Tiphareth (Beauty)
The Major Arcana
Stories can be sung, some painted, some written in poetry or prose. But all stories can be told, and told so that every human being can understand them.
Pamela Colman Smith32
Sacred
The Fool is infused with the energy of dawn and the possibility of a new day. He walks in pure optimism. The Fool brings life as he stands at the forefront of unfolding consciousness. The Fool is so pure, so fresh, that he carries the number of ultimate potentiality: zero. He is the human soul manifest and aware of itself in the material world. He is so fresh that he does not think ahead of himself or place preconceived judgments on the world around him. The Fool is the state of the soul as it enters the world.
Waite says of the Fool, “He is the spirit in search of experience.” Waite could be describing each of us. Aren’t we all searching for experience? Experience defines us. It teaches us who we are. The Fool’s journey is the adventure shaping each and every one of us on the planet. Every day brings us possibilities and opportunities ranging the spectrum from pleasant to challenging. The Fool greets every experience head-on. Doing so, the experience tempers who the Fool becomes as he travels through the tarot and down the road of life.
The Fool is a clearinghouse of the senses. He is perception, feeling, and experience. He is the way in which he organizes the world inside the body. The Fool looks at the world in pure innocence and without predetermined labels. He never tires of looking, seeing, and observing because the world is continually new under his step.
The Fool contains every card of the tarot deck inside of him the same way you are the unique container for your personal life experience. An individual’s life appears to occur outside because we view others from an external viewpoint. Life, however, occurs within each individual’s interior life. Individual consciousness processes events, happenings, and relationships on the inside, not the outside. Buddha says, “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”
The Fool is the first card of the RWS deck. The number zero connects the Fool to the World card, acting as a jewelry clasp between cyclical endings and beginnings. The Fool’s placement in tarot has changed over the decades. Ancient decks carried an unnumbered Fool. Eighteenth and nineteenth-century decks placed the Fool between Judgement and the World. The Golden Dawn placed the Fool at the front of the major arcana, which allowed the corresponding astrology to line up with the cards. The most usable tarot deck of the twentieth century was born.
Waite speaks to the Fool’s expression when he says, “His countenance is full of intelligence and expectant dream.” His statement reminds us the Fool is not a simpleton. The Fool is an energetic creature who desires stimulation and adventure. Waite calls him “a prince of the other world.” The other world is the invisible world. The Fool passed through the veil from supernatural to natural, from subconscious to conscious. Waite says, “The sun, which shines behind him, knows whence he came, whither he is going, and how he will return by another path after many days.” Waite’s statement posits the sun as the source of all life and magic. Waite speaks of the Kabbalistic journey of emergence and return when he states the Fool will return by another path. The Tree of Life’s paths are each connected to specific tarot cards. The journey of emergence begins at the top of the tree and moves downward until the soul, idea, or thing is made manifest in the material world. The journey of return occurs as the Fool moves back up the tree to convene with the divine energy pouring though the top of the tree. Like the child who grows up and leaves home only to return home as a fully formed adult, so will the Fool move forth into the unknown to discover who he is.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: No function
Hebrew Letter: Aleph
Element: Air
Astrological Association: Uranus
The Fool’s tunic displays ten circles. The circles represent the ten emanations (Sephiroth) on the Hebrew Tree of Life. These emanations or circles connect the major arcana’s Kabbalistic paths. A careful examination of the circles reveals an eight-spoked wheel inside each circle. Just as the pentacle’s star represents four elements and the human spirit, the eight-spoked wheel represents the Golden Dawn’s symbol for spirit.
A red feather sprouts from the Fool’s cap. Historically, a feather marks the Fool. The Visconti-Sforza deck’s Fool carried a slew of red feathers in his hair. Ancient Italian and Christian art used the feather, particularly peacock feathers, as symbols of immortality. The RWS deck’s placement of red feathers on the Fool, Death, and Sun cards strings together the narrative of occult expression. The three cards are intimately connected. The Fool’s feather marks the occultist moving through degrees of initiation and experience. The Fool is emergence, Death signifies rebirth, and the Sun card merges the occultist with divinity.
Waite describes the Fool’s reaction to the gaping cliff before him, stating, “The edge which opens on the depth has no terror; it is as if angels were waiting to uphold him.” Innocence protects the Fool. Many interpretations suggest the cliff continues to regenerate under the Fool’s light step. The Fool, impervious to any danger the cliff represents, embodies a person unconcerned with external threats.
The Fool is assigned the Hebrew letter Aleph and the element of air because he is the “Breath of Life.” The Fool’s dog is drawn in the same shape of the Hebrew letter Aleph, which is considered to be the animating principle of life. Geraldine Beskin, proprietress of the Atlantic Bookshop in London, discovered Pamela’s source material for the Fool’s dog, who is none other than Ellen Terry’s favorite pet. Famed actress Ellen Terry took Pamela under her wing after Pamela’s father passed away. In addition to Ellen being the muse for many of Pamela’s cards, so was her favorite pooch.
The Fool carries a bag fastened to the end of a stick. The Fool’s bag reflects the experience he brings with him into his new life. We may be done with the past, but is the past done with us? His bag reminds us how as new cycles begin, we bring the past with us. Experience and past events may be hidden, even forgotten, yet their imprints remain. The Fool’s bag of experience includes past lives, genetic inheritance, and any event an individual has experienced.
The Fool walks from right to left. His movement imitates the Hebrew alphabet, also written and read from right to left. The World dancer moves right to receive the Fool’s energy. Only the Death card moves directly into the Fool card, reflecting the end of the physical journey and the beginning of the spiritual journey.
The Fool’s left hand holds a white flower, yet he looks in the opposite direction. Does he acknowledge what he holds? Perhaps he does not see his gift. Alchemical white reflects purity, while flowers represent manifestation. The white flower thus becomes a potent symbol of seeking what already lies within. As the Fool, each of us enters our journey and life cycle innocently. Experience forges us into who we become. Each person we meet, challenge we face, and obstacle we overcome teaches us more about who we are. The Fool’s white flower is the glistening potential inside each and every one of us. It is the pursuit of this flower and the people and places we touch along the way that truly matters. In the end, no matter how wild the journey, we come back to ourselves. Like Dorothy of Oz, we find there is no place like home. The home and flower we sought were inside us all along.
Profane
Optimism. Innocence. Adventure. New cycle. Clean slates.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, bewrayment.
Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.
Asana
The Fool card aligns with yoga’s mountain pose, or tadasana, or samasthiti. The Fool reflects pure consciousness and contains every tarot card inside of him. The same can be said for mountain pose, the place from which all movement issues forth and eventually returns. Mountain pose usually begins a practice, and it is also the physical posture we often take in regular life as we greet the world beyond the mat. The Fool is symbolically placed on a mountaintop landscape, further aligning it with mountain pose. Mountain pose offers a moment to balance ourselves, come to the present moment, reflect upon spiritual clarity, and consider the heights to which we aspire to ascend. The card and the pose also prepare us for the looming adventure lying ahead of us, both in our practice and in our life, which, of course, are one and the same.
In a few lines
tell your story.
Pamela Colman Smith33
Sacred
The Fool is consciousness awakened. The Magician marks the point at which the individual becomes master of his or her consciousness. The Magician holds a powerful key for both tarot and life. His key is mastery of the self. The Magician’s experience is strictly in his control. This is the reason all four suits of tarot sit ready and waiting upon the Magician’s table. A Magician chooses both thoughts and tools wisely. The Magician doesn’t control his “outside.” He doesn’t control the weather or the stock market or wield maniacal influence over the actions of others. The Magician is in control of his interior experience. Doing so, he decides what his experience of life will be. It is a mental process used consciously and unconsciously by millions of people, from dancers to athletes, from scientists to yogis, from students to teachers. No individual can control external events. However, we are free to control and determine our response to external events, people, and places. This is how a jailed prisoner may experience complete freedom behind bars. Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius said, “You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” The Golden Dawn was well aware of the Magician’s secret. Now you hold the key to his magic. It is a tool you have always possessed. You have complete control over your experience of life once you have control over the mind and emotion.
The Magician exudes a wild charisma, yet he works not for the crowd. Energy radiates through his pores because he is an electric channel, like a power cord buzzing with intensity, looking for an outlet. He uses his wand to siphon energy from the celestial realm above. The energy floods his body and moves through him as he directs it toward the ground, the place of manifestation. The Magician thus becomes the channel for three levels of existence: the upper spiritual world, the middle “real” world of reality (the one we all live in), and the lower world of dreamtime. He embodies the goal of various spiritual traditions as the divine union of energetic connection. The Magician embodies the Sanskrit word yoga, meaning “union.”
The Magician and ordinary individuals differ only in the awareness of their act. Attention is energy. Our body is a device controlling energy at every moment of every day. We conserve and build energy at night as we sleep. Our energy is spent during waking hours on people, places, and things. We turn our attention to something and we light it up. The Magician, who already resonates with innate personal power, collects additional energy from above. His posture mimics a flower opening to receive solar rays. His posture reflects the yogi in a sun salutation posture who infuses herself with solar energy. His wand acts like the tip of a cathedral spire, church steeple, or pyramid channeling divine energy from above. This electricity moves through his physical form and is infused with his awareness. The energy exits his body through his pointed finger. He directs it toward the ground, aligning it with his clear intention.
His stance aligns with the great esoteric truth “as above, so below.” The phrase expresses a complex and evocative idea. What is true for the macrocosm (the world) is true for the microcosm (the individual). What exists on the inside (interior world) exists on the outside (exterior world). Observe this axiom at work in a negative individual who harbors an angry worldview. Your irritable and annoyed neighbor holds an inner filter of experience making the world look depressing and dark. The individual’s irritable inner feelings are projected on the outside world. You see a beautiful sunset while they see a wasted day. We can identify the inner filter acutely when recalling the experience of falling in love. The world is aglow with magic and excitement when under love’s epic spell. The flowers sing, days breed excitement, nights harbor erotic mystery. The opposite holds true during extreme periods of tragic grief where time slows and sorrow washes over once-colorful days that fade to black and white. In every circumstance, the exterior world has barely changed. The interior world decorates the outer world. The Magician who recognizes this truth becomes aware of her projection. She stops fighting against external elements and surrenders to them. By giving up the ghost and surrendering—even to a painful circumstance—she cultivates freedom. Discovering this power, she begins working to master the alignment of her inner life to the outer life and discovers a transformation on every imaginable level. Aware of how the inner and outer world works, the Magician directs her energy anywhere she chooses. The Magician’s life becomes an enchantment of her own making.
Waite describes the Magician in Tarot, A Wheel of Fortune as a man on whom “the spark from Heaven has fallen.” These sparks, seen as electric yellow drops on various other cards, are called the sparks of Yod. They carry enlightenment from the highest source. Yod is the holy active principle. Waite speaks of the Magician’s posture: “It is known in very high grades of the Instituted Mysteries; it shows the descent of grace, virtue and light, drawn from things above and derived to things below.” The “high grades of Instituted Mysteries” is the Golden Dawn. The “descent of grace, virtue and light” is the drawing down of energy and descriptions of the light. “Derived to things below” reflects where the Magician channels his energy. Waite describes the items on the Magician’s table as “the four Tarot suits, signifying the elements of natural life.” Here are the four elements, the material world displayed. It is earth (pentacles), air (cups), fire (wands), and water (cups). These are the Magician’s tools. They contain everything in the material world including the four directions, north, south, east, and west.
Waite points to the symbolic nature of the flowers: “Beneath are roses and lilies, the flos campi and lilium convallium, changed into garden flowers, to show the culture of aspiration.” Flos campi and lilium convallium are Latin for “the flower of the field” and “the lily of the valley.” This phrase comes from the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) written on one of the last scrolls of the Hebrew Bible and found in the Old Testament. It is a unique piece of holy scripture celebrating sexual love. In the Hebrew Bible it is an allegory of the love between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba or Israel and Yahweh (Hebrew God). Early Christianity adopted it and expressed the allegory between church as bride and Jesus as bridegroom. Waite uses the symbolism to express the union of the Magician with “attainment of the spirit.” He goes on to say “This card signifies the divine motive in man…its union with that which is above.” As above, so below.
Symbolic
Esoteric Functions: Life and Death
Hebrew Letter: Beth
Astrological Association: Mercury
Waite tells us, “Above his head is the mysterious sign of the Holy Spirit, the sign of life, like an endless cord, forming the figure 8 in a horizontal position.” Waite refers to it as the lemniscate, a sideways figure eight. It represents the eternal flow of energy. He describes the various associations to the number eight: “The mystic number is termed Jerusalem above, the Land flowing with Milk and Honey, the Holy Spirit and the Land of the Lord. According to Martinism, 8 is the number of Christ.” Waite associates the number eight with multiple forms of divinity and worship. Jerusalem is a holy city for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Multiple biblical events are ascribed to it. Martinism is a branch of Christian mysticism aimed at integrating humanity with its divine source.
The number eight associates with Mercury, Egyptian god Thoth, and Hermes Trismegistus (meaning “three times great”), along with the Hebrew letter Beth, which aligns with Mercury and qualities of quick-witted communication, cleverness, learning, and writing. Waite references the Magician’s belt: “About his waist is a serpent-cincture, the serpent appearing to devour its own tail. This is familiar to most as a conventional symbol of eternity, but here it indicates more especially the eternity of attainment in the spirit.” The snake eating his own tail echoes the message of infinity as “repetition without end.” Waite’s phrase “attainment of the spirit” reflects the occultist’s intentional journey of return back up the Tree of Life in order to merge with the forces that gave birth to him, thus completing the eternal circle. The soul finds itself reflected in the eyes of divinity.
The Magician card’s flowers reflect the results of the Magician’s ceremonial magic. Blooming flowers represent effective and workable spells and incantations. Use the body, mind, and spirit to channel energy. Achieve desired results by allowing the energy of the universe to flow through you. Do not resist. The etchings on the table sides reflect ancient knowledge at your fingertips. The Magician’s wand is the instrument of intention. Dual wands are held by the figure in the World card. The Fool emerged as consciousness. The Magician awakens to his power. He is aware and in control. The next stage unfolds as darkness brings the High Priestess to the fore.
Profane
Charisma. Magnetism. Electricity. Center of attention. Intention. Purposeful magic. Asserting one’s will. Creating change on the material level. If a yes-no question, the answer is: yes, you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Skill, diplomacy, address, subtlety; sickness, pain, loss, disaster, snares of enemies; self-confidence, will; the Querent, if male.
Reversed: Physician, Magus, mental disease, disgrace, disquiet.
Asana
The Magician card aligns with yoga’s sun salutation, or surya namaskar. The sun salutation is a dynamic pose, matching the Magician’s energetic stance. The sun salutation channels solar energy from above and invites it into the body, just as the Magician channels divine energy through his body and into the material world via his magic wand. The energetic flow of each differs slightly. The Magician acts as a conduit who moves the energy into the ground beneath him, whereas the yogi channels the sun’s solar energy into their own body, keeping it there to build internal heat. The yogi’s energy is ultimately released into the world after their practice in their subsequent thoughts and actions.
Sunsets fade from rose to grey, and clouds scud across the sky. The cold moon bewitches all the scene.
Pamela Colman Smith34
Sacred
The High Priestess issues forth thunderous silence and exists in a realm beyond articulation, words, or speech. She is the space of devotion. She is felt, intuited, understood. The High Priestess is the place where you stop thinking and start doing. The High Priestess contains everything making you unique. She is a pure source of personal authenticity. The High Priestess is the litmus test inside of you. She is the space you move to when you ask yourself, “Is this what I really want?” Her throne is the seat of your soul; her waters, your life energy. The moon gracing her head and feet remind you of the ebb and flow of life. Her gentle lunar energy reminds you she is always there, always constant, no matter your outer state. Inside you she is malleable, she shapeshifts, she reminds us to find, awaken, and access her deep wells of wisdom.
The High Priestess is the blueprint of the soul and container of sacred depth. The book of your life rests upon her lap. The book cannot be read. It must be lived. Every single event and experience that you have had or will have is marked in her scroll. Thoughts from your highest self to your murky shadow self are recorded on creamy white parchment. The book writes and rewrites itself as intentions and actions alter past, present, and future.
The High Priestess’s eloquent silence fosters the space for a creative response to any situation. She is the gap between self and spirit. Inside the chasm is the container of possibility. Slipping into High Priestess silence allows words, confusion, and distraction to fall away. The ego is relinquished. Perception is mastered. The third eye awakens. Wisdom ushers forth. Intuition graces the senses. Authenticity of the soul is attained as you align with your unique true purpose.
Waite calls her “the Queen of the borrowed light, but this is the light of all.” He references lunar qualities, as the moon borrows its light from the sun when it reflects solar rays toward the earth. Waite says, “She is the Moon nourished by the milk of the Supernal Mother,” meaning she is the child who gains sustenance from the mother. The Supernal Mother refers to the
Divine and to the highest trinity on the Tree of Life, called the supernal triad. Waite tells us she is the child of the deity. He says, “In a manner, she is also the Supernal Mother herself—that is to say, she is the bright reflection.” Waite means she, like us, reflects the divine nature which creates us. Divinity is like a parent whose children reflects them. But Waite puts her above all others, stating she is the “Spiritual Bride of the just man.” She is the all-encompassing spiritual nature that is evocative, sensual, and silent. Waite says, “When she reads the Law she gives the Divine meaning.” His powerful statement suggests she gives substance to spiritual meaning. She acts like a power generator, infusing all material things with spiritual light. The mysteries and the ecstasy of spiritual transcendence are contained within the High Priestess. Giving the High Priestess his highest accolade and assigning her the utmost importance inside the deck, Waite says, “There are some respects in which this card (the High Priestess) is the highest and holiest of the Greater Arcana.”
Symbolic
Esoteric Functions: Peace and War
Hebrew Letter: Gimel
Astrological Association: Moon
Waite infuses meaning into her cloak, which partially hides a scroll. He mentions the scroll: “It is partly covered by her mantle, to show that some things are implied and some spoken.” Waite describes the essence of his text, The Pictorial Key, in this sentence. Waite is bound by oath to uphold the secrets of the Golden Dawn. He can only imply certain secrets of his rectified tarot. The reader can garner secret information through personal observation.
