The Spirit of the Tarot. Claudine Aegerter

to, have been pointed out. We are not perfect, so there is a need to be vigilant all the time, because in the next seventeen cards there is always the possibility of losing ourselves. We need to check our equipment as we would do before climbing the Himalayas, by seeing that our back-pack is prepared for the job. In this way we are ready to go on to the next part of the journey, which is coming into life itself. Up to now we have been flying high with the concept.

      With The Magician, we had to be full of spiritual will to come into the world of illusion; this is the will to be able to see and push through, without being taken in. We need the will to acquire the deepest wis dom there is and to go into every single corner of the subconscious so that the veil can be lifted in Number 2, The High Priestess, who asks us to have pure thought, (which means not looking through our own personal glasses) and then reclaim the mind as Active Intelligence, to name and create the world in Number 3, The Empress. She can weave, she has understood the pattern and she can express it. When the idea, net or canvas is firmly there, The Emperor brings that blue print into crystallisation, saying “Nothing will deter me from bring ing the plan on Earth”. Then after the pity and compassion of The Emperor, we have the blessing in Number 5, The Pope.

      Nothing of what has been done or will be done is judged by the measure of manmade justice, only by love and truth. This kind of judgment is a blessing. If we have been a thief and what made us one is understood through love and compassion, then we do not need to be a thief any more. As long as what we have done has been lived, understood and completely seen, right to the root of what being a thief is, then we can stop being one. Everything has a root and a source and there is nothing more that nature wants than to make one with that source, which is God. To be moved by genuine compassion rather than self protection is glorious, to be in the drama of being human is also glorious, but wouldn’t it be much simpler to stop being in the drama? Anything that is not moved by the spontaneity of the Spirit/Soul connection is self-gratification, including spiritual or philosophical pursuits.

      The Pope is coming back with a clear heart and a pure mind and he is going to do his job. The Tarot is a book of man’s esoteric life and makes a complete story. If we understand the first ten cards, we understand what our inner spiritual world is made of, but if we understand the whole twenty-two, we have understood what being an initiate is and we are at work; it is not just studying.

      Life is energy organising itself and manifesting as systems. These systems can be seen as archetypes, but in reality all the systems are one and any system is a by-product, like the virtual life where the experiment of life takes place.

      The first two cards indicate to the initiate all he will need to achieve to dissolve the black sphinx of misunderstandings. Once he has understood that he is responsible to Soul, he can’t stop the process of transformation because the past mistakes keep present ing themselves for purification. If we stop asking questions because we feel we have come to a point or level where love and peace reigns in our lives, we have to watch it, because we might be kidding our selves with some sensory experience that feels good, when in reality it is an illusionary state created by pride. On the other hand, we don’t have to go and break a leg because we think we are too happy; we just need to be honest. The personality learns to align its desires, wants and hopes, to survive and succeed in the everyday world, but eventually when the alignment to Soul begins, these driving aspira tions have to be directed towards others welfare.

      Religions are right to bring hope to humanity; they are useful mindsets to help us be good citizens, because there is no work that Spirit can achieve if there isn’t good citizenship. Even if at some time we have to confront our neighbours, good citizenship has got to be there. The essence within us pushes us towards more work, more truth and more love; not for self, but as service. Keep on being vigilant to see whether in us there is still some hope for salvation that remains from being afraid of Hell, or from pride and wanting to be first at the gate of Heaven.

      The expression of the God we live in is inside us, but hope, salva tion and pride have no place in us, when we are filled with the qual ity of love and wisdom. Certainty replaces hope, service is habitual and humility is our state. It is the ongoing, incessant journey of bringing Spirit down to Earth. Rather than hope it is certainty, for we know we are fulfilling our task; we can’t stop doing it and there is nothing else we can do. To be truly able to do it, we have to get rid of all the hopes, because while we are hoping there is something in it for us or something in it for humanity. If there is something in it for humanity and we want to help our brother in that way, then think, “Why do I want to help my brother, what is the matter with me?” We’ve got a problem. We can feel our brother’s pain, but we all know really that we can’t do a thing for our brother, so we stop hop ing. All we can do is carry on. People come for healing and we give ‘hope’, for humanity has got to hope and it gives us the opportunity to learn through what we are hoping for.

      We will start to realise that there is something else in the world besides ourselves and that we have been taking ourselves too seri ously. Look at what the world is going through; our suffering is pea nuts! There is a lot of breaking down going on. The fact that we have the privilege of breaking our hearts over a peanut helps us to go to the very heart of our wants, so that we can de-crystallise them. We see that the journey is going to be coloured by what we want. The only requirement is to be completely true to what is happen ing in our lives at the time; this is the greatest pain of all. We may have done nothing more than squash a bee when we didn’t want to and we are devastated. We can ask ourselves if we have ever expe rienced deep pain about something like that. See it, because these are the feelings that will eventually give us the white gloves of pure intent. We can ask “What is the fuss about and why is it so difficult to accept ourselves as we are?”

      Society is the support of the body of humanity; it is a structure, so let’s not kick the body of humanity by kicking society. Let’s try to see whether we can put in more light, more soap, a better diet and all the other things it needs. Society is the expression of what humanity at the time can work out, just as our bodies are an expression of how we lived our lives yesterday. If we think of society like that, we can see how initiates will work within it by bringing more compassion and light into the structure of the house of humanity, so that event ually society can be completely bathed in the Sun. The change will not happen in our lifetimes, but that is no reason not to act.

      Truth is not the firework display of suddenly seeing the Solar System in its full glory, it is homely and small. How can Spirit make atomic light happen in the heart of wisdom, if it doesn’t go into the small atomic memory of our everyday life? That is the truth with love/wisdom. It is a road to Damascus experience when we let the understanding drop into the heart and the heart allows the fire to fuse with the light. The flashing light is suddenly saying, “My God, it is that simple!” There is no other truth, except when the light of Spirit in our little unit can reach yet another depth in the core of our wisdom. The Empress is the idea and the high spirituality and then The Pope is the divine flash in the mind of mankind’s heart, because the truth of the human condition is perceived with love in the blessings given.

      After 1 and 2 we have a goal, which is to aim for the wisdom on our journey and then 3 and 4 represent aspects of the skill of mind. Have we got the higher intelligence in place and the skill to imple ment the vision? Numerologically the 1 2 & 3 are the cosmic karmic mirror in which the initiate is asking the question, “What am I made of?” It is an energetic world and when consciousness comes in, then the space is going to allow the light to tear the veil so that it can say “Oh yes! I can see, I’ve got the map, I’ve got the plan”. That is The Magician, The High Priestess and The Empress. Light comes in, needs to see and asks “What do I measure?” “What am I made of?” “What do I feel?” The High Priestess gives the answer and corner by corner darkness is lifted gradually, as consciousness overtakes the blind cleverness of nature.

      By the fourth level with The Emperor, we are going to find a way to humanise. We become our own ruler. Only when we have found the wisdom and have no personal intent can we guide, but in this case we are talking about more than guidance. The word is ‘regu late’, which has the same root as ‘regal’, or kingly. Rules and regula tion all come from the same idea of the Spirit being in charge.