Therapeutic Tarot Training

Volume 1 - The Major Arcana

Veet Pramad
 Copyright © 1987 Enrique Amorós Azpeitia

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended
by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456

Cover design by: Art Painter

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America
 I dedicate this work to Deva Mani and Eleodoro Ortiz,
without whom this book would never
have been written.
I also want to thank Georgia Natasha Kostick who make a translation.
 Introduction

2017 Edition

It has been more than 30 years since this book titled “Course on the Tarot and its Therapeutic Use” was
released in Brasília, as an author’s edition in three independent runs (1987, 1992 and 1994). From 2003 on,
it was released by several publishers in Mexico, Brazil and Portugal. This edition that you have in your
hands, dear reader, is an update completed in November 2017.
Much has changed in the world of Tarot in the last three decades. In 1987, when I coined the term
Therapeutic Tarot, when I spoke of using the Tarot with a therapeutic approach and purpose, it was a
subversive innovation condemned both by certain renowned Tarot professionals and by representatives of
the world of psychology and psychotherapy in general, linked to the traditional concept of Divinatory
Tarot.
In recent times, with great pleasure I have observed the Tarot breaking away from its old prisons as an
increasing number of Tarologists are taking or state to be taking a more therapeutic approach toward their
readings. This is why it is important to make what the Therapeutic Tarot is clear.
Therapeutic Tarot is an instrument that aims to help people make the necessary internal changes to become
more themselves, a basic condition of happiness. To do so, it works in the light, facilitating connection
with the essence - ultimately most imbalances come from a disconnection from the essence -, and in the
shadow, identifying and helping to understand and disable outdated behavior patterns that work from the
subconscious, manipulating and preventing the individual’s integral fulfillment.
I see some tarologists who use the term therapeutic to refer to what is actually a counseling tarot, centered
not on the querent but on the problems or issues that the person brings to the session. Of course, the Tarot
can provide useful advice to minimize or even solve certain problems, but until we make our unconscious
conscious, disabling those obsolete and neurotic behavior patterns, we will continue to be manipulated by
them and keep attracting the same situations or “problems”.
Times are changing. For centuries, we have been indoctrinated according to two principles:
1) “You have to be a certain way to be accepted by family, society, God, etc.,” “Be nice and obedient on
earth and you will earn your place in heaven.”
2) Your life depends on third parties: God’s will, fate, luck, etc.
The Tarot appeared at that time and, of course, incorporated not only images, but also important aspects of
this doctrine, such as the message of the Strength card, where an elegant woman closes the lion’s mouth,
illustrating virtuous containment of “lowly passions” or the Hanged Man: “You are tied hand and foot; you
can only submit, give in, sacrifice yourself.”
Capitalism has been changing the doctrine:
1) “You have to have this and that to be accepted” and so the “Path to Success”, “abundance”, and “self-
improvement” workshops, usually based on NLP, were fully booked.
2) If you strive and work hard, giving your best to the company (or church), your life will improve.
Nowadays, even when previous doctrines are maintained, this appears with great force, especially in
therapeutic spheres.
1) The “Be yourself” principle, also heralded by Aleister Crowley, co-author with Frieda Harris of the
Tarot of Thoth, with his Thelemic slogan: “Do What Thou Wilt”.
2) The affirmation that we build our lives based on our own decisions and not on the decisions of others. It
has also become fashionable to say that our lives depend on conspiracies that are either favorable to
Existence or not. Existence is a trillion times the size of the planet. We are an infinitesimal particle in
cosmic space. If the planet explodes into a thousand pieces, Existence doesn’t even notice. It is very selfish
to aspire for Existence to keep an eye on me. If Existence has eyes, this would be a way remain a child,
placing the responsibility for our lives on Existence.
This perception means taking responsibility for life, with responsibility being the engine of growth. If we
want to do therapeutic work with the Tarot, we will have to make it a priority for the querent to take
responsibility for his/her own life.
Given this paradigm shift, we need to adapt the Tarot to the new times. To do so, it is important to
understand that we attract what we need to grow, meaning to fully become ourselves. Until we make the
necessary changes, we will continue attracting situations which lead to growth, regardless of whether or
not we like what we attract.
We attract from the innate biological impulse that every living being has to become a complete being, as
you can see in the “Second Key to well-being” in Portuguese:
www.tarotterapeutico.info/pt/pt_videos1.htm or in Spanish:
http://www.tarotterapeutico.info/esp_videos.htm. Life doesn’t change without internal changes. That’s like
trying to get different results by doing the same thing. If we do not disable certain patterns of behavior,
eliminate beliefs and fears or heal our injured child, we will keep attracting the same situations, the same
kinds of people and problematic issues will reappear around every corner, and we will call these repetitive
situations fate. That is why Therapeutic Tarot does not focus on specific issues, but on the person
experiencing them. Therapeutic Tarot thus goes to the heart of the matter, without having to focus on or get
diverted by peripheral problems.
We also cannot read the Tarot from a Therapeutic approach using the interpretations from times passed.
We cannot continue to give the Hanged Man the meaning of sacrifice, the Devil the sum of everything
considered negative and “sinful”, or interpret the Tower as disasters, etc.
That is why it is very helpful to use a Tarot deck that is free of outdated moralism and doctrines. The Tarot
versions most widely used today, the Marseille and the Rider Waite decks, are not the best exponents for
adapting to the new times. I have been leaning toward the Thoth Tarot, created by Crowley and drawn by
Frieda Harris, since I first saw it in 1983 at Livraria Argentina de Madrid. A Tarot deck that was born in
1944 with the aim of being the Tarot for the New Age, free of the moralism, doctrines and prejudices of
the old days.
For a Therapeutic Reading, we cannot divide the cards into “good” and “bad”, but as “common” and
“shadow”. Common cards are those that have both evolutionary and involutionary meanings, choosing one
or the other according to the position in the Therapeutic Reading. However, there are some numbered
Minor Arcana that show only neurotic (involutionary) patterns. Their evolutionary side consists of
understanding and disabling that pattern. They are not “bad” cards, because pointing to exactly what needs
work means these cards are in fact excellent cards. I call these cards “shadow”.
In this edition, I kept the prescriptions for Bach and California floral essences, placing an asterisk on the
latter to distinguish them from the former. However, I want to emphasize that the essences themselves do
not transform anyone if there is no real understanding and concrete actions toward change. It’s like the
additive that helps gasoline run the engine better, but it doesn’t make it move on its own.

The names of some sephiroth of the Tree of Life begin with the letter ‫ח‬, which sound does not exist in
English, so it is customarily replaced by Ch or H, inducing pronunciation errors. ‫ ח‬has the sound of the
Spanish J. You can hear the correct pronunciation of the sephiroth in Hebrew at
https://forvo.com/languages/he/ .
Thus, the Therapeutic Tarot, placing emphasis on growth, protagonism and individual responsibility, as
well as on the present moment, breaks away from the dynamic of Traditional Tarot, focused on
circumstances and the future. It will thus give many Tarot fans and professionals the possibility of using it
in a completely different way.
This book is not just a manual for teaching how to read the Tarot from a therapeutic approach because, as
some readers have commented, by showing unknown, denied and conflicting aspects of the reader’s life, it
can lead the people to delve deep, giving the option of healing neurotic behavior patterns that will continue
to manipulate us until they are brought to consciousness.

As such, the “Tarot Course” is not just for reading, but for living.
Enjoy!
With love,

Serra Grande – Bahia – Brazil 6/25/2020

Index

CHAPTER I
THERAPEUTIC USE OF THE TAROT
DIVINATION AND SELF-AWARENESS: TWO MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE VIEWS.
THE FIVE PRINCIPLES OF THERAPEUTIC TAROT
THE THERAPEUTIC READING
CHAPTER II
THE GREAT JOURNEY
THE PATH OF LIFE
CHAPTER III
WHAT IS THE TAROT?
ORIGINS AND HISTORY
CHAPTER IV
READING RITUAL AND SYSTEM
OPENING THE DECK
THE DECK
PERSONALIZING THE DECK
THE SETTING
THE READING
THE INVOCATION
MAGNETIZATION
HOW TO SHUFFLE
THE THERAPEUTIC READING
CHAPTER V
THE STRUCTURE OF THE TAROT AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS
KABBALISTIC SYSTEM
ASTROLOGICAL ASSOCIATIONS OF THE MAJOR ARCANA
SEVEN-BASED NUMEROLOGICAL SYSTEM
TEN-BASED NUMEROLOGICAL SYSTEM
FINAL REMARKS
CHAPTER VI
THE FOOL AND THE FIRST SEPTENARY
THE FOOL
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE MAGICIAN
CORRESPONDENCE
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE HIGH PRIESTESS
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE EMPRESS
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE EMPEROR
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE HIEROPHANT (THE POPE)
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
 THE LOVERS
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE CHARIOT
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
CHAPTER VII
THE SECOND SEPTENARY
ADJUSTMENT (JUSTICE)
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE HERMIT
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
FORTUNE (
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
ENTHUSIASM (LUST - STRENGTH)
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE HANGED MAN
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
DEATH
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
ART (TEMPERANCE)
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
CHAPTER VIII
THE THIRD SEPTENARY
THE DEVIL
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE TOWER
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE STAR
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE MOON
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE SUN
 CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
AEON (JUDGMENT)
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
THE UNIVERSE
CORRESPONDENCE
SYMBOLS
GENERAL MEANINGS
IN THERAPEUTIC READING
APPENDIX 1
SUMMARY OF MEANINGS
APPENDIX 2
OVERVIEW TABLES
APPENDIX 3
INTRODUCTION TO THE TREE OF LIFE
TREE OF LIFE
THE SEPHIROT
THE FOUR WORLDS
Bibliography
 CHAPTER I
THERAPEUTIC USE OF THE TAROT
DIVINATION AND SELF-AWARENESS: TWO MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE VIEWS.
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” Carl Jung

The Tarot is currently used based on two radically different approaches: the traditional, which may
be for fortunetelling or for counseling, and another approach, for self-awareness.
There are also different ways to use Tarot for self-discovery. Standing out among these are the
Jungian line, as well as the lines followed by Jodorowsky, Enrique Ezquenazi, Liz Green, etc. I call my
approach, which I have been developing since 1987, Therapeutic Tarot.
Therapeutic Tarot aims to help people be more themselves. As such, it works in the light and in
shadow. In the light, it favors reconnection with one’s essence, and in shadow, it seeks to identify,
understand and dismantle the blockages, fears and other behavior patterns that hinder true fulfillment.

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES OF THERAPEUTIC TAROT

1 - Our lives are not a product of circumstance, but of our decisions; we are entirely responsible for
the life we have. Life is a two-way street. We build it with the decisions we make as we move toward our
goals (the way forward) and the decisions related to how we welcome what comes to us (the way back), or
as Steve Beckman says: “You make your choices and your choices make you”.
2 - We make our decisions based on our beliefs, so we can conclude that we build our lives from
our beliefs. But, be careful! That doesn’t mean that something will come to pass if I believe in it, although
if I don’t believe it, chances are it won’t happen. For example: if I don’t think I’ll win the lottery, I will
never play and thus I will never win. But on the other hand, no matter how much I believe I will win, I
could spend my life playing the lottery without ever winning. Unlike the Pythagorean theorem, beliefs are
grounded in emotion. The strength of a belief is proportional to the intensity of the emotion we feel when
we acquire that belief, usually in childhood. This may be an indoctrinated belief, such as “You have to
believe in God, because if you don’t you’ll go to hell,” or a belief resulting from one or more experiences.
A belief or decree mounted on top of a mental or ego trip has no force without deep emotion.
3 - We ourselves are the main obstacle to achieving fulfillment in any aspect of life, represented by
our resistance to changing beliefs and behavior patterns that don’t work.
4 - We attract what we need to grow, to fully become who we are and not what the mind desires.
Every living being has the intrinsic urge to become complete. Every seed that falls to the ground strives to
become a tree, every baby a complete adult, fulfilled, fruitful, healthy and happy. Thus, for example, if a
person needs to learn to say no in order to grow, she will attract increasingly unacceptable proposals. This
is the 2nd key in the “Five keys to well-being” series that can be found on my Spanish
webpage www.tarotterapeutico.info, español, Novedades.
5 - Each person carries the potential to be fulfilled and happy.

Therapeutic Tarot and Traditional Tarot differ in several fundamental ways that must be clarified:
The objective - For Divinatory Tarot, the objective is to foretell the future. If we can read the
future, this means it is predetermined, written somewhere, Maktub, regardless of our awareness, actions or
omissions, thereby reducing us to spectators of our own lives from a more or less comfortable couch. In
Tarot for Counseling, the objective is to help people solve their problems by focusing on them, studying
them and advising. The purpose of Therapeutic Tarot is to help people be more themselves, in other words
to be happy, which only happens when we are fully who we are.
The center - In Divinatory Tarot, the facts, circumstances and people surrounding the querent are
the center, while in Tarot for Counseling, problems or conflicts represent the center. In Therapeutic Tarot,
the center is the querent, the individual experiencing those circumstances, problems and issues.
 Fate - According to Divinatory Tarot, fate rules our lives: “If you were born to hammer, nails will
rain from heaven,” so the Tarot ends up being an intermediary between that all-mighty destiny and simple
mortals. Thus, in the face of this all-mighty destiny, we can do nothing more than resign ourselves to our
fate. In Counseling Tarot and Therapeutic Tarot, we are the makers of our own destiny. For the former, it is
the result of our actions and omissions, and through them we can change it. Quite right, however,
considering that our actions and omissions depend on our level of consciousness, Therapeutic Tarot affirms
with Jung that ‘Fate is the response from the subconscious’. When we need to perceive some internal issue
in order to evolve, we repeatedly attract circumstances that force us to become aware of that issue. When
that happens and we take the initiatives corresponding to that understanding, we change our fate. We no
longer need to attract those circumstances, and we attract others. Continuing with Jung: “Where there is
consciousness, there is free will. Where there is no consciousness, there is fate.” Our life changes when we
make internal changes. Our ability to transform our lives, to create our future according to our desires, will
be proportional to our consciousness. Therapeutic Tarot is a tool for altering fate, because it helps us
become aware of what is really hindering our fulfillment and shows us the attitudes we need to take if we
want to free ourselves.
Responsibility - In Divinatory Tarot, human beings are perfectly irresponsible. What responsibility
versus freedom can someone have if their life is tied to fate, to the extent of being able to foretell the future
through an oracle? Freedom and responsibility go hand-in-hand. If we insist on showing our querents that
their lives are the product of strange, alien and unpredictable forces such as chance, divine will, or magic
works against which we can do nothing, we reduce them to the category of farm chickens that can never
break free of their own accord. And then come the saviors... Thus we shift the responsibility for our lives
onto others, keeping us in a childlike state. Happiness and fortune depend on the level of consciousness in
our choices, and not on luck. Tarot for Counseling affirms that we are entirely responsible for our
decisions, pulling us out of the dead-end street in which Divinatory Tarot traps us, while Therapeutic Tarot
holds us responsible not only for our decisions, but also for the situations that come to us, which we are in
fact attracting. As long as we continue to place responsibility for our situation on others, we will not grow
at all.
The procedure - Divinatory Tarot answers questions that usually elicit a yes or no response. Will
things work out well with this romantic partner? Will I do well in this job? Will I pass my exams?
Questions often related to others: Is my husband cheating on me? Is my partner stealing from me?
Counseling Tarot also works by answering questions, usually related to a specific problem or issue, and
attempts to provide solutions.
In a Therapeutic Tarot consultation, the querent doesn’t ask questions. A person is not a sum of
subjects, usually related to health, work, money and relationships. An apparently economic problem may
be rooted in a lack of self-esteem, and vice-versa. The vast majority of problems, difficulties and
frustrations have a root: disconnection from our true being, and a purpose: to help us grow. So, let’s go to
the root, without forming or thinking of any question, letting the Tarot give voice to people’s essence and
show us their inner difficulties, their origins and the way to deactivate them, whether they are behavior
patterns, beliefs or fears. We will thus be helping our querents grow, and as a consequence, they will
resolve their conflicting issues. Without questions being asked, they will be answered. We could dedicate
many sessions trying to eliminate impediments that hold our querents back from reaching their goals,
especially if those goals are ego or mental trips. As long as they are not in tune with themselves, new
difficulties and problems will continue to arise. These internal difficulties may manifest on different levels:
professional, economic and emotional, for which the Minor Arcana show us how we are internally in
relation to these areas of life.
In short:

THERAPEUTIC
TRADITIONAL
DIVINATORY COUNSELING
OBJECTIVE To foretell the To resolve To help people be themselves.
future. problems.
 THE CENTER Events. Problems. The person.
We can change it It is the response from our
FATE It’s written.
with our actions. subconscious.
We are not We are responsible We are responsible for our
RESPONSIBILITY
responsible. for our decisions. decisions and for what we attract.
Answers Answers
PROCEDURE Questions are not asked.
questions. questions.

The matter of good and evil - Good and evil are not absolute truths, but mere adjectives that we
assign to things depending on whether or not we like them. What is pleasant and considered “good” for
someone today may not be so tomorrow. What seems “good” to me might not seem so to others. An Asian
fable tells of a young monkey that came to a river and saw a fish. Intending to save it from drowning, the
monkey pulled it out of the water, and the fish died asphyxiated. There are no illnesses, only sick people.
However, there is a particularly intimate part of us that was not destroyed by the manipulations and
blackmail of family programming: the essence of the human being, our personal compass. Giving it a
voice with the cards will help people be more themselves. On the other hand, family programming is what
leads people to disconnect from their essence and acquire beliefs and behavior patterns that slow their
fulfillment. These considerations are alien to Divinatory Tarot, which often borrows its concepts of good
and evil from official religions, filtered through the tarot reader’s own beliefs, further indoctrinating
querents and making it hard for them to be themselves.

We can say that Divinatory Tarot and Therapeutic Tarot are not merely different, but mutually
exclusive. Therapeutic Tarot frees while Divinatory Tarot binds. Divinatory tarot is anti-therapeutic.
Someone offering both approaches doesn’t understand what Therapeutic Tarot is.
And you will ask me: But, how is that Divinatory Tarot is so often right? There are people who
expect life to change without having to make internal changes, without needing to perceive anything, and
of course their life is a mechanical repetition. That is why Divinatory Tarot is accurate, not to mention that
predictions can influence querents.
Therapeutic and Counseling Tarot can complement each other. After a therapeutic reading, our
querent might be looking for guidance regarding some question or problem. Of course we will accept this
kind of request, but my personal experience during 30 years of Therapeutic Tarot has shown me that in
99.99% of the cases, there are no questions, and the remaining 0.01% are mothers seeking advice in
relation to their teenage children.
In the Tarot, we have three groups of cards: The 22 Major Arcana are symbolic representations of
Universal or Archetypal Principles present in the unconscious, which change as humanity evolves. They
also represent states of consciousness and their practical manifestations, ranging from the absolute
potential of the Fool to the complete fulfillment of the World. The 16 Royal Figures are no longer people,
men and women with certain physical or mental characteristics that come and go from our lives, bringing
joy or misfortune, to become 16 personality types that, depending on the position in which they appear in a
Therapeutic Reading, indicate more or less creative or neurotic masks or attitudes. The 40 Minor Arcana
are expressions of our daily life in four aspects: The suit of Wands or Fire shows how the querent
expresses energy, embracing the professional world and the instinctive and creative manifestations. Those
of Cups or Water show different emotional states. Those of Swords or Air identify mental states or
mechanisms. The Discs (Rings, Pentacles or Coins) or Earth cards speak of our relationship with our
physical body and the material world. We see how an exact parallelism is drawn between the structure of
the Tarot and that of the human being, making it easier to delve into the darkest corners of the psyche.
 THE THERAPEUTIC READING
The old Present, Past and Future type readings are no longer useful if we want to place self-
transformation of the being at the center of the issue, identifying behavior patterns, belief systems,
blockages and fears that have to be dissolved, and the attitudes needed in order to grow.
I developed Therapeutic Reading by resignifying the traditional Celtic Cross, a system based on a
ten-card arrangement in which the number inscribed on each card indicates the order in which it is drawn
from the deck. The typical reading image is still Celtic, but the meanings are different.
Let’s look at the positions:

A Therapeutic Tarot session has an interesting parallelism with a medical consultation. In the first
place, we don’t go to a doctor because we are curious, but because something is hurting, making us suffer
or preventing us from moving forward. We aren’t satisfied with a prescription painkiller for our headache
or with the promise of feeling better if we take such medicine. First of all, we want our doctor to evaluate
our symptoms and identify the ailment. Similarly, in Therapeutic Tarot, the Present Moment cards showing
the questions and conflicts we are going through are the symptoms of a disease formed by a set of
programmed behavior patterns, which we can call a mask or script, illustrated by the Anchor cards.
Secondly, we want to know the cause of our illness. To identify this, the doctor will ask about our
eating habits, if we like our job, if we exercise, if we are filled with anger at home or at work, if our
personal achievement expectations are materializing, if we are experiencing intense emotional conflict, etc.
A headache may indicate a liver intoxicated by high amounts of fat, alcohol or rage. Perhaps we are
compensating our professional or family dissatisfaction with the pleasures of the table. We need to clean
our liver by eating better and not allowing anger to build up. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t leave
us satisfied. We need to discover the root causes that lead us to accept situations with which we don’t
agree. If we don’t seek out the deep roots, we might change our compensations and symptoms, but we will
continue to be dissatisfied and sick.
In Therapeutic Tarot, we have Childhood position cards which show the origins and patterns of the
Anchor, the root causes that make us ill. Here, we become aware of the personality traits that the child had
to acquire or hide in order to earn family approval, crucial to survival.
Our hardships and ailments don’t come from outside agents; they are inside, deep inside us. These
external agents: viruses, germs, an unbearable boss, corruption, economic crisis, husband or wife, which
seemingly complicate our lives so much, may be agents that we attract in order to realize something and
change our life. Finally, viruses only catch us when our immune system (the bodily notion of self) is
weakened.
Divinatory Tarot usually places the causes of our problems in the outside world. It aims to find out
if our romantic partner is cheating, if an associate is stealing, if someone has cast an “evil eye” upon us.
The solutions are external as well. Will the man/woman of my life appear?; Will I get married?; Will my
company or relationship go forward?; Am I going to win the lottery? Allopathy and Divinatory Tarot agree
when they place the causes of problems/diseases and their solutions outside of us, disconnected from our
behavioral patterns, belief systems and emotional conflicts.
A good health professional knows that the body has a self-regulating system that continually seeks
balance, taking its own initiatives to restore good health. It would thus be more appropriate to work to help
the body recover. Often these bodily initiatives are mistaken for symptoms of the disease itself and
eliminated. One example is the flu. When our immune system is weakened, the viruses that are always
around us attack. Our body defends itself by counterattacking with white blood cells and increasing body
temperature, because these cells work best at a higher temperature. We also lose our appetite, because our
body doesn’t want to spend energy digesting. Often, mistaking that fever for illness, we force our children
to eat while giving them antipyretic drugs. In Therapeutic Tarot, the being’s tendency to recover its health
is expressed through the Inner Voice cards.
Once the diagnosis is reached, a non-allopathic doctor will not prescribe medications to mask
symptoms, but will work on the true causes of the ailment in order to root it out. The doctor will suggest
attitudes, initiatives and remedies that help us recover our health. Once we understand the internal conflict,
its origins and manifestations, and once we have a diagnosis, the time comes for action, for the
prescription. Therapeutic Tarot uses the Method position cards.
We also want the doctor to tell us the progression of our clinical condition or path to recovery and
what results we can expect. This is shown in the Therapeutic Reading by the Growth Path and External
and Internal Results cards.
In summary:

Therapeutic Tarot Healer

Internal Urges, Conflicts Symptoms
Anchor Illness
Childhood Origins of the illness
Method Prescription
Path of Growth and Results Progression of the condition and recovery

In Chapter IV we will look at the Therapeutic Reading in greater detail, where we can place several
cards in each position, thus forming a map of the process that the individual is experiencing, providing the
necessary guidance to take a leap in life toward true fulfillment.
 CHAPTER II

THE GREAT JOURNEY

THE PATH OF LIFE

Approaching the Major Arcana is a great adventure. Looking at them through a systematic method,
studying each card by means of its Kabbalistic, astrological and logical numeric symbols and
correspondence, would seem, to the uninitiated, a dry reading, while offering a list of practical meanings
would leave the reader wondering: but where does this all come from?
The reason for this chapter is to elicit, with each Major Arcana, certain internal reverberations that
facilitate a personal vision of the cards. By seeing how they reflect our lives and which of our traits and
attitudes appear in them, we will more easily understand them, and we will have a more vital reference
when, starting from chapter VI, we begin the systematic study.
We consider the sequence of Major Arcana as the process of individuation, the Great Journey of the
human being in search of self and personal fulfillment, and each of the 22 cards as states of consciousness,
ranging from the absolute potential of the Fool to personal fulfillment, full consciousness or final synthesis
of the World. This approach would be very difficult if we placed the Fool at the end of the sequence as
Arcana XXII and not at the beginning as Arcana Zero. In this position, The Fool will come into contact
with each of the remaining 21 cards, which will represent challenges and tests through which it will be
transformed. The Fool is the newborn that has not yet been programmed, the EPATIPIC child, from the
Spanish meaning: spontaneous, present, joyful, complete, innocent, perceptive, unpredictable and capable
of wonder. It represents the potential state of things.
Traditionally, the meaning of subconscious is attributed to The Fool, like the old pedagogy that
regarded a child as a blank slate, with a head that needs to be filled with knowledge and rules. Nothing is
further from the truth. Babies know exactly what they want and what they don’t want (better than many
adults). They don’t doubt. They act from deep internal references, their instincts, which, except for serious
intrauterine problems, remain intact. Their body memory, not yet blocked by psychophysical tensions,
encompass the memories of their entire evolution. We will thus be closer to the truth if we say that babies
act from the subconscious, and that by bringing the subconscious to action, they become conscious, instead
of affirming that they are unconscious. Obviously, babies are unaware of the complex world to which they
arrive, the minds of adults and their neuroses. They do not know that in 1987, 1.3 million dollars per
minute went to military spending, while in the same minute, 30 children died of hunger[1].
Actually, a baby who has just incarnated at this level of evolution called planet Earth doesn’t need
to know any of this to grow up healthy and happy. What a baby needs is love and support. In the same way
that a seed contains all the elements to transform into a tree, needing only water and fertile soil, a newborn
is a perfect, integrated and complete being who develops physical, emotional and mental aspects from a
central energy structure, and from a divine atom on the spiritual plane. Nothing is missing. True wisdom
lies within the baby. School and university are just informative details compared to the irreplaceable love
to assert oneself, to develop one’s potential, to flourish, to remember what one already knows.
Thus, as Crowley’s card shows, the baby-Fool arrives smiling, amazed by the unknown, free of
fear, prejudice and emotional blocks, living eternity in every moment. From this absolute potential, The
Fool begins coming into contact with and developing an initial polarity, beginning to express himself in
two fundamental ways that correspond to the two basic principles operating in the cosmos: the Masculine
Principle, action, Yang, and the Feminine Principle, receptivity, Yin, which are represented in the Tarot by
The Magician and the High Priestess. The Magician’s first expression before birth is kicking, and once
born, crying or smiling. Both will depend on whether the mother, duly supported, gives birth, or if the
doctor delivers the baby[2]. In fact, although there is no cognitive memory, in many cases an individual’s
first trauma is birth.
Later the baby will nurse, interact and communicate, shout for joy or cry from hunger or cold,
slowly discover the surrounding world, crawl after the dog, create, transform a can into a drum, discover
limits and try to overcome them, that is, the child will leave the internal space to act in the outside world.
This is all expression of The Magician, Arcana I.
The High Priestess, Arcana II, the Principle of Receptiveness, leads the baby to internalization. We
see the child still, calm and silent, sometimes with eyes wide open, as if looking through something and
seeing a world that is beyond the vision of adults, perhaps in another time, perhaps internal; or perhaps
sucking the thumb, totally receptive and connected to him/herself. In these moments, the child surprises us
with an expression of serenity and wisdom that only the enlightened have managed to regain.
While babies are manifesting these two polarities, they are also coming into contact with the
concrete world, what they can and cannot do, the world of rules and other people’s expectations. This
contact occurs through the mother and the father, The Empress and The Emperor, Arcana III and IV.
Parents influence their children’s lives the most by what they do and don’t do. They are more
important for our development than siblings, school, society, “good” or “bad” companions, nationality,
social class or religion, to the point of determining the child’s future, as the saying goes: “like father like
son”.
Despite the efforts we may make to reverse family programming, it’s very hard to get rid of it, as
Eric Berne says, paraphrasing the “Panchatantra”, one of the oldest Hindu texts: “These five things you
will have from your parents, six years after leaving the womb: the duration of your days, your luck, your
wealth, your instruction and your tomb."
Parents are the ones who “karmatize” children, placing them at the level of evolution they achieved
in the previous life[3].
The mother/Empress is the first to give shape and limits to this being. She brings the child into the
world of life & death polarity: she gives him the possibility of being born and, at the same time, signs his
death sentence.
The mother greatly influences the psychophysical development of her child from the womb,
accepting or rejecting, loving more or less, and/or creating expectations that interfere with the child’s
growth.[4]. The mother may feel blessed by the forces of Life, which entrusted her with the gestation and
care of a perfect being through which she has the possibility of redeeming her own perfection, or punished
by the obligation of taking on decades of responsibility for raising a human being. There are many women
who haven’t developed a maternal instinct, who don’t feel mature enough to take on such responsibility, or
who have different priorities at that time. Many of them choose to continue their pregnancy, condemning
their child to a life of emotional and/or economic misery marked by rejection, abandonment, a sense of
inadequacy or guilt, thus yielding to social and especially religious pressure, which demonizes abortion but
does little or nothing to give quality of life to children who are born.
Starting in the last few months in the womb, babies really perceive how their life changes when
they have or don’t have their mother’s love. A loving and nourishing mother (not just referring to milk) is
to a child what a life jacket is to someone who falls from a boat into the ocean without knowing how to
swim.
Unfortunately for humanity, most women, especially married women, feel frustrated as a result of
the sexist system that has been assaulting women from all angles for millennia. They are forced to
renounce their individuality and freedom, the achievement of their dreams and the development of their
potential, their pleasure and sexuality, in order to be accepted in a society whose principles and values they
did not invent, and gain the supposed security, status and protection that men and sexist society promise
them. Many have stopped fighting for their happiness and dignity, making their yielding and suffering a
merit that receives applause from all religions, which are also patriarchal. They have accepted their
frustrations and said yes to the system that oppresses them, while saying no to themselves. This generates
so much anger that it hampers their ability to love and leaves them filled with resentment and a desire for
revenge. Unconsciously, according to the Law of the Henhouse[5], they pass their own programming down
to their children.

“If the rage of all the frustrated women in the world came together, the planet would immediately
explode, with a thousand times more force than the simultaneous explosion of all the weapons that men
have accumulated.” Eliodoro Ortiz

Many have fought and continue fighting; some have died and continue dying; others have achieved
true fulfillment. Let’s look at how this programming plays out on the different planes.

1st On the bodily/instinctive plane. To a baby inside her mother’s womb, her body, her mother’s
body and the world is all one and the same. When she is born, she feels like she is being ripped away from
a part of herself with which she had identified up until then, especially if she is taken to a nursery or
incubator. In many cultures (Andean, Amazonian, Asian) babies are swaddled in a cloth or poncho and tied
onto the mother’s back, continuing this way until they learn to walk, in close physical contact with her so
that this process of separation is less traumatic. Without trying to negate the sanitary efficiency of diapers,
this garment also creates a “forbidden area” where children cannot touch themselves, conveying the
message that this body area does not belong to them, especially if they are not allowed to explore it when
bathing. However, if we forbid something, we create a fixation on that thing. After children stop wearing
diapers, we keep insisting that the genital/anal region is not to be shown or touched. Shame is also
instilled, something that the child had never felt before.
Like any young mammal, children are curious. They want to discover the world around them and
feel especially fascinated by the elements of fire, earth and water in their many forms, mud, rain, puddles,
bonfires, as well as other animals. The initiatives that children take in this sense are generally repressed by
their mother, who learned from her mother that dirt is dirty or disgusting, untreated water and rain a source
of disease, and fire only for blowing out birthday candles. The daily bath that gives the little one so much
pleasure is reduced to an obligation, fast and scheduled. In general, anything that goes against the semi-
divine principle of cleanliness is avoided. Biological functions such as eating and drinking are transformed
into rituals that remove the pleasure that accompanies all satisfaction of biological needs. Peeing and
pooping are also regulated. In short, instinctive expression is pruned and manipulated, ceasing to be
spontaneous and becoming embedded with disgust, shame and fear.

2nd On the emotional plane. One characteristic of babies and small children is their emotional
spontaneity. The frustrated mother, who was also prevented from being spontaneous, has serious
difficulties accepting manifestations of the child’s individuality and tolerating initiative, because she
subconsciously comes into contact with the rage and pain she felt when she was repressed. The more
people repress their natural urges in order to obey rules, the more angry they feel when someone does
whatever they want. Although she may not want to on a conscious level, the mother may end up telling her
child between the lines: “I yield, I bow down and I obey. You have to do the same. You cannot be free,
happy or feel loved, because I am not free, I am not happy, and I do not feel loved.”
A baby is the prototype of selfishness. Parents exist to attend to and satisfy the baby’s vital needs,
given that the greatest force motivating any living being is the need to survive. Although a child dies of
hunger every five seconds, parents usually do their best to nourish, shelter and protect their children. When
babies/children feel that their survival needs are assured, they overflow with love, pleasure and joy, leaving
adults fawning, showing that the natural state of being is one of joy, pleasure and love. If love is returned,
their level of satisfaction deepens, they feel nurtured at more subtle levels and this affirms their basic
rights, which are:
1. The right to life, developed or denied from the last months of pregnancy through the first six
months of life. When children feel their life threatened during this time, they develop a schizoid defense
structure characterized by elongated body, cold hands and feet, lifeless eyes, head disjointed from the
torso and disconnection from emotions (not feeling), defending themselves through intellectualizing. They
are mobilized by the fear of existing, because existing to them means dying.
 2. The right to have their basic needs for food and love met, which manifests in the first two or
three years of life, especially during the breastfeeding phase. If this right has been infringed upon, children
feel afraid of being abandoned and develop an oral defense structure with a thin body, sunken in and cold
chest, and flaccid muscles. Mobilized by the fear of being abandoned, they cling to others because they
don’t feel capable of being independent.
3. The right to assert themselves in opposition to their parents. This right is experienced as of 18
months, when the child learns to say “no”. If this is not allowed because the mother is controlling,
overprotective and a martyr, the child loses the ability to take independent initiative. When the child tries
to assert himself, his mother makes him feel guilty or humiliates him. The child registers “if I am free, you
will not love me” and develops a masochistic defense structure characterized by a short, fat and muscular
body, cold buttocks and pelvis tilted forward. He accumulates anger that he is unable to express because
his greatest fear is to explode. This child will be a whiner, who seems to yield but doesn’t do so internally,
thus remaining in conflict. He will tend to eat and work compulsively.
The next two rights manifest at a later stage, when the child begins to affirm his or her sexuality. If
the first three rights are linked to the mother, the predominant role in the next two lies with the parent of
the opposite sex.
4. The right to autonomy, or not being subjugated to what others want from you. This right is
experienced between 2 and 6 years of age and is lost when the opposite-sex parent is surreptitiously
seductive. Acceptance is contingent upon the child being seduced, bowing to the father’s narcissistic
whims, thus feeling manipulated and losing freedom. The registered message is “I can only be accepted if I
let them control me”. To defend himself, the child inverts the roles and manipulates his parents, becoming
seductive as well. He develops a psychopathic defense structure, with puffed-out chest, narrow, cold
pelvis and thin, cold legs, like American superheroes. Psychologically, he needs to control others by
intimidating or seducing them. He doesn’t connect with sexuality, as is the case of many dictators,
politicians and gangsters, unless sexual seduction is a specific means to controlling others. He is driven by
the fear of being controlled and his most prominent feature is falsity and an accumulation of energy in his
own image.
5. The right to want, to mobilize in order to achieve one’s desires directly and openly, which is
connected to the Oedipus complex that emerges between 3 and 6 years old, when love, erotic pleasure and
childish sexuality merge[6]. Rejection by the adult damages the child’s self-esteem. In order to protect
himself, he controls the expression of his feelings (he feels but does not express), registering the idea that
surrender is very dangerous because of the risk of being rejected. He develops a rigid defense structure.
The spine is stiff and the pelvis tilts backward. If he connects sexually, it doesn’t involve feelings, and
when he opens his heart, sexuality is blocked. To compensate for damaged self-esteem, the child becomes
a proud, ambitious and competitive adult.

