The Spirit of the Tarot. Claudine Aegerter

divine; it is a consuming process.

      The Tiara of The High Priestess has two crowns, tiers, or circles. They represent the senses and the intellect and the crescent moon on top shows the psy chic aspect. The Pope at Number 5 wears the purple pontifical tiara, which has three tiers, representing the physical, emotional and mental worlds, of which he is completely in charge. The High Priestess has a white veil coming down from the crown and over her shoulders, to show that she is about mystery, being half-hidden. The Veil represents purity, knowledge and wis dom. We cannot pass through the veil without meeting the big iron gates of death; they are iron because we are talking of alchemy in the sense of will and we need a strong will to get through them. As with the Devil, in Number 15, where we have chains of iron, these gates, symbolising the senses have to be broken, but it is easier to break chains of iron than break the chains of the senses. We have to go forward and not look back and as long as the veil is not lifted, it is still possible to stop.

      The Moon represents the psychic sense, or the ability to go into Soul to get the esoteric or hidden knowledge. The Moon has many symbols and from the esoteric point of view of the Ancient Wis dom, it represents the subconscious aspect. The physical moon is dead and getting smaller, because as we go more and more into the subconscious and bring more and more light in, it is going to disap pear. It represents the dark side of our past and it holds, just as our cells hold, all the memory of the things that are of the instinctual pure planet. It is actually in the process of decay and it consists of all the bits and pieces we are visiting when we visit our deviations, our misunderstandings and our self-pity. Planet Earth herself has no self-pity, for she is tough and survives. The Moon represents the subconscious, self-pitying Soul of nature and is the shadow of the Earth from deep in the past. Earth has had to put the past aside and carry on and do the work of God and use the light reflecting on its past for its unfolding. So when we go into our subconscious, we are revisiting the decaying body of the past, in order to clean the psy chic atmosphere that we inhabit; we have to do that because if we didn’t go there and see it, we wouldn’t redeem it and stop the game of seeing ourselves as victims.

      Seen from the highest point of view, this is the great hermaph rodite Moon, which enables us to do the work. She is both recep tive and giving, for she receives the light and gives it out. It is not the grandmother moon, who says how much better it was in her time when everything was right, it is the eternal Goddess Moon, the one that can receive the light from the lover and give it to the chil dren. She is the priestess, the wisdom of both male and female and is the purest aspect of the intellect transmuted into a receptive vessel for the light of Spirit. So this is another appreciation of the Moon, which has to do with transmutation. She will receive the light in the cup of the crescent moon, translate it and give it out, for it is the crescent moon that is detached from the world and says “I am one with my Lord”.

      Those who are influenced by the lower moon don’t want to hear the call of their Soul, so the needs and pain of being a human being are given priority and the self-pitying whingeing moon takes over, decomposition takes place and the opportunity to rise is not taken. When we truly go into Soul, time and space disappear into the great egg of infinity.

      The black and white chequerboard floor is a link to the Ancient Wisdom and is often depicted in masonic rituals. It makes us aware that the world we live in is made of contrasts and opposites; in this awareness we start understanding that we are walking on the path of initiation. Black and white will always come in to show us that we are starting to evaluate, recognise, think and discriminate, so this can be the beginning of the path. This is the world of appearance and we have to be clear that we are going to see it all uniquely, this is why we have to truly understand that we are an instrument and not an ‘individual’ in the personal sense. The totality of everyone’s vision of objects or ideas is the complete vision that the God we live in will have of the world. We can look at one thing, but we will all see it differently; if one of us doesn’t look, then the God we live in has to look again, because what is being looked at hasn’t been seen in its entirety. God has to know himself from every single one of his cells.

      We can’t be important as individuals, but we are important as small units of awareness. Until we completely own our reactions to life for what they are, we are not really serving the God we live in. We really have to be at ease with where we are at, whatever that is, with no judgment. God needs all the little pairs of eyes for the vision to be complete, according to his life and truth. The vulgar is fine, so go and get it! By hiding it, all we are doing is feeding a little monster that will grow, until eventually we dislike the people in that vulgar house. In the end this leads to political war against those people in that vulgar house; this is how it works. This is where we know we only exist as a comparison, opposition, or an association with others, because personality gets its worth by comparing. Blessed and lucky are the animals when they are not tainted by our auras, because they do not compare, associ ate, or oppose with their mind. It is about comparing one world of appearance with another and, from where we stand, we think we are the only right one. The fact that we compare and associ ate re-enforces separateness, so when we find a group or religion to associate with, that will keep us in the world of appearance. This is a tricky one because people can have opposite views on the same subject and all come from the best possible intent. Nobody is wrong or right and it is a world of complete harmony and bal ance, so we have to see the world as it is with all its different fac ets, balancing within ourselves all the time and still hold true to ourselves. The yin and yang symbol is a sphere rather than just flat and is forever doing that dance, until it comes back completely clear. The only way to get there is by recognising that we are Soul and therefore the witness.

      There cannot be any absolute positions, for if people take their thoughts for absolute we would be stuck in an impasse, with no more movement. The yin and yang is going round and coming back, like the spiralling expression of the 1 to 9 seen from the top and bottom. We know it is a world of impermanence, of movement and contrasts. It is a world that has to know itself, therefore every single thing has to be experienced and seen. We know as well that by itself it has no value; this is very important when we do the work of look ing in. The initiate knows he has no value in himself, but it is his duty to try to wake things up, because they will only have a value when they are filled with spiritual truth.

      The only value that the superficial world of contrast, appear ances and association has is in how much we can take from it or make of it. This is quite a sad statement, but it is so. We give value to the things of the world which we can take; things such as eating, enjoying ourselves, being greedy, playing the martyr, so the value we give to the world is also what we want to take from it. From a positive point of view we know it is a learning process, but on another level it is abuse. The lenses of science, philosophy and reli gion are great, but they are limited as well. The value of the world is not in itself, but in us and it is up to us to make it sacred because in itself it has no value whatsoever. This is why we must remake, rebuild and remodel the world according to our understanding and our thoughts. There are as many worlds as there are thinking indi viduals; to every one his truth; that is how we build the world. We have to impress faith, hope and charity in people’s hearts. So far it is mainly mass-consciousness that builds the world, but this is chang ing rapidly, for as individual consciousness rises we can manifest a higher order of peace and love, to infuse minds and hearts and bring in more tolerance and understanding to religion, science and philosophy. Goodwill is love in action.

      The High Priestess rests her feet on a green cushion, green being the colour of life and nature, which allows Earth to breathe through the vegetable kingdom. The plant life can be seen as a beautiful symbol for mankind’s work with the light. After germination the little flowers yield fruit and whether it is a big bush or a tree, it starts with a tiny shoot before it becomes a stem or a trunk. Through exposure to light chlorophyll gives the little plant its green colour, crystallises it and mixes it with minerals so that it can hold the light. This means that when we eat a plant, we eat light. Viridis, the colour green, has the same root as ‘vir’ which is the word for man, so we are the green shoots of God and the hold ers of light, here to