The Spirit of the Tarot. Claudine Aegerter

and a red green-lined coat with a blue habit underneath it. He’s holding a cross with his left hand, is giving a blessing with his right hand and he wears a Triple Crown. We can only see the top of his chair in the card and there are two clerics in front of him. He’s gentle and it is a very simple card. We are not look ing at this Pope as the religious, symbolic head of the church, but as the summit of achievement in spiritual religious authority. Religion comes from linking and bind ing things together just as we bind a book; this is symbolic of linking or re-linking with God.

      The fifth card is a continuation of The Emperor, so we have the same levels of consciousness with two very different expressions. The Pope and The Emperor are two sides of the one coin. They are the manifestation of the religious power in life and the social-cultural everyday power; these two have always been fighting each other. Even in the days when the priests and the kings were one, there would have been an internal conflict. We know from the very first stories of the opposing brothers, whether it is Lucifer and Christ, or Cain and Abel, that there has always been a conflict within the psyche of mankind about how to apply the rule of God, as we try it this or that way.

      The initiatic way, which is the inner way, has been vilified because the power of the social organising structure had to win over the inner way to begin with. What we regard as the truth in most reli gions is the exoteric or outer structure, like the ten commandments, which say: “Don’t do it”, rather than “I know I’m free, I’ve under stood I lie every day, but I can see it and I know why I am doing it, so I will learn not to lie”. The ancient Egyptian commandment was, “I haven’t lied, I haven’t killed, I haven’t refused to help my brother”. The difference between these two ways is that “I haven’t”, has been turned into the structured exoteric “Don’t do it”. For the initiate, however mean he has been, as long as he sees it and as long as he turns it into honesty and love one day, it is okay. However, the people had to be given a structure, so the religions had to tell them what not to do, otherwise they would never be aware of what they were doing. The battle of social versus religion, meaning outer ver sus inner has been going on from the beginning of awareness. How do we now apply the truth of God as we see it?

      It is all to do with power and will. When will first comes in, it is force. Then when it reorganises and regulates itself, it becomes the power of the land or the power of the spiritual mind; power is the force that is able to find a way to regulate. When the social side or the structure of civilisation is stronger than the inner life, then it is Caesar the Emperor, for example, who wins over the religion of the land, which represents the inner life. All the highest aspirations are there in the idea of the perfect town, the perfect country and the unification of the world, so that we can be at peace. The greater life is there; it doesn’t die, but it becomes extremely materialistic and superficial because we are only talking about the building or struc ture; religion then becomes a tool to reinforce the social order.

      The ones who should apply divine justice and say, “I know my son, I love you, but don’t do it again”, are the judges and the police men. They don’t apply divine justice, instead they protect the state and the good citizens by giving out punishment. “We will call you a scum and make you into a scum”; this is the ‘eye for an eye’ type of morality, which is the old interpretation of the old fear of God mentality, rather than spirituality.

      The role of religion is to surpass and rise above the social order, not to maintain the artificial hierarchy based on personal interest. Initiates are representatives of the true inner religion; every piece of love and truth in the initiate, however small it is, is there to create a reaction; this truly makes them act as a stirrer or devil’s advocate. But we shouldn’t make ourselves into stirrers, because the artificial stirrer is the worst possible aspect of the desire to be important. We can only be a devil’s advocate if we are the brightest of the bright, having gone through all the love, compassion and blessings. These great sparks from Soul are the true devil’s advocates and are the ones who come and push on the wheels of Job. They are the ones who are bright and faithful and so much into God, that they don’t mind coming in to hurt one or two of us just to wake us up. If that isn’t The Pope, what is? Can you see how much love there has to be for truth, for the God we live in and for humanity, to be able and come down and say, “Hold on mate, you are doing it for yourself’. With the temptation in the desert, Jesus’ brightest, most honest side came up and asked “Do you think you are that pure? Well, I am going to put you in front of yourself”. We should beware of the false devil’s advocate. They either do it because they have understood some part of the mysteries and they are trying to play a role that isn’t theirs, or they have seen the role from afar and their pride takes over, so that they sabotage themselves and everybody around them. Remember it is not so much about which lies we tell to others, it is always more about whether we are lying to ourselves.

      With Caesar it is all about structure, therefore it has to be fixed and stable. There’s nothing more difficult for a well-established society than to welcome change, because change represents instability and trouble. However, social change cannot happen without instability. In a culture it will take several generations to change, because the social structure will always resist change. The true nature of Spirit is to move, so the mystical life moves and its very nature is a continual evolution, so if we follow the warning of Buddha we don’t go for pictures and crystallisation. When the mystical life or religion domi nates, then it can become dogma, as we can see in religious funda mentalists through the ages where religion is applied with force.

      There can be no social application or practical interest behind the spiritual base of faith in its truest sense of ‘faith, hope and charity’. If faith is what rules the religious content of a country, it is still very much the spiritual trying to find a way to build a structure. It is not the job of religion to do that, it is The Emperor’s job. That is why the Tarot has been wise and made two cards out of that power, for it is the same power but with different interpretations. The Emperor is the power that regulates the vision and what is to come. The Pope represents the natural peace of mind, that through its direct connec tion with the realised higher intelligence of the Soul offers blessings to those who are ready to receive them; then they can naturally obey the rule of The Emperor. There is no way The Emperor is going to bring Heaven on Earth in one day and it is not the job of those with a religious inner vision to become Emperors. The Pope will act in everyday life, but his light and authority will only be recognised by those who seek innocence. We understand that eventually the initi ate functions with both aspects at once; the right side of the brain has a spatial intelligence, the left a data information function. When they work together we have a more universal intelligence.

      All religions will have the fear of hell, karma and the idea of eter nity in them. There isn’t a system that does not have an appreciation of yesterday, today and tomorrow. The minute we put one single practical interest into our spiritual work, we are bartering, making conditions and exchanging; for example by saying “I won’t do that because it will be bad karma and I will end up in hell for being a bad girl/boy”. Are we at peace, or are we still bartering our life with the beliefs around us? We all have the bartering aspect in us, but we are talking here about going beyond ourselves. We cannot barter with God, because God doesn’t want anything in exchange. God is the great energetic life. What we get is what comes back to us today from previous needs and thought forms that we have pro jected yesterday.

      We are clinging so strongly to the material mother, but in truth there is only a flow of love, life and possibilities of manifestation. What we call love is the satisfaction of meeting and being with another person and life being unthinkable without them. That has the beginning of the understanding of true faithfulness and service to a God that doesn’t require anything. True love is not preoccupied at all with whether it is going to get something back, or whether it is going to avoid something. Can you imagine the life we live in, which sustains absolutely everything, thinking “Is he going to love me back?” We are not allowing the flow of God through us and so we stop God ‘becoming’ by putting ourselves in the middle all the time and by being so obsessed by our own ‘rabbit-hood’. What arro gant creatures we are! We are so self-obsessed with our long ears and our small fluffy tails and all the rest! Nothing is really of value that doesn’t allow fusion of our lives with the greater life and we spend our lives protecting ourselves from more understanding, love and compassion