OUTLINE OF TAROT

Paul Foster Case Key 0 The Fool

The Bank of Life

o draw money from a bank, you have to observe certain prescribed forms, based upon sound principles of banking. You have limitless credit with the Bank of Life, but you must comply with the regular forms of procedure, based upon the principles of life expression. Observe the rules and you can draw anything you want from the limitless supply at your disposal. Tarot is your checkbook. A checkbook contains the forms you have to fill out to draw money from a bank. Every time you open a checkbook you get a lesson in banking. It tells you just what to do to draw your money. There is a date line to fill, a blank for the name of the person to whom the money is to be paid, a date line, a number, and a place for the signature. The check is no good unless it is properly filled out. In like manner, Tarot tells you how to draw supplies from the Bank of Life. It gives you all the necessary forms, but you must fill in the forms. Tarot explains all the operations of the Life-power, all the secrets of the hidden forces in man, all the laws for the application of Conscious Energy to the solution of human problems. It also gives you the specific patterns which you can fill out, simply by giving daily attention to the pictures. Just as a bank has various forms to be filled out by those who wish to avail themselves of its services, so Tarot provides twenty-two patterns which include all possible variations of lifeexpression through human personality. You can fill any of them out. Life does the rest. Whatever you do is conditioned by subconscious mental states. The habitual attitudes of your subconsciousness work out for you in health and disease, success of failure, wealth or poverty, pleasure or pain. You can control the subconscious attitudes, because subconsciousness is always amenable to suggestion or impressions coming from the conscious level. The most potent suggestions are visual impressions. Pictures are worth far more than words. Each Tarot picture is a combination of visual images, especially designed to produce a specific subconscious response. Every detail of the picture has been carefully thought out, and the whole is a combination that represents the knowledge of master psychologists. To look at a Tarot Key is to impress its suggestions upon subconsciousness through your eyes. The subconscious reaction is inevitable. Just as a seed is bound to grow if you plant it, so the response from looking at Tarot is bound to occur, if you look. If you look without knowing anything about the pictures, you will get some response; but you will get the maximum response if you know what you are looking at. All communication of ideas is in symbols. All our symbols are conventionalized pictures. A gesture is a suggestion of a picture. A word stands for a mental picture. Symbolism, then, isnt an obscure, out-of-the-way subject. Everybody uses it, and is vitally interested in it. Symbols are used because theyre the only means of communicating ideas, the only means of arousing subconscious response. The particular symbols used in Tarot are the ones which experience has shown to be the most potent in producing subconscious reaction. They call forth practically the same response from every human subconscious mind, no matter what the level of intellectual culture. Even a primitive soul will respond to a considerable degree. The first Key of Tarot is titled The Fool, and the noun fool is derived from the Latin follis, a bellows. What makes a bellows useful is that it can be filled with air, and that it intensifies and directs the pressure of air. Here is all occult practice in a nut shell. Actual atmospheric air is the first thing you must learn to control if you want to make contact with Limitless Power. Learn how to breathe. Breath is the great occult force, and in every Scripture the word breath is used to designate the limitless Divine Working-power. For example: Sanskrit, Prana; Greek, Pneuma;
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OUTLINE OF TAROT
Paul Foster Case Key 0 The Fool

