Читать книгу The Spirit of the Tarot - Claudine Aegerter - Страница 18

The Magician or holder of the baton, is bright and wilful, full of potential and enthusiasm, yet he comes into the world knowing about the illusions and glamour of the world, so he is not going to be taken in by them. He is here to look for the greater truth and can only find it by being completely part of this world. He has all the elements of the Earth to use and he sees the whole of humanity reflected in him; by this means he can recognise what is real or illusionary within him. This is the work and the journey has begun.

The Magician is the beginning of the pack, The Fool is the end and in between these two, the work has to be done and the journey made. The Magician represents the first stage or the Number 1, so he holds all the keys and is the potential initiate. He is the start of the process of the Number 1 travelling through his inner landscape for transformation. He’s represented as a man because he is the active principle. The Major Arcana was originally meant only for initiates and not for the average person, so he is someone who knows he is on the path of expanding consciousness.

He knows that the material world or the world of form is an illusion and that humanity is doomed to self-destruct if it stays in that illusion. We have to stay in physical incarnation long enough to learn to survive, so that eventually we can say “There must be more than this” and start to look beyond the material world. The Magi cian comes back knowing that he is not going to be taken in by the illusion of form, so he will rise above whatever he has to do in the world in order to find the higher view of the Soul, which he can then apply and work with in the world. He’s coming back to research and find the truth and light, in a world dominated by illusion and glamour, glamour being the illusion of the emotional.

He has come to change the world, but he knows that it is his perception of the world that has to change. ‘Be the change you want in others’. This means he has to make the change in himself and so spark the understanding of the process in others. This process is shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1. The field of the work of the initiate.

Actually The Magician is the wrong name for him, because the sort of person we would normally call a magician would be someone who would perform and demonstrate magic tricks by showing a ‘before’ and ‘after’. The Magician’s more appropriate description is the French name for the card, which is ‘Le Bateleur’, meaning somebody who handles a baton to represent the power of his passion. The true Bateleur, or Magician, has to work with situations as they are; he simply cannot do anything else. He can not escape the elements or the karmic laws and limits that bind humanity on the planet. We have people on the planet who do not respect the natural laws because they want to be seen as magicians, but the true Magician partakes in the situation and the laws down here on Earth, with the highest respect. In fact the way he’s going to work is to stimulate and initiate, so that the work is done from within. Otherwise, he knows that it doesn’t really happen – there might be an apparent change for five minutes and then things go back to where they were before.

The whole of life is movement and that movement has shaped the web of life in such a way that it can hold all the possibilities or potential. The psychic space of the planet is more polluted at the moment than the physical body of the planet. The mental and emo tional levels are equally or more polluted, this is demonstrated in the way that we treat life and each other. This is what the Bateleur, or baton holder comes back into, so we may wonder why he’s got a big smile on his face! He is happy because he’s going for truth and love, for without those there is no way he would be able to escape the weight of the illusionary world. This world is not just heavy, it is very thick and sticky and also very appealing, like honey. So he’s coming back into all the ties and karmic webbing that humanity has surrounded itself with. The average person is bound and tied in their own glamour and illusion. The cutting of these ties is the work that the initiate has to achieve within himself, using the very same tools of the everyday life experience in the world of matter. He has to inspire himself before he can inspire others to do the same.

The Magician sees himself as completely part of the world and therefore can use the world to recognise what is still true or untrue within him. He knows about ‘as above, so below’, therefore what is in front of him can have a strong reflection within him. He knows that for the unreal to be wiped out he needs to feel his human side intimately, so as not to go into the illusion that he is different. The elements are in him, humanity is in him and he has to recognise and accept that, if he wants the clarity and the purification of the mirror. He’s smiling because he hasn’t realised all of that yet!

Each card in the Major Arcana represents part of a whole, so in order to understand the place our Magician holds, looking at some of the other cards is helpful.

The first three cards, The Magician, The High Priestess and The Empress, represent the three major aspects of the unity of the God we live in, so in these three we see a depiction of the divine Trinity. It is through encountering The High Priestess in Number 2, that The Magician looks for pure mind or intuition through reflection, and then with The Empress in Number 3, he finds a way to apply these attributes to the world. Basically he’s come back to search for and find, the truth of the divine light in a world that is dominated by illusion and glamour.

The Magician is the son in the Trinity. Son is a lovely word, because in the Anglo-Saxon language it is so close to the word ‘sun’, which also has a link with ‘Soul’. In French the word for son is ‘fils’, which looks the same as the French word for thread, so this reminds us of the thread of Ariadne that Theseus carried with him into the under world to enable him to find his way out again. This is the ‘son’ that is ready to go into the darkness of earthly life. That golden thread of inspiration from the Soul means he can come back and synthesise the receptive and active qualities of the God we live in, becoming the result of the union of the first two – the son.