Parents need to stop accepting or rejecting their children according to their suitable concept of “my
child”. “My child does this and not that.” They need to see that behind this idea is an independent and
autonomous being who develops in accordance with his or her own nature. Expecting their child to be a
certain way also prevents them from receiving the love the child gives them, thus missing out on the
possibility of feeling loved and of rescuing, albeit partially, their unprogrammed child.
Transforming this self-centered little person into a solidary individual who knows how to share
with others is an artist’s task. It requires knowing how to set limits, and knowing how to say “no” with
enough love that the child doesn’t feel rejected, because in the child’s mind, if his parents don’t let him do
what he wants, it’s because they don’t love him. That “no” must be cushioned by enough “yeses” for the
child not to feel this way.
The frustrated mother also dislikes the child’s natural emotional expression, and although in the
best case scenario she tries to pretend in order to preserve her child’s spontaneity, the child knows exactly
what pleases and displeases his mother. The problem appears when the mother makes acceptance of the
child dependent on a certain kind of behavior. The baby/child instinctively knows that in order to
guarantee survival, and survival is the greatest driving force of all living beings, he or she needs to be
cared for, nurtured, protected and accepted by the family. When the expression of a trait or talent elicits
rejection, condemnation, criticism or violence, the instinct for self-preservation is triggered and the
baby/child stops being spontaneous, starts pretending, stops doing and expressing whatever displeases the
mother and doing or expressing what pleases her, at least when in front of her. With this, some of the
child’s aspects and talents atrophy, other personality traits develop more and certain patterns of behavior
set in.
Acceptance[7] or rejection will determine the child’s future attitudes: If a child feels accepted, she
will accept herself and will reach adolescence and adulthood connected and taking initiative based on
instinctive, emotional and mental centers. She will value her urges and emotions, her ideas and ideals, and
will not try to resemble the stereotypes the media offers as models, nor will she suffer because of feeling
different from them.
Now, accepting children as they are does not mean saying yes to everything they do, nor satisfying
all of their whims. Children cannot do whatever they want. That could even be dangerous. To accept them
means to value them, and we value what we dedicate our time to. This doesn’t mean valuing them if they
think or act in the way that seems right to us and not valuing them if it seems wrong. It means always
valuing them, which entails using our time to talk, to show them the consequences of their actions, keeping
them in touch with reality as much as possible, passing on our experience, but not forcing our opinions or
moral principles from another era onto them. What children most want is the loving presence of their
parents. When deprived of this, they start asking for material things, especially when they are left in front
of the TV a lot.
Most of the time, parents don’t have enough time or ability to love to give them this presence,
because of other obligations. Without time, talking, instructing, guiding, listening and sharing moments are
replaced by blackmail, threats, rewarding, punishing and ordering them around. Children go through the
bitter experience of seeing that expressing their emotions and following their urges lead them to suffer,
feeling rejected, devalued or abandoned. The more spontaneous they are, the more they end up suffering,
identifying with the suffering, believing that they don’t deserve affection or attention and that their love is
worthless. Their being weakens, loses confidence in itself and in the world, and ends up being steered by
feelings and urges.
Among other effects, this reward-and-punishment educational system makes the natural pleasure
that arises when a child acts spontaneously disappear, replaced by the pseudo-pleasure of being rewarded
if certain behavior patterns are followed, the most sacred of which is to obey.

“Obedience needs no intelligence. All machines are obedient. It takes from you the burden of any
responsibility, because it rests with the source from where the order comes. Disobedience is a great
revolution. It is taking the responsibility on yourself.” Osho (1931-1990)

The pleasure that comes from within can be dangerous because it can bring punishment or
rejection, so it is increasingly relegated to the realm of the impossible. The child is convinced that she
doesn’t deserve that kind of pleasure and that she only deserves what comes from outside, as a result of
adapting to family expectations: “If you behave, I will buy you a chocolate.” That’s how happy hour was
invented. Those who were programmed this way find it hard later on to choose activities that give them
pleasure.
Such children become emotionally needy and start doing whatever is asked to earn love and
acceptance, to ensure survival: obeying absurd orders, hiding emotions, learning to pretend and lie,
because the direct path to getting what they want was forbidden. They begin manipulating others, playing
the most outrageous roles to get attention, even if this means a belt in hand, because to the child, it is far
more painful and dangerous to be ignored than to be punished.
The child loses touch with love and ends up believing that to love is to obey, that to love is to
please others, that to love is to sacrifice or renounce oneself. “Like our Lord Jesus Christ, who let himself
be crucified to save us,” repeat pastors and priests.
Over time, such children become people they are not and never were, betraying their true selves to,
at best, get just a few crumbs of approval.
 3rd. On the mental plane. Starting with birth, babies have an enormous capacity to perceive what
is happening around them. Although they have no previous information about the world into which they
arrive, they notice things that go completely unnoticed by adults. Although we are told that the mind of a
child takes seven years to develop logical reasoning, children, who are initially very attentive, assimilate
information very quickly, because they have twice as many brain synapses as adults. The mind has other
functions apart from analysis and one of them, perception, is so developed that children perceive the text,
the implicit subtext and the underlying emotion.
When a child starts talking, at about two years old, the father comes closer. It becomes easier for
the father to communicate with the child. A mother’s ability to know what is happening with the child
without words, what hurts, what a baby wants, is something that the father may develop, but doesn’t
instinctively have from the start.
If the child already feels a certain level of emotional deprivation, when the communication channel
broadens through speech, the child creates the expectation that this closeness can bring the father’s support
and love, which will soothe the child’s neediness and make that “almighty giant” more receptive.
If the patriarchal society has diminished women to the category of breeding female, invalidating
their ability to do anything other than take care of the home and the family, it has also transformed men, by
denying their feminine polarity, into troglodytes, ants that compete, at times unethically, with other ants.
Instead of lifting their children onto their shoulders and going for a walk, letting them build their own
ideas about the world from that safe position, fathers fill their children’s heads with their own ideas, their
world view, their beliefs and quirks. Ideas that reflect what their father is or what he would have liked to
be. On principle, this wouldn’t be a problem if the child wasn’t so needy. The more deprived a child is, the
more voraciously he will swallow his father’s words without chewing, seeking acceptance.
What could we say about the quality of these ideas if men, for centuries, had to compete in order to
be accepted, deny their sensitivity, hide their emotions, engage in activities that had nothing to do with
their essence, harden themselves by squelching tenderness, imposing themselves on others, exploiting
them when not massacring them, settling for the pseudo-pleasure of compensation, denying themselves in
order to fit into socially accepted molds? Men have accepted this frustration even though they try to
remain anesthetized with power and with what money can buy. In many cases, they become selfish, sterile,
cowardly, stiff and idiotic. A father, when not absent, shows the “right” way, sets practical “objectives,”
leaves the child “prepared” for life. With this attitude, fathers help justify and enable the existence of
armies and the false progress that destroys the planet.

The heavy bolt. Aleph

As I said before, children perceive the text, the subtext and the underlying emotion, and that hurts.
Hence, to keep from suffering with what they perceive, they gradually reduce the resolution of this
perceptive sensor. The same things happens when parents lie to them. Children often realize that their
parents are lying, and that hurts so much that they choose to believe the lie. They thus end up denying their
own perceptions, preferring to swallow what they are told, and not only by their parents: “it’s for your own
good,” “it hurts me more to have to punish you,” also by priests, teachers, ads, TV. They stop suffering or
getting angry about injustice and abuse, abandoning their ideals. If this doesn’t change, children will be
unable to screen information. Commercials or political propaganda will have the same credibility as what
they see with their own eyes or scientific reporting, and it will be unlikely for them to develop their own
criteria.
 In short, we can say that through the work of The Empress and The Emperor, The Fool weakened
his self to the point of losing spontaneity, becoming afraid to take initiative and express his emotions and
ideas. He no longer believes in himself. He thinks he doesn’t deserve love. He loses his enthusiasm and his
ability to marvel at life, with his instincts blocked. He becomes frustrated, a beggar for attention, a little
monster unable to surrender and love.

"I am a child, this monster that adults were forming with their fears". Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

He may try to hide all these traits with some sort of disguise, without knowing that everything kept
hidden continues working internally, manipulating him to unimagined limits.
There are four main factors that make this sinister transformation possible:
The sensitivity, openness and loving surrender of the child.
The need for love and approval to be able to survive.
The physical superiority of parents.
The material dependence of the child.
We can see some interesting changes in child programming over the past few decades. When
women enter the job market, initiating a process of economic, intellectual and sexual independence, when
they prioritize their studies (and today women are the majority in almost all colleges) and profession over
getting married and having children, they are laying the first stone of the New Age.
Before that leap, mothers were much more present at home, and so were fathers in general.
Education was more repressive. Parents believed that they knew best and should raise their children as
they themselves were raised, usually by even more authoritarian parents. The family home belonged to
their parents and they did what their parents wanted, and if someone wasn’t happy, they were shown the
door. Children were afraid of their fathers, and this was called respect. Children wanted to become
independent as soon as possible to leave home and have their own space and freedom. The family used to
spend more time together, especially when there was no television. At times children would feel a lot of
anger from their parents, but at the same time they saw that their parents were available to do things
together. They were seen, responded to, guided and cared, although they were also repressed and punished.
In today’s society, parents are almost never home. Making money takes up most of the day. Parents
get home stressed and tired every night. Children/teenagers spend more time at home than their parents
and they take over some spaces while their parents are out. Parents have very little time for their children,
who feel abandoned and occupy free time with television, video games and other devices that stimulate
consumerism and violence. Parents who have chosen to devote their time to making money don’t know
their children and feel guilty for not giving them more attention, so they give in to every whim and don’t
set limits. Children feel abandoned and build up resentment, pain and neediness. Since they cannot have
what they really want, which is love, the presence and attention of their parents, they become truly
demanding tyrants, believing that they have all the rights and no obligation. As they have all the comforts
and even freedom at home because their parents are almost never there to repress them, they cling to the
family home with teeth and nails before facing the “hazards” of independence out there.
Now, The Fool meets the Hierophant, Arcana V, who brings the doctrines with which society gives
the final touch to the ego or false personality that the child has been forced to acquire. The Hierophant is
the ideological power, the religious, philosophical or “scientific” foundations that help sustain economic
power, the system, The Emperor.
The Hierophant blesses the armies of young men that the old Emperor sends to death. Not so long
ago, the Western Hierophant resided in the Vatican. Today it is the Fourth Estate, the media that
manufactures pseudo-information and the massified and massifying, anti-creative and idiotizing pseudo-
culture that does away with popular wisdom and imposes value systems that are alien to all people. Overly
decadent “values,” pasteurized beliefs, distilled in the international intelligence agencies from crude Judeo-
Christians with a neo-liberal bandage.
Children and teenagers who are deprived of their internal references fall into the clutches of these
dream peddlers. To fill their identity void, young people look for something, a way to “be someone”, but
they only find what is available in the market. They thus begin consuming crap, clothing with which they
try to build a self-image, simpler or more sophisticated, more alternative or classic, more Ipanema or more
Brooklyn, cheaper or more expensive, although always fake and never providing deep and lasting
gratification. On the other hand, the criteria for selecting clothing were already suggested by parents.
Children/adolescents may either accept them or, equally detached from themselves, they may seek out the
opposite in strongly self-destructive rebellion. Thus the true being becomes imprisoned, as we see in the
X-Ray.

To cover up this terrible feeling of fear, weakness, mediocrity, frustration and lack of love, a young
man dresses himself as proud, special, invulnerable, a hero or a martyr... He is ready to fill a position in
society, to be a submissive employee, a corrupt politician, a religious professional, a criminal, a soldier, a
nobody or a so-and-so, a number, a set of labels... He is already programmed, a sheep in the flock of
beings disconnected from themselves, without visible emotions, without his own criteria, without a body
of his own, because even his bodily structure has been vitiated with multiple tensions.[8]
However, the greater the programming, the greater the suffering and therefore, paradoxically, the
greater the need to stop suffering and to do something concrete in this sense. The point of greatest
robotization may be the beginning of liberation. When asked about the greatest driving force, the seven
sages of Greece answered unanimously: “necessity”.
When we accept our ignorance, when the mind surrenders and says, “I give up on having an
explanation for everything,” we are taking the first step to true wisdom.
At a social level, we can say that the more alienating the status quo, the brighter the sparks of
beauty and consciousness, crossing all barriers and thought police, helping us stay alive and vibrant. Poets,
musicians and artists in general, with their subtle language, manage to touch our sensitive fibers, favoring
our internal contact and helping us feel pleasure.
One of these lights is the letter from the Indian chief Seattle to the president of the United States
when, in 1854, the government intended to buy the tribe’s territory. Let’s look at an extract:

“How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? If we do not own the freshness of the air
and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the Earth is sacred to my people... If we
sell you our land, you must remember to teach your children that the rivers are our brothers... We know
that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for
he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. His appetite will
devour the Earth and leave behind only a desert… So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we
decide to accept, I will make one condition: The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his
brothers. Teach your children what we have taught our children: that the Earth is our mother. Tell them to
respect it, because whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.”
 The power of beauty is great. The power of truth is greater, but something even more powerful is
needed to open a crack in the sinister armor of the false personality. If the programming was etched in
blood and fire (threats, punishment, criticism, blame, abandonment, rejection, etc.) something that touches
our blood (emotions) and our fire (instincts) will be needed to make something happen. Passion, where
love and instinctive desire come together, is the best eye opener. When The Fool falls in love, he not only
starts seeing the world differently, he also starts seeing himself through different eyes. The fact that there is
someone who loves him as he is, who listens to him attentively, who doesn’t demand a certain type of
behavior, builds up The Fool’s self-esteem, makes him start liking himself again, believing in himself, in
his ideas, in his love, thereby pushing against the limits to which the programming had reduced him.
In love, he finds the necessary courage to fight for what he wants. He opens up, takes off his tie or
his psychic support and surrenders himself to love and passion. When he is loving, he can be fully here and
now. He feels that he is being true to himself. He can enjoy happy moments and even transcend. He may
come to feel that his love goes beyond his beloved. The Fool surprises himself by loving the sunset. The
neighbor’s children seem adorable, there is a feeling of brotherhood with the postman, etc. At some point,
he may feel united by love for the whole universe.
Through love, The Fool has real encounters with himself. His lover is the door to his first recovery.
His vital energy is immediately multiplied and he feels that his life could be quite different. He asks: Does
this state of pleasure that I am experiencing come from my loving and sexual relationship, or is it the
expression of something very much my own, which was always here inside and which I can experience
whenever I want to?
This is where the dilemma comes in: should he try to perpetuate this moment, where spontaneity
and passion lead to happiness, accepting the right to follow his most intimate impulses, or continue the
mechanical, enslaving, petty and pleasureless routine. This choice between being himself, identifying and
advancing along the path where he can be true to himself, or continuing to be a puppet of programming, is
the moment of consciousness represented by The Lovers, Arcana VI.
This liberating alternative is very dangerous to the system, which maintains itself as long as it is
fueled. The greatest danger to the system is love, especially when it comes accompanied by a free and
conscious sexuality[9]. That’s why true sexual liberation has always been repressed by every type of power.
The Lovers bring The Fool to a crucial crossroads, having to choose between two paths. On the one
hand is the adventure and the risk of throwing oneself into the unknown, surrendering to the new, being
spontaneous, with the resulting pleasure and danger. On the other lies the security of remaining in the
comfort zone, the known, routines, self-control, fear of change, old patterns of behavior. To change means
to abandon a life system, of self-impositions that provide safety and protection. To change means to pack
for a trip in which both the itinerary and the destination are unclear. The Fool sees that to continue on his
true path, he must get rid of dead weight, he must detach himself from what no longer satisfies him. This is
the phase of consciousness represented by The Chariot, Arcana VII, the first initiation that will allow for
beginning a new cycle.
He has not yet achieved his potential, nor is he able to be spontaneous all the time. He doesn’t
know what awaits him along the way. He just wants to make the state of fulfillment and pleasure that he
glimpsed permanent. Like King Arthur’s knights, he goes out to seek the Grail without knowing that it lies
within himself. He will leave the comforts of Camelot, abandon external attachments and orders, to
embark on the adventure of discovering himself, although he continues to bear his armor of fears,
blockages and defense mechanisms.
The moment The Fool leaves behind his prisons/external protections, his most suffocating routines
and throws himself into life, he will inevitably have to confront and adjust to new situations, which in truth
he attracts in order to grow. He will have to find the most appropriate way to express his internal urges
while staying true to himself and without causing great friction with the external world. The traveler has
entered the field of Adjustment (Justice), traditionally Arcana VIII. This adjustment was not possible
before because the routines and behavioral habits left no cracks through which a catalytic situation of
transformation could sneak in. However, now that he is more open and available, the adjustment manifests.
He has an encounter with his own karma in the same way that a voracious consumer of alcohol, sugar and
meat will have to submit, one day, to a detox diet in order to start a new phase of healthy living. In this
encounter with Adjustment, The Fool eliminates friction with himself and with the world in order to
continue his more balanced and fluid growth.
For the traveler, the immediate effects of this adjustment may not be pleasant. He will probably
come away from this encounter very moved, but profoundly unstructured. Some of his masks will fall,
especially those that had hidden his vulnerability, and then he will understand that he cannot go on his way
until he knows himself better. The Fool then comes into contact with Arcana IX: The Hermit.
He thus directs his attention inward, begins to study. This is his first voluntary and conscious
internalization after The High Priestess. He shifts his focus, stops laying the responsibility for his sorrows,
anguish and suffering on the external world: spouse, family, boss, the economic crisis, etc., to take it onto
himself. He realizes that if something moves him, this is because it’s a sensitive area, otherwise he
wouldn’t be affected. This analytical attitude of responsibility for his life leads him to use the therapeutic
tools at his disposal, to get to know himself by uncovering the strata of his subconscious, identifying his
fears, blockages and old wounds, his forbidden, perhaps “unmentionable” desires, investigating his
childhood for the source of what inhibits his evolution. He thus becomes more centered. He may open his
heart to the world and his attitude may be nourishing. What he has learned about himself and the
techniques he used may help other people. This is a very dangerous time, because The Fool may use his
discoveries to move forward, transforming his life, or he may let his ego seize them, turning them into
doctrines that he begins to sell or use for self-proclamation. This would represent a movement backward to
The Hierophant. Perhaps a more alternative and modern hierophant, but always a parrot selling platitudes.
The Fool, more focused and conscious, leaves the relative solitude of an anchorite a product of the
previous introspective phase, to return to the world, to movement, in the arms of the Principle of
Expansion illustrated by Arcana X: Fortune or The Wheel of Fortune. He, who used to belong to this
competitive and aggressive, degraded and degrading world - known in Tibetan Buddhism as the wheel of
samsara: the inertia of the subconscious that blindly drags us to the bottom of the well of suffering - today
is able to see it from the outside. He no longer allows himself to be hypnotized by glorious banners, the
World Cup, the “wonders” of technology, the sensationalism of the media. He no longer bites the hook. He
sees the self-destructive madness of humans, the enslaved slaves keeping enslaving slaves in power. These
and other insights reaffirm his individuality and his core. The Fool realizes that he can live in the world
being true to himself, and that each situation can be used as an opportunity not only to learn, but to burnish
his most authentic and truest expression.
Along this path of being true to himself, he enters the state of consciousness of Arcana XI,
traditionally called Strength, renamed by Crowley as Lust[10], but which would be better translated as
“Enthusiasm”. This is a state of integration between his animal and rational sides. He identifies, respects
and welcomes what comes from his animal side: emotions, instincts, vital impulses, biological and bodily
needs, giving them an appropriate expression with the mind. This integration generates self-esteem, self-
confidence, joie de vivre, energy, vitality and enthusiasm. The Fool feels handsome, sensual, sexy,
creative, full of life, potential and merit, saying: “I love myself and I like myself.”
Heightening this process of self-acceptance, The Fool plunges into Arcana XII: The Hanged Man,
which illustrates the Principle of Surrender. The first surrender is to his own nature, fully accepting himself
regardless of other people’s opinions. He thus no longer needs to pretend. He no longer wants to be what
he isn’t in order to earn the acceptance of others. To the extent that he surrenders himself to what he truly
is, he can surrender to life and to the world. As long as he does not accept himself, even if he does
something for the world, he will do so in order to gain acceptance from the world. It will not be an act of
love but a trade. It will be giving in order to receive. The “I love myself and I like myself” of Enthusiasm
may overflow and become “I love you and I love the world”.

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself. And what I assume you shall assume, for every atom
belonging to me as good belongs to you.” Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

In The Lovers, The Fool fell in love with someone and glimpsed happiness which, albeit
momentary, allowed him to initiate a new cycle in The Chariot. In Enthusiasm, the integration of his
animal side gave him the strength and courage to surrender himself to life and to the world in The Hanged
Man. In the next arcana: Death, no. XIII, love allows him to confront the fears that kept him imprisoned in
old patterns of behavior that were necessary to earn approval in childhood, to take a leap toward self-
transformation. We have proven once again that love is the transforming force par excellence, the energy
that leads to the evolution of society and of human beings.
In Arcana XIII, The Fool experiences the death of his robot, a fearful repeater of patterns. His
defenses start breaking down, and through the cracks come the divine essence of the Being. The Fool,
radiating love, removes the cap from the bottle (program), releasing the first bubbles of his most intimate
fragrance. This release, though it may be sudden, is actually the result of a process that began in The
Lovers and demanded a confrontation with childhood programming.
In these moments, the essence of the being inspires the Fool’s manifestations. His most authentic
nature is flowing and taking concrete shape and expression. This is the phase of consciousness that we call
Art in Crowley’s tarot, Arcana XIV, or Temperance in other decks, because everything that flows as an
expression of the essence of being is, without a doubt, art. Walking becomes a dance, words become
poetry, silence becomes meditation. Every gesture is permeated with the beauty of the essence.
This is the second initiation of The Fool (2 x 7), characterized by the integration of opposites. On a
professional level, he makes what he enjoys his work[11], something that gives him the pleasure that comes
from within when we express our talents, his way of earning money. He rests while working because what
effort is necessary when we do what we like? This card illustrates the wu-wei of the Taoist sages: non-
doing, non-action, movement from inner calm, free of expectations regarding results.
He stops being divided, doing what he doesn’t like from Monday to Friday in order to make money
and spending money from Friday to Sunday to buy pleasure, to spending the whole week with both
pleasure and money. On a broader plane, his polarities are integrated, his masculine side with his feminine
side.
The Fool, transformed by love and praxis, enters the 3rd septenary of cards where he will fully
recover aspects of himself that he had been forced to repress. It begins with the instincts, the forces that
keep us alive as individuals and as a species, represented by Arcana XV, The Devil: defense, the sexual
instinct and for preservation. The challenge for The Fool here is to allow these energies to fully flourish, to
once again become the roots of his life force. For centuries, and today still in a more subtle way, the
instincts were denied, repressed or sublimated, engulfed in taboos, considered a source of pain and disease,
exiled to the deepest dungeons of the subconscious, and then manipulated and used by advertising and the
media to sell things. This rescue releases so much energy that, during the passage through the Tower,
Arcana XVI, it breaks down the old prisons that suffocate and limit, whether these are external
(professional ties, family commitments, financial demands, relationships where love has dissipated) or
internal (the ego). Here The Fool stops selling his freedom and his life in exchange for the supposed
security that the prisons apparently provide.
In The Star, Arcana XVII, The Fool recovers his insight that had been obfuscated by tons of
beliefs, principles, values and prejudices that, like curtains, prevented him from seeing the external and
internal reality and which he now eliminates, leaving his intellect receptive, attentive, realistic, functional
and intuitive.

“Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish your opinions.” Zen Buddhist proverb

From here, he will be strong and lucid enough to face, understand and integrate the characteristics
and talents of his being that he had to hide, first from his family, later from the world, and finally from
himself, in the trunk of shadows of the subconscious, in his encounter with the Moon, Arcana XVIII. To do
so, he has to face the fears of going back through the situations of suffering he experienced when he
expressed these aspects and talents in childhood. Until he accepts and integrates his shadow, he will be
continually manipulated by everything that has accumulated in the trunk, even if he declares himself an
enlightened being, who embraces trees, swims with dolphins or chants mantras. As Jung said: “One does
not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
By plunging into the depths of darkness, The Fool reaches the light: The Sun, arcana XIX:
Consciousness, which may manifest on two levels. The first is the level of individuality, where The Fool
says: “I am me, a unique being, unrepeatable and therefore special. Once the 1st level is reached, it is
possible to reach the 2nd level: spirituality, where we are all equal. The Great Spirit, the Creator Principle,
the Divine or whatever we want to call it, [12]permeates everything that exists. Here The Fool shines,
because he made contact with eternity. He has managed to part all the veils that hid the being of light that
he is, has always been and always will be, saying: “I am divine”.

Arcana XX, Aeon or Judgment in most Tarot decks, lies between The Sun (Consciousness) and
The Universe (final fulfillment). This represents the moment when the individual, equipped with
consciousness, reached The Sun. He integrated his instinctive strength in The Devil, his freedom in The
Tower, his perception in The Star and his shadow in The Moon, full of love and support for his wounded
child, the child who left childhood needy and insecure and then never grew. The child’s manipulations
didn’t allow the adult to bring consciousness to the concrete and material fulfillment of his potential.

Finally, in The Universe, Arcana XXI, The Fool completes his task, fulfills his potential, goes to
the final syntheses, fruition and consequences. This 3rd initiation (3 x 7) implies a transcendence, a new
cycle in the spiral of evolution, characterized by being more attuned to what comes from within. Thus, the
only remaining task is to celebrate, free and happy, the ecstasy of the dance of life.
 CHAPTER III

WHAT IS THE TAROT?

ORIGINS AND HISTORY

The easiest way to answer this question might be to provide a description: The Tarot is a deck of 78
cards, also called Arcana or Mysteries, made up of three groups:
22 Major Arcana
16 Royal Figures
40 Minor Arcana
The Major Arcana are the symbolic expression of Universal Principles or archetypes around which
the individual and collective human subconscious is structured. Some perfectly match the forces operating
at the Macrocosmic level, simultaneously permeating the universe, the solar system, our planet, society,
human beings, every cell, atom and particle of existence.
The Royal Figures are 16 personality types, formed by combining the four elements – Fire, Water,
Air and Earth. We also have four families – Wands, Cups, Swords, and Rings, Disks, Coins or Pentacles.
Then we have 4 roles, played by the Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess in the matriarchal arrangement of
Crowley’s Tarot Deck, and King, Queen, Knight and Knave or Page in the patriarchal layout of most
decks.
The 40 Minor Arcana, or numbered cards from Ace to Ten, are also structured in four suits –
Wands, Cups, Swords and Disks – representing aspects of human behavior. The Wands show how we are
energetically, how we manage our fire, on three levels: instinct, creativity and spirituality. The Cups
illustrate different emotional states. The Swords are mechanisms or states of mind. And the Disks or Rings
show our relationship with the material world: physical body, wallet, bank account and assets.
The description is valid, but the question still lingers in the air: What is the Tarot?
- A fortunetelling art.
- A symbolic vision of the Cosmos.
- A compendium of esoteric knowledge.
- A map of the psyche.
- A path of spiritual growth.
- A legacy from other civilizations.
- A symbolic representation of the Tree of Life.
- An illustration of the forces of Nature.
- An instrument of self-discovery.
All of these answers may be true. Some complement each other, but they all limit the answer we
are seeking, which seems to encompass them all and probably many more. The need for an answer leads us
to a shift in focus, as happened with the 20th century physicists: as we limit our field of view in the quest
for precision, the Tarot fades away, like an electron under a microscope.
Logical Jack has to get down from the donkey Cartesius and really open his eyes to see and his
senses to feel, remembering the words of Don Juan: “Trying to reduce this wonder around us to a
measurable reality is great folly.” But this folly became a habit quite some time ago.
In the Middle Ages it was: “This is the dogma of faith, you accept it or we burn you.” Then, upon
entering the Age of Enlightenment, it was: “Only what can be scientifically quantified and demonstrated
can be the object of knowledge.” Phenomena whose properties could not be measured were considered
mere subjective projections that should be excluded from the domain of science. Thus the rich world of
Astrology, perhaps the most well-elaborated worldview of the ancient Western world, was reduced by the
new Newtonian science to three insipid mathematical laws.
With its scientists at the forefront, humanity grew accustomed to seeing the world as a set of
isolated and neutral objects that mechanically obey certain laws, to the point of seeing us as predictable
and programmed beings, without originality, spontaneity or the possibility of transcendence. The worst
part of this is that anyone who goes beyond these parameters is considered crazy or dangerous.
It’s better to give up on conceptualizing the Tarot, and to approach it using the symbols as bridges.
We find parallels between Tarot cards and the myths and legends of ancient cultures such as Ancient
Greece, Vedic India, Pharaonic Egypt, Chinese Taoism, the Hebrew Kabbalah, Gnosticism, etc. The Tarot
is often called The Book of Thoth. Some authors support the theory that Thoth introduced the Tarot to
Egypt. He was a mythical character who was credited with the invention of hieroglyphics, language and
astrology. Thoth performed the ritual of the trial of souls and, in his syncretic form of Hermanubis, he
carried them to the other side of the river separating the world of the living from that of the dead. In nearly
all great civilizations, there have been entities comparable to Thoth: Hermes in Greece, Hanuman in India,
Quetzalcoatl in Mexico, etc. They were popular teachers who, deified, symbolize the principles and
knowledge they portrayed. Some say that Thoth was a high Atlantean initiate, who landed in Egypt with
the mission of passing on a tradition that would be lost to a new civilization.
Other scholars claim that it was the gypsies who invented the Tarot, and who in fact popularized it
in Europe. However, before the gypsies pitched their tents in Barcelona, Paris and Marseille in the early
decades of the 15th century, evidence indicates that decks of cards already existed in Europe.
A German monk named Johannes wrote a letter from Brefeld, Switzerland, which is kept in the
British Museum, in which he says: “A deck of cards came to us in this year of 1377. Four kings, each
seated on a royal throne and carrying a symbol in his hand.”
Giovanni Coveluzzo, an Italian historian in the late fifteenth century, wrote the story of his
hometown, Viterbo, for which he collected chronicles from a predecessor. Giovanni wrote: "In the year
1379 there was brought to Viterbo the game of cards, which in the Saracen[13] language is called nayb”.
Naipe, naibi in Latin and naibe in Hebrew, all mean “witchcraft” and “prediction”.
By 1387, cards were known in Spain, as seen by a preserved decree from that year in which King
Juan I of Castile banned the playing of dice, chess and cards. Ten years later, the mayor of Paris also
banned them. In a more sympathetic manner, he allowed their use on Sundays and holidays. However,
there is no evidence that those decks of cards were Tarot cards.
The deck that was long considered the oldest, from which 17 cards are preserved, would be the one
that appears in the accounts of King Charles VI of France in 1392: "Given to Jacquenim Gringonneur,
painter, for three decks of cards... for the King... 56 Parisian soleils."
 We now know from the Louvre Museum Research Laboratory that the 17 cards are from the late
15th century or early 16th century. They are preserved at the National Library in Paris. Probably, the deck
mentioned in the accounting book was an ordinary deck of cards, without the Major Arcana. The 17 cards
have no titles or numbers, but from the drawing we can identify 16 Major Arcana and one Royal Figure.
The work of Gringonneur was lost, but the 17 cards are still known as the Gringonneur Tarot.
With the beginning of the Renaissance, the Catholic Church no longer held full hegemony, and
powerful families emerged, especially in Italy, owners of the land and trade with the East opened by Marco
Polo. It is under the protection and patronage of these benefactors that the first decks we have historical
evidence of appeared. In 1415 in Venice, we find a tarot deck of 78 cards, with 22 major arcana and four
suits of 14 minor arcana each. In Bologna, there was Il Tarocchino, with 62 cards. The Florentine Tarot,
also from the same period, consisted of 97 cards: 56 minor arcana and 41 major, 17 of the classic
sequence, 12 zodiac signs, the four elements, and four Christian virtues.

The best known is the “Visconti-Sforza Tarot” from 1441, a wedding gift to Francesco Sforza and
Bianca María Visconti from the miniaturist Bonifacio Bembo (1420 – 1480). It is a polychromatic deck,
and of its 78 cards, The Devil, The Tower, The Three of Swords and the Page of Pentacles were lost and
later redrawn to enable commercialization. That set resulted in at least 15 different decks, none of which is
complete.

It is common to blame religious fanaticism for the disappearance of the first decks. If we consider
that these decks appeared at the heart of Italian aristocracy, whose families belonged to the highest echelon
of the Church, it is hard to believe that the Church condemned use of the Tarot. Bernardino de Siena’s
well-known sermons against sodomy and card games had nothing to do with Tarot.
Contrary to the idea that the Tarot, with its 78 cards, emerged at some point and that its trivial use
gave rise to the common deck with its four suits, historical evidence seems to indicate that game cards
appeared first. This type of deck (mentioned previously in the decrees by Juan I of Castile and the mayor
of Paris, the letter from the monk Johannes, the chronicles of Giovanni Coveluzzo, or Gringonneur) over
time incorporated special cards called Triumphs that in some cases were the Greek gods, or the zodiac
signs or, in the Visconti Sforza deck, representations of society of that time (Fool, Magician, Emperor,
Empress, Pope, Hermit), Catholic virtues (Justice, Strength, Temperance), etc., which are now called
Major Arcana.
But what were the sources of inspiration for Bembo and other anonymous authors of the first
Italian tarot decks?
If there was a common thread between ancient Egypt and the end of the Middle Ages, between
paganism and the first Tarot decks, it was Gnosticism, which emerged in the eastern provinces of the
Roman Empire, was nourished not only by Christianity in loco, but also by the Hindu, Chaldean, Persian
and Egyptian doctrines, together with the philosophy of Ancient Greece and Hebrew Kabbalistic wisdom.
Alexandria was the center of Gnostic culture in the 2nd century BC. With the fires that burned its
libraries during Caesar’s siege in the years 48-47 BC and then in the year 391 AD by the Christians,
followed by their total destruction in the 12th century by the Muslims, humanity lost its best cultural
legacy and perhaps the possibility of knowing something concrete about the origin of the Tarot.
A century and a half passed before the cards that were the most well-known at the time and which
continue to be used today appeared: The Marseille Tarot decks which, according to Pierre Camoin,
member of a traditional family of Tarot printers, appeared in that city in 1604. There are 78 cards, with 22
Major Arcana bearing titles, except Death, and Roman numerals, except The Fool. They were printed
using wooden stamps, so that they could be colored in different ways later on. From the 19th century
onward, they were printed on machines.
If the Tarot decks from the fifteenth century were used by the fine hands of the Italian aristocracy,
in the seventeenth century it was the gypsies who popularized them, using them as a means of
fortunetelling, for reading “good fortune”. If they used it for other purposes, we are unaware.
In the eighteenth century, Antoine Court of Gébelin, pastor of the Reformed Church, occultist,
Freemason and French archaeologist, revived the Tarot for the European intellectual elite. In 1781, eight
years before the French Revolution, he published “The Primeval World, Analyzed and Compared to the
Modern World” in nine volumes. In the first volume, he refers to the Tarot thus: “The Tarot is all we have
left of the magnificent libraries of Egypt. It is formed by 77 or 78 lamina... The 22 Triumphs represent the
spiritual and temporal leaders of society, the physical forces of agriculture, the cardinal virtues, marriage,
death and resurrection... Apart from the Triumphs, this set consists of four suits of cards: the Swords that
represent the pharaohs and all the military nobility, the Wands or Batons that represent farmers, the Cups
that show the priestly class, and the Coins that represent merchants.”