Waite describes the High Priestess’s pillars: “She is seated between the white and black pillars—J. and B.” Her placement is of paramount importance. The High Priestess’s body becomes the center pillar of the Tree of Life. The dual flanking pillars, one black and one white, align with the Chariot card’s black and white sphinxes, with the charioteer as center point. The color contrast between black and white reflects the oppositional nature of masculine and feminine qualities. Masculine and feminine qualities integrate at the center pillar. This idea is exemplified in the highest arcana, the World card. Occult circles consider the final card to be a gender-fluid hermaphrodite containing an ideal integration of masculine and feminine qualities inside a single body.
The letters J and B stand for Jachin and Boaz, the names of the two pillars standing at the front of King Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. All references to King Solomon are additional links from tarot to Freemasonry. Masons use the construction of Solomon’s Temple for rituals, stories, and lessons. The pillars are described as 27 feet tall. This would make the High Priestess a megalith, a massive 25-foot-tall figure. Lilies adorn the top of the pillar (recall the Magician’s lilies). It was said Solomon’s Temple contained a netting embroidered with pomegranates between the pillars, just as the High Priestess sits before similar fabric. Waite tells us that “the veil of the Temple is behind her: it is embroidered with palms and pomegranates. The vestments are flowing and gauzy, and the mantle suggests light—a shimmering radiance.” The fruits on the High Priestess’s veil form the graphic symbol of the Tree of Life. The veil is a widely used symbol of a threshold that makes the space between two realities and the place where two worlds meet.
The High Priestess’s dress reflects celestial fluidity, lunar qualities, and the moon’s effect on tidal waters. Her dress is the font of water flowing through the entire tarot deck. Tarot waters follow the direction of the Magician’s channeled energy. Waite describes the “lunar crescent at her feet,” another lunar symbol. He points out “a horned diadem on her head, with a globe in the middle place.” The High Priestess’s crown reflects the three phases of the moon: waxing, full, and waning. The graphic structure of her crown connects the moon to the symbol of Pisces, two crescents joined by a single line.
Waite says the High Priestess’s scroll is “signifying the Greater Law, the Secret Law and the second sense of the Word.” It is the “word” of divinity. Waite says “she is also the Supernal Mother herself—that is to say, she is the bright reflection.” The High Priestess as the reflection of the Supernal Mother is the highest, holiest, and top triad of the Tree of Life. A scroll is a symbol of secret information and ancient wisdom.
The Hebrew word Tora inscribed upon the scroll means “teachings,” “interactions,” and “doctrines.” Waite’s High Priestess holds his beloved secret doctrine, aligning with Waite’s intellectual and esoteric knowledge. Waite, who considered himself the occult keeper of secrets, dispelled information only to those he deemed worthy. Her secret book contains the mysteries of our lives. She is the key to who we are as individuals and sentient beings.
A cross is placed across her chest and heart chakra, denoting religion and spirituality. The symbol of a cross is a celestial pole, marking the exact location of the body in relation to the universe. The High Priestess, as acute intuition and the blueprint of the soul, marks the point at which the soul animates the body. The High Priestess is where the unseen self inhabits the physical form and our borrowed body.
Profane
Inner knowledge. Silence. Secrets. Intuition. Subtlety. Knowing who you are. Personal authenticity. In a yes-no question, the answer is yes; it always was and always will be.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed; the woman who interests the Querent, if male; the Querent herself, if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science.
Reversed: Passion, moral or physical ardour, conceit, surface knowledge.
Asana
The High Priestess aligns with intention setting and the opening chants or mantras in a yoga practice. The yogi quiets the mind, settles into their practice, focuses on their breath, and begins devotion to their practice. These actions align the yogi with the interior self and their true purpose. Yoga’s powerful metaphor is that physical alignment breeds spiritual alignment and truth. Intentions brings acute attention to our actions, on and off the yoga mat, to aid us in stripping away the false layers, confusion, fears, and blockages so we can arrive at our true self. The authentic, deep soul self is exemplified by the High Priestess. We embrace her every time we take stock, set an intention, and begin the yoga practice.
The Empress
Beauty. Beauty of thought first, beauty of feeling, beauty of form, beauty of color, beauty of sound, appreciation, joy, and the power of showing it to others.
Pamela Colman Smith35
Sacred
The Empress is Mother Nature, the driving force of all creation and the archetypal Mother who cares for all things. She seeks to nourish all. With a stroke of her finger and a single glance and thought, she infuses life, vibrancy, and fecundity. The Empress contains all sensate qualities of earth and gifts them to us. She tastes of chocolate spice, her touch is velvet silk, she smells of lavender and mint, she sees all colors, she conducts symphonies of evening crickets and sends the wind whistling through the trees. The Empress colors, crafts, and infuses the spirit once the High Priestess evokes the soul’s design.
The Empress reflects the creative process and pure femininity. She sets everything free and unlocks hidden potentials of beauty in the world. She is the vine shoot seeking sunlight, the artist meeting the canvas, the poet meeting language. The Empress is pure desire. Her expression is passion. She is love and instinct. Her eyes reflect golden morning sunshine and her voice murmurs purple twilight evening.
The Empress surrounds you at all times. She feeds the soul with her brilliance and beauty of the night sky. Mountain landscapes, rolling hills, and ocean waves rise like the curve of her hips. Her breath is the warm air of summer, her cool palms are the willow tree’s shade. She is the peace of mind of a walking meditation. The Empress fills you with the entirety of the world’s beauty if you let her in. She shows you, in no uncertain terms, that you are never, ever alone. You are part and parcel of the glistening, pulsating world of energetic and beatific connection. You are her and she is you. She is everything and everything is you.
Waite begins his description of the Empress with “a stately figure, seated, having rich vestments and royal aspect, as of a daughter of heaven and earth.” Stately figures are heads of state, political and royal. The the royal right to rule is tied the idea of being ordained or chosen by the Divine. The crown is a direct symbol of divine connection. “Daughter of heaven and earth” suggests a male heaven and a female earth. The Empress is the child of the ecstatic sexual union of heaven and earth, the offspring of the spiritual and physical union. The Empress is conceived as heaven and earth collide. She exists in the physical and material world. The Empress is everything you can touch, taste, feel, and hear, while the High Priestess operates in unseen realms.
Waite says, “She is the inferior Garden of Eden,” meaning she reflects the state of the garden after the fall. She is “the Earthly Paradise, all that is symbolized by the visible house of man.” Waite suggests she is the imperfect world. She contains holistic forms of beauty including faults, sins, dark and light, all sides of the human condition. She is humankind and all its messiness. Waite continues, “She is not regina cilia.” The Latin translation of regina cilia is the “Queen of Heaven,” an ancient Latin hymn typically sung during vespers or evening prayers. Waite stresses explicitly that the Empress is not to be understood as the “Holy Mother” or a perfect, unattainable goddess. Instead, she is everything human. She is, in his own words, “the fruitful mother of thousands.” He also states, “She is above all things universal fecundity,” which is fertility. The Empress is the pregnant doorway into the earthly world. She is “the door or gate by which an entrance is obtained into this life.”
The Empress’s gate swings both ways, into both the physical and invisible world, but Waite says that “the way which leads out therefrom, into that which is beyond, is the secret known to the High Priestess.” It is the High Priestess who guards the secret of all things. The Empress births these secrets into the earthly world. She gives birth to children, brimming with potentialities and talents so they might grow, evolve, and become aware of themselves in the dance of life, only to return someday from whence they came. It is the give and take, yin and yang, birth and death cycle by which the universe expands, unfolds, and becomes aware of itself.
Symbolic
Esoteric Functions: Wisdom and Folly
Hebrew Letter: Daleth
Astrological Association: Venus
Waite moves through the symbols of the cards, noting “the scepter which she bears is surmounted by the globe of this world.” This is no ordinary scepter. It is the world in her hands. She actively holds it as if to show, bless, or demonstrate to the reader her power over the material world. “Her diadem is of twelve stars” reflects the twelve signs of the zodiac. “The symbol of Venus is on the shield,” connecting her to the implicit beauty and sensuality of Venus. The string of white pearls around her neck, pillows, and robes all contain symbols of Venus, goddess of love and pleasure.
The Empress’s wheat sheaves are sacred to ancient corn goddess and Greek grain mother Demeter. The silent reaping of an ear of corn was a central symbol to the ancient cult of Eleusinian mysteries. Cultures dependent on grain as a staple food source typically viewed wheat as a symbol of life. The goddess Ceres, the Greek embodiment of Venus, held sheaves of grain. Pamela Colman Smith’s self-published magazine was titled The Green Sheaf. Her magazine title is grounded in the allegory of creative fertility.
It is often assumed the Empress displays a pregnant belly beneath her dress because she is the archetypal mother. Her pregnancy can be construed as literal or metaphorical when interpreting the card. All creative acts—from bearing babies to building a life to reading tarot cards—reflect the core and essence of creation. The waterfall to her right denotes energetic fusion from above to the space below. The Empress is wild creativity unleashed in the material world.
Profane
Soft and gentle touch. Femininity. Sensuality. Fertility and birth. Creativity. Reinvention. Expansion. Love and adoration. Physical beauty and grace. Motherhood. If a yes-no question: yes, no one could do it better.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance.
Reversed: Light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicings; according to another reading, vacillation.
Asana
The Empress aligns with yoga’s triangle pose, or trikonasana. The Empress bears the number three, which is the numeral of creativity, and the triangle contains three points. This aligns the highest triangle on the Tree of Life, the supernal triad, while additionally aligning with the sacred trinity pattern found in cross-cultural religions. Triangle pose offers a physical expansion, inviting in the nectar of life to enter the body of the yogi. The body opens like a flower, soaking in creative rays of solar energy from above. The heart expands, stretching its muscles wide open for deeper love, expansive compassion, and unbound creativity. The feet remain grounded to remain perfectly still and solid while the body expands outward into possibility and freedom. It is a pose of trust, devotion, and ecstatic love, asking the yogi to reveal themselves as they are to the world. These are the endearing and essential qualities of the Empress.
The Emperor
But how shall I find it?
Look for it.
Pamela Colman Smith36
Sacred
The Emperor gives form and shape to the Empress’s world. The Empress is the archetypal Mother who explodes life and color. The Emperor is the archetypal Father who orders everything into its proper and rightful place. The Emperor is the Empress’s four-cornered canvas and the structural glue holding the physical world together. He provides form and shape. The Emperor reflects Newton’s rules, Einstein’s physics, and atomic molecules. He is the weather system forming around you. He is the bubble of atmosphere that hugs the planet, making human life possible. Life would be a continual series of never-ending big bangs without the Emperor. He places limits on human consciousness and creativity so they don’t spin out of control. Limits are essential for existence. It is impossible to process every sensation entering our body, impossible to follow every creative impulse. Life as we know it, physics and manifestation, all require limits. This is how the Emperor maintains the physical structure of the universe.
The universe carries a mathematical and physical structure that makes it livable for human beings. The Emperor reflects this need and becomes the place where habits are formed and broken. He is the boundary of duality that keeps things moving forward amidst containment. He reflects the narrative structure inherent to the human mind. The Emperor creates beginning, middle, and end. He is the binding force of tarot, archetype, and habit.
Waite tells us “he is executive and realization, the power of this world.” Waite is describing the organizing power of the material world. It is only through structure and organization that the material world is possible. This is where laws of physics, sacred geometry, and numbers organize those things. Therefore, the Emperor is the very act of organization. Waite offers a sensual metaphor, saying, “He is the virile power, to which the Empress responds.” The metaphor suggests the Emperor opens the Empress’s gate—that she responds to his forceful energy like silk flower petals opening to the sun.
Waite illuminates the Emperor and Empress’s relationship by describing him as “he who seeks to remove the Veil of Isis; yet she remains virgo intacta.” The Veil of Isis covers nature’s secrets. Virgo intacta is the Latin translation for a virgin whose hymen is intact. He paints the Emperor as the constant suitor who exists in a perpetual state of seduction yet who never fully gains what he seeks from the Empress. Were the Empress to succumb, her actions would unhinge the natural order of the physical world. The Emperor and Empress dance, flirt, and court one another. Their courtship brings the world into being. Their mutual desire is never fully satisfied, their love is never satiated. The Empress remains virginal, just out of his reach. The Emperor keeps courting and calling her. The material world evolves through their dance.
Waite says the Emperor and Empress “do not precisely represent the condition of married life, though this state is implied.” They could be husband and wife, mother and father. Waite’s reading suggests they stand for “mundane royalty.” He suggests the Emperor is “the intellectual throne” and “the lordship of thought.” In this light, the Emperor acts as our logical brain making sense out of the creative and sensorial world as it flies into our perception.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Sight
Hebrew Letter: Heh
Astrological Association: Aries
The Emperor’s gleaming armor implies a history of battles waged and won. Waite describes the “crux ansata for his scepter and a globe in his left hand.” Crux ansata is the Latin word for a cross with a handle at the top. This is the symbol of the ankh and the talisman of gods and pharaohs. The globe in his left hand reflects dominion over the natural world. The Emperor holds an ankh in his right hand to represent immortality. This Egyptian symbol for soul can be understood as the sun rising (the circle at the top of the cross) or the union of the male and female energies and the union of opposites, two halves becoming whole. The ankh is a legendary symbol of esoteric knowledge.
The Emperor carries the astrological association of Aries, the powerful ram. Four rams decorate the Emperor’s throne. The rams sit on the top left and right corners and also below the Emperor’s hands on his armrests. The image of ram horns is embroidered upon the Emperor’s left shoulder. The Emperor’s crown reveals ram horns sprouting from the top.
The Emperor’s robes are vibrant red. The Golden Dawn assigns red to the sign of Aries as well as to Aries’s ruling planet, Mars. Red is the alchemical color of transformation. Massive cliffs and mountain peaks reflect the Emperor’s domain and the safe harbor he has created. These epic chasms protect him from the dangers of the outside world.
The Emperor’s esoteric function is sight. Sight makes the world visible; each individual holds a specific view of the world. No one else on the planet sees what you see. No one else carries your unique viewpoint. No one experiences this particular moment as you do. The sounds tickling your ears, the light entering your eyes, your perception and inner voice reading my words inside the inner recess of your mind. My fingers fly across the keyboard behind you, in the past. I’m whispering, writing this book into your consciousness, but it is you in the present who hears it, interprets it, and sorts it in your own unique way. Life, although a shared experience, is ultimately an individual experience.
The Hebrew letter Heh is assigned to the Emperor, and it means “window.” Our eyes are the window to our world. It is through this window that each of us is our own Emperor. We create and destroy habits, patterns, and thoughts. We create the kingdom of our life just as the Emperor does. We court, flirt, and engage creativity. We decide where it begins and ends. Life occurs through the shifting sands of the boundaries we erect. Our actions construct our world. Our perception is our window, and each of us is the monarch of our life.
Profane
The Emperor acts as our habits and strategies. He reflects all order and stability, from paying monthly bills on time to our cleaning habits. The Emperor often reflects the type A personality, a domineering personality, or a father figure. He is the authority who allows or prevents possibilities. He is ultimate control. Domination. Asserting boundaries. Taking the lead in any situation. Establishing rules and regulations. Knowledge in ability. Self-possession. Self-control. Fatherhood. Intense discipline. If a yes-no question: yes, you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Stability, power, protection, realization; a great person; aid, reason, conviction; also authority and will.
Reversed: Benevolence, compassion, credit; also confusion to enemies, obstruction, immaturity.
Asana
The Emperor aligns with yoga’s chaturanga dandasana pose. Chaturanga means four limbs and danda means staff. The Emperor is assigned the number four, and he traditionally holds a staff. The dynamic pose requires strength, control, and agility, which are Emperor qualities emblematic in his suit of armor. Chaturanga builds the stability needed for a demanding physical practice, and stability is the hallmark of the Emperor. Chataranga poses often repeat, linking several sequences together in a practice. Like the Emperor, they reflect foundation, habit, dynamism, and ultimate power.
The Hierophant
I have heard it said that half the world has nothing to say. Perhaps the other half has, but it is afraid to speak it.
Pamela Colman Smith37
Sacred
The Hierophant teaches the secrets behind the world the Emperor and Empress create. He is the pope, priest, cleric, shaman, yogi, guru, and rabbi. The Hierophant exists as an opening to the mystery of life. He reflects humankind’s historical attempt to explain and understand the deep and spiritual subtleties. The Hierophant quantifies, explains, and concedes the mystery of existence. Hierophant figures are found in all religions and spiritual systems. He is the exterior symbol of organized religion, recognizable to all.
Religion, the supernatural, and magic are irrevocably linked. Religion and magic each ascertain, explore, and interact with an unseen world. Religion and magic are each grounded in ritual. “While religion is exoteric (intended for the many), magic is esoteric (directed at the few).”38 The Hierophant is a symbol of the exoteric and stands as a culture’s religious identification. He is all forms of religion and laws in regular life. He is the holy books, the psalms, and the sermons. He is the outer form of church, temple, and ritualistic meeting place. The Hierophant’s container holds all acts of human sacred behavior done in the name of the spiritual world of any culture.
Children do not differentiate between real and “unreal,” mystery and “non-mystery.” They accept all things at face value. Maturity and learning, while essential for a child’s growth, usually separate the seen from the unseen. The Hierophant stands before its culture as the gateway or harbinger of mystery and religious experience. Spirituality is ultimately a personal experience, different for everyone. Regardless of an individual’s inner state, the Hierophant stands up before the public as an archetype of spiritual guidance. He is the generic and societally “approved” symbol who stands as the doorway to the holy.
The Hierophant bears multiple visual similarities to the High Priestess. He is a graphic representation of the Tree of Life who sits between two pillars. He too wears a triple crown. She wears the triple moon crown; he wears a triple gold crown. Waite says the pillars “are not those of the Temple which is guarded by the High Priestess.” Waite marks the distinction between the two, telling us the Hierophant is “the ruling power of external religion, as the High Priestess is the prevailing genius of the esoteric, withdrawn power.” This remarkable distinction informs us the High Priestess marks inner, individual worlds. She is what we know, feel, and intuit about ourselves, our spiritual relationships, and everything around us. The Hierophant is the external billboard aspect of religious and spiritual tradition. He is scripture, sutra, dogma, temple, candle, incense, hymn. The Hierophant requires disciples, followers, and a congregation to exist. The High Priestess needs only herself.