So these first three cards depict the higher Trinity and then Number 4 is The Emperor; this is the concept of that Trinity that has to be crystallised. Through the vigilant guidance of the wise men and women of humanity, he is an active, masculine principle and this gives him authority. It is important to see the figures in the cards not as male and female, but rather as active and receptive. Some times some of the active figures are quite passive as well and vice versa, because a complete balance has been achieved.

It is interesting to see that Number 6 is called The Lovers, but in fact it is ‘The Lover’ and it could be masculine or feminine. This is an example of how words can influence and get in the way of true understanding. Eventually, as we work more with the symbols, the deeper level of interpretation will not come from the intellectual, but from somewhere more profound and subtle. So rather than try ing to make sense of them via the intellect, we can allow them to speak to us from that deeper place. It is out of survival and despair that we’ve said that there must be more than what we find in ordi nary life, so it is necessity that pushes the nature in us up to her lover. Then the intellect in man has to give up and look for another answer to the question, “Is this all there is?”

Number 12, The Hanged Man, represents the state that any initiate aspires to. He is depicted upside down, with his hands tied behind his back and he is in hell. All he can remember is how to be the wind and the fire and so he gives his life for the greater life. He is upside down because spiritually the world is actually the wrong way up, the true life being the inner not the outer. He can’t actually do anything, because all he can do is serve and what he is doing doesn’t even appear to be service to the world. In The Hanged Man we can see an upside down Number 4 made with the shape of his legs, which shows us that the Number 4 has reached the breaking point; here even the idea of pride has to be given up. Pride makes us think that we are special and that we can actually ‘become God’. Then in Number 13 we remove the intellectual head to stop nam ing anything that may keep us tied to self appreciation. This is a Number 4 that has uplifted itself towards the Trinity; every notion of self has got to disappear so that the mind, free of the intellect, can see situations from a transpersonal point of view.

The Magician has a lovely happy face, but the face of the Fool is his other side. The Fool is the end result of the journey, where any self-protection has been removed. When we consider that, we can see why we have to be a Fool to come back again!

We’re looking here at the exoteric way of grounding ideas in order to guide or frustrate the world, so that men can start asking questions and desire another way of life. When we are guiding oth ers, we may say “Go for it!” even if everyone else says the opposite. A little bit of foolishness can get people a bit frustrated, but then they start to think for themselves. That is the way to be a Fool of God, which is our last card, The Fool. The fool in the court, the jester, or comedian, is the one that is doing all types of silly things, but in fact he is the one that is wise. In the past the jester would guide the king or the emperor, because he had one or two bits of wisdom in his little bag. This is the role of the initiate; it is not so much having a long face and telling the world the dread, or beauty of things to come, it is about saying ‘go for it’ and teaching people to laugh at themselves, because from the point of view of Soul we are only wit nessing, so to want to be better than anyone else is a joke.

Basically, the problem is with all of us. We can perceive, some times we can even apply the higher pattern to the lower dimension and hopefully we are as honest, aware and awake as we can be with our reaction to the world. The world is us and it is within us. We know intellectually that we mustn’t suffer disappointment, because that would mean that we are not there yet, or not ‘it’ yet. If we are honest with ourselves and if we recognise the world in us we cannot be disappointed, because if we stand from a point of where the world is at, where is the disappointment? We can’t go lower than where we already are. That is where we all have to start and there’s no way we are above anybody else. If we do get disappointed by the result of our actions, it only means that we think we are better than we are. We can tell others they did their best, but we do not apply the same rules for ourselves. So stop trying, keep going and keep doing!

There is a point of wisdom where we have to learn when some thing is not viable any more. We persevere and then there is a point where we have to ask, ‘what is the pattern that I keep repeating? Has the karmic lesson been learnt? Is it a bad habit left behind, or should I persevere because I have not seen it yet? We all are very fragile and young and maybe we send our arrows in completely the wrong direction, but as long as we keep sending them, one day the goal becomes internalised. The characteristic of the action of the profane world is action for the sake of reaction and this will never exhaust its possibilities, or achieve a goal.

In the sacred world of the Magician, the actions are above all symbolic and so have the value of true ritual. From this point of view an action is not about learning to do a ritual, it is doing it with the knowledge and understanding of why we are doing it; that is what makes the magic. An action is performed with elegant poise. The vision of the mind is held with love, as in transpersonal har mony with the Soul, rather than for some self gratification or self-aggrandisement. It could be exactly the same action as the man next to us, but it is the understanding and the love that we put into it which makes all the difference. This is the purity of intent aligning us with the natural, abundant, creative force of Spirit, which makes nature come up every spring.

The Magician is confronted with all the problems to be solved. Once he comes into matter, he knows that straight away he’s going to be faced with the sphinx; this is the work! If we look at Number 2, The High Priestess, her left arm is resting on a black sphinx which represents ‘the dweller on the threshold’, meaning all the dark shad ows of the subconscious. His life will be full of enigma, questions and problems that he has to understand in order not to be eaten by the sphinx; in other words not to be taken in by the monsters of the subconscious. If he sees all the misunderstandings and pictures that the subconscious has presented to him as real, then he will be eaten by the meaning and go down again into the illusion and form of the small self, or personality. The work of this first card is extremely important, because this is where he is tested to see whether he can go through to the next level, for if he goes through when he is not ready, he faces annihilation, so it is an eternal life or cyclic death matter. If he doesn’t pass that threshold he will stay in ordinary con sciousness and become the magician who plays games and tricks people.

