part0063

Image : A naked female figure stands upon the head of a snake which coils about her and above her. She holds the curve of a hook in her hand which descends from an eye in the upper right corner of the scene. Stars are depicted in a swirl about her body and four elemental animals make up the corners of the design. A graph or chemical diagram is drawn at the base of the card.

At the bottom of the Tree of Life, connecting Yesod and Malkuth, we find the Universe [World]. In the symbolism of Kabbalah, when the Tree is depicted as a real tree, it is upside-down, with roots in heaven and the branches reaching to the bottom of the diagram in Malkuth. The Universe is seen as the manifestation of the divine and connected to it as an emanation – “as above, so below”. It is also the path or point of return, for “Malkuth is in Kether, and Kether is in Malkuth, but after another manner”.

This is a card of synthesis, the ultimate coming-together and ending of all things, ready to create a new beginning. When over a hundred tarot readers were surveyed in a particular manner to derive their “unconscious” meaning for each card, drawn from tens of thousands of readings, the meaning for the World/Universe card was “beginning”. Whilst we may read that the card means “ending”, it turns out that we actually talk more about the “new beginning” when the card appears in a reading.

As Crowley notes, the Hebrew letters which correspond to the Fool at the beginning “A” and th Universe at the ending, “Th” create the word ATh, ‘essence’. The entirety of the deck is the essence of everything between nothing and all, beginning and end. This is a truly cosmological Tarot deck. Crowley sees the card as the completion of the Great Work of initiation, whose beginning is illustrated by the Fool; “the Fool is the negative issuing into manifestation; the Universe is that manifestation, its purpose accomplished, ready to return”. [491]

This is an illustration of the fundamental cosmology of Kabbalah. The Universe did not start with a “big bang”, but rather something almost the opposite. In Kabbalah, it is seen that the eternal divine – having no definition, for it is everything forever, an “endless, limitless light” (Ain Soph Aur) – could only do one thing, which is to contract or withdraw from itself. We can imagine it as everything taking a deep breath in and pulling itself away from just a small sphere within itself, making a void – but it is not a “void”.

In that void, being the “not everything”, is “something”. A point, as it were, of “not nothing”, an “everything”. That point – Kether – can only do one thing, which is to replicate or split itself, making “two things”. The two-thingness can then create a third thing that is not the same as either – the very first act of actual creation, the “something new” from “two split things of one thing”.

Then, the “Threeness” can expand massively and it creates everything else – the actual “big bang” below the incomprehensible and indivisible “three things” above the Abyss.

Crowley summarises this concept of emanation in his equation “0=2”. The ‘nothing’ is actually two things; ‘everything’ and ‘not everything that is actually something’. Perhaps these abstract concepts are why he advises long-continued meditation on the card.

In Kabbalah, the divine name of YHVH is seen as representing the four worlds and other four-fold aspects of the divine in manifestation, such as the four elements. The figure of a maiden manipulating the “radiant spiral force” is that of the final “Heh” in the word YHVH. She is the ‘daughter’ of the family, the youngest and final manifestation of the creative act – and the potential mother of a new generation. In a reading she might symbolise the finality or conclusion of a situation – whether this is a welcome relief, or an unwanted disaster will depend on the question or concern, in addition to any other cards in the spread.

It is almost certainly a hook rather than a scythe such as we see painted by Harris on Atu XIII. On a close examination of the card, we find there are two items descending from the Eye; the hook and a similar device with a solar circle and five flames attached to it. This latter item is hidden against the coils of the serpent.

I take the hook to illustrate Tzaddi, the Hebrew letter which we met in relationship to the Star card and the phrase “Tzaddi is not the Star”. As we have identified the Eye with the Sun, and Sun as our central Star, I wonder if this design is simply to illustrate that link.

It could be that as Crowley describes the dancer as manipulating “the active and the passive”, and she does indeed hold the central ray of light coming from the Eye against one hand, and the hook in the other, it represents the passive or darkness of Saturn, and could be a sickle to represent that planet.