Waite says the Hierophant is “summa totius theologiæ,” which is a classical book of philosophy and religion. It was written by Thomas Aquinas as an instructional book for Christian theologians. The book describes a cycle of divinity. Divinity sparks and appears, creation follows, man exists, Christ emerges, the sacraments appear, and then it circles back to divinity. Waite moves further, saying the Hierophant acts as a channel for those unable to see or detect the spiritual truths behind reality, for “he is the channel of grace belonging to the world of institution as distinct from that of Nature.” Nature is distinct and separated because nature is sacred in and of itself. The sanctity of nature requires no definition or explanation. Nature exists independent of man. The Hierophant is a channel of grace for those without eyes to see the garden for what it really is. As such, the Hierophant is every form of manifested religion and dogma.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Hearing
Hebrew Letter: Vau
Astrological Association: Taurus
The Hierophant is assigned the Hebrew letter Vau. It looks like the letter Y. This shape is hidden on the card. It is placed across the chest of the Hierophant and across the backs of his monks’ garments. The Golden Dawn translates the letter Vau into the English letters of U, V, and W. The U appears in the two pillars next to the Hierophant, next to his head. V is located within the Roman numeral five at the top of the card and is also reflected in the shape of the dual keys at the bottom of the card. W is placed on the Hierophant’s crown. W additionally stands for Waite’s initial. The Taurus symbol, a circle with a crescent moon shape above it, is hidden on the Hierophant’s throne. A circle with a dot in the center is seen on each side of the Hierophant’s head. This is the alchemical symbol of gold.
The supernal triad and holy trinity are created by the placement of the three figures on the card. The Hierophant’s monks’ heads are shaved in the practice of tonsure, the act of shaving one’s head to display religious devotion. It was a popular practice in medieval Christianity. The Three of Pentacles also includes a monk with a tonsure. The card’s right monk displays white lilies on his clothing. The left monk displays red roses, which are also found in the Magician card. The symbol of crossed keys unlocks dogmatic secrets. It reminds us tarot is a key for unlocking mysteries and secrets. Remember, Waite’s own book is titled The Pictorial Key. A symbol is a key to a door. A door marks a threshold. A threshold marks a new reality, and so forth. Traditional Catholicism uses the key symbol to reflect the keys to heaven, derived from St. Peter in the Roman Catholic tradition. The Hierophant makes the sign of benediction, a blessing, with his right hand. This gesture is also made by the Devil and the fallen figure inside the Ten of Swords.
The Hierophant card contains multiple crosses. Three vertical crosses mark the center of his robe and reflect the Christian cross, and the number three reflects the trinity. The trinity of crosses is repeated on the triple staff seen in the Hierophant’s left hand. The staff is reserved for popes and spiritual leaders and contains three crosses laid on top of one another. The trinity is further alluded to in his threefold crown. The High Priestess wears a triple lunar crown while the Hierophant’s golden tiered crown is crafted with the solar properties of the sun. The holy trinity is cemented with the use of three figures inside the card.
Profane
Religious dogma. External spirituality and all things that signify the holy life. Spiritual figures in your life and procession. Teachers and students. Mentorship. Doorways to sacred secrets. Religious systems used to control rather than empower. Spiritual tools like candles, incense, music, etc. Outer tools enhancing the inner experience.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude; by another account, mercy and goodness; inspiration; the man to whom the Querent has recourse.
Reversed: Society, good understanding, concord, over kindness, weakness.
Asana
The Hierophant card aligns with pyramid pose with reverse prayer or utthitta parsvottanasana. This eloquent, devotional posture echoes gratitude in the presence of divine holiness. Universally, a prayer is a symbolic gesture uniting polarities with the left and right palms coming together. Bowing is an act of ultimate reverence. The reverse prayer reflects duality, opposition, a coming and going, yin and yang, and the balance and harmony of the heart. The triangular shape of the legs and ultimately the entire body echoes the graphic trinity of the Hierophant between his two pillars, the trinity of his crown and staff, and the trinity implied between himself and his monks.
There is a garden that I often see, with moonlight glistening on the vine-leaves, and drooping roses with pale petals fluttering down, tall, misty trees and purple sky, and lovers wandering there.
Pamela Colman Smith39
Sacred
The Lovers card is the source of manifestation and the point of human existence. As the ultimate form of creativity, love is what we are here to experience. Love is the source of all life. The Emperor sets up physical boundaries. The Hierophant exerts external “authority” of all things spiritual and dogmatic. The Lovers card rescues every last one of us. The Lovers card is a metaphysical reminder that we are not confined to our physical body. Love and lust are natural drugs. The Lovers evokes the most potent force known in the universe. Our physical, biological, and spiritual goals are expressed in the Lovers card. It reflects how we are sunlike, full of fire, fury, and passion, when engaged in the act of love.
Sex is a transcendental, occult, and metaphysical experience. The self is lost. Acts of love between consenting adults achieve the same results as transcendental meditation and magic. Love and passion come on like a freight train when pierced by Cupid’s arrows. It heightens our senses and tears at our emotions. Love opens channels of communication where no words exist. Sexual experience and psychedelic drugs are similar. Love and drugs light up the same parts of the brain. Love and psychedelics make you feel as if you’ve ascended the highest point of a mountain peak. Your view is expanded. The world is altered. You see and feel farther than you ever had before. Just as a yogi seeks to condition the body and expand consciousness, passionate love expands every sliver of our experience of the world.
Erotic, passionate love is transcendent yet fleeting. Few experiences in life equal the first few weeks and months of romantic love. Extreme passion teaches us about states of pure love. Once the individual experiences this overwhelming, soul-shaking state of being, we need not mourn it as it slips away or transforms into something different. It is up to each and every one of us to infuse passionate love, affection, and attention into every aspect of our life and relationships long after the flame has flickered. Cultivating this state is a worthy and pleasurable pursuit even when external factors do not push us there. Passion reveals what is possible, not what is sustainable. The Lovers’ intensity reminds us of this valuable lesson.
Waite explains in no uncertain terms that the Lovers’ picture illustrates the biblical “Adam and Eve when they first occupied the paradise of the earthly body.” He tells us the tree behind the man is the Tree of Life and the tree behind the woman is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil along with its famous snake. Each tree is part of the Adam and Eve story and each is described by the book of Genesis. The apple is the symbol of the fruit of temptation, though the book of Genesis does not explicitly state it. Waite tells us, “The figures suggest youth, virginity, innocence and love before it is contaminated by gross material desire.” Waite equates desires of the flesh with the attachment to material things. It includes seeking to control another or imbalance due to jealousy, anger, or boredom. The Lovers reflects an “ideal” state of innocent love.
Waite switches to a different meaning when he says “this is in all simplicity the card of human love.” He speaks to a pure love uncomplicated by sex. He states, “In a very high sense, the card is a mystery of the Covenant and Sabbath.” A covenant is an agreement between God and humans, while the Sabbath is a time for rest.
Waite describes his female figure not as being a temptress but as “working of a Secret Law of Providence.” Providence is the name for God’s intervention in the world. He assigns woman aspects of divinity, yet he suggests her “imputed lapse” or her “error” is being the thing which “man shall arise” and “only by her can he complete himself.” In this sense, the woman is akin to the state of the natural world, complete in herself yet required by man. Waite says the card is “concerning the great mystery of womanhood.” This mystery may be defined in many ways. Waite has already claimed the Empress is the gateway to the Divine, yet the Emperor never takes full possession of her; she remains a virgin. The Lovers card is illustrated prior to sexual union. Waite says it is the divine nature of the female that makes man complete. The great mystery of womanhood is the full intentional integration of masculine and feminine energies, the nature of divinity. The power of life and birth are secure inside the female. It is the core, the “mystery” of woman, that man has grappled with for centuries. The man gazes at the woman inside the Lovers card. Rather than meet his gaze, she looks above to the angel as she completes the cycle of spiritual trinity.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Smell
Hebrew Letter: Zain
Astrological Association: Gemini
Waite describes “a great winged figure pouring down influences.” Forty-five sun rays spring from archangel Raphael. Raphael is the angel of healing. His presence dispenses the healing properties of love to the couple below. Love carries restorative properties. His hair is aflame, as fiery as the sun behind him and the flaming tree below. Fire elements express momentum and sexual desire.
Waite admits he had thrown out a previous incarnation of the card that typically bore two women and one man (as in the Marseille Tarot). Waite favors a card with two figures who align with the Golden Dawn’s astrological assignment of Gemini. The previous version of a man between two women gave the card the divinatory meaning of choice. The RWS card offers a trinity as seen between the three figures echoing the supernal triad. The snake behind the woman is a dual symbol. It is temptation and also reflects the occultist moving up the Tree of Life. Distant mountain peaks foreshadow the occultist’s spiritual ascent expressed in later cards. Clouds appear below the angel, expressing divine manifestation, as seen in all four aces.
Lessons of ecstatic spiritual divine love are encoded in the card. The male figure looks toward the female, while the female’s eyes are focused on the angel above her. This subtle hint whispers a secret. It tells us our human experience of transcendental love is a mere fraction of the love and passion felt by the force creating us. Ecstatic love is what bore us. Ecstatic love is what we will return to. This radiant love is at hand. It is with us in this life, in our experience and encased inside the present moment for those who seek it.
Profane
Sex. Love. Passion. Ecstasy. Romance blossoms. Attraction. Eros in action. Sensuality. Electricity of love. Spiritual ascension. Making a choice. Choosing a mate. Soul mates. If a yes-no question, the answer is yes.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome.
Reversed: Failure, foolish designs. Another account speaks of marriage frustrated and contrarieties of all kinds.
Asana
The Lovers aligns with yoga’s camel pose, or ustrasana. The yogi balances on her knees, reaches back for her feet, and offers her heart to the sky in this exquisite heart-opening pose. It is a gesture of extreme vulnerability and tenderness. The Lovers card reflects how we offer ourselves to another when we engage in acts of love and creativity. Camel pose evokes the trust of love and giving as the yogi offers her heart to the world around her.
“High over cap” on a fairy horse—ride on your Quest—for what we are all seeking.
Pamela Colman Smith40
Sacred
The cards preceding the Chariot reflect humanity’s unfolding conscious realization. It is the individual’s sense of self as a sentient and sensual being. The Chariot gathers these lessons, places them in his vehicle, and forges ahead. Historical chariots are imbued with military impact and suggest power and domination over the material world. The Chariot tarot card fosters the ability to spread personal gifts, intentions, and passions. Self-determination rather than military domination issues forth as you take control over your life. Your hands grasp leather reins and you are the master of your destiny through personal thoughts, choices, and actions. The Chariot appears as you forge ahead, demonstrating motivation, daring, and movement.
A curious paradox is presented in the Chariot card. The Chariot reflects movement and speed, yet the vehicle is carved from a cube of stone. The driver is mysteriously bonded to the cube as if he were a toy figure inside a cement box. The cube is flat against the grass. The golden wheels could never move this vehicle. Why would the Chariot, a symbol of speed and movement, be crafted from a heavy object that could never be pulled? Why not illustrate a traditional chariot figure who races with his horses? The answer lies in the level of existence Waite’s context of understanding reflects.
Psychologist Carl Jung and Hindu mythology say chariot symbols reflect the self. Waite’s Chariot exists in the material world, yet for Waite the material world reflects the lowest level of understanding. Waite considers spiritual movement to be paramount, the ultimate goal of human existence. In Waite’s mind, an individual could travel the world and physically dominate everything in a literal sense but remain spiritually starved, ignorant, and stuck. This is the lesson of the unmovable chariot.
Waite describes the Chariot as “princely” but not “heredity royalty and not a priest.” Waite explains the Chariot’s true nature unequivocally: “He is above all things triumph in the mind.” Triumph in the mind differs than triumph of the mind. Triumph in the mind is the decision to take control, action, or make change. Triumph of the mind reflects the ability to follow through that decision, as demonstrated in Strength, the following card. For example, you decide to start a healthy course of eating by adding loads of fruit and vegetables to your diet. This decision is reflected in the Chariot card. The follow-up and maintenance of the decision is reflected in the Strength card. Triumph in the mind suggests the individual has made a decision. There is no going back. You don’t just want to do it, you are officially committed. Nothing will prevent you from attaining your goal, yet the actions have yet to unfold.
The charioteer points his vehicle and theoretically moves toward his desired destination. The Magician’s pointed finger contains the same pointed intention. Waite continues to make the clear distinctions between the material and spiritual plane, planting his Chariot card firmly in the former camp. Waite says, “the planes of his conquest are manifest or external and not within himself…if he came to the pillars of that Temple between which the High Priestess is seated, he could not open the scroll called Tora, nor if she questioned him could he answer.” The Chariot bears no relevance in the spiritual world. He could come face to face with the High Priestess and she would remain a mystery, invisible to him. The function of the Chariot is displayed in the individual’s will toward practical matters and nothing else.
Waite says we should understand the Chariot although “the tests of initiation through which he has passed are to be understood physically or rationally.” Waite explains the Chariot does not undergo initiation in the metaphysical sense. He once again confirms the presence of the Chariot as an agent of the physical world. Occult initiation is a supernatural experience occurring on the internal and interior level of human experience. The Chariot reflects the external self. The interior self is embraced inside the following card, Strength.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Speech
Hebrew Letter: Cheth
Astrological Association: Cancer
Waite’s Chariot is an agent of the physical world, yet the charioteer is draped in rich esoteric symbolism. His left and right shoulders carry Urim and Thummim, whose profiles look up toward the sky. Historically, Urim and Thummim possess oracular power; ancient priests used them to identify sinners in a crowd. Urim and Thummim appear in the book of Exodus, where they exist on a Hebrew high priest’s breastplate. Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, claimed to receive divine information from two seer stones called Urim and Thummim in 1827. Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, the church’s religious text, based on this information. The Mormons are now over fourteen million strong, according to the church’s website. Smith was a Freemason who utilized Masonic structure to create and organize the Mormon Church, just as the secret chiefs used Masonic structure to create and organize the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Speech is the esoteric function of the Chariot. Words and language infuse the Chariot. Words have the power to imprint the mind. Language carries knowledge and intention. The Hebrew letter Cheth means fence, wall, barrier, or wild beast in a field. The high wall enclosing the background city reflects a barrier. The Chariot’s battle armor and his vehicle additionally reflect a barrier. Language operates as a barrier as well as a blessing. To name something is to give it limits, to nail it down. Language becomes a barrier when expressing an experience or feeling of something beyond description. Art, poetry, and metaphor save us when language fails. Negative language reaps negative impact on the mind and body, whereas positive language results in positive results, thus the barrier of language is both a blessing and a curse.
Cheth is associated with astrological Cancer. Cancer’s symbol is the crab, an oceanic crustacean whose soft body is protected by a hard outer shell. The charioteer bears a similar shell in his vehicle and protective armor. Cancer is ruled by the moon. Dual moon profiles appear on the charioteer’s shoulders. The belt of the Chariot holds five symbols, two of which contain the moon and Cancer.
Waite explains the mystery of the Chariot’s sphinxes. They are concerned with “a Mystery of Nature and not of the world of Grace.” He means to say the mystery of the sphinx concerns the material world, not the divine world. The sphinx’s black-and-white colors match the High Priestess’s black-and-white pillars. The sphinxes immediately become the graphic depiction of the outer pillars on the Tree of Life with the charioteer as the middle pillar, reminding the reader of duality and integration.
Profane
Taking the reins. Being in the driver’s seat. Knowing where you are going. Keeping your eye on the prize. Movement. Speed. Travel by car. Moving across great distances. Focusing on a singular objective. Thinking outside the box. Domination. Moving from point A to point B. If a yes-no question, the answer is yes, as long as you know what you are about to do.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Succour, providence; also war, triumph, presumption, vengeance, trouble.
Reversed: Riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, defeat.
Asana
The Chariot card aligns with chair pose, or utkatasna. This dynamic pose echoes the posture of the Chariot’s vehicle. The pose engages the dynamic opposition of the cube. The arms reach up. Power and balance are required. This seated chair pose is often held for long periods of time. This challenging pose speaks to the Chariot’s fortitude and the effort it takes to set a goal and move directly toward it without distraction.
Ugliness is beauty, but with a difference, a nobleness that speaks through all the hard crust of convention.
Pamela Colman Smith41
Sacred
Strength is the quality needed to sustain and meet each and every challenge once the Chariot sets the individual off on their path. As its title implies, Strength is physical, emotional, and intellectual fortitude. Strength filters through the world daily via human action, fostering possibility, stability, and healing. Strength is felt keenly and tested in times of uncertainty. Strength illuminates moral fibers, decisions, and actions. The figure of Strength expresses kindness to her beastly animal friend. Strength is recognized in the way we treat ourselves, other people, animals, and our environment. The strongest of souls often express strength through subtlety rather than overt control.
Traditional Strength cards depict a female taming a wild lion. Pamela’s card reflects a lion who has already been tamed. The beast is putty in her hands. “Her beneficent fortitude has already subdued the lion, which is being led by a chain of flowers,” Waite says. This small yet significant change reflects the maintenance of Strength, not the struggle. Waite is coy in his decision to switch Strength with the traditional placement of the Justice card for his deck, “For reasons which satisfy myself, this card has been interchanged with that of Justice, which is usually numbered eight.” Waite, in fact, switched Strength and Justice to align with MacGregor Mathers’s Kabbalistic attributions. Mathers realized by placing the Fool at the beginning of the deck and switching the placement of Justice and Strength that the tarot would perfectly match the astrological attributions located inside the Sefer Yetzirah, an ancient book of Hebrew mysticism explaining the formation of earthly reality via the Tree of Life.
Waite writes that the card represents “the strength which resides in contemplation.” Contemplation is the practice of quieting the mind, similar to meditation. Strength of mind is a powerful step, moving us closer to strength in personal actions. It is to embrace the contemplative mindset and allow thoughts to drift away like clouds without becoming attached to them. Notice thoughts and feelings as they come and go. Thoughts and emotions become freed from our automatic reaction to them. Once we obtain mastery of our thoughts, we embody the figure on the Strength card. We are the female figure and our mind is the lion. Thoughts lose their control over us. Instead, we control them. We become the outside observer who experiences freedom of self and the freedom to determine our course of action in all circumstances.
Once contemplation is achieved in private, it may be used in everyday life. It is especially helpful during fraught emotional situations, fights, or moments of fear. This tool is brought to foster space for a creative response to any situation, no matter how upsetting or destructive. The ability to filter the mind’s experience and choose our reaction invokes the freedom to dictate our experience of every life event. For example, a person who is fighting a tobacco or food addiction practices contemplation. A craving hits. She notices her first thought is to satisfy herself with a cigarette or sugary sweet cupcake. Rather than acting upon her impulse, she observes her thought. She allows the thought to slip away without acting on it. Each time she prevails over her thoughts, she becomes stronger. This process applies to any situation or challenge.