The Bank of Life

Latin, Spiritus; English, Spirit. All mean breath. So does the Hebrew Ruach (pronounced rooakh), which we shall use a good deal, because it contains a formula that tells us why breath is so important. In Hebrew it is spelled with three letters: xwr. r (Resh) stands in Hebrew for the sun. w (Vav) stands for the earth. x (Cheth) stands for the influence of the moon. Sun, earth, moon, then, is the formula for the Hidden Power in breath. Sunlight and moonlight two specific kinds of light vibration direct light and reflected light, mixed in the earths atmosphere, such is the real nature, on the physical side, of the Limitless Power which is free to us all. Understand by sunlight, of course, the direct light of all true stars, and by moonlight the reflected light of all moons and planets. There is another hint to be gained from the title: are you afraid of being called a fool? Then you cant draw funds from the Bank of Life. Here are the names of some people who have been called fools by their contemporaries: Moses, Buddha, Jesus, St. Paul, Mohammed, Columbus, the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Edison, the Wrights, Henry Ford. Henry Ford once declared that he owes his success to something he learned from an occult book written by Orlando Smith, and that book is only a partial presentation of the science of life that Tarot teaches, and helps you to apply. Better join these fools. Aleph ()), attributed to Key 0 is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its numeral value is 1, and the name Aleph, pronounced awlef, means ox. There are many occult ideas associated with this letter. Here we will emphasize only two. First, the form of the letter is like a swastika, an ancient good luck symbol. Second, oxen are patient. Put these ideas together and they suggest: good luck is the result of perseverance. Do you want to enjoy plenty from the Bank of Life? Unless your middle name is perseverance, and you sign it to all your checks, they will come back marked no funds. All great teachers have taught this principle. The number of this Key 0, looks like an egg, and suggests the possibility of growth and development. Understand it as representing No-thing, rather than nothing. What is means is this: There is no limit to the resources of the Bank of Life. The capital of Conscious Energy, the treasure of the Life-power, has no end. That power is no thing, because every thing has fixed limits, and it has none. Just as life comes out of an egg, so this power you are learning to draw upon comes from within. It is the only power we may safely depend upon. Anything less will be exhausted sometime, will fail sometime, will disappoint us sometime. Nothing less than Limitless Life is adequate to our every demand. Here is another rule: you must learn to be independent of every thing. Depend on no external circumstance. Depend upon no human being. Depend upon no outward resources whatever. This is true independence, because it is based upon absolute reliance upon all Power. I refer you to other writings for the fine points about the symbolism of this picture. The main features you need to be sure you see when you look at the design are as follows: The Fools attitude. It expresses confidence in every line. In order to make contact with your limitless resources, you must first of all believe that they are actually accessible. Then you must expect to be able to use them. Finally, you must have a definite objective, a vision of something beyond your present place in life. Remember that the zero sign is an egg. You must provide for growth. No matter how little you think you have accomplished, you can grow. No matter how advanced you are, there is still room for further development. Furthermore, the Fools attitude is the actual physical pattern for holding the body so that you will feel confidence, and express confidence. Look at this picture until you know every line of it. Then whenever you feel like slumping, it will straighten you up, expand your chest, give your heart and lungs and vital organs more room, and you will soon be full of pep again. Try it and see. The picture plants its seeds of suggestion in subconsciousness. Nobody who ever really uses Tarot gets into the habit of slouching. What does the Bible say? No good thing will he withhold
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OUTLINE OF TAROT
Paul Foster Case Key 0 The Fool

The Bank of Life

from them that walk uprightly [Psalm 84:11]. If you slouch physically, there is something wrong with your contact with the Life-power. Tune in again by using this picture suggestion until it has become permanently effective. The sun behind him. Solar force is the physical form of the Life-power which is of most importance to us. Modern science, when it says everything is made from electrons, really says that everything is made from light, and sunlight is the primary form of light available to us. Moonlight and planetary light are forms of light reflected from the sun. The gases of the atmosphere are made of electrons, so they are really made of light, too. So is everything else. Thus the sun in the picture represents the fact that all the power there is, is light power. This is an ancient teaching. The practical application is this: are you getting your daily recharging from the sun? If not, why not? Begin tomorrow. Look at this picture every day, and your subconscious mind will so respond to it that you will feel like getting your share of sunlight, every day. The wreath around his hair. This represents the green leaves of the vegetable kingdom. It also represents the most important human food. If you want to draw on the Bank of Life you must eat green vegetables. You must, just as you must write your checks in the prescribed form. Lifepower comes to you in certain forms, although the power itself is beyond all forms the green leaves bind sunlight, just as the wreath binds the fair hair of the Fool. Eat them daily. The feather rising from the wreath. It is the wing-feather of an eagle. It represents the animal kingdom, a step higher in life than the vegetable kingdom. It is also an ancient symbol of aspiration (which means to breathe towards), and truth. What do you aspire to? Have you a clearly formulated aim in life? Just as you must begin specify what you want to draw from a bank, so you must begin by formulating your aspiration. In the colored Tarot pictures, this feather is red, the color which represents action, that is, expression. You cannot truly aspire to get things. The only true aspiration is the desire to be something, the desire to express some particular form of the Life-power in action. What do you aspire to do? That is the first great question. The wand and wallet. The wand is a measuring tool, like a yardstick. What is your measure of the Life-powers resources? What do you expect from it? Have you taken your own measure? Here is the Bibles measure of a man: Thou hast madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet (Psalm 8:6). The wallet represents the powers of the subconsciousness. The basic power of subconsciousness is memory. Memory is essentially a reproductive power. Hence the wallet shows the picture of an eagle, because in the symbolism the eagle is one of the great types of the Lifepowers limitless ability to reproduce itself. Here is a key to much profound occult truth, which will be considered in subsequent lectures. The open eye on the flap of the wallet has also many deeply occult meanings. The one to remember is this: vision is what unlocks the subconscious treasure house. You have to access to all that has ever been known, to the nature-record of all that has ever been done. A clear seeing of what you want to be and do is the first essential to putting you in touch with the naturememories bearing upon whatever kind of activity you are interested in. The rose. This represents desire. Its thorns typify pain. Its bloom represents the ideas of beauty and pleasure. The secret of controlling desire, of cultivating it and improving it, is the great practical secret of Ageless Wisdom. Hence this is a cultivated flower, and the Fool knows how to carry it so that the thorns do not prick his fingers. The Fools garments. Without elaborating upon the occult meaning of these, it may be noted that the design on his outer robe is an eight-spoked wheel, surrounded by seven trefoils. The wheel represents the fundamental characteristic of the Life-powers motion, which is rotary, or
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OUTLINE OF TAROT
Paul Foster Case Key 0 The Fool