Gébelin and his Hanged Man

 Gébelin was convinced that the Tarot came from Ancient Egypt and that the Gypsies were
descendants of the Egyptians. Although the words Gypsy and Egyptian are very similar, especially in
English, the gypsies came from the state of Rajasthan (India), where they were expelled by the Turco-
Mongol conqueror Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) in the twelfth century. On the way to Europe, some passed
through Egypt, where they perhaps absorbed customs and knowledge, but they are not descendants of the
ancient Egyptians.
Considering Egypt as the place of origin of esoteric sciences was very common in pre-
revolutionary France. Only when the Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered, after the archaeologists who
accompanied Napoleon on his conquest of Egypt at the end of the 18th century discovered the Rosetta
Stone[14], was this theory discarded. Gébelin believed that the word Tarot was formed by the Egyptian
words “Tar”, which means road or path, and “Ro” or “Rog”, which means royal. The Tarot would thus be
the “royal path”, which, interestingly, is also the translation for Tao Te Ching. Anyway, and although
Gébelin could be wrong in some of his assumptions, with the publication of "Le Monde Primitif..." the
Tarot became one of the oracles most appreciated by esoteric scholars and magicians of the time. Gébelin
died in 1874, also leaving behind a deck similar to that of Marseille. He eliminated details, changed titles
and even put The Hanged Man on his feet.
Etteilla, pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Alliette (1738-1791), a disciple of Gébelin and scholar of the
Pythagoreans, created his own deck known as “Grand Etteilla Tarot”. He carried out divination work
during the French Revolution that earned him fame, disciples and clients, including Marie Antoinette. In
his book “The art of reading the cards,” the first to explicitly speak of using the Tarot for divination, the
cards come with Arabic numerals, so The Fool, called “Madness”, is given the number Zero.

Then, in the nineteenth century, Alphonse Louis Constant, better known as Eliphas Levi (1810-
1875), also French, abbot of the Catholic Church, Kabbalist, philosopher and according to Crowley – who
was considered his later reincarnation – a great humorist, linked the 22 Major Arcana to the 22 letters of
the Hebrew alphabet in his “Dogma and Ritual of High Magic”, based on certain manuscripts which
would have connected him to the Gnostic tradition. On that basis, Levi considered the tarot of Hebrew
origin and the 22 Major Arcana pictorial forms of the Tree of Life.
According to the Kabbalists, the Universe emerged as successive emanations of Nothingness. A
Nothingness that is not the total absence of anything, but the most absolute potential. These successive
emanations create the Spheres of Manifestation or Sephiroth. From the first (Kether – the Crown) which
represents the first breaths of manifestation, to the tenth (Malkuth – the Kingdom) which symbolizes the
densest world, we have ten spheres arranged in three columns, forming the Tree of Life. The 22 lines
joining the ten Sephiroth are the so-called Paths or Trails of the Tree, corresponding to the 22 Letters of the
Hebrew alphabet.
Moving upward along these Trails, the Path of the Serpent[15], develops magical powers.

To prevent people outside the initiatory school from gaining access to such powers, the practical
Kabbalah was kept secret. As the relationship between the Arcana and the letters provided clues, ancient
tradition and Levi showed a different sequence, in which the first letter Aleph does not correspond to the
first card, The Fool, but to The Magician, the second card.
With correspondence between the Arcana and the Letters established, we can infer a relationship
between the Arcana and the Paths. Practical Kabbalah studies the Paths as successive initiations that lead
the seeker from the most rigid ties of matter in Malkuth to enlightenment or merging with the whole in
Kether.
In his "Dogma and Ritual...”, Levi offers interesting versions of the Chariot and especially the
Devil.

Levi says: "When the sovereign clergy ceased to exist in Israel, when all the oracles of the world
were silenced in the presence of the Word that became Man, speaking through the mouth of the most
popular and gentlest of wise men, when the Ark was lost, the Sanctuary was profaned and the Temple
destroyed, then the mysteries of Ephod and Teraphim were no longer engraved in gold and precious stones,
but written, or better drawn, by certain wise Kabbalists, first on ivory, parchment and on golden and silver
leather, and later on simple cards that were always an object of suspicion for the official Church, because
they contained a dangerous key to its mysteries.”
In the Middle Ages, the cards were widely used as a mnemonic resource to represent key moments
of a story, such as the Passion of Christ, as much in the street by minstrels as in the cloisters by monks.
Some suggest that the first Tarot decks originated from these cards.
Another great Tarot scholar was Gérard Encausse or Papus (1865-1917), a French physician,
Rosicrucian and founder of the Martinist Masonic Order, author of the book “The Tarot of the Bohemians”
He developed a deck based on the Tarot of Court de Gébelin, with Egyptian-inspired drawings and
following the relationship of Arcana and Letters in “Dogma and Ritual of High Magic”.

He formatted the 78 cards around the Tetragrammaton, a symbolic complex formed by the letters
that make up the name of God: Yodh, He, Vau and again He, is to say Jehovah. Hebrew occultism holds
that the powers and properties of each being are contained in its name. Thus the exact pronunciation of the
name of God was kept secret and only pronounced by the High Priest once a year in the midst of deafening
shouting by the people.

Yodh represents the Masculine Principle, active or dynamic. It corresponds to the Wands and the
Knights of Crowley or Kings in other decks. It is said that all letters come from Yodh. The first He
represents the Feminine Principle, passive or receptive. It corresponds to the Queens and the suit of Cups.
Vau is the fruit of the previous two and the bridge between the two Principles. It corresponds to the suit of
Swords and the Princes of Crowley or Knights in other decks. The second He shows the passage from one
complete cycle to another and is related to the Disks or Rings and to the Princesses of Crowley or
Knaves/Pages in other decks.
At the end of the 19th century, the doctors Woodman, Woodford and Wynn Westcott, members of
the Franco-Masonic Quatuor Coronati lodge, found a book in a London bookstore containing manuscripts
with the bases for the foundation of an esoteric society and the correspondences between the 22 Major
Arcana and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, where Aleph, the first letter, was attributed to the Fool and
not to the Magician. There were also some notes that could have been written by Eliphas Levi himself
when he visited England. If these notes were written by the French Kabbalist, they would indicate that he
was really working with another sequence of attributions, different from the one presented in his "Dogma
and Ritual..."; based on these correspondences, new attributions with the astrological signs, the planets and
the elements were deduced.
In the words of Levi: "The Tarot... is the most perfect instrument of divination. It can be used with
total confidence because of the analog precision of its figures and numbers. In fact, the oracles of this book
are always rigorously truthful, and even when it does not predict anything, it always reveals something that
was hidden and gives the wisest advice to those who consult it.”
In these documents, Fräulein Sprengel was mentioned as an authority on the matter, with whose
authorization the Order of the Golden Dawn was founded in 1886 by MacGregor Mathers, Westcott and
Woodman. This fraternity, whose main purpose was to obtain enlightenment and magical power, for years
included personalities such as Arthur Edward Waite, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1923), the actress Florence Farr, the painter Pamela Colman Smith, Lady Frieda Harris, Bram
Stoker, author of Count Dracula, the Kabbalists Paul Foster Case, Dion Fortune and Aleister Crowley,
among others.
Crowley (1875-1947) was initiated in the Golden Dawn under the name of Perdurabo – he who
endures. In 1899 he reached the grade of Practicus and dedicated himself to the study of the Tarot,
eventually writing a book: The Golden Dawn Tarot. In 1900, MacGregor Mathers appointed him head of
the order in Great Britain, despite opposition from older members, such as Waite and Yeats, the Irish poet
who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. In July, he traveled to Mexico seeking contact with Aztec
spirit entities. He performed healing and climbed mountains, which, along with chess, were his passion.
Crossing the Pacific, he arrived in Sri Lanka in 1901, where Alan Bennet, his former tutor in the
Golden Dawn, instructed him in the practice of yoga, pranayama and mantras, until he underwent a
spiritual experience called Dhyana, which he described as “the union between the subject and the object of
meditation in an explosion of music and light, far superior to any earthly harmony.” He continued through
India and Burma, where he studied with the Buddhists. In 1902, he led an expedition to Chhogori (K2) in
the Himalayas, which story is told in “The Spirit of Solitude” from his book “Confessions”. In November,
he met with MacGregor in Paris, and in 1903 he bought a farm on the shores of Loch Ness, where he
worked with “The Book of the Sacred Magic Of Abramelin the Mage”.
In March of 1904, he landed with his newly wedded wife Rose Edith Kelly in Cairo, where he
invoked Thoth, Iao and Horus. On the 18th of that month, Horus appeared to Rose in her dreams. In the
museum of Boulak (district of Cairo), Rose recognized the character from her dream on a XXVI-dynasty
stele.
 Interestingly, the record number for that figure was 666, number of the Beast of the Apocalypse,
the initiatory name that Crowley was using at that time[16].
The couple rented rooms in the museum itself and on April 8, 9 and 10, Aiwass, minister and
messenger of Hoor-paar-Kraat, the Silent God, another form of Horus, dictated in perfect English to an
astonished Crowley the text that announced a new law for humanity:

“Love is the law, love under will.”

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”

This text, known as The Book of the Law, has three chapters. In the first, Nuit, the Feminine
Principle, lays out the doctrine for the New Era through the voice of Aiwass. In the second, it is Hadit, the
Masculine Principle, and in the third, Horus himself. These entities named Crowley their prophet and
charged him with spreading their message.
In 1937, Crowley made contact with the artist Lady Frieda Harris (1877-1962), to elaborate a Tarot
deck for the Age of Aquarius. From 1938 to 1943, Frieda painted the “Thoth Tarot” in watercolor, under
Crowley’s direction, whose originals are preserved in London at The Warburg Institute. Initially, Crowley
intended to create a deck following the tradition of Marseille models, but Frieda managed to convince him
to do something totally original.

They ventured into more sublime and profound fields than the ancient models had allowed, seeking
to incorporate the latest discoveries in physics and relating them to the ancient esoteric and Kabbalistic
tradition. In 1944, the British O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis) published a 200-copy limited edition of the
“Book of Thoth”, which included the images of the cards in his illustrations along with an analysis of each
of them. The original watercolors were only published as cards in 1966, 19 years after Crowley’s death.
 According to Crowley: "It has consequently been the endeavor of the present Scribe to preserve
those essential features of the Tarot which are independent of the periodic changes of Aeon, while bringing
up to date those dogmatic and artistic features of the Tarot which have become unintelligible.” Thus, The
Popess and The Pope became The High Priestess and The Hierophant, Arcana XI, Strength, was renamed
Lust,[17] and Temperance and Judgment were renamed Art and Aeon, respectively.
In this work, the attribution the London manuscripts were explicitly given. Each Major Arcana
received an astrological correspondence deduced from the relationship of the card with the Hebrew letter,
and each numbered minor arcana received a dual astrological attribution, relating it to a planet in a certain
sign. Note also that the Disks are no longer those inert coins or pentacles in older decks, but spinning disks
that change shape and color in each card.
Another very popular Tarot deck is the “Rider-Waite”, painted by Pamela Colman Smith under the
direction of Arthur Edward Waite, published in 1910.

The correspondences do not appear explicitly, although Waite places a scene from daily life in each
of the Minor Arcana (leaving out the Aces), facilitating the understanding of their meaning, although
limiting them. So it seemed to André Breton, co-author with Leon Trotsky of the “Surrealist Manifesto”,
when Jodoroswki showed it to him in Paris: – “It does away with profoundness of the symbol by using
something so obvious.”
Many other authors were inspired by Waite’s Tarot, including Salvador Dalí. Although Waite
remained partially anchored in old ideas (especially with The Devil, Strength and Judgment cards) because
he was the head of Kabbalist-Christian thinking, his opinions about the Tarot are very interesting: “The
true Tarot is symbolism. Given the inward meaning of its emblems, they do become a kind of alphabet
which is capable of indefinite combinations and makes true sense in all. The Tarot embodies symbolical
representations of universal ideas, behind which lie all the implicits of the human mind. It is in this sense
that the Tarot contains a secret doctrine, which is the realization by the few of truths embedded in the
consciousness of all, though they have not passed into express recognition by ordinary men.”
Many decks have come to light in recent times, typical of an age of revealing all that is hidden and
also of rampant consumerism.
Other current Tarot decks that merit serious study are, among others, the round Motherpeace Tarot
(1983), the Jungian Tarot by Robert Wang (1988), and the Mythic Tarot (1984) by Juliet Sharman-Burke &
Liz Greene, which maintain the classic structure. The Egypcios Kier Tarot by Iglesias Janeiro (1954)
undoes the four suits of Minor Arcana, continuing with the numbering 23, 24, 25 up to 78. We mustn’t
leave out the excellent work of Ma Deva Padma (Susan Morgan): The Osho Zen Tarot, published together
with a book in 1994. As much in the beautiful drawings as in the commentaries on each card, we see an
extraordinarily successful attempt to translate the immemorial arcana into a contemporary and integrating
language.
Thus, it seems unlikely that this worldview was the invention of a single individual. However, it
would not be unreasonable to think that it could have emerged in a gathering of wise men, as the
Kabbalistic and Catholic priest P.F. Case states that it existed in Fez (Morocco), which became a great
cultural center of the West after the destruction of the library of Alexandria, around the year 1200.
 Trying to answer the question from which this chapter began, we can say that the Tarot cards
illustrate Universal or Archetypal Principles present in the individual and collective subconscious of
human beings, which pass to the consciousness when we perceive them inside and out, giving us a
foundation for attitudes and initiatives. We can say that the Tarot has two sides: one immortal, without
beginning or end, essential, archetypal, which we can call the internal side, and another external, which are
the particular forms that it adopts depending on the historical circumstances and the use we make of it.
 CHAPTER IV

READING RITUAL AND SYSTEM

OPENING THE DECK

Just reading a pile of books is not enough to reach a good level of depth and efficiency in handling
the Tarot. Although a firm and clear theoretical base is always necessary, a good dose of intuition is
indispensable for the reading to be vibrant, and not just a compendium of meanings laid out in a more or
less fortunate order. However, baseless intuition can be just projection or delirium. Intuition is something
that we can develop in many ways. It is related to the third eye or Ajna chakra, located between the
eyebrows, also known as the the “Command Wheel”. It is the intellectual center, the foundation of the
mind, of psychic vision or clairvoyance and intuition. This center is activated by the Om mantra. When the
audible vibration of the mantra hits the palate, it vibrates and expands through the whole head. With
practice, we can direct it upwards through a channel that at one point branches off into two. One continues
upward to the Sahasrara chakra and the other turns 90 degrees and continues on to the third eye.
This is also activated with the sound iiiiiii... made when we breathe in. Another way to develop
intuition is by reading the cards, although initially we use books or notes to interpret them. This chapter
contains a series of practical guidelines designed to help the novice with readings. Over time, each
tarologist will find and develop his or her own methods.

THE DECK
Choosing the right Tarot deck is paramount. Its images will penetrate our subconscious and make
our inner archetypes reverberate. The main criterion for choosing a deck is feeling a strong attachment to
it, which will depend essentially on its graphic expression. Our deck has to like us, and we have to feel
inspired with it in our hands. A deck that stirs fear or rejection in us should not be used for readings, but it
is very important to study it, to identify and explore the areas of our being that are touched by such images.
As the saying goes: “If the shoe fits, wear it.”
It is also important for the associations between the cards, numbers, letters, signs, planets and
elements to be coherent enough to let us enrich the meanings of the cards as we pass through the doorway
of the Tarot into the fascinating worlds of Astrology, Numerology and Kabbalah.
It’s always preferable to receive a deck as a gift than to buy one, because this shows synchronicity:
that someone is ready and attracting the Tarot as an instrument of growth. Mind you, this doesn’t mean that
we will wait or ask someone to give us a deck if we want to read the Tarot.

PERSONALIZING THE DECK

With the Tarot in hand, the first step is to personalize it, to magnetize it with our own energy. There
are many methods for doing this. One is to sleep seven consecutive nights with the deck under your pillow,
near the cerebellum. Then you can spend a night keeping vigil over the cards, as Don Quixote did with his
weapons, especially if the Moon is full. On this occasion, you spread the cards out on a cloth of violet or
dark blue silk, measuring more or less 1m x 1m. Those are the most Yin colors of the spectrum, more
receptive and conservative, which will better protect the deck. The deck should always be wrapped in that
cloth, which we will open only at the time of reading, arranging the cards on top of it.
We will place the Major Arcana first, then the Royal Figures, and finally the Minor Arcana, leaving
each group to soak up moon rays for half an hour. After this, we shuffle the deck until the order in which
the cards came from the factory has been completely altered. While we shuffle, we will make a pledge to
our tarot, preferably aloud: “My dear Tarot, I pledge to take care of you, keeping you away from heavy and
entangled energy, and I ask you to help me help querents be more themselves.”
The tarologist is not only the guardian of the jewel, who cares for it and protects it from dense
energies, but also its animator, the one who gives it its soul. Using the Tarot, the reader can solve the
mysteries of his or her own life, shining light into dark corners. You will find guidance that will help you
resolve your challenges and you will also be able to help others. The love dedicated to this task spills over
onto querents and the world in general.
The tarologist not only can, but should charge a fee for this effort, but without making money the
priority. If someone has a knack for reading the cards, feels comfortable doing so and helps others with this
work, the best thing to do is dedicate time to perfecting skills and making the Tarot a profession.
Moreover, most people place a higher value on what they pay for. Another compelling reason is that what
goes into the pocket runs less risk of going into the ego. The tarologist can thus find economic stability and
give the discounts or agree to trades that seem appropriate without boasting about it.
If the tarologist demonstrates the tarot in conferences, classes or seminars, it’s better to have
another deck, which doesn’t need to be magnetized or kept in a cloth, but can remain in its original
wrapping. The reading deck should preferably not be demonstrated, and even less so in bars or heavy
environments or to dense or negative-minded people (except during readings), because its vibrational
quality could be affected. The cloth becomes part of the same energy as the cards, and should be treated
with the same care. Preferably, the deck should be kept wrapped in the cloth, inside a bag, a box or a wool
mantle that we open along with the cloth.

THE SETTING
Although we can read the Tarot anywhere that has a clean vibration, having a specific place is
highly recommended. The energy we generate when we conduct a consultation also recharges the place
where we do it, so we can create a small temple whose energy will favor subsequent readings. Whenever
possible, it’s important to have a room dedicated exclusively to reading the Tarot. In this space, we will
seek our place of power. For this purpose, it is preferable to remove all furniture and then lie on the floor
and roll and crawl around to find the spot where we feel the best. Sitting there, we will rotate 360º until we
find the ideal orientation.
Once we have defined our reading position, we will place a table there (round is better, without
corners so that the energy circulates better - and low so that there is the option of sitting on the floor, on a
cushion, on a Japanese meditation stool or on a chair), on top of which we will open the silk cloth. This
could also be on the floor, on top of a rug or blanket. In the countryside, there are places that have a
particularly favorable vibration for our purposes: waterfalls, rivers, large trees, rocks, lakes, etc. When we
place the cards in these places, at home, or in any place other than the spot prepared for them, a blanket
under the cloth is advisable.
I don’t feel that it’s suitable to fill our space with images of gods, saints, prophets, spiritual teachers
or esoteric symbols, because they can cause projections in our querents that distort comprehension of the
reading. I suggest having only plants, images of nature or, better yet, a fountain, which generates prana,
cleans the energy of the room and provides a pleasant and relaxing murmur of running water. We can use
the four elements in different forms, such as candles, water glasses, crystals or even a dagger, as long as
there is one item of each element and they are placed discreetly. The more objects we have in a space, the
harder it is for the energy to circulate, and it is crucial for our reading room to always be well ventilated. I
also don’t feel that it’s appropriate to use incense or aromatherapy, because we don’t know if our querents
might be allergic to certain scents or just not like them.
 THE READING
A Tarot consultation is a moment for two people: the reader and the querent. The presence of other
people is not appropriate, especially people close to the querent, because their energy can interfere with
magnetization of the deck, and sometimes also with your receptiveness during the reading. An interpreter
is acceptable.
Once the session begins, the reader and querent should refrain from any other activity, such as
smoking, eating, answering the phone, etc., to pay full attention to the reading. The reader must prepare
internally before each consultation, letting love flow, accepting all situations in his or her own life, setting
aside personal problems and desires, everything except helping the querent.
Every reading should begin with good relaxation, which can be achieved with a few minutes of
deep breathing. It is not advisable to start a reading when the querent is restless or anxious. A few minutes
should preferably be spent helping the person calm down. No object, such as keys, glasses, cell phone,
wallet, etc., should be on the silk cloth. It’s also better for the querent and the reader to leave their shoes
outside the reading room. The reader should keep the querent from speaking compulsively, providing
information that could distort the reading. This doesn’t mean that the reader should close his or her eyes to
the bodily and energetic messages that the querent transmits, which usually supplement what the cards
reveal.
Prior to reading, the tarologist chooses a Witness Card, which is a bridge between the cards and the
querent. We will use the Royal Figures, which represent 16 personality types. We will run the calculation
based on the querent’s natal chart as explained in chapter IX, Royal Figures and Witness Card section.
We will then ask the querent to take a break for a minute and a half, sitting comfortably. We will
not tell him or her to concentrate on the questions brought (which may not be that central or deep) but
rather to aim for the most pleasant breathing volume possible, and to focus attention on enjoying breathing.
The person will thus be fully in the present (no one can breathe in the past or in the future) and will go
inward, so that later, when magnetizing the cards, it will be from the core, making it possible for the tarot
to talk about the person in depth and not about more peripheral issues. During that minute and a half, the
tarologist will shuffle the cards six times, to lose the remnants of previous magnetizations, and speak an
invocation. Whenever we finish a reading, we will shuffle the cards another 6 times[18]. Now we will be
ready to invoke.

THE INVOCATION
I suggest that the tarologist, while the querent concentrates on breathing, open the invocation with
the “Om” or another preferred mantra, aiming to quiet the mind, setting aside everything apart from the
consultation and opening the intuition. There are countless invocations, and each person can find his or her
own. I suggest: "Divine Presence, I Am in Me. By the force of Love, I invoke you and I ask you through
these cards to allow me to give the guidance and information that (querent’s name) needs in order to know
him/herself better, be more him/herself and be happy.”
Years ago I used to add: "To our guides, mentors and spiritual teachers, I invoke and ask you to
form a common energy field with us”. Later, I stopped using this, because I realized that I was passing the
responsibility for the consultation on to third parties, covering up my own insecurity as a novice.

MAGNETIZATION
With the invocation finished, during which time the querent was focusing attention on breathing
and with eyes closed, the reader will carefully explain the following steps for magnetization:
1. The querent, without crossing his or her legs, will take the deck with both hands, place it in front
of him/her without touching the body or the table, reduce the visual field to the cards and arms, and
visualize or imagine that, along with the blood that the heart sends through the aorta when it beats, it emits
waves of light that descend through the left arm, penetrating and energizing the cards and returning to the
heart through the right arm with a minimum of energy, just to close the circuit. Like waves coming from
the ocean (heart), they break on the beach, leaving their energy in the sand (the cards) and return gently to
the sea. This operation will take a minute and a half, during which time energy accumulates in the cards
and forms a ball of light around them that grows more intense as new waves of light reach the cards. It’s
better for the querent not to mentally predefine the color of the energy, but rather to let it be whichever
comes out.
2. The querent will breathe three times when placing the cards, with the image of the Arcana
against the body, at each of the following centers: Hara, two fingers below the navel, Anahata chakra at
the solar plexus, Vishuddha chakra, at the throat, Ajna chakra or third eye, between the eyebrows, and
Sahasrara, on the crown of the head. These four centers are related to the instinctive will, emotions,
creativity, mind and spirit.
We didn’t place the cards at the cardiac plexus because we were already sending energy from the
heart. Each breath consists of four parts:
a) Deep inhalation, feeling how the air fills the whole body from head to toe.
b) Holding it for a second, visualizing or imagining that all energy in the being is concentrated and
illuminating the center where the cards are placed.
c) Slow exhale, directing the accumulated energy toward the cards.
d) Holding for one second, visualizing the energy vibrating in the cards.
It is sometimes helpful for the person to place the cards and breathe into some part of the body
where there is a problem.
After explaining how this is done, the tarologist will place the deck in front of the querent and ask
him/her to rub the palms together for a few seconds before taking the deck, to increase the flow of energy
in them.

HOW TO SHUFFLE
Now the querent will return the cards to the reader, who will shuffle them in three sets of four
movements, of which the first three are equal, done by dividing the deck into two more or less equal halves
and tilting them inward, as shown in Fig. IV.01, letting the cards fall gently. It’s important not to push
them, so that it is the querent’s energy that determines the final order of the cards, and therefore of the
reading.

Fig.04.01

The fourth movement of each series consists of holding the deck with one hand and gradually
tilting it until the cards begin to fall into the other hand, so that the last ones are the first and vice versa, as
shown in Fig. IV.02.
 Fig. IV.02.

With the twelve movements finished, the tarot reader or tarologist will again give the deck to
querent and ask him/her to place the left hand on it, to visualize three waves of light coming from the heart
and penetrating the cards, and then cut the deck once to the left. The reader will gather the cards and place
them, always with the left hand, to the left on the cloth.
There are two types of energy that the deck receives. That of the querent during magnetization,
which must be eliminated after the consultation by shuffling the cards six times in the best croupier style.
The second type of energy, much more subtle, is the energy of love that the deck receives with each
invocation. This is not eliminated, but rather accumulated, making the deck a kind of subtle, high-energy
battery, like a powerful talisman that radiates love and healing energy in each consultation.

TAROLOGIST QUERENT
Calculates and draws the
Before the querent arrives
Witness Card
Shuffles 6 times in
Connects to him/herself
With the querent present croupier style.
through breathing.
Invokes
Explains how the querent will
magnetize the cards Listens

Calculates the Life Lessons[19] Magnetizes the cards

Shuffles 12 times, letting the cards
fall
Cuts
Asks questions and
Opens the deck and reads
comments
Closes the deck.
After the reading Shuffles 6 times in
croupier style

THE THERAPEUTIC READING

We’ve already seen a little about this reading in chapter I. It is a therapeutic resignification that I
developed from the traditional Celtic Cross, a system based on a ten card arrangement (eleven with the
Witness Card), as shown in Fig. IV.03, where the number inscribed on each card indicates the order in
which it leaves the deck. We will use the 78 cards, always shuffled 12 times between one consultation and
another, without separating Major Arcana from Minor Arcana.
There are ten positions:
 Present moment (1 and 2). Traditionally, the cards that appear in these positions are called The
Dynamic Cross: a pair of forces resulting in dynamization of the person’s life. They show the moment the
person is living and/or the current atmosphere. In Therapeutic Reading, when we are interested in internal
issues, we see which internal urges the person is in touch with at that moment, internal conflicts and
questions, insights, the internal issue or topic that is rising to the surface. Sometimes one of the cards show
us the hook with the Anchor, while the other identifies a liberating tendency or attitude. Sometimes, we
can see the effects of the first card in the second, something that perhaps has not yet manifested, but is
already incubated.
Anchor (4). In the traditional Celtic Cross, this is the position that reveals the past, showing past
situations, facts or attitudes that still influence the present moment. It reveals the foundation of the current
issue or situation at a distant time in the past. In Therapeutic Reading, the Anchor is where we see the
programmed patterns bound to childhood programming, from the past, which represent the knot that today
can and must be untired in order for the person to transform, grow and mature. Usually, this Anchor lies in
the subconscious, and like an iceberg, only a small part is visible. This set of features is crystallized into a
mask that the person uses to disguise, hide and defend him/herself, so as not to face reality or true
emotions. This card is one of the main axes of the reading. We can say that it demonstrates the
fundamental obstacle that at this moment can and must be removed in order to advance toward rescuing
the true self and full personal realization. In general, this card has two readings: excess or lack. How will
we know which is the most appropriate option? In the case of the Royal Figures and the Minor Arcana, the
presence or lack of elements (Fire, Water, Air and Earth) in the querent’s natal chart will be quite helpful.
In all cases, the Childhood and Inner Voice cards will also be important indicators. When we cannot decide
on a specific option, we can ask the querent: This card can be interpreted like this or like that. Which
interpretation sounds more appropriate to you? In 90% of cases, the person will say both. That’s why we
were in doubt. However, the “shadow” cards that identify a neurotic mechanism have only one meaning:
excess, because the lack of a neurotic mechanism will never be a behavior pattern that prevents
growth.Some tarologists consider these cards to be negative, based on an old-fashioned view of dividing
everything into good or bad. In the therapeutic view, there are no good or bad cards. The appearance of a
“shadow” card (and where there is shadow, there is light somewhere) is the first step to understanding and
disabling the neurotic mechanism that the card illustrates.
Inner Voice or Inner Need (7). Traditionally, this is charisma, something deep and inherent to the
being. In the Therapeutic Reading, we will see the most important and urgent needs of the inner being, the
inner voice, its cry for help asking for attitudes that match the inner reality, health and well-being. Major
Arcana in this position indicate which archetype or Universal Principle needs to be stopped from
projecting, rescued, developed and integrated.
Childhood (9). This is traditionally the position that reveals the querent’s most intimate emotions,
fears, hopes, feelings and hidden desires. Some authors study the unconscious factors here that influence
and pressure the querent in the present moment. Because these factors are essentially the childhood
programming that continues to manipulate us from the subconscious, in the Therapeutic Reading, I call it
Childhood. In Childhood lie the origins of the Anchor. Even in a childhood that we may consider happy,
there was some kind of programming, and that is what the card is pointing to.
 We see here a) the personality traits that the child had to adopt or repress and the behavior patterns
that he or she had to develop, in order to be accepted. b) We can also see the parents and the family
environment here.
If a Royal Figure with Air (Swords and Princes) appears, it will refer more to the parents than to
the querent who was repressed in childhood. The considerations we saw in the Anchor when identifying
the option to be chosen also work here. The shadow cards show neurotic mechanisms instilled by the
family.
Amorous relationships (8). This refers to the world of love relationships and demonstrates: a)
Internal attitudes or understandings that are encouraged, in a pleasant way or otherwise, by a current or
previous relationship. b) The image that the querent sells in the market of love relationships to try to meet
his/her needs for love, attention and sex, risking or exposing him/herself as little as possible. This image
may be the expression of the Anchor in the world of romantic relationships. c) What the person expects
from a relationship. With this position, we complete the diagnosis cards.
Method (5). In the traditional Celtic Cross, here is where we find the foundation of the question
asked by the querent. In the Therapeutic Reading, this is the position of the work method to be followed,
the attitudes to take or to stop taking in order to disable anchor blockages, meet the demand of the essence,
and strengthen and develop individuality. Obviously, if the person does nothing, the Anchor is reinforced,
but this should not be used as a threat. Given that card interpretations are very similar in the Inner Voice
and in the Method, we will study the meanings of each card in both positions together.
Be careful! In the Inner Voice and Method positions, we will never tell our querent that he/she must
BE this or that. It is anti-therapeutic to say: you have to be more loving, more tolerant, more sympathetic
or less quarrelsome, jealous or impulsive. For if someone does that by obligation, this will create and
reinforce precisely the opposite quality, according to the law of the pendulum. If you repress an aspect of
yourself, it goes into the shadow and manipulates continuously from there, and may one day explode. A
Therapeutic approach would be to ask the person to identify the internal difficulties that don’t allow for
being loving, tolerant, etc., identifying why certain situations or people lead to a fight, to a crisis of
jealousy, or to explosions. Identifying and disabling the causes of certain behaviors is therapeutic, not
making an effort to develop a behavior that seems more appropriate.
We also have to be careful not present the Method as an order, because our querent might leave the
office saying: “I'm going to do this because the tarologist told me to,” doing away with the therapeutic
quality of the consultation, which primarily aims to hold the querent accountable for his or her own life
and decisions. The querent should understand, based on what was said in the diagnosis, that what was
suggested in the Method needs to either be done or no longer done.
Path of Growth (6). Traditionally the future, here this is the Path of Growth, the pathway currently
behind the door to be opened with the keys that appeared in the previous cards. The Anchor needs to be
understood for this, and something concrete needs to be done in the direction shown by the Method and
Inner Voice cards. Under no circumstances will we read them as what inexorably falls into our lives by
chance. It is important to make querents understand that their fate fundamentally was, is and will be in
their own hands and that with attention, intention and connection to themselves, they can change their own
lives. I say “today”, because if the person waits months to start working, there is no assurance that what
appeared on the Path of Growth will still be waiting. The “non-shadow” cards indicate that the person is
beginning to develop the qualities of that card, and the “shadow” cards indicate that he or she has become
aware of the neurotic pattern that the card shows and which kept him/her imprisoned, and is beginning to
change.
Internal result (3). This position, called the Crown in the Celtic Cross, indicates the most sublime
and elevated state that the querent can reach. Because this is on the internal side, I prefer to call it Internal
Result. With common cards, here we see the qualities or potentials that were rescued, and with the
“shadow” cards, neurotic mechanisms that have been disabled. Although I sometimes use the verb in
present or past tense in this position, we are talking about the future.
External result (10). Traditionally called Final Outcome, which I call External Result, this shows
the internal attitude with which the querent faces the world. A “shadow” card here indicates an external
situation that the querent attracts and which pushes him or her to face the negative pattern indicated by the
card internally, offering a chance to disable it. Here we can do a “trick”: we put the card in the Method
position so the person will begin working on that neurotic pattern, so that when the situation arrives, he or
she is more prepared to take advantage of it.