Strength through contemplation encourages the space of possibility. One who practices contemplation is able to stay inside of an experience. It fosters attention in the moment. This ability allows the individual to discover possibility, thus making their world fresh and new in every situation. This practice becomes paramount to interpersonal relationships, where destructive habits and patterns are born. The practice helps us strengthen relationships between the people we love most. For example, you find yourself in an exciting new relationship with the person of your dreams. However, you suspect they are cheating because you suffer from past trust and intimacy issues. You have zero evidence to support your claim, but you are plagued by the idea they will find someone better than you. Wild thoughts drive you crazy. These thoughts force you to prowl their social media. You sift though photos of ex-girlfriends and violate their privacy by searching their emails. You accuse your dreamboat of not wanting you. Eventually, you break up because of your lack of trust and wicked insecurity. Your thoughts created a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you became a willing slave to them. The contemplative mindset helps one who is self-aware, who notices the feeling of fear of abandonment rising. Once noted and recognized, it is allowed to slip away. No action is taken. Like ignoring a cruel taunting child on the playground, eventually such thoughts lose all power over you. You become free to enjoy a healthy, trusting relationship. This is the essence of Strength.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Taste
Hebrew Letter: Teth
Astrological Association: Leo
Waite speaks of the higher spiritual meaning of the Strength card when he says, “They are intimated in a concealed manner by the chain of flowers, which signifies, among many other things, the sweet yoke and the light burden of Divine Law.” The flowers wrap around the female’s head, resting upon her golden curls. A yoke is a crosspiece fastened upon animals so they can pull a plow or cart. Waite’s “sweet yoke” is the nature of divinity and the metaphorical link of an individual and their connection to divine nature. “Divine Law” is the spiritual law or agreement made between the practitioner and divinity as they understand it. The yoke applies to any idea or practice the practitioner engages upon, such as gratitude, devotion, or, in Waite’s case, the occultist’s law.
The lion is the astrological symbol of Leo, assigned the Hebrew letter Teth. Leo’s astrological symbol is hidden inside the lion’s curling mane. Lions are a Christian symbol for the resurrection of Jesus. Early Christians believed lions slept with their eyes open, like Jesus in his tomb between death and resurrection. The lion symbol appears in the Wheel of Fortune’s lower left corner.
A lemniscate appears above Strength’s head, just as it did in the Magician card. It is representative of the infinite nature of energy, life, and the divinity of the human soul. A distant rising mountain suggests spiritual heights. It foreshadows the spiraling journey up the Tree of Life that is to take place in the coming cards as the occultist moves higher and higher toward their divine nature.
Profane
Intense personal strength. Doing the right thing. Gentle control over a situation. Effortless action. Past challenges foster present strength. Your actions prevail. If a yes-no question, the answer is yes because you earned it.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity; also complete success and honours.
Reversed: Despotism, abuse of power, weakness, discord, sometimes even disgrace.
Asana
The Strength card aligns with yoga’s warrior II pose, or virabhadrasana II. The yogi imitates the posture of an advancing warrior shooting energy out of both arms. The Strength card reflects internal vitality. Warrior ll energizes and empowers the body. Like the Strength card, it invokes gentleness combined with stunning power.
The Hermit
In cities large—in county lane,
Around the world tis all the same;
Across the sea from shore to shore, Alone—alone, for evermore.
Pamela Colman Smith42
Sacred
The Hermit cultivates stillness by removing himself from society. Stillness feeds his soul. This stillness fosters a space of discovery and wisdom. Life’s circumstances remain in a constant state of flux while inside, from age six to sixty, we remain essentially who we are. We move closer toward our authentic self, immune to the influence of others, when we know who we truly are and reclaim what was long ago forgotten. The Hermit gives us the space to encounter his spiritual sister, the High Priestess. He is our doorway to her threshold. He opens the passage leading us back to our true self.
All life is a viable energetic exchange. The clever Hermit removes himself from society and the company of others because he understands the body is a device for giving and receiving energy. Each of us acts as energy vampire, empath, and caregiver who constantly affect ourselves via personal actions. People, activities, and actions either stoke our energy or diffuse it and break it down. Certain people make us feel wonderful, while others darken our spirit. Engaging in positive activities bolsters us, while negativity and depression bring us down. Physical exercise builds our energy, while inactivity breeds tiredness. Human connection is inspiring or damaging, depending on who an individual surrounds themselves with. Amidst the noise of everyday life and the influx of distraction, it can be hard to separate ourselves from others. How do we cultivate a sense of stillness to reclaim who we truly are while engaging with others? The Hermit gives us the answer.
The Hermit discovers, integrates, and understands human nature. He is the examination of personal nature and individual sensate experience. We are the only person who can feel our life for ourselves. Life is completely subjective; the experience is ours alone. We may paint, write, photograph, or share personal experience with others, but it is ultimately our own because we are the ones inside of ourselves experiencing it. Spiritual and sensual natures are intimately connected. The spiritual and sensual inform the experience of the outer world entering our inner body. One person is inspired by jazz music while another is inspired by walking in nature. One person responds to church hymns while another chants on her yoga mat. The Hermit is the place we go to, time and time again, to check in with ourselves.
Waite is clear and direct in the symbolic meaning of the Hermit’s lamp. “It is a star which shines in the lantern…His beacon intimates that ‘where I am, you also may be.’” The Hermit has found, captured, and displays the shining light of hope, inspiration, and guidance. A star is a universal symbol of hope. Waite’s Hermitic statement gives voice to the card: “Where I am, you also may be.” Pamela’s Hermit expresses the idea that hope, light, and guidance can be yours. You too can move through a spiritual journey to cultivate truth and light. The guru exists inside you.
Waite discards previous occult interpretations of the Hermit, including the idea of “occult isolation.” He states, “It did not refer to the intended concealment of the Instituted Mysteries, much less of their substitutes, but—like the card itself—to the truth that the Divine Mysteries secure their own protection from those who are unprepared.” Waite’s statement explains how he is able to publish the deepest secrets of his secret society without truly revealing what those secrets are. The most powerful occult secret is right in front of you. There is no need to keep it secret. Those who can’t see it, won’t. Those who are not ready to experience “the truth that the Divine Mysteries secure” won’t detect them. They won’t see them. They will fail to understand them. Divinity is in front of every person at every moment, yet most remain blind.
Waite’s statement reveals Tarot’s greatest secret. Tarot’s mysteries will unfold before you only when you are ready. Mystery continues to unfold before you every day of your life if you are paying attention. With each card, revelations appear. Waite acts as Hermit, holding his shining light—or, in Waite’s case, the shining tarot—up for all the world to see. Here is the true nature of tarot as well as the divine mysteries of nature, reality, and time. Two people gaze at a garden. One person sees veggies and flowers. The other sees the entire universe.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Sexuality (Touch)
Hebrew Letter: Yod
Astrological Association: Virgo
The Hermit’s lantern contains a six-pointed star, two triangles representing the intersection of heaven and earth. Virgo, the astrological association of the Hermit, is the sixth sign of the zodiac. Waite wrote a book titled Lamps of Western Mysticism: Essays on the Life of the Soul in God. The lamp, a powerful symbol for Waite, suggests the guiding light of spiritual truth. The Hermit’s star shines a bright yellow in contrast to the other colors on the card, suggesting the appearance of warmth in coldness. The star glows like a Sephiroth of the Tree of Life.
Like the Hermit, the Fool and the Eight of Cups carry a staff. The Eight of Cups may be the Hermit embarking on his journey up the mountain. The mountain peak on which the Hermit stands reflects spiritual ascension and great heights. Snow-covered mountain peaks further convey the high altitude, heightened awareness, and clarity. The clear whiteness of the snow reflects a blank page and fresh start. The Hermit’s shaggy gray beard denotes wisdom. The same beard is found on the grandfatherly gentleman in the Ten of Pentacles. The Hermit’s cloak-covered head is a sign of devotion and respect of spiritual power residing above.
The first ten cards of the RWS deck describe the process by which we become at home in ourselves. Each card marks the evolution of humanity and unfolding psyche and self. Standing on his high mountain peak, the Hermit uses his shining lamp of wisdom to guide us home.
Profane
Withdrawal from the outer world. Avoiding the fray. Quality time spent alone. Reflection leading to wisdom. The spiritual practice of silence. Cultivating personal energy. Spending time alone in nature. Reordering personal boundaries. Shining the light of hope to the world around you. Introspection. Self-knowledge. Meditation. Spiritual heights. If a yes-no question, the answer is yes, but quietly.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Prudence, circumspection; also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption.
Reversed: Concealment, disguise, policy, fear, unreasoned caution.
Asana
The Hermit aligns with yoga’s plow pose, or halasana. The yogi lies on her back and swings her legs over her head, keeping her legs straight while the top of her feet rest on the floor behind her. Plow pose brings the practitioner directly to the heart chakra. There is no avoiding it. What happens when you are confronted by the nature of your own heart’s attitude toward itself? Can you love yourself as you love another? Can you offer and speak kindness to yourself as you would to a child?
The Hermit sequesters himself to confront himself. It is only when one accepts, loves, and integrates every aspect of the self that he can then begin the cultivation of ancient wisdom. The doorway to infinity lies within the body, your dwelling place and portal of experience. To love and accept the world, you must first love and accept yourself. You are the world and the world is you. Plow pose’s internal gaze is often held for long periods of time. It is ultimate introspection unlatching the gate to the infinite possibilities of the soul’s integration with the universe.
Wheel of Fortune
Once in a long-before time…
Pamela Colman Smith43
Sacred
The Wheel of Fortune is the symbol of cosmic momentum. The Wheel of Fortune echoes the cycles in our life—our sunrises, lunch breaks, evening twilights, and slumbering dreams. We sleep, wake, eat, socialize, and move through our day to the tick-tock of our rhythmic time-keeping clocks. Our bodies are made of circular cells; we live on a circular planet traveling a circular path around the sun. Cyclical time is made of decades, years, months, days, hours, and seconds. Time keeps coming at us, one new moment after the next. The question is, how do we surf waves of time? Each second, like a snowflake, is different from the last. Every moment carries the opportunity of newness embedded inside. How do we access this opportunity once we recognize it?
The wheel, like ancient Chronos, is the personification of quantifiable time. Time is linear and countable, yet time exists on multiple levels and is pliable. The individual bends time every day. All of us experience inner and outer time. Outer time is calendar and clock time. Inner time is reflected by the creative imagination. A businessman sits in a meeting at noon. He nods along with the boss, his eyes on the speaker, yet inside he’s reliving last night’s date. He’s thinking how foxy Stacy looked sitting across from him at dinner and how her breasts shifted when she crossed her legs. He thrills at how soft and inviting her lips felt when he kissed her goodnight. He is halfway inside the meeting he sits in. Last night and his present moment exist together. Inner and outer time coexist.
The experience of deep time, exemplified by the World card, is the state where all time disappears and the individual engages in complete immersion. Einstein proved time is relative. It slows down and speeds up. This is why humans can’t travel at the speed of light. The closer you are to a center of gravity, the faster time will pass. If you have a twin who lives high in the mountains while you live at sea level, at the end of your lives, she will be a few milliseconds older than you.
Buddhist mandalas, chakra wheels, and meditative labyrinths are examples of sacred circles. The sacred circle offers wisdom about the nature of life and acts as a powerful learning and healing tool. Contemplation of the circle provides deep insight regarding the nature of time, life, and reality. The Wheel of Fortune is an excellent contemplation tool. The reader can look deeply into the card and imagine the self in the center point of the circle. The wheel spins, the scaly snake slithers down, the jackal heads up. Clouds blow through the sky. The entire solar system revolves in a single card.
Waite admits he doesn’t use Golden Dawn inspiration for the wheel. He looks to an older occultist. “I have again followed the reconstruction of Éliphas Lévi.” Lévi was the first occultist to place the tarot at the center of all occult science. Lévi’s Wheel of Fortune expresses the tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God in Hebrew. The four letters are woven into Waite’s image. The letters represent the divinity’s name, four elements, four alchemical symbols, four angels, and the word ROTA, which is arranged around the wheel.
|
ROTA |
Tetragrammaton |
Element |
Alchemy |
Corner Angel |
|
R |
Yod |
Water |
Azoth |
Man |
|
O |
Heh |
Earth |
Salt |
Ox |
|
T |
Vau |
Air |
Mercury |
Eagle |
|
A |
Heh |
Fire |
Sulfur |
Lion |
Waite explains his use of Egyptian symbols inside this card and others: “Use Egyptian symbolism when this serves our purpose, provided that no theory of origin is implied therein.” Europe’s obsession with Egyptology reached a fever pitch at the turn of the nineteenth century, after Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. Expeditions raiding Egyptian tombs brought new treasures back to Europe. Occultists and the general public were entranced by Egypt’s dazzling mysteries. King Tut’s tomb was unearthed thirteen years after the RWS was published. Antoine Court de Gébelin, a earlier occultist who popularized tarot by seizing upon public ignorance, falsely claimed tarot was Egyptian in origin. He asserted the deck contained Egyptian secrets to life. Waite reassures his reader that his Egyptian figures are purely metaphorical.
Waite is clear about the meaning of this card: “The symbolic picture stands for the perpetual motion of a fluid universe and for the flux of human life.” He claims, “The Sphinx is the equilibrium therein.” All symbols of the card, including the above chart, express “Divine Providence,” the mark of divinity in the material world. The Wheel records traces of the deity at every level of life, from sips of coffee to the cries of a newborn child. Waite suggests occult explanations including “principle, fecundity, virile honour, ruling authority, etc.” are silly and ridiculous due to the holy nature of the card. He advises these meanings are better left to the “findings of common fortune-telling.” Once again, Waite makes a case for the dual meanings, sliding fortunetelling interpretations next to his occult interpretations. A wise reader will adopt a wide and ever-expanding system of meanings to their tarot repertoire.
Symbolic
Esoteric Functions: Riches and Poverty
Hebrew Letter: Kaph
Astrological Association: Jupiter
Symbolic representations of the Wheel of Fortune icon are found worldwide, especially in Europe, and predate tarot. The wheel as an allegory of life’s ups and downs struck a deep chord for the medieval general public. They lived in a highly stratified social class with little mobility. Those born into a peasant life with no chance of escaping it make fate, fortune, and destiny a viable trinity.
The wheel’s circle reflects the nature of the physical and spiritual universe. A material circle, or sphere, is detected in the quality and shape of the sun, planets, moons, molecules, eyeballs, wheels, dinner plates, clocks, and a million other objects. The spiritual wheel is detected in humanity’s evolution, the span of human life from infant to geriatric, the energetic body, emanations of love, and the aura of the human body.
Clouds billow in the corners of the card, echoing divinity and manifestation. Like tarot’s aces, something appears out of nothing. The mystery appears and traces of divinity are made manifest, as exemplified by the creatures in the corners representing the tetramorph. The tetramorph is based on the four biblical tetramorphs found in the first chapter of Ezekiel who have the heads of a man (Mathew the Apostle), lion (Mark the Evangelist), ox (Luke the Evangelist), and eagle (John the Evangelist). The creatures each hold an open book, a symbolic representation of history, religion, and destiny.
The Wheel of Fortune’s astrological association is Jupiter, god of the sky. Kabbalistically, Jupiter connects to the number four, which is echoed in the fourfold nature of the card as seen in the previous chart. The wheel has eight spokes, twice the number four. Upon the spokes are three alchemical symbols and one astrological symbol. Starting at the top and moving clockwise, find mercury, sulfur, Aquarius, and salt. The word rota is Latin for “wheel.”
Profane
Fate, fortune, and destiny. Past, present, and future. Hindsight, insight, and foresight. Go with the flow. Make every effort to stay centered. The nature of life is change. Release attachment to past behaviors and habits. Embrace each moment as it arrives. A change in your luck for the better. If a yes-no question, the answer is yes, and quickly.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity.
Reversed: Increase, abundance, superfluity.
Asana
The Wheel of Fortune aligns with yoga’s upward bow (wheel) pose, or urdhva dhanurasana. Wheel pose is a standing backbend challenging the yogi to emulate the shape of an archer’s bow or a wheel. It connects to the symbolic shape of the Wheel of Fortune while aligning with the wild energy of universal forces. Backbends work the nervous system, the network connecting the brain, spinal cord, and nerves, and can feel like a roller coaster. Upward bow can seem intense, scary, even terrifying. This is precisely why it aligns with Wheel of Fortune energy. Anything shaking our presumed stability can rattle us to our core while offering valuable lessons.
Yoga’s physical challenges gift practitioners with the ability to stay focused no matter what life throws their way. The Wheel of Fortune card asks the reader to do the same. The yogic gaze, or drishti, is the specific place a yogi is taught to focus her attention. No matter the emotional or physical experience inside the body, a soft yogic gaze will give the yogi a focus point so her greater concentration remains inside her body and her experience. The drishti aligns with the center point on the Wheel of Fortune. Staying centered inside the present moment without escaping to the past or future, simply staying put in the experience of whatever is happening to the body or in your life, is the ultimate lesson of upward bow and the Wheel of Fortune card.
First make sure in your own mind
you know what end you wish to work for. Do you know?
Pamela Colman Smith44
Sacred
Justice reflects the material world’s inherent logic and all the trappings attached to it. Justice represents courts, laws, and public systems of justice used to keep order and control chaos. Determinations of “good” or “bad” mark the quality of efforts made. Justice reflects the societal rules of all cultures. Interior justice is where we measure personal actions. We each carry a Justice card within us, acting as our moral code. It is the place we cultivate personal right or wrong, our moral system and inner compass. We explore personal limits of justice in early childhood to discover what we can get away with. We discover how it feels to lie, cheat, or steal by comparing the experience to kinder, gentler actions. Exploration continues during teen years as we test different behaviors. Eventually justice matures and reflects the place where we hold ourselves accountable. This is where we answer to ourselves.
