The Magician

Pure Act. Perception of Correspondences. Spontaneous and Effortless Concentration Cordiality Geniality

The Priestess
The mirror that is Consciousness. Reflection of pure act.

The Empress
Sacred Magic/ Theurgy Divine Authority (Crown) for use of Magical Power (Scepter) towards the liberation in order to ascend (Eagle)

The Emperor
The vow of obedience Authority (not forced). The certainty of knowledge. Practical Hermetic Philosophy.

The Hierophant
The vow of poverty The act of benediction. Prayer rises, benediction descends. (veins bring oxygen, arteries rid us off carbonic acid) Spiritual respiration VERTICAL-HORIZONTAL 1.Puification Love of Nature 2.Illumination Love of Neighbours 3. Mystical Union Love of beings of the spiritual hierarchies

Moral logic instead of logic of facts. 5 limps = 5 dark currents head/heart = the desire to be great right hand = the desire to take left hand = the desire to keep right foot = the desire to advance left foot = the desire to hold on to at the expense of others 3 vows = head/heart, hands, feet. (obedience, poverty, chastity)

The Lovers
The vow of chastity The practical doctrine of the hexagon: The three vows or the three temptations Obedience / power Poverty/ richness Chastity/ debauchery Doubt is twofold inspiration Faith is a single inspiration Certainty is vanquished doubt, it is faith regained. Archangels are the spirits of nations. Principalities are time spirits. Germanys phantom/egregore is the Wolf Russias is the Bear Frances is the Cock. The Catholic Churchs is the Fox. Antichrist is the phantom/egregore of the whole of humanity.

The Chariot
It is the mastership understood in the sense of temptation as well as achievement. The trial of mastership is ego-inflation, megalomania. Work and worship constitute the conditio sine qua non for practical esotericism in order to hold in check the tendency towards megalomania. The Chariot is the triumph achieved by the Self, the successful outcome of the process of individuation.

The Chariot can signify either a sick person suffering from megalomania or a man who has passed through katharsis, the first of the three stages on the way of initiation. One becomes master of the four elements fire/air/water/earth, which in the domain of thought are manifested as creativity, clarity, fluidity and precision in the domain of feeling are manifested as warmth, magnanimity, sensitivity, faithfulness. In the domain of will are manifested as intensity, scope, adaptability, firmness. (also the four virtues of catholic theology, platos four cardinal virtues, four qualities of Sankarachaya and the projection of the sacred name YHVH in human nautre) Humility, being the law of spiritual health, implies consciousness of the difference and distance between the center of human consciousness and the center of divine consciousness.

The Justice
The Chariot taught us how inner equilibrium (health) is attained, the Justice teaches us how to maintain it. The 9th Arcanum the hermit- teaches us the middle way, that of balanced spiritual development. Law is interposed between the freedom of man and the freedom of God. Law does not act, it can only react. Justice manifests itself in the domain of judgement.

The Hermit
The lamp creates light. The mantle creates silence. The staff creates certainty. The lamp Lets light shine in the darkness The mantle Is the faculty of separating oneself from collective moods, prejudices and desires of race, nation, class and family the faculty of reducing to silence the cacophony of collectivism vociferating around oneself in order to listen to and understand the hierarchical harmony of the spheres. The staff The sense of realism, which is so developed that one stands in the domain of reality not on two feet, but rather on three, i.e. he advances only after having touched the ground through immediate experience and at first-hand contact, without intermediaries. The triple concordance of that which is CLEAR, in Harmony with the Total, is the object of Immediate Experience.

The traditional interpretation of the 9th Arcanum is Prudence. Prudence is constant awareness of being between two kinds of darkness the darkness of the white point of absolute synthesis above, and the darkness of the black point of the subconscious below. Prudence is at the same time mobile concentration proceeding from one color to another in the equatorial region between the two opposite poles. It is wrapped in the mantle of their synopsis not as a knowledge that is ever-present in the mind, but rather as the background of each particular branch of knowledge. On Faith: Intense Faith Hope, Faith-belief and faith-confidence can remove doubt (as in the case of mad people) but they are not enough to move a mountain. A force that can move a mountain must be equal to that which piled it up. There it is evidently a question not only of the intensity of certainty, but rather the intensity of the certainty of truth.

