9 Death 3
Sw. Sw.
Death accompanied by much pain and misery.
9 9 High
W. Sw. Priestess
Recovery from sickness.
6 Q. King
Sw. W. P.
An active woman, courageous and reliable with dark chestnut hair, and open fearless expression.
7 King 5
C. C. Sw.
A rather fair man but very deceitful and malicious.
7. On Pairing the Cards Together in Reading.
On pairing the cards each is to be taken as of equal force with the other. If of opposite elements they mutually weaken each other. If at the end of the pairing of the cards in a packet, one card remains over, it signifies the partial result of that particular part of the divination only. If an evil card and the others good, it would modify the good.
If it be the significator of the enquirer, or of another person, it would show that matters would much depend on the line of action taken by the person represented. The reason of this importance of the single card is that it is alone, and not modified. If two cards are at the end instead of a single one, they are not of so much importance.
8. On the Exercise of Clairvoyance and Intuition.
The diviner should, in describing any person from a significator in the actual reading, endeavour, by clairvoyance and using the card in question as a symbol, to see the person implied using the rules to aid, and restrict, his vision. In describing an event from the cards in the reading, he should employ his intuition in the same manner. Personal descriptions are modified by the cards next them; e.g., the Knave of Wands represents usually a very fair girl, but if between cards of the suit of pentacles, she might be even quite dark, though the wands would still give a certain brightness to hair, eyes, and complexion.
9. On Counting in the Reading.
In all cases of counting from the card last touched, the card itself is one, that next it is two, and so on.
From every Ace—five is counted.
From every Princess (Knave)—seven is counted.
From every other court card—four is counted.
From every small card—the number of its pips.
From every key answering to an element—three is counted.
From every key answering to a sign—twelve is counted.
From every key answering to a planet—nine is counted.
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3. Note by JMG: In the original documents, a special form of the crux ansata related to the tarot was included here. See color insert page 15.
4. Note by Regardie: The Hebrew spellings of these angelic names are provided in Book One, with the preliminary knowledge material.
5. Note by JMG: Marplot, a character in Susannah Centlivre’s 1709 play The Busy Body, became a proverbial figure in nineteenth-century English writing.
6. Note by Regardie: A formula which may be found useful to assist concentration, and to formulate
a link between the diviner and the intelligences referred to in the tarot, is to take the pack in the left hand, and with the right hand hold the wand or any lesser instrument. Then say: “In the divine name I.A.O., I invoke thee thou great angel HRU who art set over the operations of this secret wisdom. Lay thine hand invisibly on these consecrated cards of art, that thereby I may obtain true knowledge of hidden things, to the glory of the ineffable name. Amen.”
7. Note by Regardie: If the matter be important, he should wait twelve hours before reshuffling.
8. Note by JMG: Note that in the rest of the example, despite what this paragraph says, the King of Cups rather than the Prince is treated as the significator.
9. Note by S.A., that is, William Wynn Westcott: Very careful here.
10. Note by S.A.: Or behind.
Unofficial: THE TAROT TRUMPS
By G.H. Soror, Q.L.11
The cards of the Lesser Arcana present to us the vibrations of number, colour, and element—that is, the plane on which number and colour function. Thus, in the Ten of Pentacles we have the number ten and tertiary colours—citrine, olive, and russet—working in Malkuth, the material plane. Whereas in the Ten of Wands we have the number ten and the tertiaries working in pure energy. In these cards, the Sephirah is indicated by the colouring of the clouds; the plane by the colouring of the symbols.
The four honours of each suit taken in their most abstract sense may be interpreted as:
Potential power.................................the King
Brooding power................................the Queen
Power in action.................................the Prince
Reception and transmission..............the Princess
All these cards are coloured according to their elements plus the Sephirah to which they are attributed. With the Greater Arcana, the Trumps, however, we are given the keys to divine manifestation, each one an individual force to be considered independently. It must never be forgotten that the Trumps are, intrinsically, glyphs of cosmic, not human, forces.