Once he has grasped the secret and been able to take the key and open the great door, he knows that there is no return. If he can’t open it or chooses not to, he can retreat; that is the choice and this is what the average mass consciousness in humanity has done for thousands of years. Many who come to the door do not go through it, for they haven’t enough of that incredible sacrificial fiery quality that the Number 1 has to have, so they go back to survival mode. It is like being faced with ‘the fires of hell’ and being prepared to go through them; actually those fires are the purifying fires of love. Number 1 can have some fool-hardiness and pride, which may make them go into the fire of sensual passion and so into degenera tion and destruction, rather than the passion of the love of God of truth. But that is a choice and if we are foolhardy enough to take that choice, we should remember the message from eternity, that there is all the time in the world!

The Magician’s shoes are black, because that is the first colour of the great alchemical work, which takes place through the whole of the 22 cards of the Major Arcana. This first stage of the alchemical work is also called the work of the raven, for this black bird sym bolises the work of exploring the subconscious, which is the very heart of the materia prima. In this first aspect of the work matter is represented esoterically by coal. Black coal represents the deepest, densest matter; it can be ignited to burn, giving flames and warmth. In the same way if we don’t go into our subconscious to find the densest darkest places, we can’t achieve the alchemical burning. The whole of the experience of matter is here represented by the coal, which is ready to be heated in the alchemical oven or athenor, so as to start the process of trans-substantiation. When we give ourselves in service, we give up all our experience of matter into the fire to be burned; in that process we can become ‘no substance’. The black work is the beginning, so we start from the matter that is not yet aware of itself and not aware that it is informed by Spirit. This is the starting point of man, so we see it symbolised in Adam, the earth-ling, or the newborn child, in a time when life was based purely on animal instinct and survival. With the energy of The Magician this Adam-man is asked to evolve, aspire and transcend, so becoming the spiritual human potential. If we look at The Magician’s hat, it is shaped in the symbol of infinity and he’s being asked to evolve to that infinite point, for as the initiate he has all the levels of con sciousness within him.

He has a wand, or baton, in his hand, to repre sent man with all the potential and illusions of power within mankind. We shouldn’t be afraid to own our illusions, for if we are honest and able to understand their roots, we will transmute their energy into the force and ability to express our potential. The minute we see the illusions, we can transmute them and make a huge leap, then eventually by lifting and falling (only transmuting more coal into energy) again and again, we will have done that energetic rise in consciousness.

The Magician comes back realising that he holds all the possi bilities in him and he is completely aware of how he has to handle matter. He has the baton in his hand, which is the symbol for the wands and on the table in front of him he has the cup, the sword and the pentacle. These are the four elements symbolising the tools that we have to help us proceed from the lower to the higher states. The wand is fire, the pentacle earth, the sword is air and the cup is water. He holds the wand in his left hand and he’s pointing to the pentacle with the index finger of his right hand. He has contact with the wand of the active/masculine element, which is directed towards and received by, the pentacle of earth, the feminine/receptive element. The Magician himself is active, being a Number 1, because he acts on and in the world; he’s the alchemist guiding the transmutation of those parts of the world he’s going to expose. The sword, as air, is masculine/active, bringing Spirit into the receptive/feminine cup.

The wand is in his left hand. If we see a picture of someone in authority with a wand in the right hand, this is a false magician. This is because the right hand is the hand of rationalism and intel lect, whereas the left hand is about feeling and receptivity. The red upper tip of the wand represents the fire of Spirit coming down; the lower blue tip symbolises receptivity to that greater energy, which has to be translated by the mind. The order or command is received from above through the left hand, so it is not him doing the order ing. This gives him the possibility of receiving intuitive power and knowledge and then implementing the vision into the material world, which is represented by the pentacle, or element Earth. He is really a ‘way-through’, for he doesn’t do it himself. That is why he’s a true Magician, for he understands and acts, but knows that the greater energy is working through him. This is what it means when it says in Genesis that the power and domination of the world is given to man, so that it can be used to work in the name of God. This is of course an incredibly high degree of achievement and we have to go through the purification of all our mistakes, which are only misunderstandings, to eventually become a true Magician or juggler. The word ‘juggler’ is another good name for this card, for it doesn’t carry the pretensions of the ego that ‘The Magician’ does.

If we haven’t elevated our minds into the knowledge that the world of matter and form is an illusion, then we become the type of magician that does magic in an illusionary way. We need to look at the distinction between the two magicians, for the difference is quite subtle. It is about applying the word of God to everyday life, rather than playing at moving or manifesting objects in the air. The real work could be something so simple as to be unnoticed.

