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We become “SEEKERS” and apply ourselves to the task of determining the meaning of the symbols of the Zero Card, “The Fool.” It is generally agreed that the card symbolizes the “fall” of mankind into the world of material life. The spirit of man is said to have been perfect and “with God” but for some mysterious reason had to fall or leave the high estate to enter material or physical life.

The question is always asked, “Why was this necessary?”

The answer entails a hundred other questions. We ask, “What is God?” “Why did a perfect and all wise and all powerful God wish to create a universe and set units of intelligence evolving from lower to higher and higher forms of life?”

We have learned in modem times to trace the steps by which the one celled forms of life evolve to the many celled forms which culminate in man, who exhibits human intelligence. This is very simple and satisfactory except for the fact that we cannot have a machine without someone to run it. We cannot have a blind and unguided evolutionary growth. A master plan and a guiding intelligence simply MUST be behind the whole process. We see evidence of a plan and a general LAW dictating the manner of growth upward from bottom to top.

Again we are confronted with the old question of “Who came first, the hen or the egg?” Ancient Egyptian sages seem to have answered “both and neither.” The sages of India got around the difficulty by saying the gods presented first one facet of creation and then another, showing first the hen, then the egg and then the chick, none of them, necessarily being related to the others at first showing, but becoming an evolutionary sequence as Creation entered any one of its appearances. Maya, the great god of illusion and false seeming was blamed for making things appear, as anyone would know, what they simply COULD NOT be, logically considered. It was a double talk of ideas.

THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION was reversed in the teachings of the ancient sages. The Unknowable First Cause, for some unknowable reason, divided himself into male and female parts. As a rule, the female appears first and is pictured as giving birth to a male. In any case, when there is a first pair, such as Sky and Earth, they produce children, and these in turn reproduce, always multiplying and always dropping down a level until, at the end of the out- or down “pouring,” the devolution is complete and the earliest and smallest units of living entities fill a Space and Time created to hold them.

This DEVOLUTION then becomes EVOLUTION, with the tiny units growing back to re form the First Cause in its original state. The sages of India postulated a continual going out and coming in, with a period of rest between. A few explained that God just liked to play, and that was his form of amusement.

EVOLUTION, however, demanded higher guidance, so Creation was divided into two parts, one part went to the bottom and began to evolve upward while the other part simply remained at various stations and levels of the downward path to act as guides and superintend the half in the upward growth. To keep all in proper order, a LAW was postulated. This guided the guides, so to speak.

In some versions of the story, the spirit intelligences who stopped to act as guides were said to have rebelled against God and the Law, trying to do things to suit themselves. From this story of the rebellious or “fallen” angelic beings, came some very handy explanations of WHY man broke the LAW and SINNED. But the stories always had a happy ending in which the sinners of all levels eventually were either destroyed utterly and completely, or were brought back into the fold to enjoy a complete SALVATION and be made ready to enter Heaven that is, to become a part of the First Cause from which they had emanated. Usually there was provided a SAVIOR who was both man and god to enable the sinners to reform and survive. It was rather poor logic to say that at each round of Creation a large part of the First Cause was lost by becoming completely bad and having to be destroyed utterly. To avoid this mistake, the bad were sometimes punished in everlasting fire which, of course, could not really be everlasting, and in the end brought back in one way or another to be once more a part of the First Cause. It was all just a little bit complicated, no matter in which land the sages worked to give an answer to the basic question of how we got here and why …. and where do we go and how?

When, in modern times, EVOLUTION was polished up and given a scientific respectability, our later day sages tried to give a new and better answer to the questions. But, always, they had to have some of “intelligence” left out of the grand plan of hitting bottom in a single mass and starting to bounce upward. There had to be the Guides of evolution; there was no doing without them.

BUT, if the Guides escaped the evolutionary process, as the great Herbert Spencer sternly pointed out, the whole scheme of evolution had to be thrown out. He insisted on “ALL OR NOTHING” and the question remained as far from an answer as ever.

THE VERY MODERN concept is that perhaps God, as inclusive of all intelligence, matter and energy, does not remain apart from Creation, but permeates it, each tiniest unit having its own bit of the intelligence and knowing what to do to evolve. As cells combine, intelligence combines and still knows what to do. This presents the First Cause in the form of a revolving circle in which, like the “Wheel” of the tenth Taro Card, shows a descent into dense matter on the descending side of the Wheel, and an evolving upward movement on the opposite side. This rather neatly gets rid of the starting and stopping points, as they are mixed together and made into a form of perpetual motion. Some argue that “intelligence” separates from denser matter on the up¬ward path just above man and continues to unite with other units of intelligence and evolve with only the invisible (aka?) body.

For simplifications of these increasingly complicated guesses, Dr. Raynor C. Johnson’s book, “Nurslings of Immortality” will be found easy and pleasant reading, although at the end of it, perhaps a little hopeless of answering the basic questions which engage us in this time honored field of speculation. He goes over to giving the belief systems presented by the spirit of F.W.H. Myers, supposedly through automatic writing received through the medium, Geraldine Cumains. It is a system of “planes,” “levels” and “intermediate states,” and while well worth consideration, does not agree with other systems aimed at explaining the same set of old and new problems. One cannot accept the statements of one spirit, no matter how learned, while discarding as certainly false all other spirit systems which have been recorded in book after book.

Perhaps one of us of the revived HRA can offer a better solution of the basic problem. If one is offered, it will be reported in the next N.H. issue if it will hold water well and bear critical examination.

Failing the discovery of a complete and satisfactory answer, we may do worse than to follow the example of na kahuna. They invented creation myths with gods and godlings stationed all along the evolutionary path. That was, however, not too important to them. They were a practical lot. They seem to have realized that the human mind could not reach beyond the idea of the vague gods rising in position above na Aumakua. For their purposes, it was good enough to let the beginnings and endings take care of themselves while they settled down to make the most of the very excellent, logical and inclusive piece of knowledge which they called “The Secret.” This had three selves, three shadowy bodies for the selves to live in, and three grades of mana or vital force to use. In life, there was also the body. Besides this, there was sex and the final union of male and female on the next higher level to form the Aumakua.

The symbols of the Taro Cards, once we pass the First Degree Zero Card problems, are concerned with the general picture of the conditions of life which confront us as we evolve, and of the laws under which growth must be made. To know the conditions and to be well aware of the laws or rules under which Guidance is given, is a first step of great importance. The second step is to make use of what we learn.

The Lodge now adjourns. The cards go back into their box until next session.

MFL