0. The Foolish Man. This card as usually presented shows a man in motley striding along, heedless of the dog which tears his garments and threatens to attack him. In this is seen only the lower aspect of the card, giving no hint to the divine folly of which St. Paul speaks. But in the Order pack, an effort is made to reveal the deeper meaning. A naked child stands beneath a rose tree bearing yellow roses—the golden rose of joy as well as the rose of silence. While reaching up to the roses, he yet holds in leash a grey wolf, worldly wisdom held in check by perfect innocence. The colours are pale yellow, pale blue, greenish yellow—suggestive of the early dawn of a spring day.
I. The Magician. It represents the union and balance of the elemental powers controlled by mind. The adept dedicating the minor implements on the altar. The paths of Beth and Mercury link Kether the Crown with Binah, the Aimah Elohim. The Magician, therefore, is reflected in the intellect which stores and gathers up knowledge and pours it into the House of Life, Binah. The number of the path, twelve, suggests the synthesis of the zodiac, as Mercury is the synthesis of the planets. The colours yellow, violet, grey, and indigo, point to the mysterious astral light surrounding the great adept. It is a card linked with the name Tahuti and Hermes as the previous one is with Krishna and Harparkrat or Dionysius.
II. The High Priestess. The High Priestess rules the long path uniting Kether to Tiphareth, crossing the reciprocal paths of Venus and Leo. She is the great feminine force controlling the very source of life, gathering into herself all the energizing forces and holding them in solution until the time of release. Her colours—pale blue, deepening into sky blue, silvery white, and silver, relieved by touches of orange and flame—carry out these ideas.
III. The Empress. She is an aspect of Isis; the creative and positive side of nature is suggested here. The Egyptian trilogy, Isis, Hathor, and Nephthys, symbolized by the crescent, full moon, and gibbous moon are represented in the tarot by the High Priestess, Hathor. The Empress, Isis, takes either the crescent moon or Venus as her symbol. Justice, Nephthys, takes the gibbous moon.
Isis and Venus gives the aspect of Love, while Hathor is rather the Mystic, the full moon reflecting the sun of Tiphareth while in Yesod, transmitting the rays of the sun in her path Gimel. In interpreting a practical tarot it is often admissible to regard the Empress as standing for occultism and the High Priestess for religion, the church as distinguished from the Order.
The Empress, whose letter is Daleth, is the door of the inner mysteries, as Venus is the door of the Vault. Her colours are emerald, sky-blue, blue-green, and cerise or rose-pink.
IV. The Emperor. Here we have the great energizing forces as indicated by the varying shades of red. It may be noted here that the red paths remain red in all planes, varying only in shade. Thus Aries, the Emperor, the pioneer, the general, is blood and deep crimson, red, pure vermillion, or flowing fiery red. He is Ho Nike, the conqueror, hot, passionate, impetuous, the apotheosis of Mars, whether in love or in wa
r. He is the positive masculine as the Empress is the positive feminine.
V. Hierophant. The High Priest is the counterpart of the High Priestess. As Aries is the house of Mars and the exaltation of the sun, so Taurus is the house of Venus and the exaltation of the moon. He is the reflective or mystical aspect of the masculine. He is the thinker as the Emperor is the doer.
His colours, unlike those of the Emperor, vary considerably. Red, orange, maroon, deep brown, and chestnut brown, suggest veiled thought, interior power, endurance, contemplation, and reconciliation. This card frequently indicates the hidden guardianship of the Masters.
VI. The Lovers. The impact of inspiration on intuition, resulting in illumination and liberation—the sword striking off the fetters of habit and materialism, Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the dragon of fear and the waters of stagnation.12
The colours are orange, violet, purplish grey, and pearl grey. The flashing colour of orange gives deep vivid blue, while the flashing colour for violet is golden yellow. The flashing colours may always be introduced if they bring out the essential colour meaning more clearly. In practise this card usually signifies sympathetic understanding.