The Magician has to be completely open, supple and receptive, for he never knows when the order is going to come and he always has to be ready to obey the higher impulse from within himself. He is getting himself ready to knock on that great inner door with the purpose of finding the universal truth.

The wand is a symbol of order or command; it has been found absolutely everywhere on the planet, right back to prehistoric times wands are found in tombs buried with tribal chiefs. The wand would be given to the wise one in the tribe, because they would be recognised as having ideas that were always beneficial to the group and therefore coming from a higher place. This is the spiritual will coming in to inform matter and the power conferred to mankind to dominate, use and transform the material world. It is a great chal lenge and can have an inverse action, for in the acceptance of power a man is dragged into the world, which then may hold and imprison him. When he dominates his world from that place, he can be con fused if he focuses on that and starts to believe that he is ‘God’. This means that he’s not purified enough and his personality is being taken up by the idea of his own power.

Matter is not the prison for Spirit, rather it gives the freedom for Spirit to forever demonstrate and manifest new forms, new diversity, new beauty and new refinement. But if we haven’t felt the heaviness and the incredible lure of form, we shouldn’t even try to be a Magician. Matter becomes mere dust when we know it isn’t real and can be transformed with ideas into new worlds. When we get taken in by matter, we feel the mass and the heaviness of it; we all recognise that feeling. From coal to diamond, we have to experience life on the earth as heavy, dark and oppressive, so as to associate with the suffering of humanity. Every time we go through an up-lift, we release the weight of what we’re leaving behind. Remember the 8 of infinity, which tells us that every time we rise we have to go a bit lower, until eventually we touch the outer realm of our world.

The wand or baton is also used as a symbol of generation, with the idea of perpetrating a species, a race or an idea. Mass conscious ness will use this energy as brute power. In this case it would be completely lost except for its other use – the instinct of reproduction, which is needed to perpetuate the race. In mankind the instinct of reproduction carries misunderstandings and distortions. The great illusion for mankind is that we think we choose, possess and domi nate, when all the time we are only the instrument of propagation. So the initiate can easily revert to the state of the generative, biologi cal man, rather than remembering where he comes from and what he’s supposed to do. Because he is going deeper than he has ever gone before, he feels that the perseverance he has had to have to go through his many lives has all been in vain. All he needs is to become a witness, a Soul infused personality and maya will not fool him anymore.

The Magician, with his discriminating right hand of reason, shows us the pentacle, which is the sign that represents the Earth. It is the circle of Spirit, sur rounding the cross of matter to show us that he is implementing Spirit into the world. The position of the hands is reflected in the feet. The right foot is stable and solid, so that the left one can step out from a good base. They are in the shape of a setsquare, which is another symbol used by the initiate, to do with measuring and sacred geometry; man as a corner stone for a temple. So the steps are taken from the solid ground of rationalism and common sense and the movement comes from feeling, receptiv ity and above all, passion.

This passion burns a path for the higher energies of love and light, to penetrate matter with the purpose of uplifting its conscious ness. It is the passion that says “I’m going for it whether I’m going to be blamed or praised”. The ultimate hallmark of any master has to be the passion of service and the fire of action. Passion receives the higher order when it is aligned to the higher will and then it is implemented into right action. The ‘sad souls’, or the souls without colour, who lived ‘without attracting blame or praise’ were the first people Dante saw in hell and these were people without passion. When we are ‘going for it’, that is when the doors of hell are open and the passion is there, ready to deliver action, devotion and sacrifice out of chaos. The passion of searching for the truth is the most dangerous passion there is, for it has to do with the slaying of an aspect of the personality, such as the glamour of being best loved of the emotional body, or the pride of the intellect. We can hold on to the idea that we are the gift, rather than understanding that the gift is working through us. When we know the latter we climb against the current many times, like the salmon, which is another symbol for the initiate. If we have not purified our personal intent or needs, it is not the fire of truth that is going to push us along, but the fire of disintegration, so the danger is real and involves survival of the Soul. There is nothing more dangerous than the pursuit of truth, but we have to be in love with it and then the danger doesn’t seem real, because love holds and transmutes any misunderstanding we might have had. So we learn to master our passion and therefore learn to transmute it, but at the beginning if there is no passion, we might as well forget it, for esoterically we have to want to die for the truth. This means to let go of our self importance and our survival mechanism. This would make us a fool according to the everyday success story of the world!

If we have taken a ‘wrong path’ then we have more coal for burn ing. We can love and transmute that path into the right path; it is as simple as that. All mistakes are allowed and it is not even a question of allowing, for there’s actually no mistake.

It is in the two or three cards after The Magician that discrimina tion and determination will be developed, because we can’t ask a Number 1 to discriminate. If we receive an impulse from the higher self we have no time to discriminate! If our impulse is from the needs of mass consciousness then we have to start learning to discriminate, because by the time we come to The Empress we have to be able to tell the difference between the two, otherwise we will be using the power of the wand for the generation of more glamour, rather than the enlightenment of nature. If we want to keep on doing that, we can do it for eternity, but if we want to get onto the path of the Soul then we have to start to discriminate.

