THE MANTIC ARTS | TAROT
INTRODUCTION | TEXTS ON TAROT | LINKS | BOOKS | MEDITATIONS

MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT

Part I / II / III / IV

The Lovers

After being counselled by the Pope, the neophyte must make his choice: which Way does he desire to follow? Under the appearance of free will, this choice has already been determined by Cupid, who irradiates Solar energy and is its diplomat.

It is the Arcanum of bifurcation and of the Pythagorean Y. Bifurcations and crossings are protected by Hermes, who gives the necessary discernment for the right choice. The Y, that superficially represents the choice between Virtue and Vice, in the Initiatic level symbolizes the specific choice for each Operator of his Way to the Work of the Sun. On a profound and pre-existential level it is the Sun itself that chooses sub specie aeternitatis how it wants to be reached by the Elect, their lives and concrete Ways being nothing more than the temporal unfolding of Its designs.

Looking at the Lady at his left and also at the Pope's approval, our Travelling Arcanum points to and touches the womb of Nature at his right (and she in turn touches his heart). He is touched at the shoulders and instructed by the noble Lady at his left, who points him the soil with her other hand. The Work consists, therefore, in the Redemption and Regeneration of Matter.

In this sense, our Noble Lady Alchemy wisely marries here her pair of nubile children, Fire and its Water, red Sulphur and white feminine Mercury, both already separately symbolized by the Imperial Couple. The Lovers are thus the Arcanum of Alchemical Hierogamy.

Our Lady looks at the Traveller but also beyond, for she contemplates at her right the Arcanum of the Chariot and foresees the dangers that are inherent to it. It will be her task to warn and Orientate our Traveller to the hard journey that awaits him, for the Path must canonically lead to the East, Dwelling of the Rising Sun.

back

The Chariot

An Arcanum of Martial and Mercurial nature, The Chariot symbolizes the Way or Path chosen in the preceding Arcanum and that is now being followed with diligence. Our little king must be no doubt a trifle impatient, as the structure of the wheels and horses of his Chariot seem to condemn it to the most absolute immobility. What is the reason of this apparent paradox?

It is necessary to resolutely follow the chosen Way, however at the same time avoiding hurry and anxiety to obtain our Golden Fleece. Hurry is in the Work the mother of all disasters. Little king of your little world or microcosmos, learn that the most important thing in the Work is the earthly trip (or, in other Ways, the humid voyage), your desired Fleece being no more than the certificate that you have successfully and canonically accomplished the former. Always follow Nature's rhythm, her seasons and cycles, with calmness and intuition. Festina Lente: hurry, but slowly. Here lies the reason for the Chariot's immobility.

Our Arcanum is the Triumphal Chariot of a specific earthly Way, and contains a prince or little king under a starry roof or parasol. Let us say it openly: the Way that is exemplified by the Tarot in this Arcanum is symbolically indicated as being the Dry Way of the Starry Martial Regulus. A short and dangerous Way because of the risk of explosion, it is the Noble Way as opposed to the Maritime Ways of the commoners.

back

Justice

Lady of Karma, repairer of the edges of the Path and of ourselves (for we are the Path itself), Justice is an Arcanum of strong Saturnine shades. It is inevitable and just that greater or smaller corrections be made to the sometimes wild run of the Chariot. Justice will therefore reduce the impetuous trot of the Chariot to the meditative walk of the Hermit. Sometimes heavy and painful, her greatest interest lies in correcting our course so that we might safely reach our desired Orient.

With her sword in hand she cuts our deviations after measuring them according to the canonical weights and measures of her balance. She didactically reminds us of the important differences between the weight of Nature and the weight of Art, a subject that is treated in a clarifying way by the Adept Fulcanelli in his Philosophical Dwellings. The Chariot hurriedly errs as it uses the common weight of Nature, and our meditative Hermit, cured by Justice of the juvenile impetuosity of the little king, intuitively understands what signifies the weight of Art.

Her judge's hat holds a circular jewel above her eyes, standing for the activation of certain endocrinous glands that were known since remotest antiquity. In this way is symbolized the necessity for the development of the Traveller's Transcendental Intuition, in order that the latter might indeed understand the meaning of the Work and so act accordingly in its operative procedures.

back

The Hermit

An introspective and sometimes melancholic Arcanum, the Hermit walks back in the Path and as he feels his way in the dark with his cane he perceives where he deviated. This Arcanum symbolizes the Yin periods that naturally succeed the Yang moments. It is the period of solitude that is necessary in order to cure the wounds inflicted by Justice's sword and to prepare us to the imponderable future that the Wheel of Fortune has in store.