The Wheel of Fortune

The world God created meets with the world of the Serpent and thus make our world. The world of the Serpent is the world within the world. Everything that belongs to the Serpents world enfolds, while the rest unfold. (animal intestines/brain plants foliage) The brain is the organ of selection the process of natural selection in one organ. Except for its sensory functions the brain has no other part than to mime, in the full meaning of the term, the mental life (Henri Bergson, Mind-Energy) The brain is therefore an organ effecting mimicry, choosing what it is going to mime. It mimes accordingly. Now, relevant mimicry is precisely what the Book of Genesis understands by cunning when it says that the serpent was more cunning than any other wild creature the Lord had made. (Yannis: that is why the serpent was chosen to have its own world? Because of its efficiency to mime the world God created? ) It is, as it were, the psychological principle of the serpent, just as enfoldment and movement in a closed circle is its dynamic principle. To be cunning is to mime wisdom, after having eliminated the essential its light- and then to make use of it for ones own ends. (Yannis: Woman Serpent is the astrological sign of Cancer)

but the Serpent said: There is no freedom for the world, in so far as the circle of the world is not closed. Because freedom is to be in oneself, without interference from outside, especially from above, on the part of the Father. The world will always follow the will of the Father and not its own, in so far as there is an opening in the circle of the world, in so far as the Sabbath exists. And the Serpent took his tail in his mouth and thus formed a closed circle [] And the Serpent said to the beings of the world moving on this side of the closed circle, [] Here is your way you will commence by my tail and you will arrive at my head. Then you will have traversed the length of the circle of my being and you will have within you the entire closed circle, and thus you will be free as I am free. But woman guarder the memory of the world opened towards the Father and the holy Sabbath. And she offered herself for the rending of the closed circle in herself in order to give birth to children issuing from the world beyond it. [] Thus originated the suffering of her pregnancy and thus originated sorrow on this side of the world of the Serpent. And hostility came between woman and the Serpent, between the generations of woman, giving birth with pain, and the generations of the serpent, giving birth with pleasure. The former will crush the head of the Serpent and the Serpent will wound the heel of the woman. For woman moves in a contrary sense to the movement of the Serpent, and her head reaches the tail of the serpent, and her heels touch the head of the serpent. This is because in the world (which is the current of the Serpent) suffering is its counter movement. It was through the counter-movement of suffering that there originated the counter-current (of the sons of woman) which is the thought born from suffering and from the memory of the world of the Sabbath. There are three continuities in evolution: a) Biological or hereditary (personality/destiny) b) Psychic continuity or reincarnation (soul/will) c) Spiritual continuity or the work of salvation (Monad/providence)

The Strength
Force is the Arcanum of the natural integrity of being, or power without effort. (Virginity: spirit-soul-body = the force that keeps them together) Every Hermeticist will sooner or later meet the Blessed Virgin. This meeting signifies protection against a very serious danger. For he who advances in the sense of depth and height in the domain of the invisible one day arrives at the sphere known by esotericists as the sphere of mirages. It is this zone which prophets and the Apocalypse designate Babylon. The soul and the queen of this zone is in fact Babylon, the great prostitute, who is the adversary of the Virgin. With respect to qualitative force, it would be appropriate to say that unity is force, because one is strong only in so far as there is unity of spirit, soul and body, i.e. in so

far as there is virginity. It is inner conflict that renders us weak: the fact that we serve two or even three masters at the same time.

The Hanged Man

Terrestrial gravitation, the flesh, pushes mankind towards the ideal enfoldment, i.e. possession, power and enjoyment, whilst celestial gravitation, the spirit, draws mankind towards the ideal of radiation, i.e. poverty, obedience and chastity. (the superman vs the righteous man yannis: sun in leo vs sun in aries) The Hanged Man is the soul of the Spiritual man. Suspended between heaven and earth in complete solitude, not able to receive help from either. The spiritual man first (knows and) acts, then understands. (R1 stuff: Obedience is the perception of the will) But the will is an active force; it is not naturally an organ of perception. The transformation from my will to thy will, through love, is what one calls obedience. It is through obedience that the will is able to perceive. Practical Hermeticism therefore applies itself to educating thought and imagination (or memory) to keep in step with the will. This is why it requires constant effort of thought and imagination combined, in order to think, meditate and contemplate in symbols symbolism being the sole means of rendering thought and imagination capable of not being suspended when the will submits to revelation from above and enabling them to unite with it in its act of receptive obedience, so that the soul not only has a revelation of faith, but also participates in this revelation with its understanding and memory. The Hermeticist is also a Hanged Man. For him, too, faith predominates at the beginning and for a long time subsequently. This is because it is a difficult task, exacting inner asceticism for a long time, to render thought and imagination capable of being present and upright by the altar where the fire of faith is kindled and burns. But with time the gap between the certainty of faith and that of knowledge becomes narrower and narrower. Until the day arrives when they participate in it on equal footing with the will. This is the spiritual event that is designated Hermetic Initiation. And here is how this is to be achieved: One moralizes thought in substituting moral logic for formal logic. One makes an entrance for moral warmth in the domain of cold thought. At the same time, one intellectualizes the imagination by disciplining it and submitting it to the laws of moral logic. (=the exact imagination of Goethe, i.e. dispensing with imagination which plays according to free and arbitrary association, and instead applying it to work in accordance with the associations dictated by moral logic in harmony with the laws of symbolism)