A few prepared phrases to compose interpretations:

Present Moment: You feel the internal urge to..., You are questioning or asking yourself..., You are
becoming aware of..., Your attention is directed toward that internal aspect...,
Anchor: The internal difficulty that prevents your growth today and which you can and should
eliminate is...
Childhood: In order to be minimally accepted, you had to..., You had to adapt to an environment
of...
Relationships: a) This relationship helps you perceive... b) The image you show in your
relationships is..., c) You are waiting for someone to come along and give you...
Inner Voice: Your essence is asking you to realize that..., for you work on that pattern, for you
develop that attitude...,
Method: I suggest that you..., I suggest you stop..., I suggest you take the attitude of..., I suggest
that you identify that pattern...,
Path of Growth: As a result of using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, you realize...
and you start...
Internal Result: As a result of the whole process, you have identified, understood and disabled the
internal difficulties you had...
External Result: As a product of the whole process, you face the world with the attitude of..., If up
until now you hadn’t realized... you may attract an external situation that forces you to face and gives you
the opportunity to see, understand and solve that internal issue...

The cards should not be read in the order in which they were placed on the cloth. We will proceed
like this: With the 10 cards in their respective positions, we will pick up the diagnosis cards, the Inner
Voice, Anchor, Present Moment, Childhood and Relationships, in this order, so that the first contact is with
the querent’s essence (and not with the ego, as it would be if we picked up the Anchor first). We will
always set them straight, but we will not place importance on the fact that some appear inverted. The
interpretation of each card will depend on its position and the atmosphere created by the other cards.
It’s important to see the cards as a whole, looking for complementation within a harmonic unit that
makes sense. In other words, we are only going to begin to interpret when all the diagnosis cards are in
sight. We will begin reading them where it is clearer to us, usually the Inner Voice, and then continue like
someone unraveling a skein of yarn. We can draw second cards for open positions, preferably for the Inner
Voice and Anchor, placing the left hand on the deck and mentally asking three times for the card we want
to complement or deepen the reading. For example: “I want another card for the Anchor.” We cut, draw the
card or cards in question and then leave the deck as it was.
Once the diagnosis is complete, we lift the remaining cards and interpret the card in the Method
position, then we will read the Path of Growth, and finally the Internal and External Results. We can draw
additional cards for these positions, such as three for the Path of Growth, in which case we will ask for and
draw them together, thus obtaining a more accurate view of the evolution of the person’s situation.
A vast majority of wands indicates that the whole story revolves around energy issues, usually
work. If they are cups, emotional issues will be needing the most focus. If there is a predominance of
swords, growth will come to disable certain mechanisms and mindsets, and if they are discs (rings or
pentacles), it is the physical body and economic issues that require attention. When we have many Major
Arcana, more than 8 out of 20 cards on the table, all planes are present.
I don’t think it’s fitting to have more than 20 cards on the table. Good information doesn’t mean a
lot of information, but that which can be well used, as shown in Figure IV.03.
 Figure IV.03.

Once the reading is finished, we will ask our querent if there are any lingering questions or
comments. In 99.9% of cases, there are no questions, and in many cases querents say that the questions
they brought have been answered.
It should also be considered that someone interested in a therapeutic Tarot consultation doesn’t
usually come with questions like “Does so-and-so love me? Will I be happy with this guy? Will my soul
mate come along? Will I pass the Math test? How will I do in this job? They will tend to come in with
questions more like: What do I have to understand and which internal changes do I have to make in order
to...
- relate in a more fluid, pleasant and nourishing way?
- grow professionally?
- feel better?
- improve my finances?
As these questions are very central in the person’s life, they will be answered by the Therapeutic
Reading without needing to be asked.
Mothers often ask about their children, when they are in the difficult teenage phase. We can draw
three cards. One that shows how the child is doing, another showing what he or she wants deep down, and
the third suggesting a certain attitude or action for the mother. They may be related to the Present Moment,
Inner Voice and Method cards.
 CHAPTER V

THE STRUCTURE OF THE TAROT AND ITS

ASSOCIATIONS
There have been multiple attempts to define a specific structure for the Tarot that lends it the
consistency of a self-explanatory and self-sustaining system. However, all of these attempts have drawn on
concepts from other systems, such as numerology and Kabbalah, to arrive at their particular structural
vision. From the outset, we see that apart from the 22 Major Arcana, the remaining 56 cards (16 Royal
Figures and 40 Minor Arcana) are distributed in four series or suits: Wands, Cups, Swords and Discs (also
called Rings, Coins or Pentacles), which correspond to the Western tradition of the four elements (Fire,
Water, Air and Earth). We see that in many tarot decks, the Major Arcana are related to numbers, Hebrew
letters, Kabbalistic paths and astrological planets or signs. These associations, taken from other knowledge
systems, often significantly enrich the meanings of the cards, but we must always consider that they are
mere associations, and not identifications. For example, we say that the Moon is associated with The High
Priestess, but that does not mean that the Moon is The High Priestess.

“There is a value to shedding light upon a system using the concepts from another, but seeking to
force them to conform at all costs only results in useless mutilations” Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929-)

KABBALISTIC SYSTEM

Fig. V.01. The Tree of Life and the Hebrew letters

The Tree of Life of the Kabbalah is a symbolic complex that from the top down represents the
process of manifesting the Creative Principle in ten emanations, sephiroth, or spheres. From the bottom up,
we have the human spiritualization process, the quest for spiritual origins. These ten spheres, as shown in
Illustration V.01, are connected by 22 paths, each assigned to a Hebrew letter. The 1st letter: ‫ א‬Aleph,
corresponds to the 1st path, which in this case is path No. 11, because the sephiroth are also considered
pathways. The 2nd letter: ‫ ב‬Beth, represents the 2nd path, and so on successively.
 The correspondence found between the structure of the Tarot and the Tree of Life is fascinating:

THE TREE OF LIFE TAROT

22 Paths 22 Major Arcana
Ten sephiroth, numbered from One to Ten, Ten cards numbered from Ace to Ten, for each
manifested in the four worlds: of the four series or suits:
Atziluth: World of Emanation/Fire Wands/Fire,
Briah: World of Creation/Air Cups/Water,
Yetzirah: World of Formation/Water, and Swords/Air, and
Assiah: World of Action/Earth Discs/Earth

The 16 Royal Figures have such specific characteristics that we can consider them a bridge
between the Major and Minor Arcana. To MacGregor Mathers, founder of the Golden Dawn, the Figures
are not exactly on the sephiroth, but next to it. Robert Wang, his disciple, affirms that the cards don’t fully
match the sephiroth, but are an extension of their qualities. Crowley places the Major Arcana on the
Kabbalistic paths (Fig. V.02), the Royal Figures as seen in Fig. V.03, and the Minor Arcana on the
sephiroth (Fig. V.04). Combining the three illustrations, we have the 78 Tarot cards on the Tree, (Fig. V.05)
 Fig. V.05

ASTROLOGICAL ASSOCIATIONS OF THE MAJOR ARCANA

Based on this first relationship between the Major Arcana and the Kabbalistic paths and Hebrew
letters, we can deduce their astrological associations. We will look at the astrological associations of the
Minor Arcana in Chapter X. Each path is linked to a letter, so the first association is drawn by matching
the 22 Major Arcana, in their traditional sequence[20] (Tarot of Marseilles), with the 22 Hebrew letters.
According to the manuscripts found in London that gave rise to the Golden Dawn, we associate the first
card, The Fool, with the first letter, Aleph, continuing in this sequence as shown in the table below.
These 22 Hebrew letters can now be split into three groups:
Three Mother Letters: ‫ א‬Aleph, ‫ מ‬Mem and ‫ ש‬Shin, defining the dialectic structure: Thesis,
Antithesis and Synthesis, which is central to the teachings of the Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Creation[21]).
We can also say that Shin is the cause, Mem the effect, and Aleph the synthesis.
Seven Double Letters: ‫ ב‬Beth, ‫ ג‬Guimel, ‫ ד‬Daleth, ‫ כ‬Kaph, ‫ פ‬Peh, ‫ ר‬Resh[22] and ‫ ת‬Tau. They are
doubles because they have two pronunciations, one strong or hard and the other soft. As a general rule,
these seven letters are always pronounced in hard form when at the beginning of a word. The hard sound is
indicated by a dot placed inside the letter, called Dagesh (‫[)בּ גּ דּ כּ פּ רּ תּ‬23].
Twelve Simple Letters: ‫ ה‬He, ‫ ו‬Vav, ‫ ז‬Zayin, ‫ ח‬Chet, ‫ ט‬Tet, ‫ י‬Yod, ‫ ל‬Lamed, ‫ נ‬Nun, ‫ ס‬Samek, ‫ ע‬Ayin,
‫ צ‬Tzaddi and ‫ ק‬Kuf, which have only one sound. Considering that in Tree of Life we have 3 horizontal
paths, 7 vertical and 12 diagonal, instead of assigning the letters to the paths “in list order”, we could also
match the three mother letters with the horizontal paths, the 7 double letters with the vertical paths, and the
12 simple letters with the diagonal paths, which would give us a different layout.
 According to Sepher Yetzirah, the Universe was created with the sound of the 22 letters: (2:2)
“forming with them everything that has been formed and everything that will be formed.” (3:4) : “The
three Mothers in the Universe are Air, Water and Fire…”, meaning that, with the sound ‫ א‬Aleph, ‫ מ‬Mem
and ‫ ש‬Shin, the Creative Principle formed the three fundamental elements: Air, Water and Fire. In the
Hebrew tradition, Earth is not a fundamental element, but the result of combining the three preceding ones.
Thus, the Major Arcana that correspond to the three mother letters, The Fool, The Hanged Man and
Aeon (Judgment), are associated with the three core elements: Air, Water and Fire, respectively. When
Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered many centuries later, these planets were associated with the
same letters, and consequently with the three Major Arcana mentioned above.
The seven cards related to the seven double letters (The Magician, The High Priestess, The
Empress, Fortune or Wheel of Fortune, The Tower, The Sun and The World) are associated with the seven
individual planets: Mercury, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Sun and Saturn. As the Sepher Yetzirah explains
(4:6): “Seven Double Letters … and with them formed the seven planets of the Universe”.
The twelve signs of the Zodiac are attributed to the remaining twelve cards, related to the twelve
simple letters, according to the Sepher Yetzirah: (5:3) "Twelve elementals ... and with them formed twelve
constellations in the Universe." On the other hand, given that the Hebrew Letters correspond to the
Kabbalistic Paths on the Tree, we also have one Kabbalistic Path or Pathway for each Major Arcana.

Major Astrological Kabbalistic

Nº. Letter
Arcana Correspondence Pathway
Air and
0 The Fool ‫א‬ Aleph Changes 11th
Uranus
The
I ‫ב‬ Beth B V Mercury 12th
Magician
The High
II ‫ג‬ Guimel G[24] J Moon 13th
Priestess
The
III ‫ד‬ Daleth D Th Venus 14th
Empress
The
IV ‫ה‬ He H Aries 15th
Emperor[25]
The
V Hierophant ‫ו‬ Vau V Taurus 16th
(The Pope)
VI The Lovers ‫ז‬ Zayin Z Gemini 17th
The
VII ‫ח‬ Jeth J[26] Cancer 18th
Chariot
Adjustment
XVIII ‫ל‬ Lamed L Libra 22nd
(Justice)
IX The Hermit ‫י‬ Yod I Virgo 20th
Fortune
X (Wheel of ‫כ‬ Kaph Q J Jupiter 21st
Fortune)
Lust
XI ‫ט‬ Teth T Leo 19th
(Strength)
The Water and
XII ‫מ‬ Mem M 23rd
Hanged Man Neptune
XIII Death ‫נ‬ Nun N Scorpio 24th
XIV Art ‫ס‬ Sameck S Sagittarius 25th
 (Temperance)
XV The Devil ‫ע‬ Ayin Changes Capricorn 26th
XVI The Tower ‫פ‬ Pe P F Mars 27th
XVII The Star ‫צ‬ Tzaddi Tz Aquarius 28th
XVIII The Moon ‫ק‬ Kuf K Pisces 29th
XIX The Sun ‫ר‬ Resh ? R Sun 30th
Aeon Fire and
XX ‫ש‬ Shin Sh 31st
(Judgment) Pluto
XXI The World ‫ת‬ Tau T Z Saturn 32nd

SEVEN-BASED NUMEROLOGICAL SYSTEM

In the Major Arcana, this system leaves the first card, The Fool, out of the sequence, and divides
the remaining 21 into three septenaries:

To some authors, each septenary is considered an area of experience. The cards of the first would
represent the masculine and conscious process of asserting oneself and creating one’s own personal,
emotional, mental, bodily and energetic structure in order to autonomously and efficiently face the world
and practical life. Here are the great archetypes, which Jung called The Realm of the Gods. In the second
septenary, feminine and subconscious, we go inward, we learn to surrender ourselves and to know
ourselves. One must first build an independent personality to be able to surrender, one must achieve
something to be able to give. Jung calls it the Realm of Ego Consciousness and Earthly Reality. The third
septenary, which Jung called the Realm of Illumination and Self-Realization, would be supraconscious,
transpersonal and transcendent. At the level of its septenary, each card would represent the principle
manifested in the numbers from One to Seven or seven stages of the septenary. The Minor Arcana,
including the Royal Figures, are divided into four series of 14 (7x2) cards each, which would be equivalent
to numbering the Royal Figures with the numbers 11, 12, 13 and 14.

The Knights, Princes and Princesses of the Crowley matriarchal system correspond to the Kings,
Knights and Pages, respectively, of the patriarchal tradition (Marseilles, Waite, etc).
 TEN-BASED NUMEROLOGICAL SYSTEM
This system leaves the first and last cards out of the sequence of Major 1Arcana (The Fool and The
World), and divides the twenty remaining cards into groups of ten. It incorporates the four suits of
numbered Minor Arcana, also grouping them into ten grades.

The Royal Figures are left out of this layout.

FINAL REMARKS
Although on principle we may feel more attracted to the ten-based numerological structure that is
more familiar from school, it does not include the Royal Figures. On the other hand, the seven-based
structure is very reductionist because it leads us, leaving The Fool out, to consider the 21 Major Arcana as
a series of seven cards on three different planes. Although we find points in common between the Major
Arcana, each represents a different Principle, a different state of consciousness. To say, for example, that
The Emperor, Enthusiasm (Strength) and The Moon represent the principle of structuring (in the 4 column)
on three different planes seems to overstretch the meanings of each card, as well as linking the Royal
Figures to numbers 4, 5, 6 and 7.
For this reason, I prefer the Kabbalistic system, which not only integrates the 78 cards, but also
allows for drawing astrological associations.
Regardless, the Major Arcana have such strong personalities from their symbols that they don’t
need Kabbalistic or astrological associations to arrive at their meanings. This is why I use lower-case in the
associations of the Major Arcana section, to prevent over-thinking by anyone who is not a lover of the
Kabbalah or astrology.
The meanings of the Royal Figures are defined perfectly by their combinations with the four
elements. With the Minor Arcana, the Tree of Life will indeed be very useful to us, giving them structure
and meaning.
 CHAPTER VI

THE FOOL AND THE FIRST SEPTENARY

THE FOOL
Titles. In the Tarots of Marseille, the title is Le Mat, translation of Il Matto from the Italian tarot,
which means The Jester or The Fool. Based on the Egyptian influence in the Tarot, Crowley, who like
Waite calls it The Fool, suggests that Mat could come from Mut, the vulture-goddess who, according to
this tradition, has a spiral neck and becomes impregnated by the wind, generating all animal species. Mut
or Maut, the vulture-goddess, whose name means mother, should not be confused with Ma'at, the Egyptian
goddess of justice and truth. It bears the same title in the Osho Zen Tarot, while in the Egyptian it is called
“Return”. The esoteric title of the Fool is “Spirit of Ether”.
Number. The Fool is Arcana Zero. This word comes from the Arabic cifa or sifr, meaning
“empty”. The words sphere and cipher are derived from it, and the French chiffre, which means number.
Emptiness is the source and condition of Existence, as silence is the source and condition of sound. The
idea of emptiness has been addressed by different traditions. In China they called it “Tao”, the Kabbalists,
“Ain Soph”, and contemporary physicists, “void”.

“The Supreme Reality is only silence and emptiness". Arnaud Desjardin (1925-2011)

“The Tao is an impenetrable void in incessant movement that is never exhausted. The Nameless is
the Beginning of the Universe, the origin of heaven and earth. The Named is the mother of all things. Life
is an emanation of the Tao. The Tao at its source is a Void. A confusion inaccessible to human thinking. In
the Void is the seed of all things. And this seed is Supreme Truth.” Tao Te Ching, Lao Tsu (604 B.C.- 531
B.C.)

The Kabbalists, probably Isaac the Blind in the second half of the twelfth century, coined the term
Ain Soph, which means the boundless Void or unending Nothingness, to define the Creator Principle
which, prior to manifestation and polarity, permeates the manifestation. Unintelligible, we can imagine it
as a circle without circumference, whose center is everywhere. It is not a being, but a non-being. However,
this does not imply an absence of existence, but rather an infinite, unmanifest existence.
Modern physicists reached the same conclusions: “The distinction between matter and empty space
had to be abandoned by modern physics when it became clear that virtual particles can spontaneously
come into existence out of the vacuum and disappear again into the latter. Like the eastern Void, the
physical vacuum is not a state of mere nothingness but contains the potentiality for all forms of the particle
world. These forms, in turn, are not independent physical entities, but merely transient manifestations of
the underlying vacuum.” Fritjof Capra
Thus, both zero and the void are not the absence of everything, but the most absolute potentiality. If
we consider the mathematical equation 0 = (+ 1) + (-1), from left to right we see the zero originating the
opposites, giving rise to polarity. From right to left we can understand the Zero as the point where the
opposites annihilate each other and polarity is complemented. We can deduce that Zero not only gives rise
to existence, it also develops the Positive and Negative Principles and the idea of polarity.
 Fig. VI.01. The Zero

The Zero would be Tao, +1 the Yang Principle, and -1 the Yin Principle, which, when combined in
different proportions, originate the eight trigrams we combine to obtain the 64 hexagrams that make up the
worldview of the “I Ching”.
The Maya discovered and used zero for at least a thousand years before anything similar was
known in Europe. They used a spiral-shaped shell to represent it, as the best graphic representation of zero,
because it integrates the dimensionless dot with infinity. The spiral, a symbol of periodic generation and
regeneration, shows the permanence of the being throughout fluctuations and changes. The spiral is
showing that Zero and Infinity are two different ways of seeing the same thing. The Zero is the closed
spiral, potentially infinite, unmanifested and undifferentiated infinity. Infinity is the manifest Zero, the
manifestation of potential.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫א‬. To the first card in the sequence, The Fool, we assign the first letter of the
alphabet: ‫ א‬Aleph, translated as ‘ox’. Its shape reminds us of a plow, which firmly, rigidly opens, penetrates
and leaves the land ready for sowing. Aleph is the first of the three mother letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
It is golden and its numerical value is 1. It corresponds to our A, although silent and therefore symbolizing
Nothingness. It is known as the Breath of Air. It represents the universal Human Being.
Kabbalistic path. Kabbalists consider the ten Sephiroth as the first ten paths. Aleph will thus be
the eleventh path. It unites and balances Chokhmah (Wisdom), with Keter (the Crown). It is the path
traveled by the Enlightened. In ascending direction, it leads to Chaos, to the unmanifest, and in descending
direction it represents pure spirit projecting itself toward manifestation.

Fig. VI.02. Path 11

Astrological attribution. Air is the element attributed to The Fool. Despite being a masculine
element equivalent to Fire, fruit of the union of Fire, masculine, with Water, feminine, it has characteristics
of both. In the oldest accounts, Zeus Arrhenothelus, the Lord of Air, combines the male and female
principles in nature, perfectly complemented, supporting the idea that the Divine integrates the male and
female, which perfectly matches the teachings of the Kabbalah. According to Egyptian mythology, the
female vulture reproduces and gives rise to other species fertilized by the wind, the father of manifest
existence. The English Fool is derived from the Latin follis, which means bellows: which emits air. The
Air element is related to the mind and the process of thinking, perceiving, analyzing, rationalizing,
elaborating theories and projects, discerning, judging, projecting, evaluating, etc. We can also attribute it to
the planet Uranus, the upper octave of Mercury, the planet that governs the mind. Uranus represents the
Principle of Individual Freedom, the drive to stand out. The characteristics of a Uranian individual are
originality, innovation, intuition, brilliance, irreverence, informality, restlessness, freethinking, contempt
for tradition, attraction to change, unconventional, rebellious. This type of personality may become
stubborn, impatient, eccentric, intransigent, with a compulsive need for over-excitement and change for the
sake of change.

SYMBOLS
The central figure of the card is a young man dressed in green: the Green Man of spring. According
to the pre-Christian legend of Saxon origin, it personifies the forces of ascending life that originate spring
and lead our childish and adolescent nature to manifest itself more openly. These are times of idealism,
passion, dreams, impulsiveness and carelessness. After months under the snow, the sun widens its arch in
the heavens in April and the snow melts, creating the possibility of sowing and guaranteeing survival for
another year. Then there would be a great party to celebrate the arrival of spring. On that day, the laws,
including those of the not-so-rigid pre-Christian faith, were set aside. Truths were expressed without fear
of retaliation. The relationship between the Fool and spring is still kept alive. In English-speaking
countries, April 1 is still celebrated, albeit in a more simplistic and joking manner, as April Fool’s day,
related to the Christian Feast of the Holy Innocents, or to the Day of the Lie in Brazil.

Fig. VI.03. The Fool

The Fool appears on the card with the horns of Dionysus Zagreus, son of Zeus and Demeter, gods
of heaven and earth. Zeus’ wife Hera, furious with her husband’s infidelity, ordered the titans to quarter
and cook Dionysus in a cauldron. However, with Athena’s help, Zeus managed to rescue his heart, which
was still beating, and prepared a potion with it that he gave to Semele, a Theban Princess, making her
pregnant. Hera set a trap to kill Semele, but Zeus extracted the embryo from Semele’s bowels and kept it
on his thigh until the babe was born. He then gave the child to Hermes to be instructed. Dionysius or
Dionysus, “The Twice Born”, represents the forces of the unconventional, with forms of worship that clash
with traditional religions. There is a remarkable parallel between Dionysus and Jesus Christ. They both
suffered persecution when they were born, were handed over to third parties for instruction, questioned
official doctrine, and their teachings were persecuted, distorted and degraded by the Romans, who
transformed Dionysus into Bacchus and early Christianity into the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church three
centuries after Jesus’ death. Dionysus should not be regarded solely as his Roman version, Bacchus, god of
wine, enthusiasm and sexual desire. Dionysus is the god of liberation, of eliminating prohibitions and
taboos, of catharsis, of the exuberance of Nature and life, and of ecstasy through expression of the
irrational. He symbolizes the forces of life dissolving the acquired personality, the “civilized” mask we
impose on our animal nature. Thus, the Dionysian orgies sought to redeem the chaotic and primordial
forms of life. Dionysus and Zarathustra, both sources of inspiration for Nietzsche, tend to view humans as
divine beings, or rather, to recognize us as gods.
Between his horns we see a phallic cone of white light, representing the spiritual and unmanifest
influence of the 1st Sephiroth: Keter. He is dressed in green as is traditional for the man of spring, and he
wears golden shoes, the color of the Sun and Aleph, the 1st Hebrew letter. He holds a crystal in his right
hand and a burning pine branch in the left, symbols of mineral and plant growth. The water that appears at
the bottom of the card and the bag, which reminds us of the one the Fool of Marseille carries on the tip of
his cane, full of coins with symbols of the planets and signs, could represent the elements: Air, Fire, Water
and Earth, respectively.
The grapes that appear on the left side are a symbol of fertility, sweetness and ecstasy, a symbol of
Dionysus or Bacchus. The Fool is passing through three circles of light alluding to the Three Veils of
Negative Existence, which are the three planes of non-manifestation prior to Keter. As the ancient
Kabbalists did not know how the universe came into being (only centuries later was the Big Bang
discovered), they imagined three veils that separate the Creator Principle, the unmanifest, from Creation,
the manifest. They called them Ain, the Nothing, “the nameless horror” before which the human mind
collapses, Ain Soph, the “Limitless Nothing”, described as a luminous, immobile, odorless and silent void,
and Ain Soph Aur, the Empty and Limitless Light. Of these three veils, which separate the sacred from the
profane, present on the Ark of the Covenant, the curtain that the priest opens and closes to leave the
consecrated host and chalice on the other side remained in Catholic tradition.
The Green Man is leaving the world of non-manifestation to enter the world of manifestation, the
formless world to enter the world of form, the unknown becomes known, the forces of the subconscious
want to manifest through action on the plane of consciousness.
In those three rings of light, we see the dove, the vulture, the butterfly and the caduceus of
Mercury. The dove, attributed to Venus in classic mythology, symbolizes fertility and the Holy Spirit in
Christianity, and later it came to represent peace in the western world.
The vulture is Mut, the mother of the Universe, reinforcing the idea of generation by appearing
with helical wings. The multicolored butterfly is a symbol of liberation from old cocoons, of rebirth and
transformation, as well as lightness and joy on account of its colors, and of transience and impermanence
due to its short life cycle.

Fig.VI.04. The
Caduceus Fig.VI.05. The Nagakal Fig.VI.06. The Fool from the Golden Dawn
 The Caduceus is one of the oldest known symbols. We find it in 2600 B.C. on the cup of Gudea,
king of Lagash (Sumer, today Iraq) and on the stone tablets, nagakals, in Dravidian or even older Pre-
Indo-Aryan India. It originally appears as a staff around which two snakes are coiled, symbolizing balance
between opposing tendencies. It recalls the shape of the channels of pranic energy or nadis: ida and
pingala, which intersect around sushumna, the central channel, as it is known in Tibetan and Hindu
tantrism. In Greece, the Caduceus takes on its complete form. Above the snakes appears a sphere between
two wings, which sometimes takes the form of a circular mirror, and other times the shape of an egg. The
egg is the receptacle for life’s essence, the product of opposites complementing each other, which also
leaves room for the transcendence indicated by the wings. The Great Tibetan Mirror shows the supreme
secret: the world of shapes reflected in the mirror is nothing more than an aspect of emptiness.
In Court de Gébelin’s vision, the staff represents the earthly Equator, the wings are time, the two
snakes (masculine and feminine) show the Sun and the Moon, which cross the ecliptic during the year, on
which they are sometimes together and sometimes separated. There are also those who see the four
elements in the Caduceus: the snakes corresponding to Fire and Water, the staff to Earth, and the wings to
Air. The Caduceus, attributed to Asclepius, Roman god of medicine, became the symbol par excellence of
this science. The graphic relationship between the Tree of Life and the Caduceus is interesting, as seen in
figure V.8.
To the alchemists, “the Caduceus is formed by a golden staff entwined by two snakes. These
represent the two opposing principles, unified in the gold of the staff, which emerges as the expression of
the fundamental dualism that gives rhythm to all hermetic thought and which must be reabsorbed in the
unity of the philosopher's stone" (Art et Alchimie, Van Lennep. Brussels, 1966).
This idea of reunification of complementing opposites is reinforced by the image of the two
children embracing each other between the Fool’s legs. Over them pours the blessing of the three lilies, a
symbol, like the children, of innocence and purity, showing the qualities needed for the rising of the radiant
Sun, Kundalini or dormant consciousness in the Muladhara chakra, toward the light of Keter.
The tiger, which along with the donkey accompanies Dionysus on his walks, represents the
respective instinct that guides the Fool in his total absence of experience, knowledge and beliefs. Beneath
the crocodile Sebek, with a lotus flower on its head, is the Egyptian symbol of adolescent fertility.

GENERAL MEANINGS
Macrocosmically, the Fool represents the condition prior to any manifestation, the Non-Being from
which the Being spontaneously arises. He embodies the idea of Absolute Potential, Chaos. This is pure
energy that has no form, which can appear in one way or another, permanently transforming itself. This
idea of unmanifest existence, or at least not visible, finds a certain parallelism with what astrophysicists
call black holes.
On the human plane, the Fool is the EPATIPIC child, before his/her attributes are programmed:
1. Spontaneous: He assumes his desires and lets himself get carried away by them.
2. Present: He lives here and now, without mortgaging the present for a hypothetical future.
3. Joyful: He expresses his emotions fully, then returning to his natural joy.
4. Total: He throws himself completely into the experience.
5. Innocent: Pure, without malice, without judging himself or others.
6. Perceptive: He sees reality as it is and not through beliefs, principles and prejudices that family
and society will instill afterwards.
7. Unpredictable: He is able to change his trajectory with no apparent logical reason.
8. Capable of wonder.
In the Golden Dawn Tarot, created in 1978 by Robert Wang under the supervision of Israel
Regardie, Crowley’s former secretary, The Fool shows a child about to lose innocence by eating from the
tree of knowledge. The Fool represents the subconscious. The subconscious has its own initiative. It is an
impulse toward action that we can repress, but not stop feeling. It seeks growth by trying to emerge into
the field of consciousness. An individual’s balance and health are linked to the balance between conscious
and subconscious, what we know and what we don’t know about ourselves, what we think we control and
what we do not control. The problem lies in the fear that the conscious feels regarding what might come
out of the subconscious. The subconscious manifests itself with desire. Desire has nothing to do with
consciousness or willpower. We can repress the practical manifestation of desire, but not desire.
Eskenazi says: "The Fool is not the object of desire but the source of desire, the root from which all
erotic impulses sprout, every vital impulse. What gives life to life is desire. When desire is accepted, it
brings deep gratification. When it is denied, anger appears, or rejection, disgust, revulsion, the need to
destroy it, any form of strong emotional voltage oscillation.”
The Fool is the Universal Human Being, receptacle for the talents and potentials of the being. As
he has nothing to do with order, stability and logical reasoning, he is traditionally attributed ideas of
thoughtlessness, lacking objectives, results and specific knowledge, unawareness, irresponsibility,
passivity, infidelity and disorder. There are those who see the Fool as the wanderer, who goes through life
from moment to moment, sometimes enjoying, sometimes suffering. Without attachments, because
attachment is what makes it harder for us to surrender to desire. He seems to be the court jester who lost
his job and wanders the world, open to whatever may come.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is getting in touch with his/her inner child, feeling the urge to
manifest the characteristics of the EPATIPIC child that we have already seen. Depending on the second
card, we can identify which fears or internal barriers are holding back that impulse, or in which aspect of
life this is all beginning to manifest. This probably happens after a phase in which the person had lost
touch with his or her inner child. It may indicate the beginning of a new phase of life, risking a leap into
the unknown where potentials and talents may be about to bloom or already flourishing, which he or she
had never yet dared to express or was not even aware of their existence.
Anchor. In excess, it is the Peter Pan syndrome: the eternal teenager who does not take
responsibility for his actions. This is a person who, due to having her basic needs for food and love not met
in the first two or three years of life, especially in the lactation phase, developed an oral defense structure
that is characterized by a thin body, sunken chest and cold and flaccid muscles. She is mobilized by the
fear of being abandoned. She is emotionally and economically dependent. Incapable of practical
achievements, because what really moves her is the search for a mother, a father or even an institution to
take care of her, protect her and satisfy her need for affection, preferably giving her unconditional love.
She is insecure and dependent, although she tries to seem self-sufficient: “No, I don't need...”, “I’m not
missing...” She experiences oral functions intensively: speaking compulsively (to hold other people’s
attention), eating, drinking and/or smoking exaggeratedly. She loves oral sex. She doesn’t take care of
herself and often gives off the impression of a puppy that fell off the moving truck, looking for an owner to
take care of her. She is convinced that the world owes her a significant debt, which she tries to collect. She
is psychically imprisoned in childhood. This would be confirmed by the Knight of Cups or the Two of
Cups - Love as the 2nd Anchor card. This attachment to a childish personality can be relieved by using
Fairy Lantern* floral essence, which will also help her to accept her adult responsibilities. Her fixation on
the past can be treated with Honeysuckle, and Chestnut Bud can help her to be more attentive and learn
from her own experiences.
Along with the Five of Swords - Defeat, this shows that she intends to catch the attention of others
through negative behaviors. In this case, we suggest using essence of Chicory.
In lack, this would be a person who has lost touch with his/her inner child, someone who stopped
being spontaneous, who doesn’t live here and now, in short, who has lost all the characteristics of the
unprogrammed child, becoming an overly serious, very rational person who needs three scientific
arguments just to go pee. Essence of Baby Blue Eyes* helps to restore childish innocence and confidence,
and that of Cherry Plum works on the fear that childlike spontaneity leads to a loss of self-control.
Relationships. a) The current relationship can help the person rescue his or her unprogrammed
child and encourages the use of talents that have been ignored, devalued or sabotaged until now. Of course,
this can happen in very different ways, some pleasant, when the person feels the loving support of his or
her partner to do so, and others unpleasant, when this process occurs as a conscious reaction to a partner’s
repression of one of the eight characteristics of the unprogrammed child. b) This person displays decidedly
childish behavior. He seeks the attention and basically the approval and protection of others. He thinks he
can engage in any barbaric act because his partner has an obligation to love him. In some cases, he may
disguise himself as original, innovative or even rebellious in order to attract attention, but the mask almost
always falls off and the image of the helpless child who needs someone to take care of him, nourish and
protect him appears.
Childhood. The querent didn’t have a childhood. He was “adultized” at an early age and had to
become an adult early on, at least in appearance. He wasn’t allowed to be spontaneous, innocent and
natural, to play and/or to simply do nothing. His life was probably always filled with organized
responsibilities and activities, always with an adult guiding and evaluating, preventing him not only from
living the moment, but also from creating and inventing it. He may be like Manolito from Mafalda, or the
older brother who had to set an example. Or perhaps a sister, who comes home from school and has to take
care of the babies and cannot play. She got tired of hearing: Be responsible! You have to…!
Inner Voice and Method. Rescuing the archetype of the Fool means connecting with and rescuing
the unprogrammed child by working to identify, understand and disable the internal difficulties that block
EPATIPIC characteristics. When The Fool appears here, we may think that the person is overly self-
controlled, repressing desires and urges to such an extent that the subconscious may cause distress,
generating obsessions, delusions, paranoia, etc. This person needs to listen to his/her desires and urges,
establishing bridges between the conscious and subconscious. As we deepen our observation and
understanding of the experiences that make us suffer, we find many hidden and denied desires. It is
important to open up to a new stage of life, giving credit to talents and potentials and remembering the
circumstances that generated fear of the unknown and which led to using seriousness as a defense
mechanism. As we let go of the need to demonstrate something to others, we can become more
spontaneous. If The Emperor appears in the Anchor, it is important for the querent to abandon the personal
importance with which he/she tries to cover up insecurity and lack of self-esteem. We will suggest play
and participating in activities in which results are the least important and the pleasure the activity brings is
the most important. You can dig up childhood photos and breathe them in until you feel that the
spontaneous and mischievous child is inside you. Floral essence of Zannia* will help rescue the childlike
side and bring the ability to play and laugh into daily life. Essence of Baby Blue Eyes* will make it easier
to regain childish innocence and confidence. Perhaps the characteristic to be developed as a priority is
being present in the here and now, which is the only place and time where life happens. A good way is to
focus the full attention on breathing, which can only take place in the present.
Osho says, "The present runs alongside breathing. If we are totally attentive to our breathing and
physical sensations, we will inevitably fall into the present. The mind will try to jump to the past and the
future; we will observe this jump and return to the present and the breathing. Then we will perceive that in
the here and now, there are no problems or anxieties. We will expand the moment and see how a wave of
pleasure engulfs us, and we will begin to enjoy."
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person realizes the
extent to which she had condemned her unprogrammed childlike side to the dungeons and what the
consequences were, in order to begin developing them and feeling light-hearted and spontaneous,
affectionate and cheerful, sensitive, curious and unbiased.
Internal result. The childlike being retook its place. The person was able to identify, understand
and disable the difficulties in manifesting the unprogrammed child and its characteristics, as well as
bringing talents that had been hidden so far to action. Now the querent is able to express the subconscious
emotions, thoughts, desires and urges spontaneously and without prejudice, to restore grace to life.
External result. Here we see the person facing the world with the attitude we just saw in the
Internal Result. Launching herself into a new phase of life, aware of her potentials, using them in practice,
stimulated by adventure and the unknown, and ready to roll out new creative projects. She may be
breaking from her previous trajectory and taking a more original, unforeseen, playful and unconventional
path.
 THE MAGICIAN
Titles. The title in the Tarot of Marseille is Le Bateleur, a juggler and/or puppeteer who, in the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance, put on street performances. Crowley translates Le Bateleur as “the
bearer of the staff”. Here we have the first allusion to Mercury, bearer of the staff: the caduceus. The staff
is a symbol of power and clairvoyance, a magical instrument par excellence, especially associated with the
fire that springs from it. Hermes (Mercury) is believed to have been the inventor of the fire that
Prometheus later stole and carried within his hollow rod to humans. In later Tarot decks, this card was
renamed The Magician. In the Osho Zen Tarot, it is Existence. Its esoteric title is “Magus of Power”.
Number. The number assigned to the Magician is One. If Zero designates an undifferentiated and
“empty” globality, this same globality already constitutes one unit. The Being emanated from Nothing, as
One emanates from Zero, is its consubstantial child: the Unit is full of that which leaves Nothing empty.
Symbolized by a dot, like the Hebrew letter Yod, the One concentrates all possibilities of the Being that, in
Zero, existed in an informal state.

