The Spirit of the Tarot. Claudine Aegerter

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.

       NUMBER TWO

      The High Priestess, La Papesse

      Meeting the Mystery

       There is no higher manifestation of the divine intention than The High Priestess, the female Pope. Wearing a crown with two rings and a red cloak lined with green, she is seated on a throne in front of a veil. Here she pro tects the access to the great mystery. She is Isis, the metaphysical form of the Goddess and she represents love-wisdom. In one hand she holds the book of life, in the other the silver and gold keys, for she has all knowledge of both the natural and esoteric realms. Her left arm rests on a black sphinx. This Sphinx is the dweller on the threshold, the black Dog of Hell, represent ing our subconscious minds and this is what the initiate faces as he comes before her. Her face is partly obscured and her expression blank, for there is no easy access here. If the initiate is ready and few are, he will receive the higher revelation, will see beyond the veil and be changed forever.

      The right use of the Tarot is as a spiritual teaching aid. All systems are only tools; the intention and the energy we invest when using the tools will define the result. Here we are aiming to put drops of gold back into the Tarot cards, for one tiny unit of truth and light changes an ocean of misleading darkness. The work is to go into the subconscious where something is festering in ignorance; to take us in there we need the ancient symbol of the dog, represented here by the black sphinx.

      There are two qualities symbolised by the dog; there is the dog who is a server of God and there is the big black dog of Hell, who likes to be fed and the more he is fed the more he grows. The way we feed this black dog of Hell is by not knowing ourselves and being automatons, enacting out all our subconscious reactions without being aware of what is going on. We are all subject to this behaviour; the initiate’s only work is to become completely aware of every single atom of shadow within him and so become aware of the input of his inner relationship with the outer world. This way he won’t be caught by it, play its game and fall back into automatism. It is only when we can be aware of the origin of our reactions that we can start to be of use to the God we live in. This process doesn’t happen in five minutes, which is why there are twenty-two cards in the Arcana. It is a very thorough process, turning around every stone and every little memory cell, because each one of them might still contain a little hologram of a situation where we are ‘playing the game’. We are looking for little pools of hate, pain and regrets, so as to bring the light of love from our Soul into them. Every single corner of our sub conscious that we feed unknowingly creates an entity within our aura, for all thoughts are creative. With every need, want and link we forge with somebody, we create a tie. This is what we have to face with The High Priestess. Are we as pure of intention, as free of needs as we think we are?

      The High Priestess symbolises the highest manifestation of the authority of the divine wisdom on the planet. She is removed and silent. She scrutinises us and her presence warns that if we are going to come any nearer, it is not going to be a picnic.

      Everything manifested is a symbol for an unseen cause. As we begin to understand life as symbolic, we access our inner wisdom and the material world of form has less effect on us. The High Priest ess is therefore to be seen as a symbol, rather than a woman sitting on a throne. The aim of the journey is to understand that the world is within us and the fact that we see the world in a particular way is because it is already in our brain. This is an essential requirement for going through the veil of Isis, she is the metaphysical form of the Goddess.

      The Magician in the first card now stands before her. He is already a potential initiate and he smiles, for he thinks that he has found a pot of honey. She says to him: “You want to come and show me what you have learned so far? You want to go further? Then look at me, look at me long and hard!” If we won’t face her and go forward through her, then the journey is not for us. Going through the veil is the aim of the whole twenty two cards, so in a way at this point we are almost at the end. The High Priestess is the grace/wis dom aspect of the Goddess. She is metaphysical so she can only be perceived by the metaphysical mind in us. On the other side of the veil are the cause of life and the divine knowledge. She has to guard the door so that no imprudent intruder can step through. She holds the secret.

      The Magician, the Number 1, is able to have a transforming effect on the manifested world; in fact we can all have an effect on the manifested world, but not in a conscious way. We can bring a cul ture down, we can bring another culture in and we can pollute the planet; we do all this within nature’s unconscious cycle of transfor mation. The great catastrophes or wars are part of this, because they are ‘weather’ effects that needed to happen to the planet within a greater context and they help humanity to wake up to its respon sibility. When we look at all the people and at the beneficent or destructive leaders, what we see is a superficial expression, which occurs when things either need to be manifested in a particular way, or destroyed. At those times some people are used as puppets or tools in major world events, when the time is right for something to happen to shake us. However, these people are different from the great ones, whom we would call the Masters. Those who have the ability to affect things can be stimulated through these events to realise the new vision and new hope. When The Magician comes in he is ready to receive a higher revelation.

      In the experience of being truly alive, our senses are so instinc tively pure, that we don’t even know that we are sensing through them. In this state we can read the landscape for miles, like a wild beast. This is what our senses should be used for rather than to be used for the gratification of whether we like chocolate, or the colour red, or a particular piece of music. Whilst we are strongly centred on using the senses for pleasure, we are still quite a way from fully understanding the impact of what it is to be a true ini tiate. The true initiate can appreciate colours and chocolate and it doesn’t mean that we mustn’t like these things, but rather that we do not need any of them. We appreciate these things because our senses are there, but in that pure state of being truly alive we do not need any sensation and if suddenly we lost all our senses, we would not miss anything at all. Have you experienced being alive, without the senses being used for sensations? This state is always approached with a sense of dread, because it is the com plete unknown: it is the divine or what is behind the veil and if we go through without being ready, madness is certain.

      The initiate has come back to the world and from day one has a smile on his face. Is he naïve, over confident, or could it be dread, because what he is going to face is an unknown space? It is the space that holds all the wisdom so far and the secret of how God manifested it. This is Number 2, the great Isis or the great space. It has within it all the dust, beauty and brightness, all the life and death experiences for millions of years that have been and are to be, manifested, explored and brought back into the light.