Justice is where we make value judgments about other people. Justice’s scales can be used as a weapon when we compare ourselves to another person or group of people. We cultivate a false sense of satisfaction when putting down other people to inflate our own ego. Speaking ill of others, judging their actions, decisions, and lives, is a slippery slope of negativity turning to bitterness and even hatred. Conversely, we use Judgement’s scales against ourselves to support a negative self-image. We might compare ourselves to others to make us feel insecure and unworthy. We can say to ourselves, “I’ll never look like her” or “He’ll never love someone like me” or “I’ll never be as brilliant and successful as them.” Justice can be used as an unattainable ideal to perpetually hold the self back and therefore never suffer the failure that is attached to risk. No matter how Justice is wielded, if you use the scales as a weapon, put them down and begin practicing the art of compassion, both toward yourself and others. Empower the scales of Justice by placing yourself on one side of the scale and your High Priestess on the other side. Weigh yourself against yourself. Check in and discover if you are being honest and true to who you really are.
Waite tells us “the figure is seated between pillars, like the High Priestess.” Waite becomes poetic. He speeds past the traditional interpretations of Justice as it pertains to fairness and rules
of law. He tells us, “It seems desirable to indicate that the moral principle which deals unto every man according to his works—while, of course, it is in strict analogy with higher things.” It appears that Justice is intertwined with the High Priestess and the card contains a moral imperative of right and wrong. However, it “differs in its essence from the spiritual justice,” which would be the High Priestess. He states, “The operation of this is like the breathing of the Spirit where it wills.” The “breathing of the Spirit” is direct divine intention, and “where it wills” is the Divine’s choice of where it arrives. This suggests the natural talents and sensitivities we are born with. Everyone carries special and unique talents. These traits are found in the authenticity of the High Priestess, who holds your inner blueprint.
Waite explains divine mystery: “We have no canon of criticism or ground of explanation concerning it.” According to Waite, it is impossible to explain divine mystery and its appearance or absence in anyone. Waite says the best analogy is “the possession of the fairy gifts,” meaning supernatural powers or the “high gifts” and “gracious gifts of the poet.” These are the natural gifts a person is born with. The High Priestess is the place where the gift reveals itself in the individual. Waite claims of personal gifts “we have them or have not,” meaning to him there is no rhyme or reason to the supernatural talents operating within us. He says “their presence is as much a mystery as their absence,” meaning there is no explanation for how or where they appear or are absent in people.
Waite states “the pillars of Justice open” like a door into the material world. The High Priestess’s pillars open to the invisible world. Justice is the moral principle the individual enacts in his or her life. It dictates personal action or inaction in the material world. The High Priestess is the spiritual. This knowledge offers opportunity. The Justice card reminds us, regardless of our natural talents, if we practice and devote ourselves to any pursuit with diligence, we will find results in the material world.
At this point Waite has identified three doorways or gates between worlds. The High Priestess is the essence of the soul in relation to the divine and spiritual world. The Empress is the physical door through which the physical body is manifest in the material world. Justice is the doorway to the logic, high or low action, and activity of talent we make use of in the material world.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Work
Hebrew Letter: Lamed
Astrological Association: Libra
Waite says, “This card follows the traditional symbolism and carries above all its obvious meanings.” Traditional decks portray Justice unblindfolded, holding a scale in the right hand, a sword in the left. The sword points upward in the direction of truth and can assume all the qualities of the suit of swords: articulation, calculation, and mental activity. The figure is synonymous with traditional statues of Justice except the eyes are revealed rather than blindfolded.
Libra’s scales of Justice in the left hand connect to the Hebrew letter Lamed. Waite switches the card with the traditional placement of Strength to line up the association of Libra. A jewel in the middle of Justice’s crown marks the third eye, indicating the ability to seek truth with a higher consciousness. The posture gently echoes the Magician and Justice’s left forefinger pointing toward the ground as energy moves toward manifestation.
Profane
Our inner thoughts and judgment calls. Moral ethics. Work. Reaping the results of effort you have put forth. Universal karma. Legal systems and lawsuits. Contracts and lawyers. Doing the right thing regardless of immediate consequence. Making the world a better place. If a yes-no question, the answer is yes; however, you bear all responsibility for your actions.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law.
Reversed: Law in all its departments, legal complications, bigotry, bias, excessive severity.
Asana
The Justice card aligns with yoga’s hand to big toe pose, or utthitta hasta pagangusthasana. The yogi stands straight, takes their toe, and extends their leg to the front, side, and back to the front. The yogi creates a perfect intersection of horizontal and vertical lines, a 90-degree right angle with the body. This multiple breath posture creates a statue-like physicality imitating iconic blindfolded Justice, whose figure graces many state and federal buildings.
The Scales of Justice usually represent dual sides in a court case. Embrace the scale’s symbolic value and enter inside the heart of true balance evoked in hand to toe pose. This echoes the complexity of weighing opposing sides and opinions but also marks the coordinates of the body in the physical world. Mastery of the pose reflects working with opposing forces, masculine/feminine, light/shadow, material/invisible. We are always suspended between the polarities of who we are. Our intersection changes by the moment. Sometimes we stand strong, while other times we can’t find our footing. Our center point, like a butterfly, is in constant motion. But to become aware of the balance and dichotomy of your life is to begin the work of becoming the active observer. Acute observation of the self calms emotional urges to react to others or situations. Active observers give the self room to make the better decisions and allow others the freedom to be who they are. It provides you with the space to gain control over your experience of life. Your interior experience is the one and only thing you have control over. The Justice card and hand to toe pose remind you to make the most of it.
Use your wits,
use your eyes.
Pamela Colman Smith45
Sacred
The Hanged Man’s stasis is a visual trick. He is anything but still. He reflects a moment’s pause, a brief interlude, an examination of the world, your situation and everything seen from a new point of view. Looking through the kaleidoscopic eyes of the Hanged Man is like taking a psychedelic drug. The Hanged Man’s internal life pulsates and moves. Trees whisper, walls bleed crimson, crickets scratch your skin with song. A forest breathes in unison with you. Senses come alive as predetermined definitions fade back into human memory. Cookie-cutter definitions fade to black. The world is encountered with newborn eyes, like a vampire spying immortal nightfall for the very first time.
The Hanged Man is a signpost in the road of your life. He tells you things are about to get interesting. He is the harbinger of mysticism and transcendence. The ego falls away. Truth is revealed. His stasis draws you in. He asks you to look closer. The Hanged Man’s body is immobile, yet his consciousness radiates. Internal life, imagination, and illumination pulsate and glow yellow around his head. His posture indicates a brief interlude. He examines the situation from an entirely new point of view. He is saturated in silence and completely present in the moment.
It is said traitors were once hung at crossroads as a warning to would-be thieves and vagabonds. The Hanged Man issues forth a warning, yet he is not a harbinger of light or darkness. Each end of the spectrum contains unique gifts. The Hanged Man’s wooded cross evokes choices at the crossroads of our lives. Hecate, goddess of magic and witchcraft, is found at the crossroads, illuminating midnight with her blazing torch. A choice is to be made. Energies convene. New roads emerge. Possibilities develop. Which way will you go?
The Hanged Man often indicates sacrifice. What are you willing to give up that no longer serves you? How can you literally, like the Hanged Man, rise above the situation? Often, our best option is not to act at all. Human nature and habit find us constantly inserting personal needs and desires into events and situations. It is only natural to assert your point of view, yet
often if we step back and watch and wait, things will resolve in a unique and unexpected way that exceeds our expectations.
Waite describes the figure as “the seeming martyr.” Waite’s description reminds us not to take the image at face value. This is no martyr, no traitor hung at a crossroads; he is something else altogether. Waite gives his reader three points to consider. “(1) that the tree of sacrifice is living wood, with leaves thereon.” The falling leaves are a manifestation of the Tree of Life. Just as leaves grow and fall, indicating manifestation in the suit of wands, the Hanged Man’s tree is alive with energy. Waite is also referencing Noah’s ark. “(2) that the face expresses deep entrancement, not suffering.” The figure gazes at an inverted world, like a yogi on his head, entranced by what he sees. But what does he see? What do you see? “(3) that the figure, as a whole, suggests life in suspension, but life and not death.” Waite describes a figure who is betwixt and between, a figure between worlds. Cross-cultural spiritual dogma suggests a three-fold world. The lower world is the place of death and regeneration, the middle world is the place of life and the material world, while the upper world contains celestial beings and freedom. If the Hanged Man is not part of the worlds of life and death, he must be located in the upper world, the place of the spiritual awakening.
Waite reflects on the rampant misunderstandings of the true secret of this card. He coyly states, “I will say very simply on my own part that it expresses the relation, in one of its aspects, between the Divine and the Universe.” He tempts further with “he who can understand that the story of his higher nature is imbedded in this symbolism will receive intimations concerning a great awakening.” Waite says the person who has experienced spiritual awakening will know that in “the sacred Mystery of Death there is a glorious Mystery of Resurrection.” Nothing ends. Energy never dies; it merely transforms. He also speaks of the death and resurrection implicit in occult initiation, where the initiate’s former self “dies” and “resurrects” with occult and experiential knowledge.
Waite dangles a giant occult secret like a carrot in front of his readers. His secret is immanence. The Hanged Man peers into the essence of immanence. Immanence is the appearance of the sacred and divine in each and every manifest molecule, part, piece, and shadow of the world. Life becomes rich, infused with meaning, when peering into immanence with Hanged Man eyes. Every stone, animal, and person is infused with possibility. A breezy rainy day, a boring afternoon, or a tedious morning commute is infused with sacred energy. The sacred essence of life filters out of every molecule, sound, and smell. Life is transformed.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: No function
Hebrew Letter: Mem
Element: Water
Waite describes the wood on the card as the “Tau cross.” A Tau cross is a Christian symbol of the Old Testament. The cross bears a vertical and horizontal line looking like the letter T. He describes a “nimbus about the head.” Christian iconography uses the nimbus, a glowing sphere around the head, to reflect supernatural creatures, saints, and holy figures. Forty spokes spring from the nimbus around the Hanged Man’s head. Numerical Kabbalah assigns the number forty to the Hebrew letter Mem, which is given to the Hanged Man. The Hanged Man is the twelfth card of the major arcana. Twelve is the inversion of number twenty-one, the World card. The Hanged Man’s physical posture is a direct inversion of the World card’s posture. Each figure bears a crossed leg. The Hanged Man and the World are intimately connected, as the Hanged Man foreshadows the eventual fruition and cultivation of the World’s wisdom, insight, and transformation. The Hanged Man offers a brief flash of truth that will bear fruit in the coming cards.
The line from his crossed foot to his knee, from knee to elbow, and from right elbow to left is a graphic depiction of energetic movement shooting between the left and right pillars of the Tree of Life. The Hanged Man’s image is true to earlier renderings in historical decks. The Visconti-Sforza’s Hanged Man has his hands crossed at back, crossed legs, open eyes, and a relaxed face. The Hanged Man’s tunic is blue, matching the Hebrew letter Mem’s association with the element of water, further offering ideas of suspension and depth of knowledge and insight.
Profane
Pause and stillness. Coming to rest. Reevaluation. Sacrifice toward a greater goal. Creativity. Understanding. The solitary path of the individual. Unique point of view. The halfway point. The visionary. Things are about to get interesting. If a yes-no question, the answer is to ask again later.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy.
Reversed: Selfishness, the crowd, body politic.
Asana
The Hanged Man aligns itself with all yogic inversions, especially supported head stand, or sirsasana. Inverting the body allows us to find balance and strength while flipping our world on its head. Examine the nature of the universe, your location on the planet. There is no right-side up or upside down. All points of view are relative, yet we become so ingrained in our habits and points of view that it can take a supported headstand or the Hanged Man to literally turn our world upside down so we can view the world through a fresh pair of eyes.
Banish fear, brace your courage, place your ideals high up with the sun, away from the dirt and squalor and ugliness around you, and let that power that makes dirt and squalor and ugliness around you enter your work—energy—courage—life—love.
Pamela Colman Smith46
Sacred
The Hanged Man is witness to the divine spark inherent in all things. Death, marching on his horse, is the divine nature in the material world as the essential and unequivocal force of change. Death is traditionally the most feared card in tarot. The public takes the Death card at face value, thinking it portends actual death. Like all great stories—from myth to fairy tales, from biblical texts to sacred poetry—the tarot draws ultimate power from metaphorical value. One who believes the Death card signals literal death fails to see what the occultist sees. Death makes life possible. Death is the nature of energetic change, generation, and evolution. For anything to live, something else must die. Every flower occupies space in the dirt. Every blade of grass needs nutrients from the soil. Death is the evening sun setting, the fiery transformation of autumn’s golden leaves, the thundering silence of a long winter night. Death is what gives structure to the human mind and narrative storytelling with the finality of an ending. Death is the exhaling breath of the universe rising up to meet the inhaling breath of birth.
Death’s metaphor comes in many forms. We experience the loss of a loved one. We say goodbye to the old year as a shiny new one beckons. An idea, person, or behavior fades from consciousness. To be fully alive, one must discard the past so as not to be muddled by it. Death is releasing old, unneeded habits. Letting go offers the ability to anchor inside the present moment. Doing so allows you to act in accordance with your true nature and the nature of the universe.
Entropy, loss, and renewal echo inside Death’s image. Waite says, “The veil or mask of life is perpetuated in change, transformation and passage from higher to lower.” A veil or mask is the skin concealing the nature of divinity. Divinity reveals itself as the transformation of all things in the material world. We receive glimpses of the skin of reality being pulled back when
we experience the loss of a loved one or unexpected tragedy. Tragic moments remind us life’s journey is short; actions and words count. Love matters. Our experience of life is a gift. We should take nothing for granted. Extreme beauty, natural landscapes, and deep feelings of love will reveal what lies before our eyes at all times. The trick is to walk through daily life secure in this knowledge when it’s not staring you in the face.
Waite boasts his rectified tarot contains a better demonstration of Death’s activation using an “apocalyptic vision” rather than the traditional “reaping skeleton” tarot image. “Behind it (the skeleton) lies the whole world of ascent in the spirit.” The Hanged Man’s eyes spy the divine nature of the world and sacred nature of immanence. Death’s horsebound figure, like a horse pulling a cart, brings this vision into the world behind him. The skeleton is an ancient symbol of death. Pull back or poke your very own skin to remember the bones underneath. The material world tricks some into thinking that we are different, but at our core we are all the same. Our skeletons match, regardless of the color of the skin covering us. Even gender dissolves as the body decomposes, leaving nothing but bones.
A pair of white towers stand in the distance. The towers echo the two outer pillars of the Tree of Life. The rising sun reflects the middle pillar. The glowing orb reflects the ascension of the spirit. It is a visual representation on working up the Tree of Life, aka the Journey of Return. It is the awakening of the occult soul. The soul’s awakening is the point of resurrection. Only through awakening can the soul move upward to greet the essence of what made them.
A small black cave is drawn into the cliffs above the sailboat. Jesus was said to have been placed inside a cave after his crucifixion. His body lay inside the cavern for three days. On the third day—note the symbolic use of the number three—his resurrection occurred and he rose from the dead. It is the same path for the occultist. Enter into darkness and rise as the light. Confusion to clarity, regeneration to fruition, just as winter gives forth to spring.
Waite points out that actual death “may be one form of his progress.” The end of life is only a singular form of death. For both Waite and the occultist, death comes in many forms. Initiation is symbolic death. The initiate dies so he can be reborn through his ordeal or experience. Waite explains “mystical death” as a “change in the form of consciousness.” Mystical death requires no coffin. It is the evolution or “passage into a state” that leads to a spiritual state of being. Mystical death is “an exotic and almost unknown entrance” into a new state of being while you are alive. The layman doesn’t understand because he is used to taking metaphors literally.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Movement
Hebrew Letter: Nun
Astrological Association: Scorpio
Waite points to the horseman’s black banner to tell us it is “emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which signifies life.” It is a Rosicrucian symbol. The four figures before Death reflect the court cards, the family, the tetragrammaton, and the elements:
|
Pope |
Father |
Yod |
Fire |
|
Woman |
Mother |
Heh |
Water |
|
King |
Son |
Vau |
Air |
|
Child |
Daughter |
Heh |
Earth |
The child is the only figure on the card who does not back down or look away from the specter of death. The king’s crown is tossed aside in a symbol reflecting a new order. Fallen kings are a standard symbol of Death’s march and are found in ancient renderings of the Death card. A woman bearing a striking resemblance to the female Strength card turns her face away from Death. A pope-type figure wearing a cross upon his garments makes a mysterious gesture. Is he praying for mercy and redemption or does he welcome Death’s menacing figure?
Skulls and crossbones decorate the horse’s harness. Astrological Scorpio is assigned to the Death card, and the entire illustration is symbolic of regenerative Scorpio. A red feather connects Death to the Fool and the Sun child. Each card is a distinct stage of evolution marking the beginning, middle, and end of the occultist’s journey. Death and the Sun child each ride upon the back of a white horse. The distant ship is a symbol of energy proceeding on as usual, unaware of what it does not see, like the layman. The background towers and sun reflect the ascent up the Tree of Life. The associated Hebrew letter Nun means snake or eel. The image of a snake winding up the Tree of Life is synonymous with the soul’s movement toward the supernal triad.
Profane
The end. Finale. Finished. Done. Terminus. Moving to a higher level. Transformation and evolution. Putting a situation to rest. Making way for the new. If a yes-no question, the answer is no, the situation must come to an end.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: End, mortality, destruction, corruption; also, for a man, the loss of a benefactor; for a woman, many contrarieties; for a maid, failure of marriage projects.
Reversed: Inertia, sleep, lethargy, petrifaction, somnambulism; hope destroyed.
Asana
The Death card aligns with yoga’s corpse pose, or savasana. The yogi literally assumes the posture of Death’s deep sleep. The yogi lies like a corpse on the yoga mat at the end of her practice. Rest and stillness is as important as effort and output. Corpse pose invites you to move deeper into the interior of the Death tarot card because it aligns precisely with Death’s valuable lessons.
Transformation lies at the heart of the Death card. Yoga’s purpose is to transform the body, mind, and soul. True bodily death allows the soul to slip free of physical constraints, to move into invisible realms, to mingle with angels, entities, and archetypes. Many yogis describe a similar out-of-body experience during corpse pose.
Unilaterally, the yogi is transformed by the end of the practice, never departing the mat in the same mind-state as was entered. The yogi embraces the journey of the occult initiate with every yogic experience. Asana practices are akin to initiations where the practitioner partakes in a journey ending in symbolic death. Corpse pose ends once the practitioner opens her eyes. She finds herself altered, changed, and marked through her interior experience. She is reborn, ready to rise and remake the world as she sees fit. Take death into your own hands. Respect, encourage, and engage in death’s transformational process to support your wild, unique, unfolding soul.
