H. R. GIGER TAROT. H. R. Giger

I … smile!

       Kelley makes all sorts of objections. Blatant threats alternate with cunning; coldly hatched plans with feigned compassion. He sets conditions. Jane says “yes” to each one of them. Greedier glances touch my wife. The cloth covering her breast tears open as Jane kneels before him. Kelley fights her hands as they seek to restore order. He looks down at her Fire bathes his head.

       I … smile!

       He lifts up Jane. His grip is lascivious, shamelessly. Jane weakly admonishes him. Her fears for me steal her courage away.

       I … smile!

       Kelley is persuaded. He makes all things of the future dependent upon the commands of the Green Angel. He makes Jane swear that, like him, she will pledge obedience, obedience to the command of the Angel until death and beyond, no matter what this may be. Only in this, he threatens, would there be rescue. Jane takes the oath. Fear lends her face a deathly pale color

       I … smile; but a keen and acute pain slices through me like a razor-sharp slaughter knife. I feel it … through the lifeline. It is almost like a deathly thrill...

       Then, I see the ancient, peculiarly tiny child’s face of the High Rabbi Löw, furrowed by fear, suspended freely before me in the air. He says:

       “Isaac, the knife of God is at your throat. But in the thornbush writhes the lamb in your place. Be as merciful as ‘He’ if you one day take a sacrifice; be compassionate like the God of my forefathers.”

      Darkness passes over me like an army of blind nights, and I feel the memory of what I have seen with the eyes of the Rabbi’s soul fade and disappear. It stirs me like a bad dream.

      Gustav Meyrink: The Angel of the West Window.

      (The First Look in the Magic Mirror)

      Interpretation

       1 John Dee (The Image of the Ego)

      The first card shows the ego that acts from its own center and perceives and constitutes itself in its own actions.

       2 Jane (The Image of the Other)

      The second card describes the unconscious attraction to the aspect of the opposite sex that you have estranged within yourself. It is not the feminine that John Dee loves in Jane, but rather the feminine part in himself. That is why this card is less representative of the hope of capturing others than of the lost part of ourselves, which we hope to recapture in others.

       3 Edward Kelley (The Image of the Id)

      Here you meet the shadow or your dark inner specter, which you do not willingly want to acknowledge. Only people who have already encountered their own shadow feel secure in being close to the devil. For he embodies an element of truth deeply rooted in our instinctive nature.

       4 Rabbi Low (The Image of the Superego)

      The fourth card corresponds to the inexorable striving for freedom from natural compulsions. It allows you to search unflinchingly for the pure form of love that ultimately can only be found in the divine. This card also shows you the mask behind which your repressed drives and instincts are concealed. It is the conscious self that fights Evil behind the mask of the father figure (card 3), who is only attributed with wrong so that the self can feel justified in destroying him.

       5 The Green Angel (The Darkness)

      In the search for an all-encompassing love, you encounter here – in spite of your personal illusions – the multifarious primal perversions in the realm of instinct all too often concealed behind the pretty mask. For the Angel is the mirror into which you encounter what is deeply founded and glimpse the ogre through which you now recognize yourself.

      III THE MIRROR OF THE SOUL

      Questions

      The Mirror of the Soul is the appropriate spread to use when there are two different things you want to know: first, what inner images of your own are you projecting onto the situation (spread I). Second, what external experiences arise out of it (spread II)? This means that this is a matter of recognizing in which form what you have evoked is translated into reality from the reflection and/or in what guise you encounter your inner images in external life.

      Background

      This method of laying the cards combines spreads I and II.

      Interpretation

       1 The Ego

      The first card represents the consciousness of your own self (The Great Spirit). It is the way the subject expresses and perceives itself as such: this is your own conscious identity at this time.

       2 The Image of the Ego

      The second card shows you the aim of your identity (John Dee); this is the inner intention, which is the basis of the course you are following and leads you to your conscious identity.

       3 The Other

      The third card describes the challenge created by the encounter with the world (the Horned God): this is what confronts you from the outside as your environment.

       4 The Image of the Other

      The fourth card symbolizes the part of you that you have distanced from yourself and projected onto the opposite sex (Jane), which is reflected in the image of the partner.

       5 The Id

      The fifth card describes – in contrast to the conscious ego – the deeper layers of the personality (The Devil): the level of the soul that includes the unconscious, the emotions, feelings, drives, and strivings (“endothymus function”).

       6 The Image of the Id

      The sixth card shows the circumstances or the person through which evil surfaces in life (Edward Kelley), the clothing in which the Id is manifested.

       7 The Superego

      This card embodies the superego in the Freudian sense, the controlling authority (the hidden one) placed above the ego, which accepts that the laws of society are valid and binding. It therefore includes the moral regulations and opportunistic aspirations of our spiritual life.

       8 The Image of the Superego

      In the eighth card you encounter father figure (Rabbi Löw), who is inspired by the endeavor for a better solutions. He breaks through the barriers of perception and grows within the transcendental spaces of limitless levels of consciousness. As an authority that passes judgment according to your conscience, he mainly demands that we renounce the goals for which the id strives (cards 5 and 6) and places himself in opposition to the ego (card 1). In unresolved conflict situations, this can lead to repression of the desires or emotions unacceptable to the superego.

       9 The Darkness (The Shadow of the Light)

      The ninth card shows us the purposeful currents rising from the endothymus function (card 5); these are often tied to feelings. As motivating forces, they determine the dynamics of experience, desires, and action. On the archetypal level, this is the Great