The pentacle is gold, for gold cannot decay or be corrupted and so it doesn’t follow the rules of the material world. It is the gold in his purified solar plexus, the seat of emotional needs and impulse, which is preventing The Magician from being tainted, or brought down by mass consciousness and the lower passions.The purity of his understanding of the material world cannot be soiled; he can live in the world without being spoilt or stained and can give orders without thinking that the power is his. We have to reach that stage of incorruptibility if we want to rise above the magnetic pull of needs and desires, for it is purified matter that allows spiritual action. The beautiful Celtic, or Antioch cross of the occident which is carved on the pentacle, symbolises the union of Spirit and matter. The Magician has his index finger on the centre of the cross, which is the goal, for only from the cen tre can we transform or transmute. Spirit has no other goal but the fusion with matter in order to release it from its unconscious state.

The cup on the table reminds us of the Grail cup, as well as all the other beautiful cups of initiation. It is full of red blood. It is a silver cup with a hex agonal stem, so its six sides tell us of the creation of all things, for it rises out of the Star of David as the perfect cup of nature. This speaks of the six amazing days of the creation of the material world in which man lives. Silver is the colour of the aspiration of nature to fuse with her maker. There is no other way that the mind can rise except by the taking of initiation and mak ing the blood sacrifice, blood being a symbol for the living Soul. This means giving the love of one’s life for a higher cause; this sacrifice can only stem out of the heart of matter, willing to give its experience up for the love of Spirit or truth. When somebody takes an initiation it is from within and however great the initiator in front of him is, it could not happen if the person were not ready for it. Even if Jesus (the Soul of mind) were the initiator it couldn’t happen, for there is no possible sacrifice if it doesn’t come from the heart or Soul of matter itself. That is why The Magician is not a magician in the ordinary sense, for he will not ‘magic’ things to happen. When the beautiful hexagonal Star of David (the perfected nature in mankind as king) has done its work of rising up and has offered its life’s blood, or the experience of the Soul of nature to the process, it happens.

The cup is the greatest instrument of divination, because it will always reflect and always be receptive. It is the instrument of com munion with the divine, for the cup receives the divine. Man must live in his becoming. Life is an unfolding evolution, rather than accountability, so we should not keep on measuring what we have done in the past. The cup of course is feminine and cannot give any other service but to receive.

It is the nature of the cup to receive and when she receives the light energy of the sword, she can only respond according to the level of her own understanding of the God we live in, so if the consciousness is purely focussed on nature, that energy will be transformed into babies, seasons or harvest. The cup can only form shapes that are a reflection of her own life, which is the per fection of nature imposing form on whatever she receives. This receptivity is not passive, it is receiving and creating, but it can only create a replica of itself. When suddenly the receptivity of the cup is uplifted into a higher dimension then that new vision can be replicated. For this reason it is important not to look down at the path of the life of nature, whose higher aspiration has to do with surviving in the physical. The more receptive we can be to the higher levels of thinking and ideals, the more of the new world we can manifest. The preparation for the future is held in the cup itself and this is truly what gives her the power of divination, because it is through the work of the pure, transparent, receptive feminine that the future can actually be seen in advance and materialised into ideas, words and actions. All we need to do is uplift our cups (inner sight) so that the new vision of humanity can be received; it is as simple as that. If the nature in us doesn’t want to replace attachment to the survival of the form by the concept of a higher vision of love and harmony, it won’t happen. The symbol of the cup is linked to the great mother, the Goddess, or Mary; she is that great field of life that holds the whole Solar System together. It is not just Earth, or the Goddess of nature materialising, but the great Goddess of receptivity, making certain that she faithfully reproduces her ideals. The transmutation of the world is in the cup, which is where the alchemy is happening.

You could call The Magician an alchemist who has to realise the great work. He acts on illusion so as to dissolve it and reveal reality. The sword and the cup are a necessary union of the two principles of mind and heart. Spirit has to go to the heart of mat ter for anything new and beautiful to happen, for new vision and new manifestation. If we use our heart or head alone we haven’t got a complete vision. The head and heart have to be together. The process has to be loved with the passion of the heart and the light of Spirit has to be able to penetrate the darkness, to absorb its mis understandings and this way clarifies the cup. This is mirroring the primordial union, when the Spirit came into the great womb of the Solar System; this is the evolution that we are re-enacting inwardly.

With the sword we are doing magic, for it is used to draw a circle of protection around The Magician. If we look at the handle it is in the shape of a gold cross. The blade is the penetrating Spirit used to vitalise matter, for we are not destroying with the sword of truth, but awakening and informing matter. That is why we need to understand that books or a person can’t change our lives; they may be a catalyst, but the acceptance of a revelation comes when we are ready. While we are thinking that something from outside will do it for, or to us, we haven’t contacted our own spark of responsibility to spiritualise truth. We need to kill the old for the new to be born.