Fig. VI.07. The One

The One represents all Existence and the unit, the standard that allows for measuring. It confirms
individuality, specificity and distinction. The One is the manifest beginning, the affirmation of the Being.
The One is the erect phallus, the vertical staff, the Masculine Principle. Simultaneously with the One, the
Two appears, the Feminine Principle. One cannot exist without the other. To the Pythagoreans, it is the
number of intelligence. The school founded by Pythagoras in 530 B.C. lasted ten centuries. It affirms that
the essence of things is found in numbers and mathematical relationships

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ב‬. Beth is the letter assigned to the Magician. It means house, home. Symbolically,
it represents the inside of the mouth. Its numeric value is 2 and its color is yellow. It is a double letter,
masculine, which sounds like ‘B’ when pronounced hard, and ‘V’ when soft.
Kabbalistic path. This is the 12th path of the Tree, it unites Binah, Knowledge, with Keter, the
Crown. This path shows the state of free awareness of appearances in the world of phenomena. It is the
state of Bliss, the joy of being absorbed in spiritual contemplation, distinguishing reality from illusion. We
can say that this is the state of harmonization with Universal Awareness.
 Fig.VI.08. Mercury and the Tree

Fig.VI.09. Path 12

Astrological attribution. As Beth is a double letter, the Magician’s astrological attribution will be
a planet, in this case Mercury. This neighbor to the Sun governs the rational and discriminating mind: the
processes of thinking, analyzing, extracting experiences, communicating them and applying them to the
practical development of one’s own skills in daily activities. The symbol of Mercury corresponds to the
sephiroth, leaving Keter out, since it cannot be reached intellectually, as we see in Fig. VI.08.

SYMBOLS
The Magician is considered the adult form of the Fool. Crowley’s Magician appears in the form of
Mercury, the messenger of the gods. This is one of the three magicians painted by Frieda Harris. In some
editions, all three appear. The one we study here is the only one mentioned by Crowley in his “Book of
Thoth”.
 Fig.VI.10. The Magician

He wears winged sandals, a symbol of elevation. He raises one arm to the sky and points the other
toward the earth, as do his counterparts in Marseille and Waite, as a channel between the world of
possibility and the real world. This idea of infinite possibilities lies in the symbol of the infinite that
appears above their heads: a hat in the Marseille, the lemniscate in Waite and the caduceus in Crowley,
which forms a vertical eight with the bodies of the snakes and is also a symbol of the infinite possibilities
of human development. In this gesture, we can also see the Magician being inspired by universal laws and
applying them to the concrete world. It also illustrates the Kybalion Principle of Correspondence: “As
above, so below; as below, so above”.
He juggles with the different objects around him: the symbols of the four elements or emblems of
the four series of minor Arcana, with which he operates: the Staff in flames with which he creates, the Cup
with which he preserves, the Sword with which he destroys, and the Disk or Coin with which he redeems.
These emblems are also related to his four verbs: to want, to know, to dare and to keep silent. Above his
head and to his sides we have the pen, symbol of the will, and the papyrus, symbol of the word, both
attributes of Mercury. Floating in front of his right hand is the Phoenix wand, instrument of Thoth,
predynastic Egyptian god. He received his name from the Greeks, who associated him with their own god
Hermes. Hermes and Thoth were considered gods of wisdom, the written word and invention, messengers
of the gods. Thoth is a lunar god depicted as a man with the head of the Ibis bird, symbol of concentration
and meditation. According to the myth of Hermopolis, the city where the cult of Thoth joined that of the
local baboon god Hedj-Wer, it was Thoth who, in the form of an Ibis, incubated the egg from which all
creation arose using just the power of his voice.

Fig.VI.11. Thoth
 Another legend suggests that Thoth was the son of Horus and Set. Horus is said to have put his
semen on lettuce that Set ate, and as a result, Thoth emerged from Set’s forehead. Thoth, master of time
and inventor of music and hieroglyphics, took the earthly throne when Horus abandoned it, and ruled a
peaceful and prosperous land for 3,226 years. The phoenix is a symbol of immortality and resurrection
and, according to Egyptian tradition, when this bird feels that its forces are exhausted, it builds a nest of
perfumed buds that catch fire with its body heat. After being consumed in the flames, the phoenix is reborn
from its own ashes.
Next to the Magician’s left hand and as if coming out of it, we have the winged egg, known as the
Orphic Egg, which holds the essence of life, fruit of the union of opposites. Behind the cone of white light
of Keter and rising impulsively appears the cynocephalus, Thoth’s baboon whose function, says Crowley
“is to distort the word of Thoth, to imitate, to simulate and to deceive”. This is because when the word
comes into action, ambiguity appears in the best cases, and in the worst, falsehood. Other forms of the
baboon would be Hermanubis, (union of Hermes and Anubis) or Hanuman, the monkey god of Hindu
mythology.

GENERAL MEANINGS
The Magician embodies the Universal Masculine Principle: Action. On a human level, it is
masculine polarity, the ability to take initiative and the mind in action: reason, will, verbal ability,
communication, perception, the ability to analyze, and intellectual creativity. First is the impulse that
comes from the subconscious (The Fool), then the will (The Magician), which commits to the impulse.
The will generates initiative, action, although the energy for it comes from the subconscious.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is in touch with the inner urge to take action, taking initiative based
on ideas, projects or theories that he or she is developing. The second card can show in which aspects of
life this comes to fruition, or which internal difficulties may be holding the process back.
Anchor. If the querent has more than 50% Air in his/her natal chart, we will read the Anchor for
excess. See the Royal Figures section and the Witness Card in Chapter IX for how the percentages of each
element are calculated. This will be a compulsively active person. She can’t stop running or thinking.
Always accelerated and stimulated, she can’t stop talking, doing things, pursuing objectives and
developing ideas and projects, until her body pays the price. She feels threatened if she slows her pace:
society might reject her, so she hides her fatigue. When she is exhausted, she may show acute irritation
with the risk of nervous breakdown. She becomes disconnected from her inner self, which becomes
unknown to the point that she may feel afraid of being alone. To avoid this, she watches TV until she falls
asleep. She ends up a perfect stranger to herself. Oak flower can help her stop, accept her limitations and
balance herself by developing her feminine side. Gibberish meditation (http://www.osho.com/es/active-
meditations/gibberish-soltarse) will help to clear this accelerated mind. In combination with the Ten of
Wands - Oppression, this indicates an overload of responsibilities that she undertakes for fear of
disappointing. In this case, essence of Elm will be very useful. A Six of Swords would indicate excessive
intellectualism, with the consequent disconnection from her physical body and nature, which leads to
exhaustion. The floral essence of Nasturtium* will increase her vitality and root her in the physical reality
of things.
If the querent has less than 10% Air in his or her natal chart, we read the Anchor for lack. In this
case, the person shows a chronic difficulty in taking action, moving, communicating, developing ideas,
projects and theories and expressing them. His/her reasoning is apathetic, and it is unlikely that he/she will
be very good at public speaking or business. Essence of Buttercup* can help increase inner assurance for
communicating with others. Essence of Peppermint favors full attention, clarity and mental alertness, and
essence of Blackberry* helps put ideas into action.
 Childhood. Love and parental support were contingent upon the child being active, intelligent,
skillful, capable and an achiever. The child was forced to develop the rational side to the detriment of the
more sensitive, emotional, tender and receptive side.
Relationships. a) A current relationship or previous relationships help the person to develop
his/her own ideas, projects and theories, to strengthen self-confidence in order to convince whoever he/she
has to convince that they are interesting, viable and useful, and ultimately to take initiative. This can
happen in many different ways. The least pleasant would be if this were to arise as a necessity because the
couple doesn’t get off the couch. In any case, it remains an important growth factor. b) This is a person
who has relationships based on a fundamentally intellectual approach. He knows how to communicate,
create projects, get others involved, but he does not give his heart. He sells an image of a busy person, full
of important projects, but doesn’t show his emotions and rarely stays for breakfast.
Inner Voice and Method. To rescue the archetype of the Magician, the person needs to identify,
understand and disable the blockages that invalidate his/her ideas, projects, objectives, keep the mind from
working properly and carry out activities where intellectual creativity is manifested after shifting into
action. We will advise such querents to take action. They need to pay attention to both the internal world of
desire and the external world, moving, expressing themselves, communicating with others, expanding their
circle of contacts, exercising their willpower, making decisions, using their knowledge and skills,
developing projects and selling their ideas. They need to learn how to make deals and get paid properly for
their work. It’s not about selling cheaper to make friends, but about both sides being satisfied. It is also
important to perceive and take advantage of opportunities. Essence of Cosmos* will help this type of
person, developing the mercurial capabilities of thought and verbal expression. The presence of the Eight
of Cups - Indolence or the Seven of Disks - Failure in the Anchor, indicating chronic lethargy, will lead us
to suggest floral essence of Tansy*, which favors taking determined and purposeful stances.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person identifies the
origins of his previous lack of action and begins to move, first mentally by elaborating ideas, and then
taking the corresponding initiatives.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we’ve seen thus far, has managed to
strengthen his attention and willpower. He has overcome the blockages and fears that kept him from taking
action, taking initiative, taking advantage of opportunities and developing and expressing his mental
creativity. Today he feels mentally inspired, trusting his intellectual, verbal, manual and communication
skills more. He has learned to demonstrate and sell his projects and to charge objectively for his work.
External result. We see the person facing life with the internal attitude that we just saw in the
Internal Result. This is how he acts in the world with determination and steadfastness, creating projects,
using his mind in a very realistic way and developing his skills and knowledge. It is a time of great
movement and communication, when he works objectively and functionally to invent his reality.

THE HIGH PRIESTESS

Titles. This was originally called “The Popess”. The appearance of this Arcana is related to
rescuing feminine values in collective thinking with the entry of the Renaissance period. The feminine,
which had been progressively degraded by patriarchal societies (Greek and Roman), was negated and
massacred by the Catholic Church to the point of inventing a trinity without female deities. Thus the
people, tired of an inaccessible, inflexible, judgmental, vengeful and punishing God, felt the need for icons
representing love, compassion and mercy. The Vatican placed the Virgin Mary and Jesus as a symbol of
these feminine qualities, and also invested in the idea of the Holy Mother Church, which also did not
germinate in the collective subconscious.
 Fig.VI.12. The Visconti Sforza Popess

There is evidence of a woman in the 9th century who, disguised as a man, is said to have ascended
the ecclesiastical hierarchy until she was elected Pope, dying after giving birth during the Easter
celebration. This is how the legend of Pope Joan arose, taking shape in Italy at the end of the 12th century
in a religious order founded by Guglielma of Bohemia. They believed that their founder, who died in 1281,
would be resurrected in 1300 and begin a New Age in which popes would be women. As no one was
resurrected in 1300, they declared Sister Manfreda Visconti, a member of that order, Popess. She ended up
burned at the stake in Milan, along with most of the Guglielmites, a few weeks later.
In 1441, Maria Bianca Visconti commissioned Bonifacio Bembo to create a Tarot deck as a gift for
her wedding to Francesco Sforza. This feminine archetype appears as a tribute to her ancestor Manfreda, in
later decks receiving the title of The Popess.
Considered the consort of the Pope, this title must not have pleased the Church much. However, it
was kept in the Marseille and Papus Tarot decks, showing that the times of the Dark Ages and witch-
burnings were coming to an end. Then, in 1800 in Besançon, southern France, in the post-revolutionary era
in which Greco-Roman mythology was newly appreciated, Louis Carey’s deck appears, calling this card
“Juno”. This goddess, Hera in Greece, Jupiter’s wife, symbolizes the Feminine Principle in youthful
maturity, in full force, sovereign, combative and fertile. Initially, Juno personified the lunar disc.
Currently, and ever since Court de Gébelin, she is known as the Priestess, or the High Priestess in
the Waite deck. In the Osho Zen, it is called “The Inner Voice”. Esoterically, she is “The Lady of Eternity”
and also “Priestess of the Silver Star”.
Number. Two is the number of this card. It arises from Zero simultaneously with One, just as Yang
and Yin arise from Tao. One cannot appear without Two, and vice-versa. If there is light, there is shadow.
When there is shadow, there is light somewhere. If we define one aspect of polarity, we must necessarily
define the other. If we invent an absolute personification of what we call “good”, we are inventing,
whether we like it or not, the absolute personification of “evil”. It is not by chance that the most fanatical
religious believers are obsessed with seeing and exorcising diabolical creatures every day.
If all numbers are multiples of One, they can all be written as the sum of the powers of the Two: 1
= 2nd; 2 = 2; 3 = 2 + 2nd; 4 = 2 + 2; 5 = 2 + 2 + 2nd;...

Fig.VI.13. The Two

 Two and One constitute the first great duality upon which movement and life depend. If One
represents Unity, Two is Polarity. If One is the Masculine Principle, Two is the Feminine Principle.
According to Chinese tradition, before there was any distinction between Heaven (Yang) and Earth (Yin),
Chaos looked like a chicken’s egg. After 18,000 years, the egg opened. The heavy elements formed the
Earth and the light ones formed Heaven. According to the Pythagoreans, Two is the number of opinion.

THE ONE THE TWO

Symbol of Symbol of
The Sun The Moon
The Masculine The Feminine
Consciousness The Subconscious
The Active The Receptive
The Rigid The Flexible
The Unchangeable The Changeable
Strength Form
Impulse Containment

Geometrically, if we define a point in space, we have to define a second point: the origin of
coordinates, in order to know its position. With two points defined in space, we have a line, something
absolutely abstract, dimensionless, a beginning and not an end.
In truth, all manifestations of the universe are a mixture of these two principles: "Everything is
dual, everything has two poles, everything has its pair of opposites". (Kybalion).
In Crowley’s words: "We should always bear in mind that each symbol is ambivalent. Insistence on
any of the contradictory attributes inherent to a symbol is just a sign of ineptitude, caused by prejudice...
There could be nothing true except by virtue of the contradiction that is contained in itself".
In the Tao Te Ching: "When people see things as beautiful, ugliness is created. When people see
things as good, evil is created. Being and non-being produce each other. Difficult and easy complement
each other. Long and short define each other. High and low oppose each other. Fore and aft follow each
other.”

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ג‬. Guimel, double letter, feminine, gray and numeric value 3, is attributed to The
High Priestess. When pronounced hard, it sounds like the ‘G’ in gate, and when soft, like the ‘J’. It means
“camel” and symbolically represents the throat: an empty channel, a matrix where air is transformed into
sound. Hieroglyphically, it conveys the idea of expansion and growth.
Kabbalistic path. The 13th path that unites Tiphareth – Beauty with Keter – the Crown, is the one
assigned to The Priestess. As we see in figure VI.14, it is a vertical path, joining both spheres through a
deserted space which Kabbalists call “the Abyss”. It is precisely Guimel, the camel who crosses the desert,
uniting the two spheres.
 Fig.VI.14. Path 13

Astrological attribution. The Moon is the planet attributed to this Arcana. We can think of it as
the antithesis of the Sun, which represents the fullness and awareness of life, all that shines with its own
light. If the Sun shows the human process of individuation, meaning everything that leads a human to
distinguish him/herself from others and become a unique being, the Moon shows the process of integration
with others. The Moon is a symbol of childhood, hidden things, of the subconscious and illusion. It is
associated with ideas of mobility, flexibility and change due to the speed with which it travels the Zodiac.
It governs fertility and growth, everything that is cyclic and fluctuating, the Water element, all aquatic
beings and nocturnal animals. Its relationship to women is paramount because it is closely related to the
menstrual cycle, the gestation process and childbirth. It represents the people and is connected to
everything primordial, atavistic, rituals and magic. It is the ruler of our deepest feelings and emotions. It
represents everything that nourishes us and makes us feel that we belong to something. It governs our
imagination, our sensitivity and ability to be impressed, our dreams and our receptivity. Along with
Mercury, it governs the memory, and with Mars it rules the instincts. It creates a strong attachment to the
past, to the mother, the home and domestic activities.

SYMBOLS
This Arcana shows fewer symbols than the previous two. The Priestess is simpler, more austere.
She is Isis, the most celebrated of the Egyptian goddesses, she who protects the dead under her wings and
resurrects them. Initially, she was the goddess of the home, but when she took on the secret name of her
grandfather, the supreme god Ra, her power extended throughout the universe. According to mythology,
Isis wanted to increase her magical powers with the knowledge of the wisest of gods, Ra, so she took a
little saliva that fell from Ra’s mouth and, gathering the dirt on which he had trodden, molded a snake that
turned into an arrow. She left it at a crossroads and when “the father of the gods and the master of the
Nile” passed by, the arrow came to life and sunk its serpent fang deep into his leg. The gods of magic
could not cure him, but Isis promised to do so in exchange for receiving his true name, which bestowed
upon him his magical power. Beleaguered by pain, Ra passed his secret name from its place in his heart to
Isis, on the condition that she would not reveal it to anyone except his son Horus.
According to tradition, every living being is a drop of Isis’ blood. She is the great initiator, she who
holds the secrets of life, death and resurrection. She embodies the Universal Feminine Principle; she is the
magical source of fertility and transformation. On the card, Isis is represented in her most spiritual form: as
the Greek Artemis, equivalent to the Roman Diana. Indomitable and fierce with men, she plays the role of
protector of the feminine against the physical supremacy of males. She is the goddess of childbirth; she
protects purity and rewards her worshippers with immortality. She appears in mythology as the
complement to Venus-Aphrodite, as we will see in Arcana III: The Empress. Artemis represents the
emasculating, jealous and dominant aspect of the mother, compared to Venus, who embodies the nurturing,
loving and life-giving side. In Hindu mythology, we find a parallelism with the consorts or feminine
aspects of Shiva: Kali and Parvati.
 Fig.VI.15. The Marseilles Popess, The Waite High Priestess, and the Crowley Priestess

In the Tarots of Marseilles and Waite, she is seated next to the veil that separates the unmanifest
from the manifest, spirit from matter, the sacred from the profane. She would thus be the guardian of the
divine, holding a book or a parchment in her lap which reads TORAH – Hebrew Book of Law, the
Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, a bastion of patriarchal tradition – half hidden under
her mantle. This Priestess or Popess sold to males is transformed from the guardian of the divine into the
divinity herself when Crowley placed her on the other side of the veil. It is the path of The Priestess that
leads us directly from Tiphareth to Keter, from individuality to the divine essence. It is the attitude of The
Priestess that leads to inner Divinity. A book brings knowledge and is the ambit of the Magician, the
masculine. Wisdom is not a sum of knowledge. Wisdom is knowing how to live. The attitude of The
Priestess is not mental but experiential; it has nothing to do with books. We can read hundreds of books
about love and not love. Instead of a book, we see Artemis’ bow and arrows which are simultaneously a
weapon and a musical instrument to enchant her prey, because Artemis is a hunter and also a sorceress.
The Priestess represents all the goddesses, potentially goddesses of fecundity and fertility. At the
base of the card, along with the camel, Guimel, there are seeds, fruits, flowers and crystals that symbolize
the beginning of life and its development. Crystal, used by sorcerers from cultures as different as Borneo,
Melanesia and Australia, the Mayas, Navajos and Hopis, is considered a medium between spirit and
matter, between the visible and the invisible. Crystal is used for healing and fortunetelling. It is a symbol
of wisdom and magical powers.
General meanings. The Priestess embodies the Universal Feminine Principal: Receptiveness. The
feminine, receptive and conservative in the universe, Yin. She is the opposite and the complement to the
Magician. On the human plane, she shows this receptive attitude, of mental and verbal silence, of
contemplation and meditation, of serenity and inner observation. She is receptive to the inner world,
connected to intimacy; her knowledge is not rational, deductive or analytical, but intuitive and instinctive.
She does not pretend to know herself. Like the Hermit, she seeks nothing. As such, she is not divided
between the subject and the object of the quest. There is no future, there is no action. She is complete in
not doing. Sitting with her eyes closed, letting everything happen on its own, in touch with her inner self,
in deep meditation, mindless, without projections of the future or anchors in the past, without objectives, in
an eternal present, she takes delight in her own being. To Jung, the Priestess is related to the psychic
function of intuition.
The position of her arms suggests that she is also receptive to the external world. She knows that
what comes to her is not the product of luck, of the will of others, whether gods, spiritual entities or the
conspiring Universe. She knows that what comes is what she herself attracts in order to grow, so she is
very attentive to recognize the message that situations bring and put it to use.
 The feminine archetype lies in The Priestess and in The Empress. In the first, in a more abstract,
spiritual and autonomous way. In the second, condensed in matter, in the body, maternally. She is no longer
so autonomous, because union with the masculine is necessary. The Priestess symbolizes a great womb
before the encounter, The Empress is that great fertilized womb in the gestation process.
The Magician is extroverted, the Priestess, introverted. The Priestess is intimacy, internalization.
She seeks nothing but this receptive attitude toward the internal and external world, accepting, welcoming
and understanding what wants to manifest itself from within, and what comes from without to grow,
facilitating the fullest encounter with her own being.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is in touch with the inner urge to stop, to stop running, to stop
talking, to stop doing things all the time. This is likely due to having exaggerated in action recently. This
impulse asks her to sit down, pay attention to her breath to remain in the present, quiet the mind, meditate
and remain receptive to what comes from within and to what comes from the outside, no longer
prioritizing the achievement of objectives out there in order to be in touch with herself.
Anchor. A good indicator to decide whether to read for excess or for lack is the predominance of
hemispheres in the natal chart. For a right-handed person, a predominance of the eastern hemisphere,
corresponding to the left side of the brain, the masculine hemisphere of action as of 60/36, favors the
Anchor for lack. If the predominance is in the western hemisphere, corresponding to the right side of the
brain, the receptive or feminine hemisphere based on the same values, we will read the Anchor for excess.
In the case of a left-handed person, we invert the correspondences. See The Royal Figures and the Witness
Card in Chapter 9 for how the percentages of each element are calculated. The 14 left to make 100 are
from the ascendant, which is always in the eastern hemisphere, so we are not going to consider it for this
calculation.
In excess, it shows the querent crystallized in an extremely introspective, mistrusting and shy
stance. She is unable to share her emotions, her body and even her money with others. She is afraid to act,
to take initiative, to show her emotions. Like the turtle, she always lives inside her shell. She may wear a
mask of spirituality and mysticism so as not to reveal her fear of surrendering to life. Her passivity,
resignation, disinterest in life and apathy can be addressed with the floral essence of Wild Rose. Her
tendency to daydream and her lack of connection to the present can be relieved with essence of Clematis.
If accompanied by the Eight of Cups - Indolence, this indicates a state of permanent depression, though
without apparent cause. In this case, we will suggest the use of Mustard.
In lack, it indicates a person with chronic difficulty connecting to herself, feeling what comes from
within, stopping running, talking, thinking and doing things. She also finds it hard to be receptive to the
situations that appear, and which actually attract her.
Since The Magician and The Priestess are complementary opposites, there is a certain parallelism
between The Magician in the Anchor for excess and The Priestess in the same position for lack, and
between The Priestess for excess and The Magician for lack.
Relationships a) The current relationship or previous relationships help the person go inward and
connect to the inner self on a deeper level. This can happen through “contagion” by a partner more attuned
to him/herself, who developed a more contemplative and receptive attitude to life, or perhaps through
experience in meditation. However, the person’s expectations and fantasies regarding the relationship
might not have been fulfilled. That might have brought suffering, and the need to stop suffering requires a
return to the core. b) Remember the anchor for excess: the person places a veil between herself and the
world, hiding and becoming impenetrable to relationships. She may fear proximity and portray an air of
superiority, of false spirituality, or puritanism. We will recommend using Fawn Lily** flower to help her
accept and engage with the world, and essence of Sticky Monkeyflower* to overcome the fear of intimacy
and physical contact, especially in relation to sexual intercourse.
Childhood. The child was prevented from taking initiative. She suffered a lot when she heard her
parents say things like “be quiet”, “you don’t do anything right”, “you look prettier when you are quiet”,
“don't be a bother, go to your room”. She may have thus ended up feeling incapable, with a strong “I can’t”
deeply engraved in her subconscious. Her expressive and extroverted attitudes were forbidden. The child
became a stifled, rejected, shy and lonely being who began to create an inner world of fantasies, full of
fairies and princes who would one day alleviate her pain. When she grows up, she will probably prefer not
to do anything entailing a risk of taking initiative.
Inner Voice and Method. The person needs to integrate the archetype of The Priestess. We will
suggest that she stop moving compulsively, that she feel, breathe, let her internal dialog settle down, turn
inward, understanding that she exists from the skin inward and not from the skin outward, become and
remain receptive to what comes from within: desires, instinctive urges, emotions, reaching their sources
and motivations, also receiving what comes from the outside to help her grow. Meditation will be very
useful, especially Osho’s active meditations. This need may indicate a deep and chronic internal
disconnection. This is very dangerous, because if she doesn’t want to see herself, she will project on others
all the internal issues that she doesn’t see, and her perception of external reality is going to be a
tremendous illusion. Essence of Star Tulip*, also known as Cat’s Ears, will help her develop her feminine
sensitivity and receptivity, opening her up to spirituality and facilitating meditation. If she is attracted to
the occult sciences, we will encourage such study, as well as meditation. We can suggest Vipassana
meditation, where the meditator, sitting in a very comfortable position, with the spine straight, places full
attention on the breath, making it pleasant and deep, letting thoughts flow without engaging with them.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person feels the
consequences of having prioritized the achievement of external results and enters a more receptive and
calm phase, seeking to become more aware of herself, especially the emotions and desires.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has been able to
identify, understand and disable the beliefs, fears and other internal difficulties she was carrying, to stop
running and become more receptive to what comes from within and what she attracts from the outside. She
rescues her feminine polarity and loses the anguish of feeling separated from herself in order to become
again a silent and meditative being, aware of her rich inner world and open to life. She will discover that
she is a complete being who does not need to run after anyone or anything.
External result. The person faces the world with the attitude we saw in the Internal Result.
Focused and connected to herself, she develops her intuition and sensitivity and may be interested in
activities related to meditation, subtle energies and esotericism. She will feel fuller and more complete and
will find motivations, qualities and pleasures within her own being that she had previously sought from the
outside.

THE EMPRESS
Titles. This card, which the Incas would call “Pachamama”, probably got its name from the
Emperor’s consort. It almost always appeared as “The Empress”, with the exception of the Carey Tarot
(1791). Immediately after the French Revolution, The Empress and The Emperor appear, without crowns
for obvious reasons, as “The Grandmother” and “The Grandfather”, respectively. In the Osho Zen Tarot, it
is called “Creativity”. Esoterically, it is known as “Daughter of the Mighty Ones”.
Number. The Empress is Arcana number Three. The Three is the fruit of joining the One and the
Two, sharing their qualities, complementing and balancing them. If the One is Yod, the Active or
Masculine Principle and the Two is He, the Receptive or Feminine Principle, the Three will be Vau, result
or synthesis of the action of the two previous principles. As the saying goes, “there is no two without
three”. Thus, the Three conveys the idea of fruiting and a complete and balanced synthesis of opposites.
 Fig.VI.16. The Three

When we place a third point in space, outside the line defined by the first two, we are creating a
plane that is also dimensionless and which splits the universe into two: what is above and what is below. In
China, Three is considered a perfect number, expression of totality, to which nothing can be added. It is the
conclusion of the manifestation, the number of the human being, son of Heaven (1) and Earth (2), with
which it completes the Great Trinity. To the Pythagoreans, Three, the sum of the first odd number, 1, and
the first pair, 2, is the number for marriage. Three is a return to Unity. The equation 1=3 is continuously
present because we distinguish triplicity in any act: a) The acting principle or subject, b) The action of this
subject or verb, c) The result of the action or object.
Time, which in reality is a continuous moment, an eternal instant, manifests itself in three ways:
past, present and future. This concept of triplicity is already found in the matriarchal traditions that express
the eternal cycle of beginning, plenitude and end, in the qualities of initiator, doer and destroyer - or virgin,
mother and elder - of the Great Goddess.
Thus, the lunar goddess presented herself as Artemis, the crescent moon, virgin, protector of
childbirth, nature and the feminine. She is Selene, the full moon, the lover, wife and mother, generative and
creative, and Hecate, the black moon, the old sage, goddess of magic and death. The Fates who held
absolute power over the destiny of humans were three: Clotho, who spun the thread of human fate,
Lachesis, who dispensed it, and Atropos, who cut the thread. For the Hindus, Divinity appears under three
aspects, forms or murtis: Brahma, the Creative Principle, Vishnu, the Conservative Principle and Shiva, the
Destroying, Transforming or Transcendent Principle. Each of the murtis has its masculine aspect and its
feminine aspect or shakti: Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati-Kali, respectively.
Catholic Divinity also manifests as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This dogma of faith was
instituted in the council where the Roman Apostolic Catholic Church was created in Nicaea (325 A.D.),
convened by Constantine (272-337). If two principles, masculine and feminine, are required to create
anything from a cell to a galaxy, what creative ability can a trinity formed only by masculine elements
have?
In Ancient Egypt, they were Isis, Osiris and Horus. For the Huicholes, an indigenous nation that
inhabits the Sierra Madre Occidental in the states of Jalisco, Nayarit and Zacatecas (Mexico), the Trinity is
formed by Tatotzi, Primal Fire, lightning; Tatéi Matiniéri, Primal Water and Tatewarí, Domesticated Fire,
sent by Tatotzi, the father, to help humans. They also consider the trinity of peyote, corn and deer to be a
unit. There are three fundamental alchemical elements: sulfur, mercury and salt, corresponding to the three
Hindu principles or gunas that we will see in Fortune, which move the universe.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ד‬. Daleth is the letter attributed to The Empress. It is feminine, blue, double and
translated as door, threshold or uterus. Its hard sound (‫ )דּ‬is d, and when soft, it is pronounced like ‘th’ in
the article the. Its numeric value is 4 and it symbolically represents the female breasts and all that is
nourishing and abundant.
Kabbalistic path. It is the fourteenth path, the first of the three horizontal paths of the Tree. It
unites and balances Binah (Understanding) with Chokhmah (Wisdom). Although it is a path that is not in
direct contact with Keter (the Crown), it pertains to the Archetypal World.
 Fig.VI.17. Path 14

Astrological attribution. Venus, the planet assigned to this letter, engenders the forces that drive
us to seek pleasure. It rules love, sensuality, voluptuousness, joy, beauty, sweetness and sentimental
relationships. It is the principle of attraction between beings. Venus emits waves of sympathy that make
people want to be together, be nice to others, and love each other. Aphrodite, the most seductive of the
goddesses, was originally worshipped in Asia, then in Greece, especially on the island of Cythera.

Fig.VI.18. Venus and the Tree

Aphrodite was born from the sea waters fertilized by the semen of Uranus, god of heaven, when his
son Cronos (Saturn) cut off his testicles. From the foam arose Aphrodite, who symbolizes the irrepressible
forces of fertility, not in its fruits, but in the passionate desire that ignites among the living. We can see in
Venus the antithesis of Mars. While Mars governs action, force, instinctive urges and aggressiveness,
Venus favors the pursuit of tranquility, peace and pleasure, love of easy living and idealistic spirit. Faced
with the severe, cold and rigid Saturn, Venus feeds tendencies toward a happy, frivolous and carefree life.
The symbol, which reminds us of the ankh, crux ansata or Egyptian cross of eternal life, perfectly matches
the ten sephiroth arranged on the Tree, indicating that through love it is possible to achieve the spiritual
experience of Keter: Fusion with Totality, something that was not possible through the mind. As Venus is
the planet of harmony, its effects sensitize us to all manifestations of beauty. Of course, they also increase
our desire to be beautiful, attractive and seductive.

SYMBOLS
The central figure on the card is an imperially crowned woman, indicating that she is the Emperor’s
female complement.
 Fig.06.19. The Empress

However, her attributions are far more universal. She combines spirituality with its material
functions, as seen in the symbol of Venus, where above the cross of matter is the circle of spirit. With her
arms and torso, says Crowley, she is forming the alchemical symbol of Salt. In her right hand, The
Empress holds the lotus flower of Isis, which represents feminine power, the archetypal vagina, assurance
of the perpetuation of births. This flower, born in the darkness of mud and ascending in water, striving for
the surface to open in full light, is a symbol of quest and spiritual growth. Its chalice shape reminds us of
the Grail.
The Empress is seated on a throne, symbol of the universal manifestation in full flower, support for
the glorious manifestation of Divinity. The Throne of Allah, also called “The Master of the Throne”, is on
Water. That of Buddha and Vishnu, in the form of a lotus flower, represent cosmic harmony. For the Sufi,
the mystical side of Islam, the throne is the heart. Several spiraling blue flames suggesting reeds emerge
from the throne, indicating that the Empress comes from the waters (Binah). Let us remember the myth
represented in “The Birth of Venus” by Renaissance painter Sandro Boticcelli (1445-1510), in which
Venus emerges, on an immense shell, from the foam created by the semen of Uranus fertilizing the sea.
Above her are the sparrow and the dove, birds attributed to Venus. The Empress wears a garment printed
with bees and spirals, symbols of labor, production and generation, respectively. On her belt, a symbol of
power, we have the twelve signs of the Zodiac, indicating that her authority encompasses the entire
Universe.
Two Moons, perfectly counterbalanced and spinning, show that everything is in balance on this
card, without any focal point of tension.
At her feet we find a pelican with her chicks, symbol of the most exacerbated maternity. According
to legend, when this bird has nothing to feed its chicks, it pricks its own breast and gives them its own
blood to drink. This legend, which no biologist has yet been able to confirm, was very much to the liking
of the Catholic Church, which compared the pelican with Our Lord Jesus Christ.
On the right side of the card, we see a shield with the two-headed white eagle whose peaks support
the moon, representing the White Tincture of the alchemists, which transforms metals into silver.
The ground is covered with lily flowers, a symbol of procreation and prosperity of the race. For this
reason, this flower was chosen by the kings of France for their flag. At the bottom of the card, we see a
threshold or door referring to Daleth, and on the other side is Mount Meru, which according to Hindu
tradition is the center of the universe, residence of Shiva and Parvati. The Empress shows the viewer the
right side of her face, the feminine. Her crown reminds us of the crown of Isis worn by the Priestess, three
moons, one full, one rising and one waning, but in this case, the full moon is topped by an equal-armed
cross, symbolizing what is material and concrete. The ball and cross not only look like the inverted symbol
of Venus, they also resemble the imperial orb that appears in the hand of the Emperor as well, indicating
authority. This indicates that the feminine energy of The Empress bore fruit and stabilized in the material
world.