Hear all the music you can, good music, for sound and form are more closely connected than we know.
Pamela Colman Smith47
Sacred
The Death card marks the ascent of the Hanged Man’s vision up the Tree of Life. Death lays this vision at the foot of Temperance as if bestowing a gift. Temperance picks it up and merges the energy like a cat’s cradle. Temperance is the winged creature of balance and integration. It reflects the activation of energies, merging and flowing. Above all, it is fusion. It moves from the right cup to the left cup, from the foot on water to a foot on land. Its path carries us from sea level to high mountain peaks.
The base level of Temperance reminds us of the ability to cope with any situation. The angel is interchangeable with an individual’s autonomy and balance. The juggler on the Two of Pentacles is elevated to divine status inside the Temperance card. Balance is cultivated and maintained on the material level. Temperance grasps this energy and transforms it in the fusion of every level of consciousness.
Temperance is the gift of complexity in personal evolution via differentiation. Differentiation accounts for gray areas of the world that lie beyond comprehension. Things are not right or wrong, simply different. Differentiation is understanding and respecting other people and foreign points of view. Others intuit the world differently than we do. Complexity is the art of holding two oppositional ideas together and feeling comfortable while maintaining opposition and duality. Complexity is the act of holding both anger and compassion toward one who has wounded you. Complexity is holding fast to personal beliefs while respecting the differing opinions of others. Complexity is recognizing multiple sides of an argument. Complexity fosters new forms of communication and understanding. Integration is the gift of owning who you are as an individual with the differentiation of others. It bears the mark of human interpersonal, political, and cultural significance. Complexity is essential because once we are capable of holding two opposing thoughts, we are free in how we respond to them. Rather than caving to an emotion or reaction, we foster a creative response to any situation.
Just as we navigate familial and personal relationships, we must also navigate the landscape of who we are as spiritual beings. We experience complexity as the spiritual self inhabits the container of our body, which navigates the physical landscape of the material world and the earth. We blend and balance our emotional and physical needs along with our romantic, financial, and practical needs. Each of us is a mystery inside our very own body. Temperance fuses the complexity of physicality, relationships, and spirituality. This leads each of us up Temperance’s path to the golden crown. The crown contains the intriguing and curious, rich, and satisfying experience of an examined life.
Waite describes archangel Gabriel, who is “pouring the essences of life from chalice to chalice.” His placement is of “one foot upon the earth and one upon waters, thus illustrating the nature of the essences.” The essences of life are the energies of life and death, the movement of yin and yang, the space between silence and fluidity. It is the interchange of the spiritual self and earthly self. To flow in step with these energies without pressing one’s agenda and needs, but rather of aligning oneself in tandem with such energies, is a delicate dance rooted in the power of mindfulness.
Waite describes the distant path moving up the mountain and how “above there is a great light, through which a crown is seen vaguely. Hereof is some part of the Secret of Eternal Life, as it is possible to man in his incarnation.” This heavy sentence is laden with Christian overtones. Eternal life is a Christian idea that promises a reward after death for adhering to its religious dogma. Waite’s idea of Eternal Life contains the ideal of being “spiritually” reborn. In Waite’s case it is the “individual awareness” of man’s temporality. It is the ideal of “initiation,” Waite’s personal relationship to the Divine, which guarantees Eternal Life. This idea reverberates through Temperance and the entire RWS deck. Tarot offers a way to invoke our divine nature.
Waite offers additional interpretations of Temperance while moving away from spiritual aspects. He says Temperance is “changes in the seasons, perpetual movement of life and even the combination of ideas.” The sacred is infused even in a mundane description. Nothing expresses the idea of evolution and adaptation as well as changing seasons. The human capacity for understanding and accepting life’s perpetual movement provides meaning, wisdom, and richness. It echoes the yogi on her mat. Just as she moves from one pose to another using breath to connect her asanas, so does the earth revolve in a state of permanent change. Life is different one day to the next. If we are not brave enough to flow with the ever-changing nature of life’s cycles, we are at risk for becoming stuck. We can align ourselves to this intelligence and hold various thoughts and realities while accepting change as the only thing we can count on. It is complexity in action.
Ultimately, Waite states, “It is called Temperance fantastically, because, when the rule of it obtains in our consciousness, it tempers, combines and harmonizes the psychic and material natures. Under that rule we know in our rational part something of whence we came and whither we are going.” Waite speaks of Temperance as a verb, fusing understanding between the psychic and material. We realize we ourselves are like angels on earth, here for a short time. The dance of our imagination and intuition is unseen, yet it is keenly felt. It fuses logic with the illogical. Waite implies if we maintain both, if we observe deeply, we will understand our relation to our spiritual self. His use of the word temper suggests a learned skill of repetition, again and again, like a blacksmith who tempers his sword in fire. With each pass, the blade is forged sharper, our understanding deeper. Doing so, we recognize ourselves as eternal divine sparks residing on earth to become the fullest incarnation of ourselves. This idea is expressed by a pond, which is a rich biosphere of manifestation, depth, and life. The path leads from manifestation up to the mountains to the sacred place where the godhead resides.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Anger
Hebrew Letter: Samekh
Astrological Association: Sagittarius
Archangel Gabriel is the messenger angel and the intermediary between the sacred and profane. Waite describes him as “a winged angel, with the sign of the sun upon his forehead.” The circle upon the angel’s head reflects the sun’s solar power. The sun is the source of all life and energy in our solar system. The circle with center dot is the alchemist’s symbol for gold. The angel’s head glows with a halo, a symbol of divinity that can be traced to ancient sun gods. “On his breast the square and triangle of the septenary.” Septenary relates to the number seven. Temperance is number fourteen, twice seven. Waite tells us “the figure is neither male or female.” This is a reminder of the occult aim to merge and balance the masculine and feminine energies of the self. Pamela’s artistic androgyny allows the viewer to easily project gender fluidity onto Temperance.
Temperance is one of the four cardinal virtues identified by Plato and Aristotle. Temperance is a cross-cultural concept. Temperance is part of Buddhism’s eightfold path. The Hindu word for temperance is dama. Dama evolved in Sanskrit literature and yogic texts as part of an ever-evolving list of essential virtues. Temperance, cross-culturally, is the ability to exercise self-control and self-restraint.
The traditional figure of Temperance as a female pouring sacred fluid predates the RWS deck. It is a common theme of Renaissance art. Symbolically, a woman controls the changing nature of emotion, thus echoing fluidity. It directly relates to the suit of cups and the emotive element of water. The temperance movement, an effort to criminalize alcohol consumption and eradicate drunkenness, found a perfect symbol in Temperance.
Both the Temperance and Moon card’s landscapes mirror one another, each containing a pool and a path. The former card reflects expansive solar energy while the latter card reflects introspective lunar energy. The pool of water is a symbol of new life and the subconscious. The yellow irises growing amidst the pond reeds are significant. Greek goddess Iris was the intermediary between gods and humans (playing the same role as archangels) and is often portrayed in ancient art as a winged goddess with a jug. As a link between heaven and earth, gods and humans, Iris’s symbol was the rainbow. The fully bloomed iris flower reflects manifestation in the material world as a result of Temperance’s activity. The glowing yellow crown above the path is a reference to the divine spark at the top of the Tree of Life, the first Sephira. It reflects humanity’s connection to its original source. Waite calls it “part of the Secret to Eternal Life.” Waite’s metaphor of death and resurrection are adapted by the occultist. The secret is that eternal life exists here and now on earth. There is no need to wait for physical death. Waite’s tarot does not presume to tell afterlife stories. His ideas, based on ancient medieval texts, lead the occultist to an inspired, enlightened, and powerful life of their own making.
Profane
Balancing fun and responsibility. Going with the flow. Rolling with the punches. A natural state of harmony. Practice makes perfect. Honing personal talents. Finding unique and winning combinations. If a yes-no question, the answer is yes, based on your ability to maintain control of the situation.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Economy, moderation, frugality, management, accommodation.
Reversed: Things connected with churches, religions, sects, the priesthood, sometimes even the priest who will marry the Querent; also disunion, unfortunate combinations, competing interests.
Asana
The Temperance card aligns with yoga’s seated spinal twist, or ardha matsyendrasana. The Temperance card’s fluids are fused in front of the angel’s sacral chakra, located three inches below the navel. Like the Temperance card, the sacral chakra is associated with water, emotions, and creativity. Seated spinal twists work the sacral chakra to encourage the body to become flexible and fluid. Flexibility encourages complexity, which heals and expands the world, benefiting all creatures. It is the ability to hold two opposing thoughts at the same time and to make room for other’s points of view without demonization and scapegoating. The inner flexibility of the sacral chakra moves outward as space is fostered and created for yourself and others. The yogi’s body becomes the physical metaphor of the Temperance card.
Surely it is through evil
that we realize good.
Pamela Colman Smith48
Sacred
Satan is an enduring archetype of literature, religion, and cultural life. The Devil is the world’s most famous scapegoat, having been blamed for wrongdoings, mistakes, and faults for centuries. Why look within yourself when you can blame someone else? Is it any coincidence the Devil is called “the Horned Goat” by Waite? He is a convenient symbol who holds the projections of humanity when they can’t bear to take responsibility for their own actions. The Devil reflects a base level of a disorder of the mind or psychic entropy. The Devil may represent anger, rage, jealousy, and a powerful wellspring of pain, negativity, and seething anger. His presence sucks attention away from meaningful experiences. He burns precious time and life energy as fuel for his appetite raging out of control like a wildfire.
The Devil stands as the absolute projection of human evil. History is rife with entire societies and individuals who are demonized, used as scapegoats and punished, reaping disastrous consequences. The Jews were blamed for economic depression and approximately six million were killed during the Holocaust. Tens of thousands (if not more) women were executed under the charge of medieval witchcraft. Anything and anyone classified as “other”—immigrants, women, the poverty stricken, people of color—have been demonized and punished for it by those who seek power and control. Who and what are you demonizing in the present moment? Do you take personal responsibility for your life or do you blame circumstances and other people? Can you see as history repeats itself over and over again ad infinitum?
The Magician and Devil share the exact same posture. The Magician channels a pure state of energy while the Devil seeks to control it. He is intoxicated by a false sense of power. The Magician’s precise wand becomes the Devil’s flaming torch that sets the human on fire. Energy must flow. It cannot be controlled. Energy can be nudged and encouraged. It can be nurtured and cared for. Like the flowing rivers moving through multiple tarot cards, both water and energy will always find their own ways regardless of human interference. Don’t try to contain them. The dam will eventually crack; the river will flood. This is why emotions, feelings, and
urges should be acknowledged, confronted, and sifted through. Repression yields disastrous consequence. There is no need to act out every urge or desire but repression makes it stronger. Acknowledging truth fosters healing because secrets develop a unique consciousness of their own when stashed in the dark.
The Devil knocks when extreme control is exercised over any situation. This includes all forms of control: seeking intellectual or physical power over another, obsessive behavior, compulsive cleaning, manipulating people and situations. Which end of the spectrum are you on? Do you attempt to control others or do you let others control you? Perhaps a little of both? Ultimately, the only thing we can control is ourselves. We command our response to the external world by controlling our interior life. Once you step back and observe your thoughts, desires, and emotions without acting or reacting to them, you begin to assert control and responsibility over yourself.
Waite explains the Devil “is the Dweller on the Threshold.” The Dweller on the Threshold carries a significant role in magical rituals of enlightenment. Just as Death reflects the metaphorical ascent of the spirit, the journey of return up the Tree of Life, the Dweller on the Threshold appears when the initiate breaks into the subconscious. The dweller, or Devil, is the changeable part of human consciousness, protecting the ego. Acts of domination and control over others feed the ego. The shadow figure is created by all things dwelling in the subconscious. He appears like a monstrous video game boss who must be defeated in order to win the game. The dweller looks different to each of us depending on what we store inside our subconscious.
Both the Devil and the dweller are overcome by looking it straight in the eye. Shine your light on the Devil. He will no longer exist in shadow. His power lies in the ability to hide through secrets, repression, and our darkest emotions. Once brought into the light, the Devil is like the vampire who is vaporized by sunlight. The conscious self can communicate directly with the higher self once the Devil is met, confronted, and integrated. Nothing need be filtered through the subconscious. Consciousness is free to interact with the higher self without interference. This is why a sense of relief prevails in telling the truth. It is usually with ourselves, not other people, that we need to become honest with.
Waite points out the graphic similarity between the Devil and the Lovers, saying the Devil card reflects how “the Mystical Garden” has been left behind. The Mystical Garden is the material world left behind as the initiate moves higher to meet the Dweller on the Threshold or the Devil. Waite confirms Éliphas Lévi’s theory that “the Baphomeeic figure is occult science and magic.” The Devil holds the key to occult science and magic because he is the Dweller on the Threshold. Once greeted and slayed, the gates of possibility are thrown open to infinite potential unfolding before you.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Laughter
Hebrew Letter: Ayin
Astrological Association: Capricorn
The karmic power of three operates within the trio of figures of this card. The figures reflect sadness. The powerful Devil does not revel in his demonic activity; rather, he holds an expression of cowering fear. He looks like a dog caught and ashamed of stealing the family’s steak off the dinner table. The witch’s rule of three states that which you do unto others will revisit you with three times as much power. Karma’s energetic effects mark the inside of a human as much as it does the outside.
The Devil infects the figures below with his power. The male and female sprout small goat horns as the Devil’s venomous power surges through them. The subtle horn symbols are a stark reminder of familial cycles of abuse. Children often revisit parent and caregiver abuse on others or themselves. Cycles of violence, oppression, and sexual dysfunction often repeat as child victims become adult perpetrators. The cycle can only be broken when light illuminates the situation. Just as the Dweller on the Threshold evaporates when he is exposed to the light of acknowledgment, so are generations of addiction and abuse broken when actions are acknowledged and responsibility is assumed. The victim is often the one to break the cycle. The victim is taxed with the dual responsibility of healing their internal wounds of abuse but also speaking out and calling light to the situation. They often suffer the consequences of extreme anger of those who want to keep secrets, often the people they love most. The victim engages in a vicious two-front battle. They are taxed with healing the most sensitive and deeply wounded parts of themselves while acknowledging the light of truth surrounding the acts that caused it. Ultimately, the victim should be named warrior. These brave souls step forward to end cycles of destruction, violence, and sexual deviancy. They are warriors of the soul who transcend the flesh and blood shed on battlefields. Their brave actions and willingness to speak the truth clear a path of possibility for future generations. Like Katniss Everdeen or Luke Skywalker, challenges are the process through which we discover who we are and what strength resides within. This is why every obstacle, from a pedophile in the family to the bully of the playground, becomes the wound that lets in the light. These demons show us what we are truly made of.
The Devil’s white beard evokes Hermit wisdom but in a beastly, animalistic, inverted fashion. His intellectual superiority is used as a weapon against others. The female’s tail sprouts eleven grapes, suggesting intoxication and the loss of control. Waite tells us the couple is “Adam and Eve after the Fall.” This is the time period after Eve has tasted the forbidden fruit. The chains reflect the “fatality of the material life,” yet the rusted neck chains are large enough to remove. The man and woman could free themselves at any moment. The power of escape is theirs. Have they locked themselves in his dungeon willingly? Are they handing their power to the Devil? Do you give your power away to others?
Graphically, the Devil card takes all visual cues from Éliphas Lévi’s illustration of the Devil in his book Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual. The Devil is archangel Uriel. His wings are bat wings, agents of darkness. Waite tells us he is “standing on an altar,” implying holiness. The Devil’s lesson must be learned. His uplifted palm matches the Magician’s hand and additionally evokes the Hierophant’s sign of benediction, also seen on the Ten of Swords. The symbol of Saturn, the planet of boundaries, embeds the Devil’s palm. An inverted pentacle upon the forehead suggests distortion of the natural world. The esoteric function of the Devil is laughter. The Devil, in certain circumstances, reflects a riotous good time. After all, the Devil wants to indulge your every desire, whim, and fantasy. He appears in film and literature under the guise of temptation, offering you money, fame, sex, and pleasure. But when is enough enough?
Profane
Issues of power and control. Addiction and negative behavior. Being a slave to your desire. Abuse and neglect. A fear shutting down all possibility. Giving your power over to another. Treating others with anger and disrespect. Focusing on the negative. You must find an exit strategy. Ignoring personal responsibility. Leave the current situation. Confronting frightening aspects of yourself in order to foster new growth. Shadow work. Facing what frightens you. In a yes-no question, the answer is yes, only if you are willing to assume complete responsibility for your actions.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil.
Reversed: Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.
Asana
The Devil card aligns with yoga’s crow pose, or bakasana. Crows are shapeshifters, transformative creatures who, like bats, reflect darkness and shadow realms. The Devil sprouts bat wings while balancing on top of his cube. Crow pose is a similar arm balance, and yogis often employ mind over matter to achieve this difficult pose.
The Devil card and crow pose remind us to examine our constant struggles and interior wars. Is your darkest demon nothing more than a habit? An illusion? Ideas, assumptions, and self-limitations are only real if you believe them. What can you discard? What false truth do you abide by? Set your bats and crows skyward. Free yourself from the cycles of the past. Embrace the shimmering present and the glorious possibility and freedom it contains.
Lift up your ideals, you weaklings, and force a way out of that thunderous clamor.
Pamela Colman Smith49
Sacred
Lightning strikes a great tower. Smoke and brimstone billow as two figures fall to a merciless, jagged death. Brilliant illumination reflects the rocky landscape. Transformation occurs in the flash of an eye, demonstrating genius of the mind and the power of thought. Immediate understanding radiates through body and soul. The Tower card is the ultimate aha moment. Truth breaks through the carefully constructed story you’ve been using to protect the ego. Earth-shaking knowledge rushes forth with tsunami-like speed. Life will never be the same.
You’ve danced with the Devil and lived to tell, but universal forces aren’t finished yet. The lightning marks a moment of no return and unexpected upheaval. It is the ultimate masculine orgasm, an energetic opening of epic proportion. Goosebumps erupt across the skin as the tectonic plates of life shift. It is the bolt of illumination, the moment that everything changes. Something you’ve heard a million times makes sense in a new way. Understanding and certainty lock into place. The Tower reflects ultimate freedom, which is terrifying to behold and evolutionary to embody.