It is not a bloody sword, but an incredible, wonderful sword, because it doesn’t just free the teacher or the initiator, it frees the old patterns of the past. As the Spirit penetrates matter, there is a symbolic death and at the same time a real death, for it frees man from attachment to the pull of matter. Man evolves, elevates and transmutes the unconscious in his body by the acceleration of his vibration with the light of understanding. This light creates a circle of protection, for he must live in this world to increase the light. The cross of the hilt of the sword tells him to cut himself free, mak ing certain that he has no auric or karmic ties around him, so that he doesn’t still give out the idea that the world ‘does’ it to him, or that he does it to the world! It is about owning and taking complete responsibility for our ideas and actions and then we are our own true initiators.

The cup and the sword allow the movement of inspiration from the wand to the pentacle to take place and then the manifesta tion is complete. Without the sword we can see that the pentacle wouldn’t be gold, for it could be corrupted by outer influences. The sword is the one that makes certain that we all have our own circle, that there are no ties to bind us, that nothing is pulling us down and that the gold of the solar plexus centre radiates, so ena bling the whole of the body to become incorruptible.

These four elements, or the four aspects represented by wands, pentacles, cups and swords in the minor Arcana are the beginning of everyday life and the totality of the cosmic world at the same time. They tie up with the cosmic patterns of the stars and so link to the astrological signs.

The wand is fire, which is action and this is seen in Aries, which is the first sign to come in. This is the fiery direction that becomes domination in Leo. So Aries initiates a movement into a direction, or impulse. Leo is the dominating fire of life that has to find its own truth in dominating itself, then with Sagittarius the fire has to learn to point upwards and inwards. When the arrow keeps going downward, or towards the outer, we are looking at the Earth rather than looking at God, so then that fiery element goes into self-destruction. A fiery person that doesn’t look within is definitely in danger of burning out. If we want to dominate the world with our good or bad ideas, we slide into power and the lust for more. We have to learn to dominate our passions.

The cup represents the element water, which in its highest meaning is the great water of Heaven. Rain is what links the creative creature and his God and water is psychic life. So we start with Cancer, the origin of life, the Mary or mother who is the awak-ener of the psychic life. Then in Scorpio we have the hidden life, the mystery, sexuality and death, which bring the questions that the anxious man is going to ask, about the transition towards the Spirit. Pis ces, with the fishes, is completely submerged into the psychic life, revealing the difficulty with the two currents; one is going up and the other going down. It has to become the purified waters of the Soul, as Jesus (the Soul) demonstrated, by asking us to go beyond the physical and emotional worlds. Action has no value to man if it is not directed by the realm of the Soul, which is eventually the high est representation of the cup.

The sword, which is air, is Spirit inform ing the heart. In Gemini we have the mind that wakes up and its power touches every thing. It has to find stability. In Libra, we find a balance between the desire to dominate in Leo and the acceptance of sacrifice in Virgo. This middle point can truly only be achieved in this world, for there is no other possible place where it can be found. Once we have the middle point we’re home. Unless we can simultaneously experience life and witness it with detachment, we are not going to find the narrow door to the higher mind in the Soul. Air in Aquarius will allow the mind of humanity to go beyond the understanding of life as survival and will start to perceive the oneness of life in the cosmic waters. The mental/spiritual life of the air and the water will show us the way through. The mind of the average Aquarian has to work very hard at this point, to recognise other people’s point of view and reality, as equally important as their own. It is one great mind made of trillions of points of view.

The pentacle represents matter and the biological life of our bodies; this is where all initiation must start. It doesn’t matter which way we take, we have to go deeper and deeper into the Earth to reach the heart of the cells, which are the building blocks of life. This is the importance of the cave, for there is no birth without a cave and its potential of bursting into light. The test of probation on Earth gives man the trust or the backup of the world in which he lives. So we have the bull, Taurus, offering its endurance and devel oping the perseverance and the patience to find the light. Virgo has the resignation that forgets self through devotion, because we know that we hold the promise of the world in us. There is still a hint of accountability, judgement and criticism here, because Earth is the product of that fantastic Active Intelligence which will be able to see every single little detail that is not right, so it is only through devotion that we can completely resign ourselves to the idea that this is the way the world is; it is perfect as it is and not as we want it! Then in the great Capricorn we have the self-realised man, clothed in his own silence and secrets. He bears and holds the secret and he sometimes doesn’t even realise that he’s got a secret in him; all he knows is his silence. He has in front of him in his hand the entire cre ated world; all the mental thoughts and all the possibilities. That is a heavy weight and we can see why Capricorn can either be so stern or the depressive comic.

To be an initiate is not to be a disincarnate ‘master’, meaning an entity that doesn’t need to come back and experience matter; rather he is looking for the middle way. He has always known that wher ever he is in matter, the middle way is so right that he doesn’t need protection, because by being his own true nature he has become that middle way himself.