GENERAL MEANINGS
She represents the materialized Feminine Principle, just as The Priestess embodies the Universal
Feminine Principle. In nature, she represents the Forces of Life that enliven, nourish and favor the growth
of all beings.

"To respect Divinity is to revere Life, for there is nothing more divine than life itself.” Osho

She symbolizes fertility at all levels and all the richness of the feminine, creativity and fruitfulness.
On the human plane, she represents the mother (Matter=Mater=Matrix=Maternal) and her functions. To
integrate this archetype means to stop projecting it. To stop looking for a mother or demanding that our
own mother take care of us, protect and nourish us, and to ourselves become the mother we would have
liked to have. Integrating this means taking root in the forces of life, connecting with Eros, allowing
oneself to enjoy and assume one’s own body as a source of pleasure.
She also represents matriarchal societies. To Jung, she illustrates the psychic function of feeling.
The Priestess, joining the Magician, became a mother, that is, Empress. If the first is considered an
illustration of the virginal feminine, the second is an illustration of the maternal feminine. The virginity of
the Priestess should not be understood in a strictly sexual sense, but a reference to the fact that she
remained intact and integral in her introspective attitude. The Priestess is herself; she does not define
herself in relation to anyone, she is not the wife of..., the mother of..., the daughter of... The Empress in
turn surrendered herself to the world. Her womb opened and the fruits of her love covered the earth.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. This person is coming into contact with the inner urge to rescue and integrate the
maternal archetype, and to stop projecting it. Instead of waiting to be loved, nurtured, cared for and
protected by someone, she is, in a first stage, starting to do that for herself. Then comes the possibility of
overflowing, and she wants to pour such care onto other beings: children, grandchildren, pets, plants or
beings in need of support. This overflowing is accompanied by pleasure. She may also be feeling the
desire to be a mother or questioning the extent to which she expresses her creativity and brings her talents
to fruition.
Anchor. The Feminine Maternal archetype is not integrated. If she is a woman, she probably had a
mother who, giving up a life of her own, wanted to live through her daughter, demanding that the daughter
be exactly what the mother had wanted her to be. “You must not make me suffer. I have given up
everything for you. I have sacrificed myself so much that I put up with that scoundrel who is your father
just for you.” This kind of vampirism can lead to two different attitudes in the querent:
In excess: Submission: The daughter repeats the maternal design, giving up her own life, letting her
mother live through her. She does not believe in herself or in her talents. She thinks she will be loved only
if she deprives herself to care for and be useful to others, denying any role or activity that is not maternal.
She becomes a “supermom” 24 hours a day. Unable to fight to develop as a person and overcome her
fears, she lives as a slave and passes that example on to her children, whom she manipulates with
emotional blackmail. This extreme constant personal devaluation can lead to very serious somatizations.
The Hanged Man, reinforcing the ideas of non-acceptance, can produce osteoporosis. The Eight of Cups -
Indolence - in the Anchor indicates a deep lack of motivation that can lead to depression. These ailments
are typical of housewives who end up incapacitated and finally get (at what a price!) others to work, worry
and take care of them.
This exaggerated concern for others can be transmuted by a greater respect for one’s own
individuality using the floral essence of Red Chestnut. The tendencies to turn this obsessive dedication into
manipulation with nuances of self-pity and martyrdom can be reversed with Chicory flower. The overly
servile attitude, which would lead to exhaustion with the Ten of Wands - Oppression - will take on tones of
submission with The Hanged Man, in which case we will recommend using Centaury. With The Emperor,
the Four or the Eight of Swords (Truce and Interference), we would have someone who is very strict on
herself, perhaps “the perfect mother” who tries to show herself as an example of work, dedication and
good habits. In this case, we suggest using Rock Water.
In lack: Rebellion: The querent doesn’t want to be like her mother, although she doesn’t know what
she herself is. She cultivates the masculine side while denying the feminine. She becomes an executive, a
competitive athlete, a businesswoman, and freezes her feelings. She will probably develop problems in
female physiological processes. We can suggest Star Tulip* and Rock Water.
If this is a man, it indicates that he keeps projecting the maternal archetype, perhaps with his own
mother who takes care of him, controls him and manipulates him. He probably lives in his mother’s house
and listens attentively to her opinions about his activities, hair, clothes and girlfriends or boyfriends. If he
manages to detach from his mother, he would be attracted to very maternal women.
Relationships. a) Relationships help the person, in a pleasant or unpleasant way, to stop projecting
the maternal archetype and to rescue and develop it. A relationship may encourage a woman to have
children, or, in a not necessarily pleasant way, to take care of herself, to love and nourish herself more and
to consequently take care of and nurture her environment or a specific group of beings. It can also help her
appreciate and express her creativity. b) If she is a married woman, she plays the role of “good mother” to
feel useful and needed, to make her husband and children dependent on her, and also to guarantee their
approval and affection. Who could reject or criticize someone so good and devoted? Deep down, she seeks
security. If she is single, instead of taking off her clothes when she arrives at her boyfriend’s apartment, she
puts on an apron. She will call every night to ask what he had for dinner and try to control him as much as
possible. c) If this is a man, he may be waiting for a woman/mother to take care of him. This would be
confirmed by The Fool in the Anchor.
Childhood. This child had an overprotective and controlling mother, who clipped his attempts at
self-affirmation, autonomy and resistance. She manipulated him, making her touch, attention and false
love contingent upon his abandoning many of his independent initiatives and attitudes. He thus adopted a
submissive and self-controlled behavior. His main difficulty will be in expressing his anger. How could he
show anger to such a good mother who does everything for him?
We might think that the querent has built a masochistic defense structure that develops when his
right to be independent, to be able to assert himself in opposition to his parents, was squelched. This right
is experienced starting at around 18 months, when the child learns to say “no”. If this is not allowed
because the mother is controlling, overprotective, manipulative and a martyr, the child loses the ability to
take independent initiative. When the child tries to assert himself, his mother makes him feel guilty or
humiliates him. The child registers “if I am free you will not love me” and develops a short, stocky and
muscular body, cold buttocks and pelvis tilted forward. He accumulates anger that he is unable to express
because his greatest fear is to explode. This child will be a whiner, who seems to yield but doesn’t do so
internally, thus remaining in conflict. He will tend to eat and work compulsively.
Inner Voice and Method. This person needs to integrate the archetype of The Empress, lavishing
him/herself with love and care, allowing him/herself to enjoy everything related to the senses. He may be
asking to revisit his story with his mother, because the ability to experience the body with all of its
potential for pleasure, grace and joy, is closely linked to the relationship with his mother.
We will suggest that she be her own mother, the mother she would have liked to have as a child, a
mother who loves unconditionally, who is attentive to the needs of the child, who nurtures, cares and
protects. She should also invest in activities that help express creativity. Then, when she feels her heart
satisfied, let love overflow. We will suggest that she use essence of Iris*, which stimulates inspiration and
artistic creativity and helps to perceive and cultivate inner beauty.
We may also suggest that the person accept her inner urge to be a mother if she feels it, by
becoming pregnant or taking on her children, taking care of them, identifying, understanding and disabling
possible obstacles, difficulties and resistances. Essence of Mariposa Lily* will develop more positive and
nurturing attitudes towards them.
 Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous cards, the person begins to take care
of herself and love herself. She remains attentive to her emotional needs and looks for ways to satisfy
them. She may come to feel the biological urge to be a mother or to express artistic qualities. In general,
this indicates entering into a more loving and pleasant phase.
Internal result. Fruit of the whole process, the person has rescued her ability to feel love for
herself and for others. Today she feels pretty and sensual, and she is able to express it. She has made peace
with the Maternal Principle, so that today she nurtures herself instead of waiting for others to do so and
getting angry if they do not. It would also indicate that she has discarded negative fears, attitudes or beliefs
about motherhood and her ability to bear fruit and manifest her creativity.
External result. With the attitude we just saw, the person is facing the world. She enlivens her
environment with an energy of love, care and protection. She may be interested in activities where she
plays this role, including motherhood.

THE EMPEROR
Titles. It appears with the title “The Emperor”. Its appearance and the symbols it bears, especially
in the oldest decks, make us think of the leaders of the Holy Roman Empire, whose forerunner was
Charlemagne. The images we have preserved of such emperors, as well as of the Byzantines, are very
reminiscent of the versions of this card. Crowley maintained the tradition, while in the Osho Zen Tarot it is
called “The Rebel”. Its esoteric title is “Chief among the Mighty”.
Number. The Four. Its symbolic meaning is closely related to the cross and the square. When we
place a 4th point in the space outside the plane defined by the three previous ones, we are creating the
tetrahedron that has dimensions, limits and volume. That is why the four represents the solid, the tangible
and the manifest. It refers to the formal, to structure, to that which is determined. It also symbolizes law,
order, stability, organization and government.

Fig.VI.20. The Four

Showing the entirety of what is manifested, it also shows the entirety of the perishable, for that
which has form is deformed, transformed and destroyed. Thus, in Japanese, the word Shi means four and
death. When the being incarnates, the mother who is giving life is at the same time signing the death
sentence. To the Pythagoreans, the Four and the Nine are the numbers of justice.
The Quaternity appears constantly. There are four cardinal points, the four elements, the number of
letters that form the name of God in most languages, the seasons and phases of the Moon and human life:
childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age. According to the North American Indians, there are four
virtues of women: ability, hospitality, loyalty and fertility; and also those of men: courage, tolerance,
generosity and fidelity. There are four Kabbalistic worlds (Fig.V.06): Atziluth or archetypal world, Briah or
world of creation, Yetzirah or world of formation and Assiah or material world. To Jung, there are four
functions of the psyche: Intuition, Feeling, Sensation and Thought. Consider the human being integrated
by four aspects: Being spiritual and energetic, intellectual, emotional and physical allows us to use the four
series of Lesser Arcana in a deeper, more therapeutic and scientific way.
 CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. Tzaddi, ‫ צ‬or ‫ ץ‬if it’s at the end of the word. The Golden Dawn, according to its
originating manuscripts, attributed the letter He to the Emperor. However, in 1904, with the dictated Book
of the Law, a magical manifesto for the New Age consisting of three messages that Crowley received from
Nuit, Hadit and Horus, which we will see in arcana XX, where Nuit, the goddess of heaven, the mother
goddess of Pharaonic Egypt, explains: "All those old letters in my book are correct, but Tzaddi is not the
Star,” Crowley was forced to look for another card for Tzaddi. Its root TZ means head in Sanskrit and we
find it in words such as tsar, Caesar, sir, senate, etc. Based on this, Crowley assigned Tzaddi to the
Emperor and He to the Star. Tzaddi means hook, and its sound is tz. It is a feminine letter, single, violet.
Its numerical value is 90 and at the end of the word, 900.
Kabbalistic path. This change of letters makes the paths switch. The Emperor goes down to the
28th path that joins Yesod with Netzach, while The Star goes up to the 5th path.

Fig.VI.21. Path 28

Astrological attribution. As Tzaddi is the first single letter assigned to an Arcana, it will be Aries,
the first sign of the zodiac, the astrological element that corresponds to The Emperor. It is a Fire sign; in
the body it governs the head and it is represented by an anvil, symbol of tenacity, will and progress.
Aries develops his individuality by initiating, which makes him enthusiastic, impulsive, with a
lively mind, dynamic, ambitious and enterprising, direct, proud, selfish, a conqueror, of violent and
primitive passions, impatient and often lacking the perseverance to finish what he started. He loves to
command and it bothers him to obey. He is loyal but changeable and has a very hard time fitting into a
standard or norm. He is optimistic and has a lot of self-confidence. He feels more attracted to revolutionary
ideas than conservative ones and he gets excited about everything new. He is strongly prone to accidents,
injuries and burns, especially on the head and face, and to suffering inflammations. Governed by Mars, the
Aries verb is “I am” and the sentence that complements his potentials and difficulties is “I am enthusiastic
at the beginning, middle and end of my projects and I achieve them smoothly and with energy”.
 Fig.VI.22. Aries. Johfra

SYMBOLS
In all the tarot decks, we see a mature man, showing the left side of his face on most cards,
representing the rational, logical and masculine. The lines of his body form sharp angles indicating tension,
rigidity and an aggressive attitude.

Fig.VI.23. The Grandfather. Carey

Louis Carey’s Besançon Tarot brings us a more delicate emperor: “The Grandfather” who, wearing
a Phrygian cap, holds a flower in his hand. In Crowley’s Tarot, his arms form a triangle and his legs a
cross: the alchemical symbol of Sulphur, the igneous principle, the fast and creative energy or Masculine
Principle of nature.

Fig.VI.24. The Emperor

He is the Rajas of Hindu tradition. Above his throne are two large Himalayan goats, independent,
brave and solitary animals, the central figure of the Devil. At his feet is the lamb which, when
domesticated, became cowardly, obedient, servile and dependent on the flock and the shepherd. It gives its
master wool, when it doesn’t end up as a succulent roast. It has always been the auspicious victim par
excellence. Hence the representation of Jesus Christ as a lamb. These images show the role of the
government that tries to transform free, brave, instinctive and independent beings into cowards, lacking
their own identity or will, identified with the flock, following any flag. On the other side we have a shield
with an igneous double-headed eagle, representing the Red Tincture of the alchemists, which transforms
metals into gold. The eagle is the imperial emblem par excellence, used by Julius Caesar and Napoleon,
among others. The arms of his throne show the Rose of the Winds, indicating that his authority is directed
in all directions. In his right hand he holds a scepter with a ram’s head, indicating that his government is
fundamentally mental. In his left hand, on the feminine side, he holds a sphere crowned by the Maltese
Cross, to indicate that his authority was established on a solid basis. If it were not for the sphere, round and
feminine, The Emperor would be so masculine that he would end up being totally sterile. The orb or ball
with the cross reminds us of the symbol of Venus, showing that the Emperor’s energy bore fruit. The color
of his clothes is different tones of red, and bees are depicted, as on The Empress card. On the ground lie
some lily flowers.
Red is universally considered the fundamental symbol of the Principle of Life. The color of fire and
blood, it is interpreted according to its shade. Bright red is shiny, diurnal, masculine, centrifugal,
invigorating and exciting; it is the image of ardor, passion and war, flags, and packaging for best-selling
brands. Dark red is nocturnal, feminine, uterine, secret, centripetal, guardian of the mystery of life. It
represents the fire in the Earth’s core, it is the color of the libido and the heart, of traffic lights and esoteric
knowledge, of the tunic of Roman and Byzantine emperors and the cardinals of the Catholic Church, a
symbol of supreme power.

GENERAL MEANINGS
The Emperor is the Masculine Principle manifested in matter. It represents the concrete, material
and solid universe. As Eskenazi says, the Empress is virginal nature, the law of the jungle where the big
fish eats the little fish. The Emperor is the human being who plants. Without nature he could not plant, but
he goes beyond nature. The Emperor brings civilization, progress, work, culture, perfection. The Empress,
perfect in herself, is related to the subconscious and in her sphere the human being is a creature of nature, a
member of a certain species, not an individual. Human beings not only depend on and form part of nature,
but throughout history we have created laws that are not natural, that regulate coexistence in society and
theoretically protect the little fish. With The Empress, we are equal to other animals, responding to our
urges according to the principles of pleasure and survival. With The Emperor, we set ourselves apart from
other animals through our ability to reason, and we do not need to impose ourselves by force. The psychic
function, says Jung, is thought.
The problem arises when The Emperor divorces The Empress, when his ambition for more power
leads him to destroy nature. In this case, he represents the system, the power of money, of multinational
corporations, the IMF, etc. This divorced Emperor aims fixedly at external objectives and, cold and
calculating, although at times impulsive when expressing anger, he blocks his feelings and spirituality to
“Think about working to produce”, generating tension and wear.
He represents the father; his authority is a generalization of paternal power. He is the authority and,
like the father in a traditional family, he is the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, the police,
armies and the whole repressive apparatus. The Magician and The Emperor have a fundamentally mental
focus. However, The Emperor comes to fruition on the physical plane and The Magician remains in the
mental sphere. The Emperor produces, The Magician sells (it is not in vain that Mercury is the patron saint
of merchants).

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is questioning the extent to which he or she is in control of his/her
own life and objectives and the extent to which they can be materially achieved. The querent may be
emerging from a position of servility and dependence on others. He or she may also feel an inner urge to
take on positions of greater responsibility, authority or leadership.
Anchor. In a man, this may manifest through excess or lack. In excess, he is controlling. He
imagines that if he doesn’t dominate the people closest to him with an iron fist, if he doesn’t impose
himself and tyrannize others, they will finish him off. So, he needs to be the top dog. He bases his security
on keeping everything under control. Deep down, the fear of being controlled is what moves him. He
develops a psychopathic defense structure. Bodily, this is characterized by a body like that of American
superheroes, where all the energy is concentrated in the chest in men and in the pelvis in women. He
doesn’t realize that true security lies not in controlling the world, but in the ability to surrender to whatever
comes. He does not accept his mistakes or possible changes to his ideas. His priority is to accumulate
power. He is usually a compulsive worker.
He complains that no one does things right, no one wants to work, so we will recommend essence
of Beech to help him be tolerant and understanding, and Impatiens to diminish his impatience and irritation
and make him more receptive to the natural pace of things and other people’s opinions. Intransigent (Four
of Swords - Truce) and ambitious (Four of Discs - Power) characteristics in the Anchor can be addressed
with essence of Vine. The presence of the Ten of Wands - Oppression in the Present Moment, indicating
that he has become aware of his exaggeration in work and that he is willing to accept that he can’t take it
anymore, would make use of Olive flower viable. Trillium* flower can help him emerge from his
materialistic blindness and reach a more global perception of reality. He usually doesn’t complain about
overwork, and when he does, it is to assert himself in front of others who don’t know how or are unable to
do something. He expects recognition for his work while quashing his emotions (except anger), because if
such “weakness” were allowed, he would end up exposing his sorrows, his emotional needs, his
frustrations and fears, which would thus make him vulnerable. It is very likely that he felt betrayed by his
parents during childhood.
There could be a second case of excess: The Rebel, identified by the Five of Swords - Defeat or
The Star in the Anchor. Also, many planets in Aquarius or in the 11th house and/or Uranus in aspect with
the Sun, Moon, Mars or Ascendant. In constant conflict with everything that authority represents, rejecting
money, property, family, work hierarchy, state, etc., we will suggest Saguaro*, which helps to clarify his
relationship with authority.
In lack, this shows a person who keeps projecting this archetype onto others and thus does anything
to gain recognition for authority and its representatives: he obeys, submits, plays ball, allows himself to be
exploited even with some pleasure... Essence of Centaury can help defuse this sick need to serve or to
please others.
In a woman, although sometimes we see the first case, this difficulty in integrating the paternal
archetype more often manifests as: A fixation with her father: “I have to show him that...” or waiting for a
man to resolve an issue and usually hooking up with authoritarian and aggressive men who debase her.
Relationships. a) Whether man or woman, relationships help people to assert themselves, to define
and materialize objectives and/or to take on more authority and responsibility in work. This process may
occur directly with the loving support of a partner or it may be a reaction to attempted control by the
partner. b) If the querent is a man, he looks for minions who inflate his desire for power, who work for him
and enrich him by fattening his ego and bank account. His paternalism may lead him to be protective and
even generous, but the slightest doubt about his absolute authority leads him to aggression, because
beneath his mask of authority he is terrified that they will discover his vulnerability and his feelings.
Poison Oak* flower will help him open up emotionally and erase the facade of hostility he wears to avoid
intimate contact. If the querent is a woman, she is looking for a man with a paternal and authoritarian
profile to resolve her economic life, although she may also be a woman who tries to impose herself in her
relationships.
Childhood. Here, the querent’s father is represented, an authoritarian figure who never showed his
son or daughter love. He laid down laws and rules of conduct to obey and punishments if they were
broken. The child was treated impersonally, like a soldier. The child became fearful, insecure, lacking
confidence in his/her feelings to the point of becoming rational and cold like the father. Later on, this child
may remain submissive and obedient, or become a rebel.
Inner Voice and Method. To integrate the archetype of the Emperor means to become autonomous
and independent in practical life, breaking the chains (as shown by The Rebel in Osho Zen) of social
conventions. The first step is to achieve economic independence, not for the sake of money itself, but for
the ability to make decisions that comes from being the master of one’s own resources, free from any kind
of blackmail or manipulation linked to economic dependence. We will therefore suggest that the querent
proclaim himself the sole competent authority to command his life, and in doing so, identify his internal
difficulties and examine their origins in order to disable them. He will thus be able to define and work on
projects more methodically and in a more organized fashion, valuing his talents more, assuming
responsibility, especially with himself, to achieve material results and take control of his life. We will
advise the use of Blackberry* floral essence to help bring ideas to fruition and reach objectives by
strengthening the will and organizational ability. We will suggest practicing Dimensionless meditation
http://www.osho.com/es/meditate/active-meditations/no-dimensions-meditation to strengthen the core.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person realizes that he
spent his life obeying and what the consequences were, so that he perceives the need to rule his own life
and be responsible for it. With his improving self-confidence, he thus begins taking command, throwing
away family and social conventions, defining material objectives really in tune with his inner self and
advancing toward achieving results.
Internal result. As a result of this whole process, the querent has been able to identify, understand
and disable beliefs, fears and other internal difficulties in order to be his own master, set his life in order
and establish his authority on solid and realistic bases. He knows what he wants and is deeply convinced
that he will achieve it.
External result. This person is facing the world with the attitude we just saw in the Internal Result.
Master of his own life, he takes responsibility and perhaps a leadership role in family, professional,
economic and/or political aspects. He must be careful not to obfuscate his feminine side, because if he
exaggerates in the effort and lets himself be carried away by ambition, this can generate anxiety and stress.
Essence of Larkspur* will not only facilitate the manifestation of inner joy and contagious enthusiasm, but
also help to align leadership work with ideals, keeping the ego from becoming inflated.

THE HIEROPHANT (THE POPE)

Titles. Traditionally, it bears the title of “The Pope”, alluding to the head of the Catholic Church. In
more recent decks, it is “The Hierophant” (the revealer of mysteries in Hebrew), while in the Egyptian it is
called “The Hierarch” and in the Osho Zen, “The Void”.
A. Crowley introduces us to the Master of the New Age, “whose work is and will be totally
different from he who two thousand years ago was tortured on the cross. Although we do not know
precisely what his work will be like..., we can glimpse from today... that it will be freeing humanity from the
notions of death and sin.” We are already witnessing the integration of Western knowledge with the
hitherto unknown Eastern wisdom in a new-old holistic current. The esoteric titles of this Arcana are
“Magus of the Eternal” and “The Triumphant Master”.
Number. If we place a new point outside the tetrahedron, the only thing we can do is to move the
point around the solid or the solid around the point. So, with the Five we introduce the idea of movement,
of speed. We leave the static world and enter the dynamic. As velocity is the ratio between space and time
(v = s / t), we can say that with the Five we are “inventing” time. Time is the main agent of change. From
the world of matter (horizontal) we create bridges toward transcendence (vertical).
The Five, as we see in Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing, represents the physical or microcosmic human
being, with five senses and five extremities, while the Six is related to the macrocosmic or universal
human being. It is also fundamental in Chinese tradition. There are five universal laws, tastes, musical
notes, internal organs, planets and directions. There are also five elements: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and
Wood, Metal corresponding to the element Air in the western system. Following clockwise around the
circumference where the pentagram of figure VI.25 is inscribed, we have the cycle of shen or creative
relationship: Wood creates Fire, burning. Fire creates Earth with its ashes. Earth creates Metal, which is
found inside it. Metal creates Water, melting. And Water creates Wood, feeding it. Following the lines of
the star, we find the cycle of k’o or destructive relationship: Fire dominates Metal, melting it. Metal
dominates Wood, cutting it. Wood dominates Earth, covering it with vegetation and holding it with its
roots. Earth dominates Water, damming it or forming channels through which it flows. And Water
dominates Fire, extinguishing it. In that country, the Five is a symbol of Union, resulting from the wedding
of Yin, 2, with Yang, 3.
 Fig.VI.25. The 5 Chinese Elements Fig.VI.26. The Five

In India it is considered the number of the Vital Principle, also fruit of the union of the feminine, 2,
and the masculine, 3. According to the Popol Vuh, Mayan mythological text, the twin gods of corn, after
being sacrificed in a bonfire and their ashes thrown into the river, were resurrected after five days in the
form of shoots of corn. Thus, for this culture, the Five is the number of perfection and Divinity. In Mexico,
for the Huicholes, the Five represents the totality that includes the four directions and the vertical axis.
According to the Aztecs, the Mayas and the Greeks, there were four humanities before the present one,
which would be the fifth.
If we place the four western elements on the pentagram, we will have different opinions about
which should be the fifth. For Crowley and the Golden Dawn, this element is the Spirit. Other authors,
finding many similarities between Fire and Spirit (the Hebrew letter Shin designates both), place Ether at
the top of the pentagram. I prefer to place consciousness projecting itself upon the quaternity, harmonizing
the four aspects and integrating them into the ascending pentagram, symbol of evolutionary movement and
the power of love, as seen in figure VI.23. When consciousness neither nourishes nor liberates the will, it
falls into conflict of the programmed quaternity and is lost in the self-destructive madness expressed in the
descending pentagram, symbol of the involutionary movement, love of power and black magic. To the
Pythagoreans, Five reveals the quintessence of all things.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. Vau or Waw, the letter corresponding to the Hierophant is single, masculine,
orange, and its numerical value is six. Vau means nail or hook, giving it a certainly phallic connotation,
and just as it secures a picture to the wall, Vau is a mediating agent that joins spirit with matter. Vau is the
third letter of the Tetragrammaton, synthesizing the characteristics of the first two: Yod, the masculine and
spiritual, and He, the feminine and material. It sound like the ‘V’.
Kabbalistic path. The 16th path joins Chesed, Mercy, with Chokhmah, Wisdom. Here,
individuality toward the Spirit receives its influences. Crowley says that “the spiritual meaning of this path
is given by the sign of Taurus, which is the symbol of the densest portrayal of the element Earth”.
 Fig.VI.27. Path 16

Astrological attribution. Taurus is an Earth sign, and as such, practical, utilitarian and realistic. If
Aries is action, Taurus is conservation and the struggle to hold onto what has been achieved.

Fig.VI.28. Taurus.Johfra

Its verb is I have and its growth phrase is “I rejoice in my accomplishments and am open to
surprises and life changes”. “The way of Taurus is to harmonize opposing factors and facilitate harmony,”
says Iglesias Janeiro in “The Kabbalah of Prediction”. This sign is ruled by Venus, so it is affectionate and
peaceful, but when it can’t take any more, it explodes with unsuspected fury. Taurus is sensual and
passionate, although sometimes shy. He doesn’t like mental speculation. His temperament is strong,
though a little slow. He is prudent and tenacious, patient and an accumulator of everything he grabs. He is
a perfectionist, but does not like to change habits, so he easily becomes a prisoner of his routines. He loves
good food and is attracted to everything beautiful. He is calm, does not like haste, is reflective and tends to
introversion. In the physical body, Taurus governs the neck and throat, where people born under this sign
usually suffer from abscesses and pains.

SYMBOLS
The central figure on the card in most decks is a mature man dressed in a tunic. Of all the clothing,
this has a more spiritual connotation because it does not cut off the circulation of energy. On Crowley’s
card, the tunic is orange, the color of Vau. With his left hand, the Hierophant blesses and with his right
hand, he holds a staff that looks like a key, ending in three rings that represent the three Eras or Eons: Isis,
Osiris and Horus. Esoterically, to possess the key means to be an initiate and also the capacity to initiate
others.
 Fig.VI.29. The Pope in the Tarot of Marseilles and The Hierophant in Waite and Crowley

On his chest he bears an ascending pentagram, inside which a child runs confidently and cheerfully,
symbolizing the spirit of the New Age, where the ideas of death and sin will no longer enslave the human
being. The Hierophant is inscribed in a hexagram, symbol of the Macrocosm, indicating equilibrium with
the Universe. The Pentagram, symbol of the microcosm within the Hexagram, forms the Pentaphic
Hexagram (Fig. VII, XIV) with which the Masons represent the number 11.
In front of the Hierophant, we see a woman with a sword in her right hand and the moon in her left.
Crowley says it represents the Venus of the New Age, referring to chapter 3 of the Book of the Law, where
Horus says: “I want the woman to draw a sword before me”. She is the woman who does not resign herself
to the role of double slave: to the male and to the system; armed and militant, she fights for liberation. She
is The Priestess indicating that enlightenment is only achieved through the path of the Priestess that leads
from individuality, Tiphareth, to fusion with the universe, enlightenment, in Keter. Without this receptive
attitude, wisdom is unattainable, and knowledge does not go beyond a list of information, data and beliefs.
As the sign of Taurus is ruled by Venus, the planet of love, the fact that the Hierophant is seated on
a bull indicates that love of the world leads The Priestess to become a Master.
In the back, we can see two elephants. The elephant is Ganesh, son of Shiva and Parvati, god of
science and letters, a symbol of knowledge. Like the bull, the tortoise and the crocodile, he carries the
universe on his back. This is a symbol of power and stability. The bull is Nandi, the vehicle of Shiva, a
sacred animal for Poseidon, Dionysus, Venus, Indra, etc. It is a symbol of strength and overwhelming
virility. It is also a feminine symbol associated with the lunar divinities. This animal of full forms and slow
and sensual movements, full of life and telluric emanations, is the best seat of Venus, as shown by the
Taurus of Johfra (Fig. VI, 28).
In the four corners of the card, we see the cherubim, who like the Chinese dragons are the
guardians of the sanctuaries. They also represent the four elements and the four fixed signs of the Zodiac.
The Hierophant, integrating the quaternity within, reaches the quintessence of things.

Crowley broke with traditional correspondences by stating that in the New Age the Eagle
corresponds to Aquarius and the Angel to Scorpio. These cherubim also appear in the last major Arcana,
The World, where they are pouring water, while here they look like masks, perhaps suggesting that
indoctrination leads to masking identity. His phallic hat is complemented by the five-petalled rose
blooming in a stained-glass window, through which the light of Chokhmah enters, supported by 9 letters of
Vau or nails. The nine is the number of the elevated, of the celestial and also of Yesod, the Sephirah
associated with the Moon, exalted in the sign of Taurus.
Encircling the window, a snake and a dove allude to the first chapter of the Book of the Law in
which the Feminine Principle, Nuit expresses itself thus: “Love is the Law, Love under Will. Let fools not
mistake Love, for there is Love and love. There is the dove and there is the serpent. Choose ye well! He, my
prophet, hath chosen, knowing the law of the Fortress and the great mystery of the House of God". The
House of God is another title for The Tower, Arcana XVI, where the dove and the serpent also appear. The
dove, a symbol of purity, peace and simplicity, represents love where instinct was subjugated, while the
serpent here represents love where instinct was integrated.
“These represent the two forms of desire; what Schopenhauer would have called the Will to Live
and the Will to Die. They represent the masculine and feminine impulses... These two tendencies are not
incompatible. This becomes clears as soon as life and death are understood as phases of a single
manifestation of energy" (The Book of Thoth, A. Crowley).

GENERAL MEANINGS
The Hierophant embodies the Principle of spiritual transcendence. The Hierophant is the spiritual
master who helps wanderers to rediscover their Inner Divinity, to undo the spells of programming,
transforming frogs into princes. He is the enlightened one who makes the divine spark resonate within
each of us. The word hierophant comes from the Hebrew hier-phaine, which means to reveal. It is the
revealer of our true nature and of the mysteries of life; it is the wise man or woman, the Shaman, the
sorcerer. He presides over and performs ceremonies and rituals. He creates bridges, he is the pontiff,
between matter and spirit, or, as Paul Case says, between “outer sensation and inner illumination”.
These concepts had to be hidden because patriarchal religions denied the divinity of our essence.
They ripped God from within us and placed him outside of us, far away in the sky or kept in some Sancta
Sanctorum, inaccessible to common mortals. The contact between this god and sinful humanity was
monopolized by certain intermediaries who designated themselves as “chosen” and believed they were in
possession of the absolute truth. This external god was invented through the subjugation of certain human
qualities and, of course, they also had to invent a devil, with exaggeration of the qualities they considered
to be human defects. God and devil then, in the image and likeness of the human being. Charging for their
services, these religious leaders accumulated enormous power and wealth. They established moral norms,
laws, doctrines, dogma and commandments which, in the absence of an organized state and timely
legislation, as was the case in the times of Moses and Mohammed, formed the legal basis in their societies.
Such doctrines and dogmas were often contrary to human nature and reason, relegating women to
the role of slaves, but promising paradise and happiness after death. The “righteous”, those who have
suffered, those who have yielded, those who have obeyed, and those who have died in the “holy war” will
be rewarded. This false spirituality is a compensation for deep emotional or economic deficiencies, if not
“the drunkenness of the ego” as Eskenazi says.
Thus, in the absence of the Inner Divinity, the Master lost his deepest meaning and became the
Pope. He who teaches doctrine, who gives orders and defines patterns of behavior, who publishes
encyclicals, who catechizes and imposes morals. Or as Waite says: “he is the force that governs external
religion”. Then we would have The Priestess, who represents the feminine, internal and intuitive way of
reaching knowledge, guardian of occult wisdom, of the esoteric, and this Pope whose role would be to
dictate the law and instruct on doctrine, the exoteric. In this sense, The Hierophant ends up being the
power of dominant ideology and morals. In the Middle Ages, he was totally linked to religions, and in the
West, to the Vatican. Religions today, in the first world, have lost part of their power and the new
doctrines, although they continue to use religions, are defined by production systems and the “American
way of life”, constituting the ideological support of the System. These doctrines are no longer transmitted
from the pulpits and altars of churches, but are continuously rebroadcast by radio, TV, newspapers and
magazines. The new Popes are the media, the Fourth Power.
 We are at a critical crossroads: humanity must either become more conscious, peaceful,
introspective, loving, ecological, supportive and cooperative (all female values), or we can bet that some
kind of planetary reformulation will occur as the product Gaia’s self-defense, our Great Mother, Planet
Earth.
What will the Hierophant’s role if we survive? A more evolved human race cannot allow history to
repeat itself. It may be the end of obedient and manipulated herds. The Hierophant will again become the
enlightened master, the internal master in each of us.
If we say that the Hierophant is the Revealer of the Sacred, we have to be very clear that the sacred
is within us, so as not to reduce it to a spokesman for an ideology. The Hierophant helps us learn to see and
know ourselves, to satisfy the need to find a transcendent meaning of life. We can look for this meaning in
religions, or some kind of political ideology, but we will only find it by going deep within ourselves. There
we can find the plenitude, the entirety of our being, the transcendent dimension. The Hierophant helps us
access the dimension of eternity when it places us in the present. He does not teach the truth. He teaches us
to question the beliefs on which we mount our patterns of behavior, leading us to independent discretion
and action, and encouraging the wanderer’s natural tendency to reach inner plenitude.