The Tower reflects the shattering of false pretenses. These falsities are destroyed by acceptance of the shadow self and destruction of the Dweller on the Threshold. Waite reminds the reader not to take this card literally: “I do not conceive that the Tower is more or less material than the pillars which we have met with in three previous cases.” He is referring to the pillars of the High Priestess, Hierophant, and Justice. These pillars are not real but metaphorical. Therefore, the Tower is not an actual card of physical catastrophe in the reader’s life. The card does not forebode being struck by lightning, hit by a bus, or falling out a window. Waite says it is “a ruin of the House of We,” meaning the ego is destroyed. All that remains is the active observer.
Waite says the card favors “the materialization of the spiritual world.” The occultist’s lifestyle and worldview are altered forever as the spirit world is made manifest. Nothing can ever be the same once the occultist peeks beneath the veil. Waite asks the reader to examine the two figures falling from the Tower as analogies: “one is concerned with the fall into the material and animal state, while the other signifies destruction on the intellectual side.”
The red-caped former figure “is the literal word made void.” Nothing is as it seems or can be taken at face value. The crowned, blue-gowned figure is “false interpretation.” The Tower thus reflects the moment when the individual realizes the world is not real, it is but an illusion. They have misjudged the nature of reality and the self. He claims it “may signify also the end of a dispensation,” suggesting the old order has fallen and a new world begun.
Literary giant W. B. Yeats penned Is the Order RR&AC to Remain a Magical Order? in 1901 amidst Golden Dawn disarray. The order was splitting into numerous factions. Yeats eloquently made a case for Golden Dawn unification or irrevocable and dire consequences. Inside the pamphlet, Yeats starkly describes the order’s work. His text specifically describes the Golden Dawn’s symbol of the lightning bolt in conjunction with the Tree of Life. He states the “ascent to the Supreme Life,” the movement up the Tree of Life, creates a “double link.” The double link enables occultists to move up the tree. The link is a gate that swings both ways. He describes great supernatural beings, “teachers and wise ones,” and energetic bodies moving down the tree and through the gate. The downward motion of wise ones “is symbolized by the Lightning Flash.” He says, “We receive power from those who are above us by permitting the Lightning of the Supreme to descend through our souls and our bodies.” The lightning bolt is the illumination of wise ones permeating the occultist’s body as if electrified by the energy of a Jesus or Buddha figure. He says, “The power is forever seeking the world,” meaning spiritual power, wise ones, and supernatural entities always seek to manifest in the material world. These energies want to break through and be known and shown. Yeats’s fear is that splintering factions risk alienating other members and vying for their own power, thus perverting the creatures who wish to become manifest. “It consumes its mortality because the soul has arisen to the path of the Lightning.” He finishes his statement referring to the power grab inside the Golden Dawn saying, “The soul that separates itself from others, that says ‘I will seek power and knowledge for my own sake, and not for the world’s sake,’ separates itself from that path and becomes dark and empty.”
The lightning flash for Yeats is not simply a symbol of knowledge destroying the occultist’s old world as he moves up the tree but is the acute energy of divine beings permeating the occultist’s body and soul, therefore the world at large. Sadly, Yeats’s eloquent words were not heeded. The Golden Dawn ultimately disbanded. The Tower remained a potent symbol for Yeats. He purchased and lived in a tower from 1921–1929. It is now called the Yeats Tower. He continued writing and working long after the Golden Dawn fell into disarray and leaves a vast legacy of art and literature behind him.
Symbolic
Esoteric Functions: Indignation and Grace
Hebrew Letter: Peh
Astrological Association: Mars
The symbol of a circle (crown) knocked off a square (tower) by the lightning bolt is an eloquent reminder of the destruction of what never fit to begin with. Catastrophe brings ultimate catharsis, resolution of the unbalanced balancing itself. The lightning is an arrow. Specific and direct intelligence aimed from an unseen archer above. Mars, god of war, carries the astrological association for the Tower. The Mars symbol is a circle with protruding arrow as seen by the lightning bolt. The body of the lightning bolt is an energetic symbol of Tree of Life emergence and return. It zigzags just as energy and the occultist move up and down the Tree of Life from left to right pillar and back again. The Hebrew letter Peh is assigned to this card, meaning mouth. The mouth is the place where sustenance is taken in and words, feelings, thoughts, and emotions flow out. It operates like Yeats’s metaphorical gate. The three flaming windows reflect trinity and the supernal triad. Twenty-two Yod flames reflect divine fire, operating as seeds and sparks of creative life falling to the earth.
Profane
A flash of insight. A breakthrough of epic proportions. Light-bulb idea. The shattering of illusions. Truth revealed. A shakeup. Unexpected results. Everything you know changes in a second. Upheaval stemming from things that never fit to begin with. A breakdown. A turning point. There is no going back from this moment. In a yes-no question, the answer is yes, and mayhem ensues.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe.
Reversed: According to one account, the same in a lesser degree; also oppression, imprisonment, tyranny.
Asana
The Tower card aligns with yoga’s tree pose, or vrksasana. Tree pose requires the yogi to balance on one leg while lifting the arms to the sky, invoking the shape of a tree and the Tower. Doing so, the yogi becomes stable in the three worlds (lower, middle, and upper). They are rooted in the ground, stretch though the material world, and reach toward spiritual ascension. To master tree pose and the Tower card, the middle and lower self must remain stable, no matter the storms, havoc, and chaos at the top.
Keep an open mind to all things.
Pamela Colman Smith50
Sacred
The Star is divine light we can engage with directly. We look to the stars; the stars twinkle back. Inspiration from above infuses the body, the brush, the life with purpose. The Devil and the Tower rattled us to our core. The Star soothes with calm clarity like calm settling over a wildflower field after a thunderstorm has passed. The Star foreshadows the innocence of the child seen in the Sun card and the brilliance of the world to come as exemplified in the naked World dancer.
The loss of self-consciousness permeates every level of the Star card. Children are naturally unselfconscious. A “child’s mindset” breeds freedom. Children are free to employ innate trust in the space around them. Before the ego is developed, they see themselves as an extension of the world, not as a separate creature. This encourages wholeness of sight, sound, and experience. Self-consciousness consumes innate psychic energy. Releasing self-conscious notions frees the spirit. Engaging in vulnerability and revoking the ego, you are free to focus on the world around you. You concern yourself with the project or issue at hand rather than dealing with the ego, who prefers the forefront and demands attention by screaming look at me, feed me, see me and only me. The Devil and the Tower eradicated the ego so that when we meet the Star, we can engage in cosmic unity.
Glimmers of celestial radiance manifest in starlight, mini suns light-years away from where our feet touch the earth. Each is a pinpoint reminder of magic, life, and connection. The sun is the pure source of energy, life, and magic. To gaze into the face of our own sun would render us blind. To merge with starlight is to space travel across light-years. Stars are suns. Planets are reflections of those suns. Even mysterious Jupiter reflects back the light of our own sun like the moon.
Waite is direct in his expression of the card: “The figure expresses eternal youth and beauty.” The Star’s beauty is more than skin deep. To Waite, what she “communicates to the living scene is the substance of the heavens and the elements.” She is truly made of star-stuff. She is matter illuminating the far reaches of an infinite universe and four earthly elements: earth, air, fire, and water.
Waite tells is she is the “Waters of Life freely.” Waite’s phrase evokes religious baptism, as the Water of Life is a reference to the Christian holy spirit. Water is used to represent the life force. The Star is pouring forth the waters of life; doing so, she is “irrigating sea and land.” It is a reference to flow and the illuminating powers of life she reflects; of course there is no need to irrigate the ocean. Waite tells us the Star has “Gifts of the Spirit,” which are supernatural gifts bestowed unto ancient Christians to fulfill the church’s needs. The New Testament, Romans, contains seven Gifts of the Spirit, one for each white star in the Star card’s sky. The first gift is Prophecy, fitting with themes and ideas surrounding the tarot. The remaining six gifts are Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Giving, Leadership, and Mercy.
Waite explains the figure is “the type of Truth unveiled. Glorious in undying beauty, pouring waters on the soul.” He finishes by saying she is “the Great Mother in the Kabbalistic Sophia Binah, which is Supernal Understanding, who communicates to the Sephiroth that are below.” She is the female nature of eternal compassion. The Star is like a champagne fountain whose inspiration flows freely. In doing so she reflects the nature of stellar energy. She pours divine, compassionate light on all the Sephiroth below her and the material world, imbuing it with grace and inspiration. The two streams of water are her energy pouring through the left and right pillars of the Tree of Life. The Star’s naked body is the center pillar of integration.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Imagination
Hebrew Letter: Tzaddi
Astrological Association: Aquarius
The Star’s nudity reflects vulnerability and trust. She is the symbolic center pillar. She hovers above the pool magically. Waite tells us “her right foot is upon the water,” and this is the Water of Life. These waters stem from the “Great Mother in the Kabbalistic Sophia Binah, which is supernal Understanding.” Waters are the heart and soul of compassion. Water reflects the life-sustaining amniotic fluid birth waters. The entire suit of cups is filled with this liquid. The great and lesser stars in the sky are never identified by Waite; however, the seven white stars do align with the number of “Gifts of the Spirit.” The golden-centered eight-spoked star, distant hills, flowers, and trees are all traditional Star card symbols stretching back through to Marseille decks to the Visconti-Sforza cards.
A bird takes residence in the tree behind the female figure. Its long beak evokes an ibis, the sacred bird of Egypt. The ibis is seen in Egyptian mythology as the head of Thoth (Hermes), the god of logic, reason, thought, and intelligence, adding additional sacred qualities to the Star card. Birds also signify the connection between the celestial realm and life on earth due to their wings and ability to fly.
The Golden Dawn system assigns the astrological sign of Aquarius to the Star. Aquarius is the water bearer. The water to her left breaks into five small rivulets, but the significance is never explained by Waite. The Hebrew letter Tzaddi means “fishhook” and thus aligns with the aquatic nature of the card. The esoteric function aptly describes the Star as inspiration and imagination.
Profane
Inspiration and renewal. Rejuvenation of the mind, body and spirit. Endorphins releasing. The artist and the muse. Connection and intense creativity. Inner peace. You find contentment. Flowing cosmic connection. Celestial influence. Quiet after the storm. Emotional flow. Clarified hope. You are free. In a yes-no question, the answer is yes, but gently.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading says hope and bright prospects.
Reversed: Arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.
Asana
The Star card aligns with lotus pose, or padmasana. The lotus flower’s symbolic value of a flower rising from the mud transcends culture and religion. Lotus is the ancient and traditional cross-legged meditative pose of India. Lotus pose is often performed at the beginning and end of a yoga practice, and the legs may move into lotus inside other postures. Seated in lotus pose, the yogi clears the mind, focuses in the breath, and allows the benefits and energy of the practice to move freely through the body.
Lotus echoes the Star card in every way, especially when performed at the end of the practice, after challenges have been met and endorphins flowed. This is the moment of reaping all benefits. Energetically, the yogi becomes aligned with what is above and below, with herself as the center pillar. Just as the Star card filters the sacred waters of the universe, so does the yogi bask in the sacred nature of her being, her sweat, her effort. The essence of the Star card can feel like a peaceful silence after the storm has passed, reflecting the clarity of the soul, a clean slate, and newly born space.
We often gaze at the night sky in amazement, but what we don’t often realize is that the night sky is gazing back. The stars want to be seen. Darkness wants to be felt. Vastness wants to enter your soul. Starlight wants to infuse your essence. Rise like a lotus flower. Invite the universe inside of you.
Towers, white and tall, standing against the darkening sky. Those tall white towers that one sees afar. Topping the mountain crests like crowns of snow. Their silence hangs so heavy in the air.
Pamela Colman Smith51
Sacred
Vampires linger, werewolves howl, on her broomstick a witch’s silhouette zips through the moonlight. The Moon is the card of myth and monster, of altered states and deep internal landscapes. Dreamlike visions pass through the imagination of sleepers, artists, and seekers. Dark prophesies are uttered. Spells are cast. Devils leap like flames at the crossroads. Intense psychic energy and the binding nature of intuition, placid and peaceful in the High Priestess, is now electric, undeniable, permeating the lunar landscape.
The Moon’s body circles the earth, its cycles echoing the transitory nature of human life, menstrual cycles, and the nature of all things. Life is a constant state of flux and flow. The Moon is an eloquent reminder that no matter what we face, given time, it will change. No circumstance lasts forever. Good, bad, or indifferent, life’s nature, the psyche’s energy, ebbs and flows, hustles and grooves, like the ocean’s tides. “Yes,” the Moon says. “Things get weird, scary. The unknown is terrifying. Unimaginable things occur. But not forever. Nothing is forever.”
Encounter the Moon’s wild creatures. Learn to speak their tongue. Boldly move between the glowing luminescent towers. In doing so, dare those hiding above and inside to peer down at you. Explore paths appearing before you. Strange turns and uncanny moonlit moments transform the familiar into the grotesque. Use weirdness and unfamiliarity as opportunities to reexamine current beliefs and understandings in a new context. Just because you don’t recognize something does not mean it is dangerous or bad. The sun will rise eventually and cast rays of new understanding. Once awake, you’ll have seen more than you ever imagined.
Waite expresses dual meanings when he states the Moon is “increasing on the side of mercy.” The moon waxes or grows larger from the right as it grows toward its state of fullness. The card reflects the natural state of waxing lunar power. The moon’s energy becomes brighter and more luminous each night toward the right. The Moon gazes at the right pillar of the card. This is the feminine pillar of mercy on the Tree of Life, aligning with the black pillar, Boaz, on the High Priestess. The opposite pillar is masculine and the pillar of severity—Jachin on the High Priestess. The crawfish’s path between the towers is the center, the equalizing pillar of mildness integrating the forces and energies.
Waite says of the Moon that “it has sixteen chief and sixteen secondary rays.” He points out the specific number because added together they equal thirty-two, the number of paths in the Tree of Life in Yetzirah. Yetzirah is the world of formation and imagination, thus connecting to lunar qualities. Waite explicitly states, “The card represents life of the imagination apart from life of the spirit.” Imagination plays a paramount role for occultists. Artists and writers mine the imaginative landscape for work; the mystic and occultist follows suit to explore invisible spiritual realms. Sacred imagination grounded in symbol laid the landscape for all the Golden Dawn’s work, including astral travel, tattwas, tarot, etc.
“The path between the towers is the issue into the unknown,” says Waite. This is a symbolic journey of the unexplored path. He tells us “the dog and wolf are the fears of the natural mind in that place of exit…” The animals reflect the mental terror of movement from known into unknown. It is the threshold of madness. However, he finishes his statement saying it is a fear existing in a place “when there is only reflected light to guide it.” Reflected light is moonlight as opposed to direct sunlight.
To exit the known in the direct light of the sun is to avoid the descent to madness. Therein lies our safety net. We stay in control of our mental faculties and avoid the raving lunacy of a mad person. Waite says, “The face of the mind”—meaning the face in the moon—“directs a calm gaze upon the unrest below; the dew of thought falls.” The dew of thought is the fifteen Yod symbols looking like yellow tears. “The message is: Peace, be still; and it may be that there shall come a calm upon the animal nature, while the abyss beneath”—the pool of water—“shall cease from giving up a form.” In other words, the direct light of the sun, as seen in the next card, will bring about the peace that will quiet the fears of the mind.
Waite is an occultist, yet he maintains a Victorian mindset. Consider what unrest and animal nature meant to a culture who wore top hats and modest dresses and adhered to specific societal rules even as fields of psychology were being charted and explored. The Moon connects to your shadow self. It reminds us to confront secrets, shadows, and dark fantasies to heal them. Illuminate without judgment or action. The light of the sun shines upon dark qualities and such things are acknowledged powerless. Darkness and animal nature pass back through the richness of the psyche if they are examined and considered rather than feared and oppressed.
Waite tells us “intellectual light is a reflection” and in doing so aligns our mental, decisive, and calculating thoughts as symbolized in the suit of swords with the moonlight. Beyond our intellect lies “an unknown mystery.” The mystery is beyond our powers of comprehension, i.e., the mystery of the Divine. It is impossible to intellectually understand the true nature of the Divine without losing one’s mind. Imagine the human mind equipped with the ability to look through every state of consciousness at once, from your dog’s perception to a bumblebee’s. Waite suggests this would lead to madness. He suggests we do not have the capacity to understand it. Our confusion is beheld in the reflection, which, according to Waite, “will allow us to behold our animal nature, that which comes up out of the deeps, the nameless and hideous tendency which is lower than the savage beast.” Ultimately, it “sinks back whence it came” into the depths of the water and into primordial ooze.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Sleep
Hebrew Letter: Qoph
Astrological Association: Pisces
To summarize the Moon card’s rich symbolism, the path between the towers is the imagination’s journey into the unknown. The dog (left) and wolf (right) are fears present in the natural mind. The dog, wolf, and crawfish also symbolize animal nature. It is the place where the imagination takes flight. The two glowing towers are the left and right side of the Tree of Life; the path, its integrated center. The pool reflects the depths of the subconscious. The Sepher Yetzirah assigns the Hebrew letter Qoph to the function of sleep, invoking dreams and all lunar qualities, including the card’s esoteric function of sleep.
The Moon and the Sun’s images are graphically combined to demonstrate the moon’s reflection of the sun. The path’s journey is guided only by the reflected light of the sun and, above all, the intuition. In this way, the Moon is the path into the unknown illuminated by the High Priestess’s lunar glow. Trust should reign in this space. Recall the High Priestess and the eternal self already know the outcome; it is the physical and temporal selves who fear the journey toward our inevitable destiny.
Profane
Mysterious times and personal unease. Shamanic and meditational journeys. Twilight and walking between worlds. Betwixt and between. Witchcraft and sorcery. Paying careful attention to evocative dreams in order to unravel the secrets of your subconscious. Mythical undertakings. A journey begins. Trials test you. The fluctuations of the moon and lunar cycles. Oceanic tides pull you in strange directions. Uncanny feelings and intense psychic flashes. An opportunity to examine familiar things in a new light and from a new perspective. In a yes-no question, the answer is not yet.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error.
Reversed: Instability, inconstancy, silence, lesser degrees of deception and error.
