The Spirit of the Tarot. Claudine Aegerter

‘without attracting blame or praise’ were the first people Dante saw in hell and these were people without passion. When we are ‘going for it’, that is when the doors of hell are open and the passion is there, ready to deliver action, devotion and sacrifice out of chaos. The passion of searching for the truth is the most dangerous passion there is, for it has to do with the slaying of an aspect of the personality, such as the glamour of being best loved of the emotional body, or the pride of the intellect. We can hold on to the idea that we are the gift, rather than understanding that the gift is working through us. When we know the latter we climb against the current many times, like the salmon, which is another symbol for the initiate. If we have not purified our personal intent or needs, it is not the fire of truth that is going to push us along, but the fire of disintegration, so the danger is real and involves survival of the Soul. There is nothing more dangerous than the pursuit of truth, but we have to be in love with it and then the danger doesn’t seem real, because love holds and transmutes any misunderstanding we might have had. So we learn to master our passion and therefore learn to transmute it, but at the beginning if there is no passion, we might as well forget it, for esoterically we have to want to die for the truth. This means to let go of our self importance and our survival mechanism. This would make us a fool according to the everyday success story of the world!

      If we have taken a ‘wrong path’ then we have more coal for burn ing. We can love and transmute that path into the right path; it is as simple as that. All mistakes are allowed and it is not even a question of allowing, for there’s actually no mistake.

      It is in the two or three cards after The Magician that discrimina tion and determination will be developed, because we can’t ask a Number 1 to discriminate. If we receive an impulse from the higher self we have no time to discriminate! If our impulse is from the needs of mass consciousness then we have to start learning to discriminate, because by the time we come to The Empress we have to be able to tell the difference between the two, otherwise we will be using the power of the wand for the generation of more glamour, rather than the enlightenment of nature. If we want to keep on doing that, we can do it for eternity, but if we want to get onto the path of the Soul then we have to start to discriminate.

      The pentacle is gold, for gold cannot decay or be corrupted and so it doesn’t follow the rules of the material world. It is the gold in his purified solar plexus, the seat of emotional needs and impulse, which is preventing The Magician from being tainted, or brought down by mass consciousness and the lower passions.The purity of his understanding of the material world cannot be soiled; he can live in the world without being spoilt or stained and can give orders without thinking that the power is his. We have to reach that stage of incorruptibility if we want to rise above the magnetic pull of needs and desires, for it is purified matter that allows spiritual action. The beautiful Celtic, or Antioch cross of the occident which is carved on the pentacle, symbolises the union of Spirit and matter. The Magician has his index finger on the centre of the cross, which is the goal, for only from the cen tre can we transform or transmute. Spirit has no other goal but the fusion with matter in order to release it from its unconscious state.

      The cup on the table reminds us of the Grail cup, as well as all the other beautiful cups of initiation. It is full of red blood. It is a silver cup with a hex agonal stem, so its six sides tell us of the creation of all things, for it rises out of the Star of David as the perfect cup of nature. This speaks of the six amazing days of the creation of the material world in which man lives. Silver is the colour of the aspiration of nature to fuse with her maker. There is no other way that the mind can rise except by the taking of initiation and mak ing the blood sacrifice, blood being a symbol for the living Soul. This means giving the love of one’s life for a higher cause; this sacrifice can only stem out of the heart of matter, willing to give its experience up for the love of Spirit or truth. When somebody takes an initiation it is from within and however great the initiator in front of him is, it could not happen if the person were not ready for it. Even if Jesus (the Soul of mind) were the initiator it couldn’t happen, for there is no possible sacrifice if it doesn’t come from the heart or Soul of matter itself. That is why The Magician is not a magician in the ordinary sense, for he will not ‘magic’ things to happen. When the beautiful hexagonal Star of David (the perfected nature in mankind as king) has done its work of rising up and has offered its life’s blood, or the experience of the Soul of nature to the process, it happens.

      The cup is the greatest instrument of divination, because it will always reflect and always be receptive. It is the instrument of com munion with the divine, for the cup receives the divine. Man must live in his becoming. Life is an unfolding evolution, rather than accountability, so we should not keep on measuring what we have done in the past. The cup of course is feminine and cannot give any other service but to receive.

      It is the nature of the cup to receive and when she receives the light energy of the sword, she can only respond according to the level of her own understanding of the God we live in, so if the consciousness is purely focussed on nature, that energy will be transformed into babies, seasons or harvest. The cup can only form shapes that are a reflection of her own life, which is the per fection of nature imposing form on whatever she receives. This receptivity is not passive, it is receiving and creating, but it can only create a replica of itself. When suddenly the receptivity of the cup is uplifted into a higher dimension then that new vision can be replicated. For this reason it is important not to look down at the path of the life of nature, whose higher aspiration has to do with surviving in the physical. The more receptive we can be to the higher levels of thinking and ideals, the more of the new world we can manifest. The preparation for the future is held in the cup itself and this is truly what gives her the power of divination, because it is through the work of the pure, transparent, receptive feminine that the future can actually be seen in advance and materialised into ideas, words and actions. All we need to do is uplift our cups (inner sight) so that the new vision of humanity can be received; it is as simple as that. If the nature in us doesn’t want to replace attachment to the survival of the form by the concept of a higher vision of love and harmony, it won’t happen. The symbol of the cup is linked to the great mother, the Goddess, or Mary; she is that great field of life that holds the whole Solar System together. It is not just Earth, or the Goddess of nature materialising, but the great Goddess of receptivity, making certain that she faithfully reproduces her ideals. The transmutation of the world is in the cup, which is where the alchemy is happening.

      You could call The Magician an alchemist who has to realise the great work. He acts on illusion so as to dissolve it and reveal reality. The sword and the cup are a necessary union of the two principles of mind and heart. Spirit has to go to the heart of mat ter for anything new and beautiful to happen, for new vision and new manifestation. If we use our heart or head alone we haven’t got a complete vision. The head and heart have to be together. The process has to be loved with the passion of the heart and the light of Spirit has to be able to penetrate the darkness, to absorb its mis understandings and this way clarifies the cup. This is mirroring the primordial union, when the Spirit came into the great womb of the Solar System; this is the evolution that we are re-enacting inwardly.

      With the sword we are doing magic, for it is used to draw a circle of protection around The Magician. If we look at the handle it is in the shape of a gold cross. The blade is the penetrating Spirit used to vitalise matter, for we are not destroying with the sword of truth, but awakening and informing matter. That is why we need to understand that books or a person can’t change our lives; they may be a catalyst, but the acceptance of a revelation comes when we are ready. While we are thinking that something from outside will do it for, or to us, we haven’t contacted our own spark of responsibility to spiritualise truth. We need to kill the old for the new to be born.

      It is not a bloody sword, but an incredible, wonderful sword, because it doesn’t just free the teacher or the initiator, it frees the old patterns of the past. As the Spirit penetrates matter, there is a symbolic death and at the same time a real death, for it frees man from attachment to the pull of matter. Man evolves, elevates and transmutes the unconscious in his body by the acceleration of his vibration with the light of understanding. This light creates a circle