“The master/disciple relationship is the relationship between a caterpillar and a butterfly. The
butterfly cannot prove that the caterpillar can become a butterfly, but the butterfly can provoke a longing
in the caterpillar. That is possible.” Osho

One of the great teachers of this age is Osho. Enlightened from the age of 21, he updated and
integrated the spiritual traditions of East and West. He transformed “either this or that”, “do this and not
that” into “be yourself” and “let what is inside you come out and observe it”. His ideas were so subversive
that in 1985 he was kidnapped and poisoned by the FBI. He died under the effects of the poison in 1990, in
Poona (India). Although he never wrote anything down, his talks have been transcribed into hundreds of
books and his centers are still running.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The querent is coming into contact with an inner urge to go beyond the material
world. He is interested in peace of mind, quality of life, free time and other things that cannot be measured
or weighed. Beware, this does not mean that he denies or renounces the material world. He may be ready
to take advantage of what enlightened masters share, as the master appears when the disciple is ready, or to
open up to spiritual dimensions. He may also be interested in acquiring or transmitting knowledge. The
second card may show which specific area this search is directed toward: self-awareness with The Hermit
and The Priestess, or a more academic pursuit with the Six of Swords (Science).
Anchor. In excess, this shows a person whose words, gestures, actions and thoughts respond to a
particular doctrine, movement or ideology. Beyond this robotic behavior full of typical topics, nobody is
home. His mask may become so perfect that it doesn’t allow the slightest internal contact with his
emotions and physical body. He may even be a catechist, who mechanically repeats his doctrines, passing
on self-affirmation by taking us to his church, temple, party or corresponding fan club. Of course, these
kinds of people would not be inclined to seek a Therapeutic Tarot session, however they might pursue
lighter varieties, no longer fanatical but still anchored in a doctrine to a certain extent. They think that if
they are good, God will reward them, or punish them if they don’t say a prayer before going to sleep. Such
people could root their idealism and enthusiasm and connect to the body using the floral essence of
Vervain. The Sun in Childhood would lead us to think that the person’s identification with a certain
ideology is due to fragility of Self. With the Seven of Swords - Futility, it would be due to a permeability
toward other people’s opinions, and with the Princess of Cups, to the need to please. In these cases,
essence of Goldenrod* would help to strengthen the Self and to relate better socially.
In lack, this can show someone who does not see or does not want to see anything beyond matter.
Essence of Star Tulip* develops sensitivity and helps to connect with the subtlest worlds.
 Relationships. a) A relationship helps the person perceive that there is something beyond matter,
opening his/her eyes to spirituality. b) He/she sells an image of someone who always knows more than
others, trying to seduce by spewing knowledge and data and ending up getting involved with people who
accept him/her as a “teacher”. No one knows his feelings and instincts, perhaps he doesn’t even know
himself. He may also structure his love relationships according to doctrines, especially if the Four Swords
- Truce - appears.
Childhood. This child was very indoctrinated, and probably had a strict religious upbringing that
squelched spontaneity. Perhaps his parents were connected to some political, ideological, cultural or
religious movement whose principles were instilled in him, and he incorporated them in order to be
accepted, until he became small robot.
Inner Voice and Method. To integrate this archetype means to stop projecting it. To stop hooking
up with supposed masters waiting to receive the sign of happiness. The more rigid the beliefs, doctrines
and principles that were passed on to us and adopted, the more they restrict the expression of our divine
essence that strives to manifest itself from the subconscious, and our life loses its grace and meaning. To
connect with the inner master means to stop swallowing other people’s doctrines, finding our own source
of self-awareness within ourselves. The inner master will know how to recognize the true enlightened ones
who can facilitate this process, taking advantage of what they have said or written and distinguishing them
from charlatans, indoctrinators, manipulators or esoteric teachers. The path of the Hierophant suggests
reconnection with the essence by opening up to the teachings of an enlightened master, a master who
teaches you nothing, but helps you to be more yourself. To be more yourself in criteria and thoughts, in
actions and activities, in feelings and emotional reactions. As Hermann Hesse says in Siddhartha: I cannot
give you anything that doesn't already exist within you. I cannot open for you another world of images,
beyond the one that is already in your own soul. I will help you make your own world visible, and that is
all.” We will suggest the essence of Lotus*, the spiritual elixir that helps the person to open spiritually. We
may also suggest that the querent dare to pass on his or her knowledge or deepen it in his or her
professional field.
Path of growth. As a result of using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person
begins to open up to the spiritual world and to take advantage of what enlightened masters have said or
written.
Internal result. The querent, a product of the whole process that we have seen so far, has found
his/her own spiritual path and, thanks to practices and studies, is opening up to new levels of
consciousness. This may also indicate that he has overcome the obstacles that made it hard for him to open
up to spirituality and/or to transmit his knowledge to others.
External result. As a result of his experiences, of his contact with the internal, or of his
understanding and knowledge of the world or a particular matter, this person is passing on a message, a set
of knowledge or a specific theory in a certain area. His practical activities are impregnated with a more
transcendent meaning, especially if he appears with The Priestess. This can also show the querent engaged
in spiritual learning with an enlightened teacher.

THE LOVERS
Titles. In the Tarots of Marseille, this Arcana is called “The Lover”. It is also known as “Marriage”
in the Tarot of Etteilla, and “Vice and Virtue” in that of Éliphas Lévi. Later, it was called “The Lovers” in
the tarot decks of Waite, Crowley, Golden Dawn and Osho Zen.
In the Egyptian Tarot, it is titled “Indecision”, and in the Mythological, “The Lovers”. It has also
appeared as “The Two Paths”. Its esoteric titles are “Children of the Voice” and “Oracle of the Mighty
Gods”.
Number. Six is the number attributed to this Arcana. If we introduced the concept of Time with the
Five, giving it the option of having a past, present and future, or memory, the sixth point is placed on the
tip of the observer’s nose. The Six is capable of witnessing what happens around it, of placing itself in the
center of the universe, of being self-aware. The Six is the center of the system, just as Tiphareth, sephirah
number Six, is the center of the Tree of Life. Traditionally, Six is the number of perfection and balance.
In the hexagon, graphic symbol of the Six, we have six equilateral triangles inside a circle, where
the side of the former is equal to the radius of the latter. Six is almost exactly the ratio between the
perimeter of the circumference and its radius: P/r = 2 π = 6.2832. With the many parallels that we find
between both shapes, the hexagon will share with the circle its symbolism of spirituality and perfection.

Fig.VI.30. The Six

In olden days, the Six was consecrated to Venus-Aphrodite, goddess of physical love. If sex is the
carnal union between male and female, the six is the union between the universal masculine and feminine.
Although for some analysts the Six represents the physical human being without its transcendent element,
Western esoteric tradition holds that the hexagon represents the universal or macrocosmic human being. In
the East, the Hindu Tantric School seeks spiritual enlightenment through the development of conscious
sexuality. Thus, the hexagram represents the penetration of the yoni (vagina) by the lingam (penis),
symbolizing the balance between the feminine and masculine principles.
Thus, the opposite and complementary tendencies are completed in the hexagram: the ascending
triangle (Fire – Male) with the descending triangle (Water – Female). The intrinsic polarity of all
manifested things is integrated again, giving rise to something new. We will say that the Six represents the
Creating Union, product of the balance and complementation of the opposites.
The hexagram in the West, prior to the star of David or seal of Solomon, emblem of Israel, is the
totalizing symbol of hermetic thought. First, it contains the symbols of the four elements:

By assigning the essential properties of matter (dry, wet, hot and cold) to the four lateral points of
the hexagram, we deduce the properties of each of the elements as used by the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus
(1493-1541) and which we see in figure VI.31.

Fig.VI.31. The hexagram and the properties of matter

 Fire is hot and dry. Water is wet and cold. Air is wet and hot. Earth is dry and cold. The hexagram
encompasses the seven primary metals, with gold in the center and the seven corresponding planets around
the Sun. For the Mayans, the sixth day was that of the gods of rain and storms, and also the day of death.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ז‬. Zayn or Zayin is the letter assigned to The Lovers. It is single, masculine,
orange, and its numerical value is seven. It sounds like is our Z. It means sword or weapon, which, when
forged in fire and tempered in water, is a symbol of polarity and integrated polarity. With one edge it
destroys, with the other it builds, and with both, it consecrates. Placed vertically, as in the Ace of Spades, it
unites Earth with Heaven. Zayin suggests sharp insight and discernment. It represents the mind that is also
dual; it can affirm or deny, and when it quiets down, to the point where it becomes a non-mind, it becomes
a channel that connects us to the essence and takes us to transcendence.
Kabbalistic path. The path of Zayn is the seventeenth. It unites Binah (Understanding) with
Tiphareth (Beauty). On this path, the individuality that was balanced in Tiphareth is directed toward the
restrictive column of form, going in the direction of the deep understanding of Binah. It moves away from
the illusion of isolation and comes “to the perception that the appearance of isolated individuality is but the
effect produced by the power of the Self to concentrate its energy limits at any particular point in time and
space.”

Fig.VI.32. Path 33

Astrological attribution. Gemini is the zodiac sign attributed to this Arcana. It is an Air sign,
mutable, and ruled by Mercury. In the human body, it rules the lungs, arms and shoulders. It is the general
symbol of duality, the expression of all oppositions that get resolved in creative tension.

Fig.VI.33. Gemini. Johfra

 Geminis develop their individuality by having ideas and intellectually stimulating others. They do
this with a sharp and lively intelligence, great ease and speed of understanding, and enormous curiosity.
They like to talk and gesticulate to clarify their ideas. Their eyes are alive, penetrating and very expressive.
They have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, but their intellectual approach limits the depth. They are very
sociable and communicative, considered the most extroverted sign of the Zodiac. They are very skillful
and always want to do several things at the same time. Their emotional potential is not well-developed.
Geminis don’t really trust their feelings or instinctive sensations and urges. Nor do they have a significant
mystical side, but they have a great ability to understand, assimilate and renew the creations and
discoveries of others. They love change so much that they end up being fickle. Responsibilities are not
their strength. Their verb is “I doubt”, not as an expression of distrust, which is more a characteristic of
Capricorns, but as a necessity and an inherent result of their intellectual approach to things and life. Their
integrating phrase is: “I give my knowledge depth through the wisdom of concretization”. The those born
under this sign have a tendency to suffer from nervous conditions, lung disease, mental disorders and
travel accidents.

SYMBOLS
On the Crowley/Harris card, we see that almost all the symbols are doubles, forming two sets of
opposites with the card suggestion complementation, but final integration will only happen in Arcana XIV
- Art - which we can consider as the culmination of the Royal Wedding that begins in The Lovers. These
two cards or paths form the alchemical maxim: Solve et Coagula, Dissolve and Coagulate, Separate and
Join, Gemini and Sagittarius, analysis and synthesis. The bottom of the card is full of swords (Zayn),
reaffirming its analytical character.

Fig.VI.34. The Lover in the Marseilles deck and The Lovers in Waite and Crowley

It shows the wedding of the Moorish or black king, crowned as emperor, with the blonde or white
queen wearing the crown of empress. The two figures are showing the fundamental polarity of male and
female on a human level. This polarized symbolism is amplified by the presentation of imperial attributes.
She holds the Grail, symbol of Water and he holds a lance, symbol of Fire, both aided by a pair of children.
In front of the queen, the black child holds the king’s lance and in front of the king, the white child helps
the queen to hold the cup. In the right hand, the former holds a bouquet of white roses, symbol of pure
love, and the latter holds a club, symbol of aggression, thus giving continuity to the two sets of opposites.
The bride and groom wear an ermine pelt mantle, symbol of purity and authority. On the groom’s
cape we see snakes, and on hers, bees. Below are seated a red lion and a white eagle, symbols of polarity,
of the masculine and feminine principles in nature, of the Sun and the Moon, of Fire and Water, acid and
alkali, of the red and white tinctures, of alchemical Sulphur and Salt as the third element, with Mercury
represented by the Hermit who consecrates the real union. In the upper corners, we find two female figures
referencing the Tarots of Marseilles in which a young man is seen between two women, a crowned blonde
and a plebeian brunette. It seems that he had to choose between the two, which would represent, according
to the dissociative and moralistic thinking of the time, vice and virtue, purity and sin, good and evil. The
bodily stance of the man between the two women reflects an inner split: the head (reason) looks to one
side, but the body (the subconscious) looks the other way. Some authors see the moment when a young
man has to decide between the security provided by his mother and the adventure and pleasure that can
come with the bride. The passion aroused by Cupid’s arrow leads the adolescent to break with paternal
expectations by making independent decisions. Without this rupture, the human being does not become
individualized. In Crowley’s Tarot, they are Lilith and Eve. The first, on the left, represents the instinctive
woman, in the fullness of her sexuality, relating with whomever she wants, when she wants and how she
wants, free of any moralism or taboo. According to grossly sexist Jewish tradition, Lilith is the first
woman formed by Jehovah from the same clay as Adam. Lilith did not want to submit to Adam’s whims
and fled from paradise, thus beginning her “demonic” path.
In the middle of the two sets of polar symbols, we have three individual figures: Cupid, a hooded
figure, and the Orphic Egg. Above Cupid, Eros in Greece, the god of Love and son of Venus, shooting his
arrows, with golden wings and a blindfold over his eyes. Remember the myth: Cupid shoots arrows of gold
and silver. A person hit by a golden arrow will fall madly in love with the first person or animal that passes
by. If the arrow is made of silver, the person will despise that person or animal. Those arrows are our
projections. We systematically project the aspects or talents that we were forced to hide in our childhood
because their expression brought about response from the family that made us suffer, and decades later we
continue to hide from the world and from ourselves. The projections may be gold or silver depending on
whether the person hid only those aspects or talents or if he hid them and condemned them, which can be
seen in the 3rd key to well-being at http://www.tarotterapeutico.info/esp_videos.htm .
When we experience major emotional or instinctive voltage swings with certain people, this is
more related to our hidden aspects and talents than to those people. However, if we have a minimal
perception of the projection, when those swings happen, we have the opportunity to redeem the hidden
aspect or talent.
The hooded figure celebrates hermetic marriage. His tunic is violet, in increasingly lighter shades
as it rises and approaches the light of Keter. Violet is the color of secrets: bathed in its light are the
mysterious steps transforming life into death.
“This character is the Hermit, one of the forms of Mercury, who, with outstretched hands (the
magical gesture or incoming signal that also represents blessing and consecration) is projecting onto the
royal couple the mysterious forces of creation.” - The Book of Thoth - Crowley
Around his arms we see the ring or ribbon of Moebius (1790-1863), the Prussian mathematician
and astronomer, disciple of K. F. Gauus, director of the Leipzig astronomical observatory. His works in
pure mathematics, especially “Barycentric calculus” (1827) were of great importance for application of the
geometric principle of duality, which he invented. Working with this principle, in 1861 Moebius came to
define the surface of a single plane, so that it can be traversed completely and continuously by passing
from one side to the other.

Fig.VI.35. The Möbius strip

This strip, obtained by joining the ends of a very elongated rectangle after giving it a twist,
according to Pauwels and Bergier in “The Morning of the Magicians”, facilitates travelers’ access to other
dimensions. It represents the word, the verb, the action of creating, which bears fruit in the Orphic Egg that
symbolizes the essence of life, fruit of the union of the masculine and the feminine. We have already seen
it in the Magician, and it will appear again in The Hermit. The snake symbolizes the primordial vital
principle that encourages the transformations necessary to perpetuate life and the wisdom inherent to this
whole process.
In Waite’s Tarot, we see a couple and an angel. The man (reason, consciousness) looks at the
woman (desire, the subconscious), who looks at the angel, uniting the two principles and taking them to
transcendence. This indicates that reason alone does not ascend to spirituality. Reason breaks its own limits
through passion, and passion needs conscious attention in order to transcend.

GENERAL MEANINGS
This card illustrates the Principle of Polarity creating the Universe. It is the process of Creating the
Universe through the loving interaction of feminine and masculine principles. To make this statement in
the Middle Ages or in the Renaissance era was very dangerous, because it did not match the official
version of a male god creating the world from nothing. Because of this, Crowley conjectures, this
representation was replaced by another in which a man is seen between two women, symbol of the choice
between two alternatives. Today we can say without fear that, before any concrete manifestation,
primordial energy has to polarize, giving place to opposites from whose interaction the universe arises. A
male or female creator God is not possible. To affirm that there is an all-powerful God and father, creator
of heaven and earth, is as great a mistake as to say that only the father intervenes in human gestation, and
the role of women, like that of the earth, is to welcome the seed into her bosom and nourish it. As above,
so below. If both components of the polarity are needed to generate any creature here below, the same is
true for emergence of a galaxy, of the universe or of a cell.
This Arcana also gives us the idea of Union. Here. the polarities begin to complement each other,
to unite. The force that leads to union comes from separation and vice-versa. It represents analysis, a
Gemini quality. The separate, what is cut by the sword of Zayin, Solve giving way to Coagula, to the
synthesis (to the united in Samek, the ouroboros that embraces the cosmos, keeping it united - Fig. VI.07.),
a quality of Sagittarius, to Art, Arcana XIV.
In human terms, we know several degrees of union: The “internal androgyny” or merging of
internal polarities, “external androgyny”, in which complete and integrated beings form the Cosmic
Couple and merger with Totality or enlightenment.
We also see many kinds of love. Eros, erotic and unconscious love, romantic and with a strong
projective and possessive charge, represented by Cupid. Whoever experiences this level of love falls in
love with the internal area that was not developed in life, blindly wanting to experience it through the other
person. We fall in love with who we need in order to perceive ourselves as we truly are. ‘I want you for
me’ would be an expression of this kind of love, meaning ‘I only love you to the extent that you adjust to
what I want’, if we can actually call this kind of passion love. In reality, such people are unable to see
themselves, seeing only their own projections. The most conscious erotic love occurs between a couple,
two mature, complete and autonomous individuals who, because of this, can have a relationship of true
growth, where each one sees and respects the other. There is polarization and sexual attraction, which
dynamizes the relationship without projections. The third is Philia, represented by the children, without
possession, projections, sexual attraction or desire to fill gaps. It is closer to friendship, brotherhood and
disinterested complicity. “It makes me happy to see you happy” would be a philial statement. The fourth is
Agape, universal communion, love flowing in all directions, Buddhist compassion, represented here by
The Hermit.
Perceiving that the man and woman of our life are inside and not outside, are our internal polarities,
changes the way we relate. We leave relationships of dependence, of ‘give me this and I’ll give you that’,
of bargaining, wanting the other to adjust to what we expect, power games, and from our center, we begin
relating to people by sharing that which is in tune with us. From there, we can clearly see which is the path
of life on which we are really true to ourselves. It isn’t about a choice between external elements. It’s about
choosing oneself, about living union with oneself. That is the real choice, the one that leads to integration
of the conscious and the subconscious. As Castañeda’s teacher Don Juan would say: Both paths lead
nowhere, but one has a heart, the other does not.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person realizes that waiting for his/her better half only brings frustration and
suffering and that he/she is already a whole. This perception not only changes the way of relating, but also
makes it easier to discover the path on which one is really true to oneself.
Anchor. In this position, the Lovers illustrate a pattern of behavior that results from projecting one
of their polarities. A woman may have spent her whole life looking outside for what she thinks is missing
inside, leaving her hanging onto dependent relationships and meaningless activities.
If she is in a relationship, she orbits around her partner, becoming his supposed complement and
thus farther away from herself, ceasing to make follow her own path. With the Four of Cups - Luxury - she
identifies herself so much with her relationship that she feels lost outside of it. She is so-and-so’s wife...
This exaggerated attachment can be addressed with Bleeding Heart*, so that loving someone does not
mean loss of individuality. She wonders: What do I have to do for this person to make me happy? Thus,
she loses herself in the world of doubts between countless external possibilities, so her inability to make
decisions can become chronic. Her decision-making ability, determination and self-confidence can be
strengthened by using Scleranthus. If the person is a teenager who imitates or seeks a way out by asking
others what to do, we will recommend Cerato.
If not in a relationship, this projection can be experienced in two ways. As a frantic search, or as
expectation that his/her better half will arrive. In both cases, she sees Lancelot in Frankenstein.
Childhood. The relationship between her parents marked her negatively. She may have witnessed
scenes of jealousy, fighting and power games where she was placed in the middle, especially if this
appears with a Five of Cups - Frustration, or Swords - Defeat. A Three of Swords - Pain may show that her
parents’ relationship left her with a heavy feeling of invalidation, abandonment, guilt or inferiority.
Perhaps the relationship of one or both parents with third parties deprived her of attention and contact, thus
accentuating her feeling of rejection. These negative experiences may have generated an intense
rebelliousness or an insistent fear of everything that smells of family or a lasting bond, and in the worst
case, they may have left her incapable of surrendering to love.
Relationships. a) Relationships, in pleasant or unpleasant ways, push people to identify and
develop their internal polarities, thus favoring the flow of their relationships, eliminating dependence,
attachments, demands and self-demands, and realizing which life really makes sense, making the
corresponding choices. b) Here there may be an excess of fantasies. She dreams of a wedding, meets
someone and thinks about her honeymoon, and while she waits for Prince Charming, life slips through her
fingers.
Inner Voice and Method. The person needs to stop projecting the archetype of Polarity and
develop it internally. This means understanding that she is a complete being and stopping looking or
waiting for her soul mate out there, doing away with the tendency to nullify herself by becoming another
person’s complement. Plato’s myth was misinterpreted. We are not condemned to unhappiness until we
find our better half out there. In truth, we will be unhappy until we find it in here. She will be thus able to
escape her chronic indecision and make a real life choice. To do so, it is important for us to stop
obsessively forcing things to be the way we want them to be, because if we force action, receptivity
disappears and we don’t listen to the inner voice. We can suggest that this person make a list of everything
they want their partner to provide and then see what they can give themselves, freeing them from that
responsibility and demand. We will recommend using Wild Oat flower, which will help to recognize the
activities that really make sense for the inner Being.
Path of growth. The person realizes that she has spent her life placing priority on finding someone
who would give her what she thought she couldn’t give herself, making her life choices based on that
person(s). Now, using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, she begins developing her
polarities, she escapes dependence, attachment, demands and self-demands, she changes her way of
relating, taking responsibility for her own life and learning to make decisions by seeing which life options
really suit her.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process that we have seen so far, has managed
to identify, understand and disable existing internal difficulties, fears, beliefs, etc. in order to develop
polarities, feel and express herself as a complete being, able to glimpse and travel her true path of life and
flow in her relationships.
External result. The person is facing the world with the inner attitude that we just saw in the
previous position, so that she is making a number of decisions in the external world that lead her to pave
the path of life where she really feels true unto herself.

THE CHARIOT
Titles. Although in the Egyptian Tarot this card is titled “Triumph” and in Osho Zen “Awareness”,
in most of the decks it is known by the name in the tarot of Marseille: “The Chariot”. Its esoteric titles are
“Child of the Powers of the Waters” and “Lord of the Triumph of Light”.
Number. Seven is the number of the Chariot. A symbol of eternal life for the Egyptians, it is not
only a prime number, but also the only one among the first ten without multiples and divisors (except the
One, of course), symbolizing purity, subtlety and essence.

Fig.VI.36. The Seven Fig.VI.37. The 2nd polarization of the Unit

With seven colors of the rainbow and seven notes of the diatonic musical scale, we can consider it a
vibration regulator. It culminates a cycle and opens a creative renewal. It is also the number of days in a
week, the number of individual planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are generational) and of the main
metals. The four periods of the lunar cycle and the female reproductive cycle also amount to seven days:
Ovulation occurs on the 14th day (2 x 7). The egg is implanted on the 21st day (3 x 7), the menstrual cycle
is 28 days (4 x 7) and pregnancy lasts 280 days (40 x 7).
If the first polarization of the Unit gives Three, the second gives Seven, as we see in figure VI.37.
The Seven is considered the number of magic because it is an aggregate of Three, symbol of the abstract
(the mental and the spiritual) with Four, symbol of the concrete (material reality), allowing for
materializing ideas. Consider that Spirit in French (Esprit) also means mind, and that the great esotericists
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were mostly French. Also encompassing both worlds, it is
considered a symbol of the entire universe in transformation.
The white ray (One) is broken down through the prism (Three) into seven colors. This phenomenon
can be esoterically stated as follows: The Seven is the manifestation of the Unit through the Trinity.
Mathematically, it would be: 7 = 3 = 1. We can also obtain the seven colors of the spectrum from the three
primary ones. There are 49 (7 x 7) sticks used in the I Ching, and 7 days in the intermediate state between
life and death according to Japanese tradition. To Hippocrates, the Seven gives life and movement. There
are many traditions that consider seven subtle centers or chakras. The Koran speaks of seven esoteric
senses.

CORRESPONDENCE
 Hebrew letter. ‫ח‬. Jet is the letter of the Chariot. Single, feminine, amber and with numeric value 8,
it means field, enclosure or fence and involves the various means of structuring global conscious
perception into components that we manage to perceive and understand. Hieroglyphically, it symbolizes
elemental existence, the principle of vital aspiration. It sounds like J in Spanish (this sound does not exist
in English) and the element Water is attributed to it.
Kabbalistic path. The path of Jet joins Gueburah (Severity) with Binah (Understanding). This is
one of the five paths that cross the Abyss, so it is very difficult to travel because it is also on the pillar of
rigor. The strength, power and courage of Gueburah lead the adept to cross the Abyss and reach the
supreme understanding and comprehension of the sense of pain in Binah. It connects the Severity of the
Law with the unlimited Understanding of the Spirit, so loss of the notion of possession is fundamental to
be able to walk path 18.

“The single most important message of this path is that Spirit must be recognized behind form, and
that as a vehicle for Spirit’s intention, form must be directed towards the ultimate reunion with its Source,”
from Madonna Compton’s “Archetypes of the Tree of Life”.

Fig.VI.38. Path 18

Astrological attribution. Cancer, attributed to the Chariot, is a cardinal Water sign, regarded as the
most sensitive of the Zodiac. The those born under this sign, like the crab, wear a protective shell to hide
their vulnerability. They are imaginative and temperamental and notably lose their self-confidence in
hostile environments, even imagining non-existent criticism and attacks.

Fig.VI.39. Cancer.Johfra

Naturally shy, they don’t like solitude either, which is perhaps why they have a strong tendency to
live through others. They are ruled by the Moon, hence their sensitivity, their intense emotions and their
attachment to their origins, their maternal home, their mother and the past. They are fascinated by the sea.
Cancer governs the human body, the chest and the stomach. Cancers tend to suffer from digestive
disorders, anemia, hydrops, gastric dilation and glandular imbalances, all of psychosomatic origin. Their
verb is “I feel” and their mission is to contribute to the well-being of the community and to progress of the
human being. Their integrating phrase is “I nurture others and myself through my positive visualizations”.

SYMBOLS
The card shows a cart, apparently pulled by four mysterious animals, whose charioteer holds a
rotating disc. On principle, the chariot is a vehicle with which we can move and communicate
independently; it puts us in touch with external reality.
The awning of the chariot, says Eskenazi, “protects the charioteer from what may come from on
high and from what he does not control”. It is navy blue, color of Binah, and on its border is written
abrahadabra, Crowley’s version of the well-known abracadabra word, which comes from the Hebrew
abreg ad habra, translated as “strike dead with thy lightning”.

Fig. VI.40. Abracadabra

The layout of this word (Fig. VI.40) works as a capturer of spiritual energy, directing the energies
from above to the lower vertex and at the same time sending any negative vibration to the telluric abysses.
Physicians (or physicists) of the Middle Ages used it, especially to fight fever.

Fig.VI.41. The Chariot

The awning is supported by four posts, alluding to the amber-colored Tetragrammaton of the letter
Jet, and the red wheels represent the dynamic energy of Gueburah which originates movement. The
Chariot corresponds precisely to the Kabbalistic path that unites and balances Gueburah with Binah.
Compared to the tarot decks of Marseilles and the Golden Dawn, which place horses drawing the
chariot, Crowley, probably inspired by the Levi’s sphinxes, placed four animals. Each is a particular
combination of the four cherubim that make up the sphinx. This reminds us of Ezekiel’s vision of the
chariot of fire. There is a Jewish mystical line called Merkabah (chariot in Hebrew), related to this vision.
We can also see here a reference to the myth of Arjuna and Krishna in Bhagavad Gita whose message is
that of detachment and non-identification.
These four sphinxes also represent the aspects of human quaternity mixed up and looking in
different directions, while none of them are looking backward, that is, to the past. All possibilities are
open, except return. This emphasizes the ideas of rupture, beginning of the path and dissociation from the
past.
The charioteer seated in the middle of the lotus is entirely hidden within his armor, also amber,
with the visor of his lowered helmet portraying a martial image that corresponds to Gueburah, the sphere
of Mars. Ten emeralds are embedded in his golden armor. They are the ten stars of Assiah or the Material
World of the Kabbalists. The armor and helmet, on which we have a crab, symbol of Cancer, represent the
ego, defenses and masks, the crystallized traumas and muscular tensions with which the charioteer still
identifies and with which he tries to protect himself from the dangers of the journey of life.
He does not seem to be very interested in the landscape; his attention is directed to the rotating disc
whose fluids are red (Yang, male) in the middle and blue (Yin, female) on the edge, firm on the inside and
soft and flexible on the outside, as suggested by martial arts masters. This disc is a form of the Grail.
symbol of plenitude; the objective of the charioteer seated on the Moon which, in its most receptive or
feminine form, indicates that the basis of this whole journey, of this quest for plenitude, lies in the
subconscious, as expressed in the Tree of Life and in the most ancient legends of Greek mythology. The
path of the Chariot is paved with golden stones; it is the Royal Road or path of self-awareness.
While the Mythological Tarot and the Cosmic Tarot show chariots in motion, those of Marseilles,
Waite and Crowley are still. In the case of the Tarot of Marseilles, it will remain so because, as you can
see, the wheels are perpendicular to the traction of the horses.

GENERAL MEANINGS
The Chariot is the first initiation of the Fool. It represents the Principle of Detachment that leads
him to close a cycle (7) and open a new one. The perception he reach in The Lovers of the life he really
wants to live leads him to detach himself and get rid of everything that no longer nourishes him, no longer
stimulates or excite him, everything that has become dead weight. It may be that he still doesn’t really
know how this new path of life will take shape, but he definitely knows what he no longer wants. At this
moment, he feels subconsciously impelled to seek plenitude through something new, leaving him ready to
abandon structures, conditioning, routines, bonds and old habits, embarking on the adventure of the
unknown. Driven by the need to find himself, he detaches himself from what hinders the expression of his
essence. Here we have a personal affirmation - the individual manages to function adequately in the
external world, with a certain degree of autonomy. He exercises his willpower to be autonomous, to get rid
of what he no longer wants. This movement comes from the subconscious in its quest for plenitude. It is
not just something from the conscious mind, as in The Emperor. This being wants to be the master of his
own destiny. He begins to realize that his life is not the product of circumstances but the result of his
answers to those circumstances. He knows that these answers come from the subconscious and that he
does not control them. He must therefore remain receptive to his subconscious because only in this way
will he find the plenitude he seeks, symbolized by the attention paid to the spinning disk. This card is the
representation of the spiritual path.
The Chariot represents a creative renewal; it closes a cycle of quantitative changes that lead to a
qualitative transformation. Authors linked to the Jungian line see here the establishment of a “persona”, a
mask, the character covering up the real me, the actor embodied to play the part and function in the theater
of life.
To others, this card means victory, as in the Egyptian Tarot, where it is called “Triumph”. There is
no doubt that The Chariot represents a great liberation. However, it is a partial liberation, as the charioteer
remains encased in his armor. It is a card of beginnings and not of outcomes. An important victory is given
in Arcana XIV, Art, the second initiation of the Fool, who already knows what he wants here and works on
it in a conscious way.
 IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. This person is feeling the internal urge to close one cycle of his life and open
another, letting go of what no longer fills, stimulates or encourages him, of what has become dead weight:
Objects, activities and/or relationships that no longer satisfy him. He desires something different; he is
looking for something new related to an intimate feeling that has not yet manifested itself on the concrete
plane, but which is pulsating with greater force every day. The search for plenitude manifests today in the
achievement of independence and autonomy, which means eliminating whatever does not nourish or
stimulate you.
Anchor. We can find two cases:
In lack, it indicates that this person has a very hard time detaching, considers security and stability
as priorities in life and from them justifies actions and imprisonment, especially when appearing along
with the Four of Discs or Cups (Power and Luxury). He identifies with his social role, with his function,
and becomes disconnected from his essence. The difficulty in accepting the challenge to change and a lack
of participation with people can be addressed with essence of Honeysuckle.
In excess, the querent is compulsively self-sufficient, detached and independent. He says, “I don't
need anything or anyone.” He hides his feelings, his instinctive urges and his material and emotional
needs. He feels that any commitment or bond is a brake on his path toward “lofty goals”, important
accomplishments or exotic and pseudo-spiritualistic projects with which he tries to attract attention and
fatten his ego. He has a hard time playing a social role. Underneath his shining armor we find a very
needy, jealous and possessive person. If he wanders into your house, he will absorb your attention by
telling you about his adventures, he will empty your fridge, and if you aren’t careful, he will get you into
bed. You will feel that your energy has been drained, and when he leaves without showing you what he
feels, you will see a sad and proud to walk shadow walking away.
He has built an oral defense structure, especially if the Childhood cards (Three of Swords -
Affliction, or Five of Cups - Frustration) show us that he experienced strong rejection. This mixture of
egocentrism and need for affection that could be underscored by the Two of Cups - Love - in the Anchor,
is asking for Heather.
Childhood. Childhood is the least propitious time for detachment. The child needs to be certain
that his parents are his parents, that his house is his house and his toys are his own, so he will feel safe and
will later be able to detach himself slowly. With The Chariot in this position, the child felt abandoned and
did not receive the necessary protection, love and support he needed to assert himself. The message he
received was clear: “Do your best”, “We won’t always be resolving your life”, “You have to be strong and
independent”. Lacking the security and care that the family should provide, the child developed a mask of
invulnerability. To keep from suffering rejection, he decided, like street kids, not to show his need for love
and support and to show himself as exaggeratedly independent and self-sufficient.
Relationships. a) His relationship makes it clear that he needs to get rid of everything that has lost
grace and thus close one life cycle and open another. In some cases, the relationship itself may be included
in the package to be discarded, especially if it appears with a Five of Cups - Frustration. b) He sells an
image of being free and detached when in reality he is very afraid to create bonds. He is always passing
through, projecting into the future or ruminating on the past, pursuing some goal that is often distant and
seemingly lofty, which does not allow him to get involved or surrender himself. Sweet Pea* will help him
form bonds and develop his notion of home.
Inner Voice and Method. The time has come to conclude on chapter of life and open a new one. In
order to do this, we will suggest working on detachment, letting go of everything that does not nourish,
encourage and stimulate him, getting rid of the dead weight, from material objects such as unused clothing,
books that he will never reread, work ties, financial demands, family commitments, romantic relationships
that are no longer loving, and so on. It would be convenient to make a list of everything that just takes up
space and time and identify and work on the fears and other possible blockages that make this purging
difficult. It is impossible to pour wine into a full glass. Creating empty space makes room for the new to
arrive. We will recommend using Sagebrush* which will connect him to his essence, helping him to free
himself from whatever no longer aids his evolution.
 Path of Growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person has realized
that he cannot continue carrying so many things, activities, relationships, etc., which are void of meaning.
He starts eliminating them, thus enabling the possibility of closing one cycle of his life and opening
another.
This person has finally listened to his inner feelings, believed in himself and in his right to lead his
life as he pleases, so that he stops sticking to his routines, obligations and habits.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has been able to
identify, understand and disable existing internal difficulties in order to listen to his inner voice and gather
the necessary courage to discard what no longer nourishes him. He has broken unsatisfactory bonds, gotten
rid of dead weight, and is feeling what really touches his sensitive fibers, nourishes him and encourages
him to open a new cycle.
External result. The person is facing the world with the attitude we just saw in the Internal Result.
He may be leaving his job, transforming his family relations, abandoning activities that no longer mean
anything to him, ceasing to live for others, for his checking account or the pursuit of security. He is ready
to embark on a new stage of life in which his activities and bonds are deeply meaningful to him.
 CHAPTER VII

THE SECOND SEPTENARY

ADJUSTMENT (JUSTICE)
Titles. “Justice” in most decks, it was renamed “Adjustment” by Crowley, considering that justice
is a strictly human concept that cannot be regarded as a characteristic of nature: "Despite being exact,
nature is not just from any point of view." It is “Value” in the Osho Zen Tarot and its esoteric titles are
“Daughter of the Lords of Truth” and “Ruler of the Balance”.
Number. Eight represents Cosmic Balance. Two times four, it shows full embodiment of Spirit in
matter becoming creative and autonomous, originating its own laws in harmony with cosmic laws: “As
above, so below; as below, so above”. Kybalion

Fig. VII.01. Eight

The four cardinal directions and the four intermediate ones form the eight of the Wind Rose,
transmitting the idea of totality. The graphic representation of Eight, the octagon, is an intermediary
between the circle and the square, between Spirit and Matter, between the unmanifest and the manifest.
In Chinese cosmogony, the world is ruled by eight trigrams. In Japan, it’s a totalizing number. That
country is called “Land of Eight Great Islands”, meaning that the archipelago is made up of numerous
islands. This tradition is in tune with the fact that the horizontal Eight is the mathematical symbol of
infinity. Waite assigned the number Eleven to this card, considering that the woman who holds the scale
should be in the middle of the sequence like the needle of the scale, leaving the Eight for the card to which
the number Eleven was traditionally attributed: Strength.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ל‬. Lamed is the letter attributed to this Arcana. It is a single, female letter, emerald
green in color with the numeric value of thirty. It sounds like our L. It means “the yoke of the ox”, thus
opening an interesting relationship with The Fool, whose letter, as we have already seen, means ox.
Without the yoke, the force of the ox cannot be taken advantage of, just as without the necessary
adjustment, the potential of the Fool is not operative. Hieroglyphically, Lamed represents a snake
uncoiling or the wing of a bird stretching out to take flight.
Kabbalistic path. The path of Lamed (22) unites and balances Tiphareth (Beauty) with Gevurah
(Severity). It is like an internal guide, always ready to transmit to us the lessons we need to evolve,
demanding continuous reassessment of our way of life. In it we confront our childhood programming
(karma) that weighs and determines like a yoke, demanding the best qualities of Gevurah in order to
consciously maintain balance.
 Fig. VII.02. Path 22

Astrological association. All tarot decks attribute Libra to this Arcana. Libra is a cardinal Air sign,
ruled by Venus. Its Venusian search for love, pleasure and beauty is filtered through the intellect. It rules
the kidneys, which are organs that eliminate toxins and purify the blood. Libra is the first social sign, for
whom relating is as important as breathing. Libras grow by harmonizing, embellishing and balancing their
environment.
People born under this sign are horrified by rudeness, heated discussions and fights. In order to
avoid them, they sometimes let themselves be dominated by those with a stronger temperament. They hide
their natural aggressiveness behind ideals of peace, harmony and beauty, always trying to resolve conflicts
amicably. Libras belong to the group. They don’t feel comfortable alone. They need others to dialogue and
argue. They seek social success and can be great flatterers because of their enormous need to be
appreciated by all, but they cannot stand crowds. Libras prefer tranquility, easy, joyful and comfortable
life, like any good Venusian. They are fickle and indecisive, tending to run away from problems. However,
their ability to walk in another’s shoes makes them develop a deep sense of fairness, justice and balance,
although this tendency can lead them to forget their emotions. The libra verb is “I balance”, with the
integrating phrase “I create harmony with beauty and authenticity”. Libras usually have a weaker physical
constitution than people of other signs. They love a sedentary lifestyle, and of course they pay for it. They
tend to suffer ailments in the kidneys and the urinary tract in general.