I use this in a reading to indicate that all dualities; negative and positive, dark and light, good and bad, etc. have to be accepted in a situation and used to create some bigger picture. We have to not only handle (the literal meaning of ‘manipulate’) what is thrown at us in the world, but we have to learn to dance with it.

The serpent is an illustration of Heru-Ra-Ha, who appears in Atu XIX. He is the Lord of the New Aeon and of Light, but also the ‘rose’ or the spirit. As such, he dances with the Universe, making a “Rose Cross” in their unification. This card is a secret illustration of the formula of the Rose Cross for a new aeon; rather than the soul being stripped of attachment through the suffering of the cross, Crowley illustrates it rather as a dance and an embrace; “The Sun, Strength and Sight, Light; these are for the servants of the Star and Snake”. [492]

The symbol of the Eye picks up from the symbolism of the Snake in representing “sight” in the rewards given to the “servants of the Star and Snake”, the Star here being our own central star, the Sun. The manifest world is only manifest in our awareness – our sight – through the dance of experience, the embrace of spirit and matter. The eye pours light into the union of spirit and matter, causing the spiral force of creation in which that figure dances.

We have seen how the Universe is conceived through a “fourness” and Crowley references this in his own description of the card. He sees the four Kerubs as the establishment of the Universe and the ellipse about the central figure as having seventy-two sections (although he calls them circles, which are not evident on the card) representing the Shemhamphorasch. This is a ‘hidden name’ of the divine revealed through Kabbalistic analysis of biblical verse and found its way into several magical grimoires. The whole signifies again the relationship between matter and spirit.

The incorporation of a scientific diagram into the Universe card at first appears an unusual choice given the general magical and abstract tone of the deck. However, it perfectly represents the descent of the Major Arcana into Matter in this very last card. In effect, the final illustration of the narrative of the whole deck, is a symbol representing the elements of matter in its most scientific manner. The symbol is drawn from the appendix of J W. N. Sullivan’s The Bases of Modern Science , published in 1928. Crowley references the title in the text and also references Sullivan in the letter he penned in his defence under the ‘Secret Order of the Hidden Masters’. He is mentioned by Harris in her letters, who finds she likes his work better than “that American bum”, who is unnamed. [493]

Sullivan’s book is an interesting guide to science written at the time to make science more accessible. It also contains several philosophical sections on the place of science in human progress, likely to have impressed Crowley, whose motto for the Equinox publication was “the aim of religion, the method of science”.

To conclude, we may say that science tells us much less about the universe than we used to suppose. It is limited, not only because, as an historical fact, mathematical laws have been formulated for only a limited class of phenomena, but because science, by its very nature, can tell us nothing about phenomena but their structure. Also, those elements of our experience that are ignored by science are not thereby shown to have no bearing upon the nature of reality. Our aesthetic and religious experiences need not lose the significance they appear to have merely because they are not taken into account in the scientific scheme. It is even possible that they will not always remain excluded from the scientific scheme. [494]

In readings this card symbolises completion and a new beginning following that completion. It is perhaps also a time for a well-deserved rest, such as Keats described for Saturn - who corresponds to the card - in Hyperion ;

The card recommends synthesis, the bringing together of a team, combining projects, simplifying life, down-sizing, putting ideas together rather than going it alone. As such, it holds the opposite significance to the Hermit, who has withdrawn from the World.

If you practice the methods of Tarosophy , you can shuffle your Thoth deck, asking “Should I go alone or work with others?” if this a question for which you require advice. Turn the deck up and locate the Hermit and the Universe cards, reading the two cards either side of those two cards. This will indicate the likely forces which will be drawn if you go it alone or work with others. If the two cards of the Hermit and Universe are located next to each other, this likely indicates that you will not actually have choice in the matter and it will not make much difference. [496]