The Spirit of the Tarot. Claudine Aegerter

The Trinity is one person and Mary is the creative side; she is not a woman, but a symbol of what the becoming of mankind could become. Mary is co-creating all the time, because she is the creative aspect of the one creation. The Empress teaches us that through Active Intelligence we are witness ing the universal re-birthing. All creation comes through her, for she renews everything endlessly. She has an incredible amount of power and is the creative logo in the true sense.

      There are many levels of transformation that we can undergo. There are nine degrees of initiation, four of those necessitate reincar nation in form; the next three proceed with the complete removal of attraction to the planetary life in the mind of the initiate. The last two are to do with this mind fusing with the cosmic life. Even if we have left personality behind, we still have more levels of transmutation to go through and all these are only really levels of refinement of energy back to the source of all. The personality will still be there with all its qualities after the fourth initiation, but the qualities that would have been centred towards aggrandisement or protection will have been refined and turned towards the work, rather than towards the personality. They are all called death, because we give up aspects of ourselves. We have less resistance and more fusing with the light of the Soul, in order to let wisdom teach us the next step.

      All we are here for is to name, meaning to render nature self-conscious. As we name we love, because as we recognise and under stand, we love. We are talking about connaissance, which is the pure science of human beings, a science we are born with. This universal intelligence is the deep intimate knowledge that allows assimilation, absorption and the way back to the lost sound. It is only when we touch the heart of an atom of a living organism, that we can hear its sound and know the vibration of its Soul. As our Soul connects with that sound, we can communicate with it. Listen with your heart to your dog or cat and hear the sound that they make. This way we find the dog in us, so can ask a question and get an answer. When we become one with our dog, we become as humble as a dog, for we see the God in ourselves and hear the answer. Remember, it was thirty thousand years ago that the first jackal came to work with man and it came about through the pure, deep, intimate knowledge of Active Intelligence. If we are not pure we are going to anthro-pomorphise, or see everything in the image of man. If we haven’t got the human being out of the way, all we are doing is reflecting ourselves in the poor little dog or cat.

      The more we inspire, the more we die: the more inspired we are, the more alive in the eyes of God. We are breathing the breath of God in and out all the time, the great life breathes us into its heart when we are inspired!

      The key to this card is the affirmation of truth and its conse quences according to the divine plan. We tend to affirm, then deny and then wonder why it doesn’t work. For example we can recog nise “I’m addicted to chocolate!” and then say; “I mustn’t eat it!” which is a denial. So we take the light of understanding in and immediately destroy it. The true work is to find out why the addic tion is there (remember it is only a stuck record) and then love it. So we see the truth, we affirm and we feel privileged to do a fair bit of work on behalf of the group and the life we live in. In this way the judgment is done, we unite the Spirit with the wisdom, the locked light within matter is released and the two make one bright explo sion; that is what makes the star.

      We become co-creators when our minds have become totally absorbed in the mind of God, so that as we think, we think on behalf of the great life of the planet. We may only have done that for a total of three minutes in ten lives and we may not even know when it hap pened, but it doesn’t matter, for that is what we are meant to do.

      When we have recognised the divinity of Active Intelligence a blessing is bestowed from the light, rendering sacred the manifesta tion. As we see truth we create truth, so becoming a true co-creator. If only ten percent of the population suddenly saw the light, we would have a new dawn of peace within thirty years. What we see around us are yesterday’s thoughts and we create the future with the thoughts of today.

      Everything in nature is automatic. One thing that makes us dif ferent is that we have a choice and the gift of self-consciousness, whereas nature has no choice. So we can choose either the automatic life, or our own inner truth serving the creator. We can ask ourselves the question, “Are we choosing to serve and receive the blessings of the Holy Spirit?” Because what comes next is not a May day fair on the village green, but a mayday distress signal to the universe.

       NUMBER FOUR

      The Emperor, L’Empereur

      Creating the structure

       The Emperor sits on a yellow cube on which we see the emblem of a black eagle; black symbolises the first stage of the alchemic work. Both he and the eagle are looking to the west, the place of death. In his right hand he holds a baton, in his left hand a green orb with a cross on top. The thick plait around his neck represents the three paths of the initiate going back to the beginning of time, woven together to hold the higher vision for the future of the world. The apron from his helmet covers the nape of his neck, so protecting him from any external influences, for he must be an impartial judge. He orders and uplifts us, preparing us for the next stage when the mass consciousness of the world is raised into the sacred. The Emperor is in all of us, for 4 is the number of the human kingdom.

      The first three cards gave us the three aspects of the divinity as they organise their qualities to project the idea of the creative Logos:

      1. In The Magician (the mind of the initiate) we see the birth of con cept. The Magician is the instrument that can direct the new energy through his baton, so that the next part of the journey unfolds.

      2. The timeless fecund egg of all wisdom is the great cosmic Mother, The High Priestess. The lower mind cannot access these refined vibrations unless it has given up all the illusionary ideas about its own importance. At this stage transparency is required.

      3. The Empress gives us the clearly received vision of the plan or blue-print. She is ready to give of her etheric fabric to inform the next level of precipitation. This happens from the light of the concept reflected in her pure intellect.

      These first three cards embody the three great rays of aspect: will, Love/Wisdom and Active Intelligence, as named by the Ancient Wisdom. They are the symbols of the Trinity or the 3 in 1. At this point they are in place; it is out of the third aspect of Active Intel ligence that the whole of creation can proceed.

      The Emperor, the Number 4, is the 1 born out of the 3; this is the transitional leap in the journey enabling the original intent to be further crystallised. In the journey from Spirit to matter, everything is a differentiation in vibration of the eternally moving mind/Spirit of the universe, within the mother of all possibilities – space. This is the movement that is seen in everything, from the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-pervading essence of the universe to the dim awareness of our tiny lives on this dark little planet, then eventually to even deeper levels of the amnesia of basic organic life.

      Spirit is the quality of life that carries universal truth; light is the truth we are able to see as ‘the light of the end of the tunnel’, or when we say “Let there be light”. The initiate is learning to respond to these emanations of the great Source of life and he aspires to align with them, gaining intuitive knowledge in the process. As the life of the greater truth comes in, The Empress, or the purified intellect, is the instrument which provides the reflection for the incoming light.

      The Emperor is the quality of mind which can focus intensively on the blueprint, as he has to faithfully precipitate a viable structure for the vision he has perceived. He knows that it is the mind that captures the light and the vision, he has to release it to set in motion the fiery whirling lives of Spirit, so that they can attract and gather the right quality of matter for the manifestation of the next phase of the plan.

      We all create our tomorrow with our thoughts; today is only what we projected yesterday. If we can internalise today’s experience and learn to depersonalise it, we are on our way back to our source, doing our true job of witnessing from the perspective of Soul. This is how the spiritual journey of the unit in nature,