Asana
The Moon card aligns with yoga’s half moon pose, or ardha chandrasana. This pose combines the fiery essence of the sun with the cooling essence of the moon and thus echoes the sun and moon depicted inside the Moon card. The half moon speaks of a specific lunar phase. It is either the first or the last quarter, depending on whether the moon is waxing (growing larger) or waning (growing smaller). The first quarter waxing moon reflects a time of decision-making and action. The last quarter of the waning moon is a time of gratitude and sharing. No matter if you pull the Moon card or embody a moon pose in yoga, you can use it as a reminder to consider your current life cycle in the context of the lunar phase.
Note the graphic balance of the moon’s dual towers and two beasts. Golden energy falls in perfectly aligned drops, and even the grass near the pond contains symmetry. Half moon pose offers the yogi the same balancing benefits. A yoga practice echoes the ebb and flow of lunar cycles. The yogi’s experience on the mat morphs and changes, flying effortlessly one day, feeling weighted down and heavy the next. Yoga, like the moon, reflects the nature of time, the gifts of grounding inside the present moment. Yoga and the Moon card meet us in malleable and ever-changing forms.
Think good thoughts of beautiful things, colors, sounds, places, not mean thoughts.
Pamela Colman Smith52
Sacred
The Sun represents fertility and pregnancy due to the child on the card. The manifest nature of sunlight brings forth all life. The card often marks literal pregnancy. Expansion in all areas is implicit; the heat of pleasure, long summer days, and wanton sunflowers. The peaceful face of the sun evokes kind advice, as if to say no matter what happens, you’ll be okay. It evokes an endless summer’s day, gentle flower-filled breezes, and the earth’s caressing nature.
The sun is the engine making all life possible. Solar power is so bright and beguiling, daylight is thought of as the normal state of the universe while nights are slept away without a thought. Yet summer noon sky is not the normal state of the universe. The myriad of midnight stars on a crystal-clear night comes closer to the true nature of the universe. About 95 percent of the known universe is filled with darkness: dark energy and dark matter. Awareness is thought of as light, and light as awareness. Humanity’s high states of being are considered “light.” The phrase “love and light” is a commonplace expression of blessing derived from sunlight itself.
Waite’s “The Tarot: A Wheel of Fortune” explains that the horse-bound child on the Sun card complements the horse-bound skeleton on the Death card, saying “the Sun is the symbol of light and revelation. It is the glory of all worlds. The naked child mounted on the great horse is the complement by antithesis of the thirteenth card—which is Death, also mounted.” This “complement” is a metaphor for Christ’s resurrection. It is the process of death to rebirth using the child as a Christ figure. Spiritual ascension is illustrated on the Death card via the sun between two towers in the background of the card. The sun moving up between the pillars echoes the occultist’s ascent up the Tree of Life. The occultist experiences resurrection through trials of initiation.
Waite tells us “the sun is the consciousness of the spirit.” The human soul consciousness is the place where the soul becomes aware of itself. The soul is aware of its true nature because the ego and the shadow have been vanquished. The soul now becomes aware of itself in the integration of divine light, understanding itself as interconnected divinity.
He compares and contrasts by saying the Sun is as bright and alive as the Moon is murky, base, and animal, “direct as the antithesis of the reflected light.” He explains, “The card signifies, therefore, the transit from the manifest light of this world, represented by the glorious sun of earth, to the light of the world to come.” The sun’s actual movement and energy empowers the occultist. The “world to come” is not a heavenly biblical afterlife. The world to come is right around the corner in the World card. It will be experienced as the supernal triad’s explosion as experienced via the World, not through physical death and resurrection, but through interior enlightenment and the intense experience of divine love on every possible level.
Symbolic
Esoteric Functions: Fertility and Barrenness
Hebrew Letter: Resh
Astrological Association: Sun
A red feather connects the Fool, Death, and Sun child. The feather reflects a state of innocence in the Fool. It is transformed by Death. It is reborn in innocence in the child of the Sun. The child’s innocence vastly differs from the Fool’s innocence. The Sun’s child, in Waite’s own words, is only “a child in the sense of simplicity and innocence in the sense of wisdom.” The soul had to lose its innocence in order to regain it through the process of maturation. Choice and knowledge imply wisdom against the finite background of experience. This Sun child knows exactly what it is doing, where it is going, and what its intentions are. Waite explains that “he signifies the restored world.” This is the restored self.
Waite specifically changes traditional Marseille symbols for the Sun in the RWS. Traditional Sun cards were assigned to the astrological sign of Gemini and illustrated with two children or twins. The Golden Dawn system makes the sun the astrological attribute of the Sun. They relocate Gemini to the Lovers card. A single child is placed on the RWS card, and there is no need for a second. The brick wall is a traditional symbol from older Sun cards and represents boundary lines. The Hebrew letter assigned to the Sun, Resh, means “face.” The peaceful face on the radiant yellow sun is a reference to the Hebrew letter; however, an anthropomorphic sun is a traditional symbol appearing on many versions of this card, beginning with the Visconti-Sforza. The Sun is a symbol for a Sephiroth on the Tree of Life. Sunflowers are reference to solar power, and the child’s flaming red banner reflects flickering solar flames.
Profane
Growth and expansion. Pregnancy, either real or metaphorical. A happy love affair. Your horizons broaden and opportunities surround you. It is safe to let your true self shine forth in vulnerability and beauty. Glowing health abounds. Magnetism and passion are exhumed through every pore. Bodily enjoyment and long summer days. Accumulation of material things, making your life pleasurable. An energetic power boost adds an extra spring to your step and the stamina you need to complete a task. In a yes-no question, the answer is an unequivocal yes.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment.
Reversed: The same in a lesser sense.
Asana
The Sun card aligns with child’s pose, or balasana. The body assumes a fetal position, thus aligning the posture with the child illustrated on the Sun card. The restorative pose is available to the yogi at any point during the practice as a resting point. It soothes the solar plexus and calms the body. Yoga can be strenuous. It is important to work hard for the things you care about. However, the counter point to effort is ease. Balance infuses every inch of the yoga practice and exists inside the tarot deck. Balance exists inside the polarities of your body and in the intricacies of your life.
Yoga channels solar energy from the first sun salutation. How you work with the energy is entirely up to you. You might channel it inward for personal growth. You may use it to build physical strength and emotional stamina. You might use solar energy to fuel the burning at the core of your soul so you may burn with the fire of a thousand stars. Regardless of how you choose to work with the sun’s energy, it falls upon you effortlessly. It creeps into your bedroom in the morning to wake you up, it generates the food you eat, it makes all life possible. It is always there. It doesn’t have to be worked at all the time. Allow your child’s pose, like the Sun card, to become a place of absorption and effortless pleasure. Take child’s pose and feel the energy of the sun coursing through your exquisite body. Allow it to foster a sense of interconnectivity between you and all living things.
For it is a land of power,
a land of unkempt uproar—
full of life, force, energy.
Pamela Colman Smith53
Sacred
Judgement is a monumental point in life. Boundaries, walls, and encasements are destroyed. Doors open, possibility comes knocking, intuition flows freely. The tectonic plates of change move like giants beneath your feet and alter the landscape forever. Gaping holes of darkness give way as dirt, rock, and stone cave into the abyss of a yawning earth. You have reached the point of no return. There is no going back. The train leaves the station. The airplane’s aloft. Change permeates beneath the surface of everything in life.
The difference is felt in small and large ways—clothes don’t feel right, the house feels ill at ease. Things that used to bring joy leave you blank. New qualities fill your life with pleasure. The trumpet’s song is a true calling, a wake-up sign, the right song coming on the radio at the right time, just when you needed to hear it. Our personal evolution impacts the people around us. A single shining truth echoes from this card. It is unaltered in the infinite definitions and understandings of Judgement. It whispers, screams, and sings the message, “There is no going back.”
Waite says yes, the card reflects the literal image of biblical judgment: “Last Judgment and resurrection of the physical body.” The archangel blows his horn and the dead rise. He says if you want to use the biblical interpretation of judgment, feel free. But he also asks “those who have inward eyes” to look deeper. Those with “eyes” will discover this card can be compared to Temperance’s divine fusion of energies.
He asks point-blank, “What is that within us which does sound a trumpet and all that is lower in our nature rises in response—almost in a moment, almost in a twinkling of the eye?” He asks, in his thick sentence, where is the calling inside yourself? Does it come from art, nature, poetry? From where does it stem? What is loud enough for the “lower nature” or the material and earthbound selves to hear the call of the Divine? He suggests it happens in a flash, in a moment, before cognition occurs. Danger is often felt before it is seen. The body
knows you’ve fallen in love before the mind realizes it. Knowledge and truth arrive to us from unknowable places.
Ultimately, it is “the card which registers the accomplishment of the great work of transformation in answer to the summons of the Supernal.” In other words, it is more than the physical body rising and responding to the call of the Supernal (god). It is the entire earth rising to the call of the Supernal. Remember, “as above, so below.” You are the world and the world is you. You bring the earthly world with you as you rise to embrace the nature of divinity. You transform not only yourself but the entire world along with you.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: No function
Hebrew Letter: Shin
Element: Fire
Archangel Michael, the angel of protection, faith, and will, sounds his trumpet above the figures below. Pamela’s card is symbolic of the Last Judgment in the biblical sense. It can be read using all of its metaphors and allegories. The Last Judgment has been painted the world over by artists, from Michelangelo to William Blake. Dozens of films and works of literature mark the end of the world. Judgement’s iconic use, whether comical, serious, or biblical, always marks the ending on the known world.
The figures’ nudity expresses vulnerability. The children reflect innocence. Families represent unity. The mother, father, and child represent the trinity. Upward-facing and open arms suggest an invitation and opening. Fire and the Hebrew letter Shin are associated with this card. Shin is the first letter in the Hebrew word meaning “heaven” or “sky.” Fire is reflected in the red wings of Michael and the red cross on his banner. The cross exemplifies the axis mundi, the center point of the universe where heaven and earth meet. The red and yellow flames of Michael’s hair also suggest the element of fire. The angel appears out of clouds, like all of the ace cards. Coffins represent death. The distant mountain peaks reflect spiritual heights, as always, yet these mountains are covered in white snow, suggesting great altitude, pristine understanding, and clarity.
Profane
Judgement is an official wake-up call. Your life must change. Old ways of doing things slip by the wayside. Your family is affected by personal actions. You stand as an example for others, demonstrating what is possible. An opportunity is staring you straight in the face. Will you heed the call? Judgement reflects the truth rising to the surface. You are asked to interview for an important, life-changing job. You are expected to deliver a result. You are required to rise to the challenge. In a yes-no question, the answer is yes, if you take the highest road possible.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Change of position, renewal, outcome. Another account specifies total loss through a lawsuit.
Reversed: Weakness, pusillanimity, simplicity; also deliberation, decision, sentence.
Asana
Judgement aligns with yoga’s warrior I pose, or virabhadrasana. The yogi reaches toward the sky in an physical imitation of the mythological Hindu warrior Virabhadra, who rose from the earth with two swords, one in each hand. The Judgement card is illustrated with bodies emerging from floating coffins. They rise from the grave in the ultimate act of reanimation and rebirth, just like Virabhadra.
Transformation, evolution, and growth results in a more fully realized version of yourself. It creates more of you for the world to enjoy and absorb. Just as teenage hormones did the work of transforming our bodies, we become stewards of internal transformation by fostering an open, curious, and attentive attitude to the world around us. We place our attention, our most powerful asset, on things mattering to us. We don’t avoid fear but choose to move through it. Transformation occurs in fits and starts, all at once or slowly. Sometimes we feel the internal rotation and gears of change; other times we are oblivious. Certain yogic poses, like some tarot cards, channel acute attention and energy toward transformation. They can be used to power up, jumpstart, and infuse growth. Warrior I pose and the Judgement card both require you to stand up, pay attention, and heed the call. The fire, fury, and effort of the card and the pose is akin to a birthing mother’s final push. It is you who is reborn. Are you ready to greet a new world entirely of your own making? What are you waiting for? Will you leap into paradise?
Learn from everything, see everything, and above all feel everything!
Pamela Colman Smith54
Sacred
The World card reflects you as the World dancer moving in a state of sheer perfection. The nature of the universe is now embodied inside your skin and bones, in your actions and gestures, your thoughts and feelings. Opposing qualities are integrated. Self-consciousness is cast aside. Complete trust is formed. You are the dazzling essence of who you are meant to be. Your talents, qualities, and sensitivities infuse every action. A glorious moment of completion. Beauty and brilliance are as profound as the possibility that was birthed in the Fool. Your pattern is forever altered. Salutation occurs. You are the universe. You are the most creative and magical act you will ever partake in.
The loss of self-consciousness as foreshadowed by the Star is no loss but a gesture toward complete immersion. All psychic energy is infused and given in the form of love, attention, and focus in the World card. The individual becomes what they focus on. Sublime transcendence occurs as complete intention moves past experience of a thing and into the embodiment. The ego dissolves. Deep time is experienced. Clock time vanishes. The major arcana’s grand finale is foreshadowed in the Wheel of Fortune card. The wheel spins like the World’s wreath, four creatures mark the corners of the card, clouds fill the blue sky.
Divinity craves your attention at all times. Divinity is the lover who never tires of your gaze. How do you create a devotional space? How do you let divinity know you see it? Do you focus on what moves your soul? How do you embody love and compassion in the simplicity of day-to-day life? Implicit trust in the blueprint inside you brings you to the World card repeatedly. Move past the ego; ground yourself in the present. Trust the soul’s desire and deep intuition. The true magic of the universe will be unleashed inside and outside of you.
According to Waite, the World is “the state of the restored world when the law of manifestation shall have been carried to the highest degree of natural perfection.” The Magician succeeds in his spell. His will is aligned in the true manifestation of the divinity. Yet, Waite tosses this idea aside and challenges us to move higher: “It represents the perfection and end of the Cosmos” as well as “referring to that day when all was declared good, when the morning
stars sang together.” Waite links the end of the cosmos or the universe to the primordial myth. Doing so, he evokes the endless circle of life.
Waite says the World card is “the rapture of the universe when it understands itself in God.” The Judgement card depicts biblical judgment and the resurrection of the dead. The occultist and thereby the earth (as above, so below—human is the earth, the earth is human) has raptured itself to the heavens. To Waite’s point, it is now the universe’s turn. The universe mirrors and responds to your awareness. The universe raptures itself back to you. The connective and energizing force is love/god/deity. It is the supernal triad and the essence of trinity.
Lovers mirror each other; parents and children reflect each other; friends, muses, and colleagues inspire one another. Out of all these interactions, new possibilities occur. The center activating agent is love (divinity). Spiritual trinity: earth, universe, divine; the supernal triad; father, son, holy ghost; maiden, mother, crone; past, present, future; the threefold world of upper, middle, and lower expand in unison. Everything sees each other. The Sun (you) rises to embrace the Judgement card (the universe). The universe (divinity) sees you seeing it. Divinity responds when it is recognized. Divinity wants to be noticed. It wants to be “seen.” Divinity craves your attention as much as the client wants her tarot reader to “see” her. It is the reason the infinite universe will never stop expanding. It is why you enjoy unlimited potential in every second of your life. Divine response occurs as you recognize it and rise up to greet it. Divinity, once embraced and acknowledged, is embodied in the World card. The World card is the universe’s response to being seen. Perfect. Complete. New. Fresh. Unlimited. It is the big bang. It radiates orgasmic consciousness.
Symbolic
Esoteric Functions: Power and Servitude
Hebrew Letter: Tav
Astrological Association: Saturn
The World dancer’s naked body reflects complete trust and vulnerability. Her posture, foreshadowed by the Hanged Man’s inverted body, echoes Saturn’s planetary symbol, the cross in the circle. Occult interpretations suggest the scarf warping around her body conceals male genitalia. The World dancer as a hermaphrodite exemplifies a perfected union of masculine and feminine energy. The four corner figures are tetramorphs, a biblical reference to the first chapter of Ezekiel, reflecting a man, lion, ox, and eagle. The four creatures represent the four corners/directions (north, south, east, west) and the four suits of tarot (wands, cups, swords, pentacles). Her green wreath is oval and in the shape of a zero, the number of the Fool, who rises to meet her. The oval also suggests the female birth canal through which new life moves. The wreath’s oval shape is used by the Golden Dawn’s tattva tradition, which uses symbols and invocations while rising through initiatory grades. This shape is the akasha tattva, also assigned to Saturn and the Hebrew letter Tav, meaning “mark.” The bluish-violet color of the scarf is associated with the letter Tav.
The World dancer holds dual magic wands in opposition to the Magician, who holds a single wand. The Magician opens and directs the flow of spiritual energy. This essence flows through the entire deck like a humming stream and is reflected in tarot’s rivers. The World holds two wands and in doing so allows the energy to move through her uninterrupted. She acts as a human energetic clearing house, capturing the energy, as symbolized by the green wreath around her. She infuses this energy and knowledge into every action, movement, and thought. She discards what is not needed without hesitation, free to meet each moment fresh. The World card is the ideal state of grace and complex alignment between the soul and the universe. The World is the ultimate integration as the left and right pillar fall away and become a circle. She perfectly integrates all aspects of the personality, both male and female, becoming the idealized center pillar. Additionally, she walks in each world, sacred and profane, spiritual and material. She is the ultimate integration of all things, all qualities, and all truths.
Profane
The World card reflects living in the moment. It is success, euphoria, and completion. The end of a cycle. Travel, movement, and excitement beckon. Your goals are achieved. You enjoy the freedom of movement and expansion of life. Laughter, pleasure, and contentment are yours. You are free to bask in the glory of all your hard work. You make plans for a trip. You reap success in love and at work. You enjoy sound mind and a supple, healthy body. In a yes-no question, the answer is yes, as long as you stay true to yourself.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Assured success, recompense, voyage, route, emigration, flight, change of place.
Reversed: Inertia, fixity, stagnation, permanence.
Asana
The World card aligns with yoga’s down dog pose, or adho mukha svanasana. Down dog is often the first pose taught to the beginning yogi. It may seem counterintuitive to align a seemingly basic yoga pose to the World card, the most highly esteemed card of tarot, yet World card delights, like down dog, are repeatedly available to us. World card properties are not reserved for a chosen few or the most enlightened but infuse every moment of our life. The World card, like down dog pose, offers the integration of the highest and lowest, expansive and introspective, and every infinite space in between. It’s right before your eyes. Can you feel it? Do you seDo you want it? Claim it.
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