Moral Logic introduces warmth in to the light of thought, so that the latter becomes solar, instead of lunar, which is what it is when it has only light alone and is cold, without warmth. The will becomes an organ of perception and execution towards God, as the zodiac is in the macrocosm; thought becomes warm and luminous, as the sun is in the macrocosm; the imagination becomes reflecting towards truth as the moon is towards the sun in the macrocosm. (obedience=the sacrifice of will / poverty= the sacrifice of thought / chastity= the sacrifice of imagination) Twelve is the number of modalities of the will and its action; Seven is the number of basic modalities of feeling and imagination (R7 cancer); Three is the numerical law of thought and word (R3 Saturn); One is the number of the Self who thinks, feels and wills. The sum of 1,3,7,12 is 22 in 1. This is why there are 22 Major Arcana. (Yannis: 3+4=7 / the trinity in the four elements R1, R2, R3 {R4 R5 R6 R7} Creator Savior Sanctifier {Fire/radiation, air/expansion, water/mobility, earth/stability} 3*4 = 12 / the trinity through the four elements = The 12 signs )

Death
Forgetting, sleep and death are three manifestations differing in degree of a sole principle (the principle of subtraction) or force which effects the disappearance of intellectual psychic and physical phenomena. Forgetting is to sleep as sleep is to death. Or again: forgetting is to memory as sleep is to consciousness, and sleep is to consciousness as death is to life. When Nature forgets us, then we die; when we forget ourselves, then we fall asleep; and when we lose active interest in something, then we forget it. Natural forgetting reduces man to animality. Natural sleep reduces man to vegetality. Natural death reduces man to minerality. Memory is of 4 kinds Mechanical Logical } Horizontal Kinds, Memories of the Past Moral Vertical or Revelatory Not a Memory of the Past

(from Lazarus tale) The operation of recall to life or resurrection- comprises three stages: That of coming (reaching the last door between the recaller and the recalled) That of taking away the stone (removing the doubt /depression, fatigue, despair) That of recall (the force of love through effort and suffering) There is no freedom outside of the miraculous and man is man only in so far as he lives from the miracle, through the miracle and for the miracle.

Temperance
Man was created in Gods divine image and likeness. The divine image of man is the freedom of will. The divine likeness of man is Gods virtues and it was destroyed when man fell. The GUARDIAN ANGEL undertakes the functions destroyed by original sin, in the likeness, and fills the breach wrought by them. (Yannis: i.e. human system=animal man +Guardian angel?) The Guardian angel accompanies as a faithful ally the Divine Image in man (Mans free will), just as vicious inclinations have made their way into the human functional organism, which was, before the Fall, the divine likeness. The Angel guards, cherishes, protects, visits and defends. He is therefore a flaming star, a luminous pentagon above man. (Yannis: Venuss symbol) He guards memory. (Continuity of endeavor) He cherishes the endeavor, quest and aspiration. He visits when he is permitted and called for. He protects the human being, by means of warnings/information He defends man as an advocate before Divine Justice, as a mother would defend her child (this function is aimed above) Guardian Angels are the manifestation of high and pure maternal love (Yannis: Venus) The human being would be shattered by the additional impulse coming from the Monad (the image/free will), which would be an irreparable catastrophe. Now, it is a just measure in the relationship between the image and the likeness that has to be guarded and which is, in fact, guarded by the Guardian Angel. This is why tradition has given the name Temperance to the 14th Arcanum of the Tarot. For it is a matter here of the measure in the fluidic relationship between the image and the likeness which is necessary for life and health.