VII. The Chariot. Here we have a symbol of the spirit of man controlling the lower principles, soul and body, and thus passing triumphantly through the astral plane, rising above the clouds of illusion and penetrating to the higher spheres.
The colours amber, silver-grey, blue-grey, and the deep blue-violet of the night sky elucidate this symbol. It is the sublimation of the psyche.
VIII. Strength. This also represents the mastery of the lower by the higher. But in this case it is the soul which holds in check the passions, although her feet are still planted on earth, and the dark veil still floats about her head and clings around her. The colours—pale greenish yellow, black, yellowish grey, and reddish amber—suggest the steadfast endurance and fortitude required, but the deep red rose which is the flashing colour to the greenish yellow, gives the motive power.
IX. The Hermit. Prudence. These three trumps should be collated in studying them for they represent the three stages of initiation. The man wrapped in hood and mantle and carrying a lantern to illuminate the path and a staff to support his footsteps. He is the eternal seeker, the pilgrim soul. His hood and mantle are the brown of earth, and above him is the night sky. But the delicate yellow-greens and bluish greens of spring are about him, and spring is in his heart.
X. Wheel of Fortune. In the Etz Chayim, or the Tree of Life, the Wheel is placed on the Pillar of Mercy, where it forms the principal column linking Netzach to Chesed, victory to mercy. It is the revolution of experience and progress, the steps of the zodiac, the revolving staircase, held in place by the counterchanging influence of light and darkness, time and eternity—presided over by the Plutonian cynocephalus below, and the sphinx of Egypt above, the eternal riddle which can only be solved when we attain liberation. The basic colours of this Trump are blue, violet, deep purple, and blue irradiated by yellow. But the zodiacal spokes of the wheel should be in the colours of the spectrum, while the Ape is in those of Malkuth, and the Sphinx in the primary colours and black.
XI. Justice. Nephthys, the third aspect of Luna, the twin sister of Isis. Justice as distinguished from love. Her emblems are the sword and the scales. Like her sister, she is clothed in green, but in a sharper colder green than the pure emerald of Isis. Her subsidiary colours are blue, blue-green, pale green. It is only by utilizing the flashing colours that we can find the hidden warmth and steadfastness.
XII. The Hanged Man. An elusive, because a profoundly significant symbol. It is sacrifice—the submergence of the higher in the lower in order to sublimate the lower. It is the descent of the spirit into matter, the incarnation of God in man, the submission to the bonds of matter that the material may be transcended and transmuted. The colours are deep blue, white and black intermingled but not merged, olive, green, and greenish fawn.
XIII. Death. The sign of transmutation and disintegration. The skeleton, which alone survives the destructive power of time, may be regarded as the foundation upon which the structure is built, the type which persists through the permutations of time and space, adaptable to the requirements of evolution and yet radically unchanged; the transmuting power of nature working from below upwards, as the Hanged Man is the transmuting power of the spirit working from above downwards. The colours are blue-green, both dark and pale, the two dominant colours of the visible world, and the flashing colours of orange and red-orange.
XIV. Temperance. This is the equilibrium not of the balance of Libra but of the impetus of the arrow, Sagittarius, which cleaves its way through the air by the force imparted to it by the taut string of the bow. It requires the counterchanged forces of fire and water, Shin and Qoph, held by the restraining power of Saturn, and concentrated by the energies of Mars to initiate this impetus. All these are summed up in the symbolism of the figure standing between earth and water, holding the two amphorae with their streams of living water, and with the volcano in the background. The colours are bright-blue, blue-grey, slate-blue, and lilac-grey.
XV. The Devil. This card should be studied in conjunction with number thirteen. They are the two great controlling forces of the universe, the centrifugal and the centripetal, destructive and reproductive, dynamic and static. The lower nature of man fears and hates the transmuting process, hence the chains binding the lesser figures and the bestial forms of their lower limbs. Yet this very fear of change and disintegration is necessary to stabilize the life force and preserve continuity. The colours are indigo, livid brown, golden brown, and grey.
