [In reflecting on our direct experience of the Divine, we reenact the Creation.] The Christian mystics' "union with the Divine is not the absorption of their being by Divine Being, but rather the experience of the breath of Divine Love" (36).
• The Priestess as woman: The word sophia, wisdom, is feminine. "The intellect being the reflection--or light--of the fire principle of love, can only be the feminine principle, Sophia or Wisdom, who assists the Creator in the work of creation, according to the Old Testament. The gnostic tradition also considers Sophia as the feminine principle. Pure intellect is that which reflects; love is that which acts" (39).
• Her three-layered, bejeweled tiara and her book: The three-layered crown and book symbolize the four stages of Hermetic Christian practice: "It is by way of three stages that the crystallisation of the pure act descends through the three higher and invisible planes before arriving at the fourth stage--the book" (40). "The first [stage] is the pure reflection or a kind of imaginative repetition of the experience. The second stage is its entrance into memory. The third stage is its assimilation in thought and feeling, in a manner where it becomes a 'message' or inner word. The fourth stage, lastly, is reached when it becomes a communicable symbol or 'writing', or 'book'--i.e. when it is formulated" (41). Each of these stages has a corresponding "sense" and can be represented by a letter of the Tetragrammaton: the "mystical sense" (Yodh), the "gnostic sense" (He), the "magical" sense (Vav), and the "Hermetic-philosophical sense" (He). "Full consciousness of the sacred name YHVH can only be attained by the united experience of these four senses and the practice of four different methods. . . . He who dares to aspire to the experience of the unique essence of Being will develop the mystical sense. . . . If he wants not only to live but also to learn to understand what he lives through, he will develop the gnostic sense. And if he wants to put into practice what he has understood from mystical experience, he will develop the magical sense. If, lastly, he wants all that he has experienced, understood and practised to be not limited to himself and his time, but to become communicable to others and to be transmitted to future generations, he must develop the Hermetic-philosophical sense, and in practising it he will 'write his book'" (42).
• Her seated position: "To be seated signifies a relationship between the vertical and horizontal which corresponds to the task of the outward projection (horizontal, book) of the descending revelation (vertical, tiara). This position indicates the practical method of gnosis, just as the standing Magician indicates the practical method of mysticism. The Magician dares--for this reason he is standing. The High Priestess knows--this is why she is seated. The transformation from to dare to to know consists in the change of position from that of the Magician to that of the High Priestess" (40). [The Masonic ring I wear carries an early American Masonic motto: Vide, Aude, Tace--Know, Dare, Be Silent.]

Meditations on the Tarot 1: The Magician

Meditations on the Tarot is widely regarded as one of the past century's spiritual classics. The author, who published the work anonymously, presents a Hermetic Christian theology in the form of meditations on the twenty-two major arcana of the Tarot, using the Marseilles deck. (For more on the book, including identification of its author, see its Wikipedia entry.)

I'm restarting my reading of the book; this time I hope to finish it. As a self-discipline, I'm planning to summarize, briefly, its chapters, and add some commentary of my own, especially from a systems perspective.

Text in quotation marks is quoted directly from Meditations; other unbracketed text is summary or paraphrase of the book. Text in brackets is my own commentary.

1. The Magician

• The number 1: This number reminds us of "the unity of all worlds" (in the words of the Emerald Tablet, "as above, so below") and the goal of individuation, Jung's term for the "synthesis of the self." [This goal is, paradoxically, where we start from; see the last section of Eliot's Four Quartets.]
• The Magician himself: The Magician's manner demonstrates "concentration without effort," the ability to "transform work into play," and to make "every yoke . . . easy and every burden . . . light" (8).
• The Magician's hat: The hat, in the form of the infinity symbol, reminds us of the eternal rhythm of the breath as the center of consciousness.
• The Magician as the first arcanum: The Magician, standing at the beginning of our journey, both invites us and warns us. [The Magician is Hermes, a trickster figure, and meets us as we enter the unpredictable and unknown. When we go to seek deep knowledge, just as when we go to see a stage magician, we must bring a willingness to be surprised.]

Whither it goes

Chapter One of Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism begins with an epigraph from the Gospel of John:

The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit (iii,8).

The field of chaos theory began with an almost identical observation by Edward Lorenz, that the nonlinear system we call weather is utterly determined yet utterly unpredictable. For the author of John, the Spirit, too, is a nonlinear system, far from equilibrium, on the very edge of chaos.

Our breaking and slashing of God

Kester Brewin, at The Complex Christ, has been posting an interesting series of reflections on, among other things, the shift in power that occurs when hunter-gatherer economies are replaced by agricultural economies. From the latest in that series:

Bread is not the simplest thing to make. Leavened, it requires careful control of yeasts, and to make in any quantity, a good supply of grain and a means of controlled heat.

Wine requires more technology still. Large quantities of grapes need to be harvested, and these need proper storage to age and mature.

In other words, the Eucharist as we know it contains hidden within it symbols of our domestication of the earth and its resources and thus, connectedly, symbols of the domination of one life-style - settled food production - over another - hunting and gathering.

Perhaps this is benign, being so long in our history in the making, but I wonder if, in these times when our relationship to the planet is so fragile we might reflect on the Eucharist as a sort of lament for our abuse of the world, just as we might use it to lament for our breaking and slashing of God.