Just measure in the fluidic relationship between the absolute radicalism of the monad (image/free will) and the relativism of the phenomenal personality (the likeness/virtues) constitutes the fundamental principle of spiritual, psychic and corporeal health. Tears, sweat and blood are the three substances of the threefold mystery of man. a) to be touched from above is tears b) the effort to conform to that which is above is sweat c) the consummated marriage of grace from above and effort from below is blood|. The 14th Arcanum therefore teaches the spiritual exercise dedicated to the mystery of tears. (this is what flows between the two vases the image and that of likenesswhich are held by the guardian angel of the card the Temperance) Tears like sweat and blood signify, both as an expression and as a fluidic substance, more than the physical body-fluid secreted by glands in the eyes. They signify also the subtle fluid of a spiritual and psychic nature, which emanates from the heart. (i.e. the 12-petalled lotus). The expression to have tears in ones voice already points to inner tears, and the expression to lament ones weakness goes further in the same direction. Inspiration is the principle acting in tears. Just like weeping, inspiration takes place in the guise of flowing between two vases. It results from the simultaneous collaboration of the higher eye and the lower eye. Higher Inspiration Lower

The technique of vision differs from that of inspiration in that in vision it is not a matter of the simultaneous collaboration of two eyes but rather of the passive imprint that the lower self, alone, receives from above. As it is not a matter of two understandings, it can be that the lower self (personality) experiences a vision without understanding it.

Higher . Lower . vision Higher . Intuition Lower . Concerning intuition, this is due, likewise to a single active principle. Here the lower self identifies itself with the higher Self, i.e. it raises itself to the latter and effaces itself to the point of becoming a passive and mute presence. Then it is the Higher Self alone which is active. In intuition is accomplished the mystery of blood In vision is accomplished the mystery of sweat. In inspiration is accomplished the mystery of tears. There is, truth to tell, no technique in the intimate and spiritual domain of inspiration, just as no technique exists in the domain of vision and intuition. In these domains everything is essentially moral. For, in order to think together, one thing before everything else is required, and this is humility. It is humility alone, due to poverty, obedience and chastity that renders us inspirable. In the beginning was the Word is the law not only of the world but also of the realization of inspiration in each individual biography. And the entire community of Hermeticists lives under this law, under the law of inspiration. Everyone lives under this law. The community of Hermaticists is distinguished from the rest of mankind only in that it is borne in an irresistible way- to be conscious of it and to know what happens both to them and to the rest of humanity. They hunger and thirst for comprehensive knowledge of that which the latter simply undergo. Hermeticists do not bring any privilege with it; on the contrary, rather, it is an added duty with which they are changed, notably the inner duty to understand the totality of miracles and disasters that is life and the world. This duty makes them appear presumptuous or childish in the eyes of the world, but it is the Arcanum of inspiration the winged entity pouring living water from one vase into another- that renders them such as they are.

The Devil
It is the Arcanum of counter-inspiration. It will introduce us to the secrets of the electrical fire and the intoxication of counterinspiration.

Love is the vital element of profound knowledge, intuitive knowledge. One cannot love evil, evil is therefore unknowable in its essence. One can understand it only at a distance, as an observer of its phenomenology. The card does not suggest the metaphysics of evil (the fall, the serpent etc) but rather an eminently practical lesson as to how it happens that beings can forfeit their freedom and become slaves of a monstrous entity which makes them degenerate by rendering them similar to it. The theme of the card is of the generation of demons and of the power they have over those who generate them. It is the Arcanum of the creation of artificial beings and of the slavery into which the creator can fall, becoming a slave of his own creation. (the hierarchies of the left are the ones that test us)

The Tower
As the 15th Arcanum is related to demoniacal evil, so the 16th Arcanum is related to human evil, i.e. to evil that does not come from outside, but which certainly has its origin within the human soul. (How the mighty are fallen) When one builds A Tower of Babel, he specializes in something he takes pride in, this way reaching an impasse regarding his/her personal human growth. The thunderbolt frees one from this impasse. Construction vs Growth

The Star
The 17th Arcanum is the Arcanum of growth (the universal sap of life) just as the 16th was that of construction. A tower is built. A tree grows. Growth is flowing, whilst construction proceeds by leaps and bounds. The agent of transformation from the ideal to the real. The agent of growth (water/principle of continuity) vs. the creative electrical agent (fire) The light-force that emanates from the star is hope. Hope is what moves and directs spiritual evolution in the world, as natural instinct of biological reproduction moves natural evolution.

The spiritual exercise of the 17th Arcanum is to see together to contemplate- the essence of biological growth (the agent of growth) and the essence of spiritual growth (hope) It is a matter of coming to an intuition of water above and below. What is required for mankinds evolution to continue? Hope hope Maternity true creativity Heredity - tradition } their unity is the agent of growth

The Moon