XVI. The Tower. As always red remains persistent throughout the four planes, although modified in tone. Thus we find vivid scarlet shading into deep sombre red and vermillion shot with amber. The contrasting shades of green serve to throw the red into relief. The tremendous destructive influence of the lightning, rending asunder established forms to make way for new forms to emerge, revolution as distinguished from transmutation or sublimation, the destructive as opposed to the conservative, energy attacking inertia, the impetuous ejection of those who would enclose themselves in the walls of ease and tradition.
XVII. The Star. This shows the seven-pointed star of Venus shining above the waters of Aquarius, the guiding force of love in all its forms and aspects, illuminating the soul during her immersion in humanity, so that the bonds of Saturn are dissolved in the purified waters of baptism. The dove of the Spirit hovers above the Tree of Knowledge giving the promise of ultimate attainment—and on the other side gleams of the Tree of Life.
Pale colours suggest dawn and the morning star—amethyst, pale grey, fawn, dove colour, and white, with the pale yellow of the star.
XVIII. The Moon. Here also is a river but it is the troubled waters of night, wherein is to be described a crayfish, counterpart of the scarabeus. From the water’s edge winds the dark path of toil, effort, and possible failure. It is guarded by the threatening watchdogs, seeking to intimidate the wayfarers, while in the distance the barren hills are surmounted by the frowning fortresses still further guarding the way to attainment. It is the path of blood and tears in which fear, weakness, and fluctuation must be overcome. The colours are dark crimson, reddish brown, brownish crimson, and plum colours, but their sombre hues are lightened by the translucent faint greens and yellows to be found in their counterparts.
XIX. The Sun. The watery paths of trial and probation are counterbalanced by the fiery paths of temptation, judgment, and decision. In violent contrast to the sombre colouring of Aquarius and Pisces, we are confronted by the flaring hues of the sun and fire. The too-aspiring Icarus may find his waxen wings of ambition and curiosity shrivelled and melted by the fiery rays of the sun and the heat of fire, but approached with humility and reverence, the sun becomes the beneficent source of life.
Protected by an enclosing wall, standing by the waters of repentance, the pilgrim may submit himself humbly but without fear to the searching light
and absorb warmth and vitality from it for the struggle before him. The colours are clear-orange, golden-yellow, amber shot with red, and the contrasting blue and purple.
XX. The Last Judgment. The three trumps attributed to the elemental paths are perhaps the most difficult to understand. They represent the action of forces exterior to the experience of humanity, not the influence of environment but the impact of the supernals upon the sublunary.
In the air, we have pure spirit holding in leash the lust of the flesh. In water, the sublimating power of sacrifice. Here in fire, we are shown the cosmic forces concentrating on the pilgrim from all sides. Judgment is pronounced upon him. He is not the judge nor does decision rest in his hands. Lazarus cannot emerge from the sepulchre until the voice cries out, “Come forth!” Nor can he cast aside the conflicting grave-clothes until the command, “Loose him!” is given. Man of himself is helpless. The impulse to ascend must come from above, but by its power he may transcend the sepulchre of environment and cast aside the trammels of desire. Here once more, the fiery energy of red burns through the planes. Fiery scarlet, glowing crimson, burning red are emphasized by the passive greens.
XXI. The Universe. Observe that this represents not the world but the universe. It should be remembered that to the ancients, Saturn represented the confines of the solar system. They had no means of measuring either Uranus or Neptune. To them, therefore, Saturn passing through the spiral path of the zodiac, marked at its cardinal points by the symbols of the Kerubim forming the cross, was a comprehensive glyph of the whole.
Thus, in this card we find a synthesis of the whole Taro or Rota. The central figure should be taken as Hathor, Athor, or Ator, rather than Isis, thus indicating the hidden anagram which may perhaps be translated thus: ORAT—man prays. ATOR—to the Great Mother. TARO—who turns. ROTA—the wheel of life and death.
The Golden Dawn Page 81