It means to go back and to patiently restart, understanding that we only need the little natural fire of a lamp to excite the secret fire that lies inside our Kingdom. As Aurach wrote in The Garden of Riches, our Work only needs the fire of a candle at the beginning and that of three candles at the end.

This Arcanum is intimately connected with the notions of secrecy and solitary contemplation. Follow with attention the footprints left by Nature amidst the dark of night, as Emblem XLII of M. Maïer's Atalanta Fugiens wisely depicts, complementing the present Arcanum.

With his gaze fixed at the Justice of weights and measures, our Hermit holds attentively at eye level the lamp's external fire as he transmits it to the soil through his red cane, exciting the soil's secret fire. Observe how the fiery red colour starts at the lamp, passes through the right arm and shoulders and finally descends to the soil through the left arm and cane. At the same time, our Hermit's cape protects this fragile system from the night winds, as he does not despise the warning sculptured at Dampierre-sur-Boutonne: Sic Perit Inconstans.

back

The Wheel of Fortune

Regulated with justice by the winged Sphinx on its top, our Wheel Fire alternates the sublimation of the solid with the fixation of the volatile, each one in its due canonical time. For so teaches Tradition: Ascend from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth descend, and gather the unity of forces from superior and inferior things.

Our Sphinx is winged, crowned and of Mercurial nature: it represents Hermetic Initiation and guards its secret Arcana. It is related to Lucifer, the Light-bearer, identified with Prometheus. Here lies the original meaning of the Templar's supposed Baphomet, so intelligently sculptured at the top of the main entrance of Saint-Merry's Church in Paris and symbol of the Source of Gnosis of the Elect.

The clothes of the two animals represent their winged or unwinged nature, and the animals themselves have the same meaning as the winged and terrestrial dragons that fight in the old texts. Together they form the Ouroboros serpent described and illustrated in the Chrisopea attributed to Cleopatra, sive serpens qui caudam devoravit, a serpent of wisdom that protects and encircles the motto En To Pan, The All is One.

It is necessary that you be initiated in order to know how to conveniently handle this Wheel, so that through the exact knowledge of its specific and homonymous Fire you may be able to reach this so spoken-of Fortune. Without this knowledge the handle will not be turned by you, and then this Arcanum will only represent your passivity regarding the good or bad things Destiny brings you.

back

Strength

A powerful and serene woman that with no apparent effort tames and opens the mouth of a lion that is situated at her pubic region, the Arcanum of Strength inaugurates the hibernal series of Arcana that prepare the eclosion of this same Strength in the XVth Arcanum, The Devil. This series, constituted by Strength, The Hanged Man, XIII or unnamed Death and Temperance, represents the preparation and latent potentialization of this immense Energy that is worked inside the Operator and the Crucible, an Energy that will manifest itself with intense strength in the Arcanum of the Devil. As Hermes says, this Energy, materialized at the end of the Work in our Stone or Holy Grail, is the strong strength of all strength, for it will conquer all subtle things and will penetrate all solids.

The Work generates with itself a subtle but powerful Energy Field, a Field that is concomitant to the profound hermeneutical circle formed by the Operator and his Work. The taming and purification of the Operator's gross energies, the latter being symbolized by the voracious appetite of the lower body, are essential to the evolution of the Work and also to avoid tragic accidents that could damage our health and physical integrity and even affect in an unpredictable way our physical surroundings. The famous Boreal dawn of 1938, supposedly caused by Canseliet's fault, is a good example in this regard.

One of the main mottos of the Art is Patience, besides Humility and the admonition to Pray and Work. Patience, antithesis of the gross energies of the Operator, will enable the latter to reach the serenity and intuitive mental clarity that are necessary in order to observe a last rule, namely to follow Nature.

The image of Strength gently opening the lion's mouth is an indication that it is necessary to open our Matter, that Sulphur represented by Strength's red cap must gently melt with the voracious Mercury or Universal Solvent and open it, so that our Field can putrify in the period of Saturn symbolized by Arcanum XIII.

back