The Magician goes back into hell, meaning back into the dust of the past and although he’s been there before, he’s not done it on this particular round. He is very much in the world though he is engaged in taking possession of the means of domination of his per sonality; he must not see it as a way to get out. The Tarot is anthro-pocentric, meaning it is the journey of man through the medium in which we live, which is nature and it is only The Fool at the end of the journey who can take us back into this world, with more oppor tunity to love and understand. The mind has to soar and uplift, so as to truly understand that matter and form are the shadowy mis understanding of a higher reality that is to come. Yet mankind has to be grounded enough to act in the world. Matter is the past and we’re all past mistakes!

The table in front of The Magician has three visible legs and the fourth one is outside the picture. The three legs represent three of the four corners of Solomon’s temple and are the pillars of strength, wisdom and beauty. The fourth pillar is there, but is not visible, for it is man himself, the initiate, who is there to give stability in space and time. It is his spir itual power that gives a strong, stable consistency to the material manifestation of the building of the edifice, so that we can go from the impermanence of manifestation to the clarity of Spirit. Number 3 is the beginning of manifestation and is the great Trinity that isn’t yet viable, so the plan is drawn but is unstable. To make it viable we want the Number 1 to come back to make the fourth element; this is man with his spiritual courage and vision, rendering the great work of the Trinity viable. Without men recognising the Trinity in life, it cannot be perceived and named and therefore might not even exist. We bring it down into matter through our own recognition of love, strength, wisdom and beauty and through these the spiritual power is reborn.

In the manifested, material world the temple has four columns and a table has four legs, so another, more material way to see the fourth hidden leg would be as all the institutions. Everything that has to do with the secular world; groups, tribes, associations, nations and party politics: everything that gives stability to a society would be the fourth leg of that table. The initiate has replaced that by a spiritual foundation, rather than a material foundation and this is why we don’t need to see it, for it is not of this world. This confirms the fact that our Magician is very much outside the secular world; even if he is working in it he’s not at all taken in by it and so it has no authority over him. He has spiritual authority only, so that fourth leg really belongs to the higher plan of the Soul kingdom. This path that we are looking at is not for newcomers.

The red tulip is a recognised symbol for a superior initiation. When we see it depicted in ancient art that is its meaning. In the picture the little tulip is just opening, so it is the beginning of initiation that we’re looking at. However, this does not mean that

The Magician is a beginner; if he were the little plant would just be sprouting green and not flowering, so it is not one of the first initiations we’re looking at here. From within nature the stem of a plant reaches up towards the Sun. This stem is strong, with just a little bud opening, guided towards the light of the Sun. It reflects the colour red to show its passion.

His stockings are sky blue, with stripes of black to represent the heaviness of matter. The blue on his legs means that he is well balanced between Heaven and Earth. In the middle of his jacket is a blue panel with five buttons above the belt, to represent the five senses. The buttons are gold because his lower nature is completely purified and therefore obedient to the spiritual flow. Around his neck he has white, which represents purity of action and thought. Red is the colour of passion and of the blood, also it is sometimes seen as the colour of life at the material level. He has a good balance of red and green, which are complementary, to show the presence of both the life of matter and nature and the life of the Soul.

His sleeves are like wings, for once we become an initiate the hands become the wings of the Soul and they can manifest love. The arms and hands can hold and give love and healing and also do practical things such as making bread. If we put all our loving intent into whatever they are used for, we can see them as heal ers. They are the beginning of the exteriorised wings of the Soul. The yellow or gold which contours the hat and is coming out again on the shoulders, re-enforces the fact that he is entirely responsible for his own receptive capability, which is expressed by ‘as I receive through the cup of my mind, I act’. This is a complete response of action to the vision. The service is from and for the Earth, so we have the colour green.

His belt is red, black and white, which are the colours of initiation. When these colours are seen on the belt that rests on the hips, it tells us that he has completely given his power to service and to the higher life. It says, “I have no intention for myself, so anything I do, is for the world”. His belt is the belt of the initiation of the master. He has not yet realised that in the complete giving up of self-power, he is learning to dominate all his elements.

The gold background symbolises the golden thread of the Ancient Wisdom, which goes through all the cards.

His hat makes the Number 8 of infinity over his head and the shape of his head in his hat makes a circle of red, which shows us that he is a passion ate Soul. It is the passion within nature and within the Soul itself, which will attract the Spirit through the mind.

This is the man standing on the world he lives in, with the power of his mind to attain the vision of infinite understanding. He has to have a passion for the truth and the vision of a completely free world. Here we’re not talking about ‘freedom’ in the sense of feeling bet ter because one is free of burdens, but freedom in the sense of more loving, giving, allowing and understanding. This vision of complete union with the divine through service to humanity is the opposite of freedom in the ordinary sense. But before that can be achieved, we have to be free of the ties of the world. Initiation goes through stages of nine levels of freedom, but the true purpose and the true becoming is complete fusion with the highest, through complete acceptance of what we aim to free from ourselves. He knows within himself that he is infinite in essence and the aim is to free the essence, not from matter, but rather to free him from the misunderstanding that he is a prisoner or victim in matter. By being in perfect union with a higher and inner being, which is pure essence and the source of all things, the notion of limitation becomes inconceivable. He finds his full realisation and lives his life as if it should never end. He is not an apprentice but a silent master; his mouth is shut, he is smiling and he is actively work ing in a normal place of work. It is said of the master, ‘the world might think he belongs to it, but he stays in it so as to understand it better, in order to leave it behind’. He watches, he’s a witness, he contemplates; he’s in it but he doesn’t truly belong to the world. ‘The master doesn’t work because he knows, he knows because he works’. That is exactly what our Number 1 is coming back to do; he’s coming back for more understanding.