The Bank of Life

whirling. In the colored Tarot the spokes are red, the color that represents energy and light. Light in action, or conscious energy, is therefore the meaning. The green trefoils represent the seven great phases of the Life-powers activity. These correspond to seven centers in the physical body. To make the Life-power work properly through these seven centers is one of the most important occult secrets, which is thoroughly explained in the lesson courses. There are ten repetitions of this design, and they correspond to ten aspects of the Life-power. That is to say, the human mind is so constituted that all possible aspects of the Life-power may be reduced to ten major forms in which it presents itself to us. These are as follows: 1. Primal Energy, or WILL; 2. Unfailing WISDOM; 3. Perfect UNDERSTANDING; 4. Limitless SUBSTANCE; 5. Perfect LAW; 6. beauty; 7. success or VICTORY; 8. SPLENDOR or glory; 9. basis or FOUNDATION; 10. KINGDOM. That is to say, the Life-power IS, in itself, and its manifestation, these things: (1) the originating Will-Energy that produces the universe; (2) unfailing Wisdom, which knows every principle of reality; (3) perfect Understanding of every condition and situation; (4) the limitless substance from which all forms are built; (5) absolute Law, which operates with undeviating accuracy; (6) a power working always toward the expression of Beauty, even though some of the processes may go through stages of temporary ugliness; (7) a power which cannot fail, because it is ALL POWER, so that it must be the Success Power; (8) a power which has produced glorious manifestations in the past, and may be rightly expressed to produce others more glorious in the future; (9) a power which is the Basis or Foundation of all human or other expressions of activity; and (10) a power that manifests itself in a perfect order, or Kingdom. This is the kind of power that you can draw upon. This is the real nature of the vital energy that courses through your body. This is the Conscious Energy that takes form in all your personal activities. This is the power which rushes, as atmospheric air, into your lungs with every breath. The picture of the Fool contains all the symbolic suggestions which will call forth the subconscious responses necessary to put you in contact consciously with this Limitless Power. It says to you: No matter if you seem to be on the very edge of a precipice, there is that in you which can enable you to find a way which leads to the height beyond. There may be a chasm at your feet, but you can bridge it. You may have come to the jumping-off place, as it seems to you, but that only means that you must pause long enough to get a clear idea of the goal beyond. See it and see it clearly. Then you will find the way. The little dog? Ive left him to the very last, where he belongs. He is a symbol of the intellect, the merely reasoning mind, which has nothing to go on but past experience. Hes all right. Hes a faithful friend. But youll get into trouble if you let him run your business. A dog is all right to lead the blind. Intellect will serve to guide those whose eyes are not open to the vision of possibilities beyond the average human attainments. But those who belong to the glorious company of Gods fools the great seers and sages, the inventors, the pioneers, the masters of life they always keep ahead of the little barking dog of the intellect, which is forever saying; Bow, wow, wow! Look out! Youll fall over! What on earth are you looking at way up there? Whats the use? It cant be done. For the wise man sees and knows that every advance the world has made is the result of a vision some man or woman had when they came to a jumpingoff place. And they write billion dollar checks, like Henry Ford, or find new worlds, like Columbus, or cross the Atlantic, like Lindberg, or change the destiny of nations, like those brave fools who pledged their lives and fortunes to maintain that great Declaration of principles on which this nation was established.