Thoughts are more important than words. Words can only express the value of thoughts, according to the measure and under standing of the world of form. In incarnation, man’s thought must be exteriorised and so manifested in the world. He has to be inde pendent, so he uses the energy not to adapt himself towards secu rity, but to transform the world nearer to his vision. The other way of using the laws of nature is to make ourselves more comfortable and give ourselves more gratification; here we are looking at a com pletely different use.

The Magician wants to know the laws of nature, so that he can use them to make life easier for mankind, this way he allows others to become initiates themselves and reveal man’s infinite possibili ties. While we are using all the laws of nature in the struggle to sur vive, we will have not much of a chance to go beyond the everyday life and ask the vital questions. Transcendence and spiritualisation has to come from within us, so mankind has to have freedom from the dominance of the needs of survival; this is a practical truth for the times we live in.

The initiatic science seeks to understand the whole of nature, right back to its origins, so that the creator can find himself in nature. But before that, we have to make sure that needs, secu rity and protection are not part of the intent. All the laws we have learnt and all the understanding of the power of mind to bring things to us, can be used psychically to control other people; this is black magic. The Magician on the other hand, uses honesty, clarity, strength and perseverance, to do the work and journey through the Major Arcana.

The name for this first card is ‘I Am’. Man ‘is’ only if he has con stant and full consciousness of the Soul and life within him for a full twenty four hours. This means that when we are lying down and falling asleep, we know why we are doing that and we know exactly what our subconscious is doing behind the scenes. That is what ‘I Am’ is about and The Magician is creating and bringing all the tools together in himself to achieve that. There have been several rounds, so it is not just a first-degree initiation and the round he’s come back on might be the last one, for all we know. He symbolises all of us who have followed the inner path, learning to go through our cycles and our degrees.

He ceases to have a passive attitude and let life act on him. Nature and man suffer life; an initiate suffers, but he doesn’t suf fer life. He knows that life is in him and that he has to uplift the world and say, “Get away from me Satan”, where Satan represents the subconscious. Jesus, representing the Soul, does this when he talks to Peter, who represents the material and physical body of the personality with its needs, fears and protective instinct. The Soul, or the initiate, has to truly oppose all his needs, fears and protective instinct and in so doing, he can actually absorb all the fears within matter. Then, with the quality of perseverance he carries on with all the cosmic forces behind him, helping him to uplift. The only way we are going to transmute all the patterns that are locked in the biological life, is by completely absorbing them into our own will and love. The opposition is actually done by absorption and that is a good way of opposing, isn’t it!

When we are on the inner path of consciousness in life, it is a continuous effort to always go beyond ourselves, deeper and deeper where we do not want to go. We keep on going behind, behind and behind, it is incredibly simple. We look at our everyday life and keep on watching and knowing that we are doing it! Every time we say, “I don’t want that any more”, we are on the path and we can’t go back, so we are going beyond ourselves. If we think we have reached our limits and we are still there tomorrow, then we haven’t reached the centre. To keep going beyond your limits is called endurance and we are going in the right direction. We are not talk ing about not using our discriminating power, for there are things one mustn’t endure and we are all intelligent enough to know what they might be. Every time we say, “No I can’t any more” we dis cover there is more love, understanding, humility, giving and more ‘Thy will be done’. This means we are on the right path.

Until we associate completely with the fact that we are the person in front of us, whatever they are doing, we are stopping our spiritu-alisation and inward motion. Freedom is within and out is in.

If we thought ourselves to be superior to humanity, we could not absorb and uplift it. If the Spirit in us was not able to reach the heart of matter and therefore the heart of all the molecules and cells, the wisdom of the planet could not be delivered. It is only in this world that real absorption, experiential knowledge and real freedom can happen; we are not running away here, we are going deeper. When we talk about the initiate being out of this world it is not as an angel on a cloud, it is deep in the very centre of matter that we become atomic and nowhere else. We become atomic inside and we go back to the real willpower of life, which will touch on the building blocks of Spirit and matter from millions of years ago. That is what erases all the misunderstandings within the genetic patterns and renders them completely bright, clear and spiritual; the way through is at the very heart of matter. We have to internalise with our minds, because it is the mind that does that journey and frees the mind-sets of the mental body. It is therefore that spiritual move ment within that is going to cleanse all the misunderstandings, fears and the pains of the Soul of nature, nature being the emotional body of Earth. That spiritual energy sends a blast, like a little atomic bomb into the genetic pool, so that we can truly become the beings of light we are supposed to be, carrying the blueprint of creation.