Fig. VII.03. Libra. Johfra

SYMBOLS
The central figure on this card is a slender young woman balancing on the tip a sword she holds
with both hands. She is disguised as Harlequin, the irreverent character from Commedia dell’Arte, an
Italian XVI-century farce, a living image of what is irresolute, incoherent and unprincipled. This character,
a female complement to the Fool, is crowned with the feathers of Ma’at, the Egyptian goddess of truth,
justice and law. Daughter of Ra, god of the sun.

Fig. VII.04. Ma’at

“From these ostrich feathers of the Twofold Truth, so delicate that the most faintest breath of
thought must stir it, depend, by chains of Cause, the Scales wherein Alpha, the first, is poised in perfect
equilibrium with Omega, the last. It is impossible to drop a pin without exciting a corresponding reaction
in every Star.” The Book of Thoth. A. Crowley

Fig. VII.05. Justice in the Tarots of Marseilles and Waite the Ajustement in Crowley

The woman adjusts and balances the Universe; her expression reveals the intimate satisfaction she
feels when counterbalancing any element of imbalance. The woman is in front of a sort of throne formed
by spheres and pyramids, four above and four below, which transmit the idea of law, order and limit, and
which graphically show the same serenity and balance as the woman, on a more impersonal plane. In the
four corners of the card, we have green and blue spheres, perfectly balanced, from which arise lines of
force that form a curtain and blend into the diamond or Vesica Piscis (literally, the swimming bladder of
the fish that provides balance) from which the woman performs her work. This figure, the product of two
joined circles, reminds us of a vagina and was widely used in the arches of Gothic cathedrals. It also
frames many representations of Jesus Christ and the saints.
 Fig. VII.06. The Vesica Piscis

The sword that will appear on the Ace of Spades is the Sword of the Magicians, with three suns and
two moons on the handle. It can be swift and devastating, eliminating the superfluous. It can make war and
it can also force peace. Like the mind that affirms and denies, the sword is a symbol of polarity.

GENERAL MEANINGS
This Arcana illustrates the Universal Principle that adjusts and balances the universe, from the
Cosmos as a Whole to each of our cells and subatomic particles. To maintain this balance, such forces go
about building here, destroying there, adjusting the particular phenomena. This continuous adjustment and
reorganization of Existence can be understood in terms of the Law of Cause and Effect, just as Madame
Blavatsky disseminated the concept of karma (which literally means action), stripping it of ideas of reward
and punishment, of paying for our sins and mistakes.
Karma is the action that puts us in the position corresponding to us on our path of individuation,
according to what we have already travelled and what we have yet to travel until we fully become what we
are. All babies are born equally divine and perfect, except in cases of intrauterine problems, whether they
were a Hitler or a Gandhi in their last incarnation. Their parents, through childhood programming during
the first 7 years of life, will “karmatize” them, placing them at the same point of evolution as in the
previous life, giving them the opportunity to overcome challenges and conflicts they didn’t resolve in
previous lives. Afterward, teenagers will attract the situations that give them a chance to resolve these
issues and grow.
It is about adjusting and finding a balance between internal urges and the external world where we
experience such urges. It is not a matter of repressing them for fear of a negative response from the
external world, because they would then accumulate and possibly reach a critical mass that could one day
exceed our ability to control and explode outward, causing barbarity in the external world, or inward,
destroying the physical body. It’s about respecting oneself and expressing all urges, but trying to find the
most appropriate way to do so. It’s always much easier when such impulses haven’t built up. If a person’s
attitude bothers me once, I can show it in a nice way, but if I don’t express it and I build up anger, it will be
hard to tell them in a gentle and appropriate way. On the other hand, if we are respectful of our urges, we
will be more respectful and tolerant of the world. Although certain beliefs or habits of specific people,
groups or ethnicities may seem troglodytic, reactionary or sexist to us, we won’t fight with these people if
they don’t attack us. We will wear a bikini in Acapulco, but not in Kabul.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
 Present moment. The querent is feeling the need for readjustment. She perceives that there are too
many internal and/or external frictions in her life and that forcing things only leaves her off-balance. Such
demands to be “what she should be”, “what she believes herself to be”, “what she imagines she can
become” or “what others want her to be”, only create internal tensions, because this forces her to repress
many of her internal urges, which can accumulate and one day explode, creating conflicts with the external
world.
Anchor. In excess, we will say that this person hides behind an image of model conduct. She feels
the compulsive need to please and be accepted by society. In order to do so, she ceases to be what she is in
order to try to be what she imagines others expect of her, thus conforming to current etiquette and morals.
She hasn’t yet realized that being better or worse doesn’t make sense. What parameters do we use to define
what is better or worse? It’s about being fully what she is. She brazenly pretends and makes any
concession to be accepted, to avoid facing what she probably fears most: being abandoned, as she is
terrified of loneliness.

"Loneliness is not what happens when you’re alone, but what you feel when you can’t connect to
yourself." Osho

This self-denial and so much opportunistic and hypocritical juggling leave her very anxious and
vulnerable, with great difficulty making decisions. The emotions pay the price for this, ending up buried in
memories.
An interesting aspect of this case is the rigid ego, which insists on showing itself as fair, apparently
balanced, rational and disciplined without conceding to the subjective, embodying the judge of itself and
of others, which, like the law, must be universal and impersonal at all times. Proud of its immaculate
behavior, it proclaims to the four winds that it owes nothing to anyone, ruthlessly criticizing sinners and
granting itself the right to throw the first stone, the second and the third if allowed. The general case would
be accentuated with the Two or Seven of Swords – Peace and Futility – suggesting the use of Agrimony,
which helps her retrieve her true feelings, lose the fear of loneliness and value herself. Her behavior, tied to
social norms in order to be accepted, can be reversed by using floral essence of Goldenrod*, which
strengthens inner conviction. The Emperor, the Hierophant or the Four of Swords – Truce – would
reinforce the self-repression and fanaticism of the second case, indicating the need to use Rock Water
flower, which encourages tolerance, understanding and flexibility. It can be used along with essence of
Beech if the Five or the Queen of Swords indicate the presence of excessively critical traits.
In lack, it shows a person unable to minimally adapt to her environment. She lives in permanent
conflict with herself and with the world. She probably carries a history of severe repression of her urges,
which build up until they explode inappropriately or even in a criminal manner, thus creating serious
problems with society. Not being respectful and tolerant of her inner urges also disrespects the beliefs,
habits and customs of others, and she ends up putting on the bikini in Kabul.
Essence of Saguaro* can help resolve conflicts with power figures, accept the law and harmonize
relationships with authority.

Childhood. One parent (perhaps both) wanted the son/daughter to be a role model. The parent
criticized, judged and devalued everything the child did and said, with a cold and rational attitude.
Approval was contingent upon the child adopting behavior patterns that were equally cold, calculating,
rational and seemingly fair. This child felt constantly watched, inhibiting his or her spontaneity and
notoriously blocking the expression of feelings. She obviously hates being criticized and, as a defense
mechanism, she may have developed a lawyer’s way with words for self preservation and to keep from
taking responsibility.

Relationships. a) The relationship helps the person to find appropriate ways to express her urges
without coming into conflict with the world or creating internal tensions due to repressing them. b) The
querent acts and lives her emotional-sexual relationships “as God commands”, is terrified of taking any
initiative that rips off her mask of just and righteous person, a role model within the relationship, “the
perfect husband or wife” who adapts perfectly to the desires or expectations of her partner.

Inner Voice and Method. Integrating this archetype requires adjustments. In the first place, we
will suggest that the person clearly identify the frictions faced in life, carefully examine the circumstances
that generate these tensions, understanding them as conflicts resulting from curbing urges or the result of
inadequate expression of such generally accumulated urges. She will then try to identify and disable the
internal difficulties she has to stop doing this, and will finally look for the most appropriate way to express
her urges in the external world.
The Childhood and Anchor cards will give us more elements. The Seven of Cups - Corruption - in
the Anchor or in the Present Moment, indicating attachment to vicious and self-destructive patterns of
conduct, will lead us to suggest essence of Morning Glory*, which will help to adjust life rhythm to the
cycles of the Nature, thereby rescuing much of her vital force. This transformation cannot take place
without honest acceptance of the dark side, for which we recommend using essence of Scarlet
Monkeyflower*.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person perceives that
trying to adjust to what she imagines others expect of her only increases her tensions and brings suffering
and frustration. She thus starts making adjustments, looking for the most appropriate ways of expressing
herself by remaining honest and authentic to herself, and as a consequence, friction is lessened.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has been able to
identify, understand and disable internal difficulties, beliefs, fears and other blockages that kept her from
fluidly and appropriately expressing her inner urges in the external world. Free from friction, she feels
internally balanced. She has developed her ability to adapt to the environment and external circumstances
while remaining authentic.
External result. We see the querent facing life and practical duties with the attitude we saw in the
Internal Result. Without internal tensions, she can use common sense, finding the most efficient ways to
put her urges and initiatives into practice. Without extremism or radicalism, she can adjust to the external
world without prostituting herself.

THE HERMIT
Titles. In most Tarot decks, it is called “The Hermit”. In the Besançon deck, this card is titled “The
Hooded Man”, and in Osho Zen Tarot, “Aloneness”. Its esoteric titles are “Prophet of the Eternal” and also
“Magus of the Voice of Power”.
Number. The Nine, manifestation of the Three – number of Spirit – on the three Kabbalistic planes
of existence: Neshama or spiritual, Ruach or mental and Nefesh or biological, is the number assigned to
The Hermit.

Fig. VII.07. Nine

In many traditions – Aztec, Mayan, Taoist and Buddhist – there are nine heavens, giving this
number a lofty character. Parmenides (515-414 B.C.) states that the Nine concerns absolute things. To the
Taoists, it is the number of abundance. The Tao Te Ching contains 81 (9 x 9) chapters. We can also
consider the Nine as the Five, number of the human being, overlaid on the Four, the number of matter, thus
representing the most spiritual and elevated aspect of the human being. Our decimal numbering is based on
nine, which is zero in a superior numbering cycle, just as ten (10 = 1 + 0 = 1) is the one of a new cycle.
The root of nine means “new”. The graphic form of this number reminds us of an open spiral, while zero
can be considered a closed spiral. Mathematically, there is a strong relationship between these two
numbers: a) any number added to nine or to zero and then reduced, ends up at the same number:
5+9=14=1+4=5; 5+0=5; b) Any number multiplied by nine and then broken down equals nine, just as any
number multiplied by zero equals zero: 5x9=45=4+5=9; 5x0=0. The nine is also the number of inspiration,
harmonious relations and classical arts, for there are nine muses, which in Greek mythology represent the
total of human knowledge.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫י‬. The Golden Dawn and Crowley attribute the letter Yod to the Hermit. It is single,
white and feminine, although it represents the Masculine Principle in the Tetragrammaton. Its numerical
value is 10 and, like the One, in mathematics Yod is the foundation for construction of the Hebrew
alphabet. It means hand and symbolizes the beginning, the seed, the fertilizing masculine principle.
Hieroglyphically, it represents potential manifestation. It sounds like the E.
Kabbalistic path. The path of Yod joins Tiphareth (Beauty) with Chesed (Mercy), the Architect of
Manifestation. The beginnings of manifestation lie on this path. The human sense associated with this path
is touch.

Fig.VII.08. Path 20

Astrological association. The sign associated with this arcana is Virgo, a mutable Earth sign ruled
by Mercury. Of the three Earth signs, it is the most feminine and receptive, especially associated with
grains, the fundamental food of the great civilizations of all times, and to Demeter. Demeter in Greece,
Ceres in Rome, goddess of earthly fertility and grains, retained greater proximity with the Great Goddess,
who saw her attributes distributed among the different goddesses with the arrival of the patriarchy. In the
School of Eleusian Mysteries, dedicated to Demeter, Neolithic rituals originally dedicated to the Great
Goddess were kept alive. Virgo governs the intestines, the nervous system and the whole abdomen in
general. Virgos grow by preserving the purity of principles that facilitate the reproduction of beings and
things and make efforts useful. They love to analyze, catalogue, discriminate and pay attention to the
smallest details, pointing out what seems wrong to them. They think that their mission is to set the world in
order. They usually express their talents better as subordinates than as leaders. They tend to be shy,
reserved and logical, with a dangerously developed critical sense. They are orderly, methodical, precise
and often unbearable perfectionists. They don’t like to rush and they don’t easily get carried away by
impulses. Their passions are moderate and they prefer diplomacy and reconciliation to war and dispute.
They are very concerned with food, health and material security. They are eternal apprentices. They have a
notable tendency to get sick in the digestive system, to get intoxicated and to suffer from disturbances in
the nervous, sensory and motor systems; they are hypochondriacs and have a habit of taking medicine.
Virgo’s verb is “I discern” and its integrating phrase is “I accept and collaborate with perfection and
universal order”.

Fig. VII.09. Virgo. Johfra

SYMBOLS
In the middle of the card we see the hand of the Hermit, the most perfect tool. The word hand has
the same root as manifestation, bringing us ideas of activity, power, ability and mastery. The open hand is a
symbol of innocence: it can give and receive freely without moral impediments or mental restrictions. It
holds a lamp in the center of which the Sun burns, symbolizing the living flame of consciousness. Light,
manifestation of the lamp, according to Zen, represents wisdom. In the West, it is a symbol of holiness and
contemplative life. Its oscillation in Hindu rituals suggests the rejection of thinking in the profane world.

Fig. VII.10. The Hermit

The position of the Hermit resembles the letter Yod. He turns his back on the observer, on the
external world, and directs all of his attention toward contemplation of the Orphic Egg that guards the
essence of life. Around the egg is coiled the serpent, Lady of the Vital Principle, of transformations
necessary to perpetuate life and the wisdom inherent in this process. The egg represents the end of a
biological cycle and the subsequent return to life. The Orphic Egg symbolizes the ability to give birth to
new physical and emotional forms. The card is divided into two parts, one upper and one lower, by the
horizontal beam of light from the lamp. The lower area is filled by the spermatozoon, which in the other
decks appears as a rod, symbol of masculine energy (Yod) in the material world. The force of the male
subconscious is contained in both the spermatozoon, represented as it was conceived by the sperm theory:
the Homunculus, as well as in the rod, symbols of vitality and regeneration. According to this theory,
human beings are completely preformed within the spermatozoon. This theory was demonstrated to be
false by Lazzaro Spallanzani, with the improvement of microscopes in 1751. In the biblical tradition
(Moses) and in the Buddhist tradition, the rod brings forth fountains. It is also a symbol of authority,
representing the master on whose advice the disciple relies. Below is the three-headed dog, Cerberus,
Greek guardian of the gates of hell, the shadow of the subconscious. He is looking forward with two heads,
with the third looking backward, observing the past and indicating that it is not possible to leave issues
unresolved on the path to self-awareness, no matter how hidden they may be in the subconscious, that is, in
the past.
The Hermit is surrounded by ears of wheat, symbol of Virgo, Demeter and fertility in its most
exalted sense. He who knows himself can already share his experience of transformation with others, can
already be nurturing. In Crowley’s words: "This card reveals the whole mystery of life in the most secret
operations. Yod = Phallus = Spermatozoon = Hand = Logos = Virgo”.

GENERAL MEANINGS
It represents the Principle of Introspection, of going inward. In human terms, it is self-analysis;
Jungian authors see here the archetype of the Wise Man. The Hermit is he whose priority is to know
himself. He distances himself from worldly noise and observes and analyzes his inner world, gradually
illuminating his subconscious with the flame of his consciousness.
As a form of Mercury, his introspective approach is necessarily analytical and methodical. He
observes and analyzes the area of the mind where subconscious impulses are reflected. He broadens his
self-awareness as he analyzes and deepens his own experience, observes and understands how he reacts to
different situations. There can be no understanding without experience, however, lesser experiences can
provide understanding when we delve deeply into them. The Hermit realizes that growth only comes
through oneself and one’s own experience, and not through something external. If the attitude of the
Priestess is meditative, leading to Wisdom, the way of the Hermit is self-analysis that leads to Awareness.
The attitude of The Hermit is that of the scientist, of Jacques Cousteau who, armed with instruments, dove
into Lake Titicaca and photographed the hitherto unknown giant frogs. The attitude of The High Priestess
is that of Jacques Mayol, the first diver to go down more than 100 meters just using his lungs, who found
himself more at the bottom of the sea and had fun playing with dolphins. The Hermit is not interested in
disseminating knowledge, pronouncing doctrines or instructing disciples, as is The Hierophant. He just
follows the Socratic maxim “Know thyself”, inscribed in the Delphi oracle. The Hermit is also not a
solitary character, a yogi who lives isolated from the world, fleeing any impact that could stir answers
within his subconscious. On the contrary, such answers are fundamental to him. The solitary yogi runs the
risk of being run over by the bus the moment he leaves his retreat and come face to face with a billboard
displaying underwear.
The Hermit shifts focus. He stops putting himself into circumstances to define how and why they
affect him. He knows that if something moves him, it’s because that is a sensitive area. He wonders: ‘Why
does this irritate me?’, ‘Why does this hurt me?’, ‘Why does this sadden me?’, ‘Why does this frighten
me?’, ‘Why does this generate a certain oscillation of emotional or instinctive voltage?’ He stops placing
responsibility (or blame) on third parties, on the cruel world, and begins taking responsibility for what
happens to him. He stops trying to change circumstances, because he knows that he attracts them to help
him grow, to learn something about himself, and until he learns the lesson, it will repeat.
By identifying his sensitive areas, he can address and heal them, no longer being impacted by
circumstances so that he remains in his center, from which he can be fertile and nurture the world with his
simple presence. Without fingers pointing toward the sky, he reminds us of the Taoist sages: “He who
knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know. The Sage shuts his mouth... and becomes
impenetrable to the outside world, to which he only opens his heart... The Sage thus merges with the
Whole” (Tao Te Ching, chapter. 36).
 Just as Zero and Nine are linked numerologically, The Fool and Hermit are the two wanderers of
the Tarot. As Eskenazi says: "He who represses desire (The Fool), represses self-awareness (The Hermit).
Wisdom that flees from madness is not wisdom. Such sensibility is nothing more than fear.”
When The Hermit is centered, he feels at home anywhere. Those who are not centered will always
need a place to return, feeling foreign everywhere else. For those who are in their center, the idea of
getting lost is meaningless.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The querent is feeling the need to know himself better, probably to stop
suffering. He has realized that his suffering is not a result of circumstances, but of how they affect him.
Wondering why each situation affects you the way it does is going inward and getting to know yourself.
Anchor. In excess, we will see someone who often says “Better off alone than in poor company”.
A shy person, compulsively introverted, always analyzing and judging others and himself. He has a hard
time relating (always has more important personal matters to resolve) and expressing his emotions and
needs for love and sex. He is sexually immature and has a strong tendency to make frugality, austerity and
all forms of abstinence and deprivation the fundamental principles of his personal movement. He is always
very concerned with himself, especially diet (everything seems bad), health and safety, for which he may
work as an automaton. When he opens his mouth, it is to condone purification, fasting, abstinence, or to
condemn hedonism. In isolation from the world, he tries to hide his emotional deficiencies and fear of
expose himself and especially of being rejected. He is a grim, quirky, apprehensive, fussy, grumbling and
lonely character (nobody can stand him) who denies his instinctive urges. He may even consider himself a
saint worthy of canonization. With the Five of Spades – Defeat, he is noxious, destructive and self-
destructive. With the Eight of Cups - Indolence, we may detect the presence of depressive tendencies,
obsessions and the veiled pursuit of compassion from others.

“Seriousness is an disease. The sense of humor is one of the most essential parts of religiousness.”
Osho

This tendency to isolation, resulting from extreme distrust and insecurity due to hostile parental
attitudes in childhood, apparent with a Nine of Swords – Cruelty, can be treated with the essence of Baby
Blue Eyes*, which works to restore children’s confidence and innocence. Essence of Oregon Grape* will
make it easier to make friends, dissolving the fear of other people’s hostility. Essence of Beech will lessen
his overly critical sense and California Wild Rose* will restore his enthusiasm for life and for others.
In lack, this person has a chronic inability to go inward and observe himself. When assailed by
unpleasant emotions, a man will run to the bar and a woman will go shopping. He/she ends up a perfect
stranger to him/herself. Essence of Black-Eyed Susan* can help him recognize hidden emotions.
Childhood. Childhood was lonely and devoid of pleasure. He was deprived of the company of
other children and his home was overly serious (‘parties and revelry, no way’) and austere, where laughter
was considered disrespectful. Perhaps there was an old or sick man whose rest could not be disturbed.
There was a lack of attention and excessive criticism of the child’s initiatives and opinions. This contact
with the adults in his family led him to isolate himself and develop a very pronounced analytical sense. He
felt that he had no right to be loved, cared for or listened to, and that the best thing would be to escape, to
disappear into the inner world.
The Priestess and The Hermit in this position indicate introversion; however, with the former,
invalidation of action, word and movement is accentuated, and with the latter, the lack of loving contact
and pleasure accompanied by criticism, loneliness and seriousness.
Relationships. a) A relationship is helping the person get to know himself better. His partner is
probably touching on certain sensitive points that unleash intense emotions. Self-awareness is triggered
when he stops placing his partner at the center of the issue and focuses on understanding why his partner’s
behavior affects him the way it does. He realizes that his partner is giving him a chance to get to know
himself by identifying and having to work on these sensitive areas. b) This is a person who doesn’t relate.
His fears of exposing himself physically, emotionally and even (though less so) intellectually inhibit real
communication. He may speak about chastity when he feels he is being courted.
Perhaps he was significantly rejected in childhood (Three of Swords – Affliction), and today he is
afraid to show his wounds, preferring to keep a distance. We will suggest using Pink Monkeyflower*,
which feeds the courage to open up emotionally.
Inner Voice and Method. This person doesn’t know himself. He hasn’t paid attention to himself
for too long. He doesn’t look within, doesn’t know who he is or what he wants. Perhaps he never knew. He
plays out the script without questioning.
Integrating the archetype of The Hermit means to fundamentally:
1. Realize that the problem does not lie in circumstances, but rather in how they affect him. That
this depends on him, because the same circumstances affect two different people in different ways. If
something hurts, irritates, frightens, saddens, etc., it is because there is a vulnerable inner area that needs to
be identified, understood and healed, so that victimizing or fighting the circumstances only serves to attract
them again with more force.
2. Once the sensitive areas have been recognized and accepted, the past needs to be revisited in
order to relive the original circumstances (usually in childhood) that created them, which are evoked by
current situations that impact us. When we revisit the past, we realize that what was dramatic and
impactful to the point of creating a wound when we were dependent and vulnerable children, does not
affect us today, when we are grown, independent and experienced. This perception leads to healing of the
sensitive area, and from there circumstances cease to affect us so that we can remain in our center and not
be afraid of opening our heart. We will suggest that the person be his own Freud, observing, recording and
analyzing everything that generates oscillations of emotional and instinctive voltage, instead of ignoring
these things because they can be upsetting. Such content will facilitate self-awareness and healing.
Floral essence of Chesnut Bud will be a great help in extracting the necessary lessons from
experience in order to know himself better. If it appears with Death, we will indicate therapy, preferably
bioenergetic analysis that integrates the mind, emotions and physical body.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person stops playing
the victim or fighting circumstances to investigate the deep causes of his reactions to such circumstances.
He thus begins to pay attention to himself and know himself better.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has been able to
identify, understand and disable existing internal difficulties in order to turn inward, accepting his
emotions, understanding that the world is not full of scoundrels who for some mysterious reason take
pleasure in making him suffer, but that he attracts precisely what touches on a wound in order to force him
to work to heal it. Healing these wounds lead him to become more centered, to be less vulnerable to the
world in order to surrender to life. We can say that today the querent knows himself, knows what he wants
and what he does not want, observes the world from his center without falling into delusions, and emanates
a pleasant feeling of being centered and at peace.
External result. The person faces the world with the attitude we saw in the Internal Result. We
see him mature, centered, knowing how to protect his light from the onslaughts of general unconsciousness
without claiming to know everything. This attitude lets him become a fertile element in the society in
which he moves. He may become interested in some area related to self-awareness or analytical therapy.

FORTUNE (Wheel of Fortune)

Titles. Traditionally “The Wheel of Fortune”, in the Egyptian Tarot it is “Retribution”, and was
also known as “The Wheel of Reincarnations”. Crowley abbreviated it and titled it “Fortune”. In Osho
Zen, it is “Change”. Its esoteric title is “Lord of the Forces of Life”.
Number. Kabbalists and Pythagoreans resorted to the number Ten, attributed to this Arcana, when
they tried to provide an explanation of Reality.
 Fig. VII.11. Ten

The Pythagoreans defined the Tetraktys, formed by ten points arranged in a four-story flat pyramid,
from which everything departs and to where everything returns, as the best image of totality in movement.
Pythagoras compared the Tetraktys to the oracle of Delphi: it expresses perfection and provides knowledge
of the individual and the world on both the material and spiritual planes. The Tetraktys was invoked as the
divinity of harmony.

Fig. VII.12. Tetraktys (Modern Interpretation)

The Kabbalists defined ten sephiroth or spheres of manifestation with which they designed the Tree
of Life, representing the Cosmos and its manifestations: From the unmanifest, Ain Soph Aur, the Empty
and Limitless Light, it traversed like a ray through cosmic space, giving rise to ten emanations of itself,
called sephiroth. The path traveled by the ray through these spheres represents the very process of
manifestation beginning from Keter, a point of condensation that allows the light of Ain Soph Aur to take
root. The other nine spheres emanate from Keter in an oscillating movement of the ray, from right to left
and vice-versa, revealing how the process of creation is marked by polarity. The Tree of Life is also an
instrument for investigating reality and a practical method for the evolution of consciousness.
The first written reference to the Tree is in the “Book of Brightness”, which appeared in the south
of France between 1150 and 1200. Aryeh Kaplan, who recently translated it into English, insists on dating
it back to the 1st century B.C. There are different representations of the Tree of Life, but the one most used
by today’s Kabbalists is that of Kircher in his 1652 work “Oedipus Aegyptiacus”.
 Fig. VII.13. 11 Evolution of the Tree of Life. A) Kircher’s Structure, 1652. B) Adaptation by Robert
Fludd, 1526. C) Figure of Porta Lucis, Augsburg, 1516. D) Figure of “Pa’amon ve Rimmon”, 1708. E)
Three-dimensional Tree

Continuing with the evolution of the Tree, the Kabbalists of this century arrived at the three-
dimensional Tree that integrates the Principle of Five in its columns: four balanced elements inspired by
the spirit.
In the Chinese tradition, the human being has ten souls: three superior called hun and seven
inferior, po. 10 implies an ending; we have a scale from one to ten because we have ten fingers. An ending
that simultaneously incorporates a beginning: 10 = 1. It contains the creative seed for the stage that will
begin. Ten represents a full cycle and return to the unit, creation and movement.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ כ‬or ‫ ך‬if it’s at the end of the word. Kaph means the palm of the hand, where
traditionally the gypsies read fortunes, as well as a half closed hand or fist, which symbolically represents
the act of grabbing something. This is a double letter (the only double letter that has two written forms and
two numeric values), male and blue, whose numeric value is 20 or 500 if found at the end of the word. It’s
hard sound is K and soft is J.
Kabbalistic path. The path of Kaph, the 21st, unites and balances Netzach, Victory, which
represents the nature of desire, with Chesed (Mercy), whose attributes include memory. It connects the
World of Formation (Yetzirah), of personality, with that of Creation (Briah), Individuality. The more
spiritualized emotions of Netzach lead the pilgrim to the abstract images of Chesed.

Fig. VII.14. Path 21.

Astrological association. Jupiter is the planet of expansion and growth. The Celtic Jupiter has a
wheel as its main attribute. It represents expansion of awareness and the spiritual quest. It embodies the
unknown, the incalculable factor inherent to any phenomenon, in the face of Saturnian determinism. In a
man, we can see in him the father who encourages growth, inasmuch as the Sun is the father who gives life
and Saturn is the one who limits and disciplines. The energy that makes our lives quantitatively and
qualitatively improve is Jovian in nature. It is the essential factor of optimism and enthusiasm that gets us
to lead life with more generosity, breadth and depth. Jupiter in combination with difficult aspects can lead
to all kinds of excesses. At a physical level, it brings a tendency to gain weight, arthritis, high blood
pressure and problems derived from poor blood quality: rashes, boils and liver problems. Jupiter rules
Sagittarius, and in conjunction with Neptune, it rules Pisces.

SYMBOLS
 The center of the card is filled by a wheel, a symbol of movement and irradiation, of life and
incessant mutation, as well as revelation of the unknown. The wheel is part of the idea of perfection
suggested by the circle. The law is also symbolized by the wheel: the Dharmachakra or Wheel of the Law.
We also have the wheel of karma, the wheel of samsara or unconsciousness, the wheel of reincarnations,
the wheel of Ezekiel, etc. It has ten spokes, representing the totality of space and the return to the essential
unit.

Fig. VII.15. Wheel of Fortune in the Tarots of Marseilles and Waite. Fortune in Crowley.
Like the medieval alchemical treatises, three figures appear on it. At this moment, the sphinx is on
top, the monkey Hermanubis (god formed by the Greek Hermes and the Egyptian Anubis) in which simian
elements predominate is rising and the monster Typhon descends. The three figures represent the three
forms of energy that govern the succession of phenomena known in the West as alchemical Sulphur,
Mercury and Salt. In the East, they are Gunas, an untranslatable word which “is not quite an element, a
quality, a form of energy, a phase, or a potential; all of these ideas enter into it.” They are continually
spinning, so nothing can remain in any phase where one of these Gunas is predominant," says Crowley in
The Book of Thoth.
There are three gunas. Tamas represents darkness, ignorance, inertia and death. On this card, it is
represented by Typhon, son of Hera and the serpent Python, when the faithful Hera became angry because
Zeus created Athena from his own head, without her collaboration. Typhon was meant to kill Athena, but
Zeus defeated her with his lightning rod, by burying her under Etna, after which she became a volcano.
Typhon represents the instinct that prevents us from expressing ourselves lovingly and creatively and thus
transcendence is compulsively and destructively brutalized. Tamas and Typhon are related to alchemical
Salt. When Tamas rules the world, we have wars, plagues, natural disasters, regression, slavery, fanaticism,
pain and death everywhere.
Rajas is energy in motion, agitation, brightness and intellectual restlessness, the dynamic drive
embodied by Hermanubis, the guide who led souls to Osiris and also the personification of death. As
Hermanubis is a simian form of Mercury, Crowley ends up relating Rajas to alchemical Mercury, while
other authors choose Sulphur. When rajas predominates, great scientific and technological milestones are
reached: the wheel, the steam engine, the combustion engine, aviation, computers and the internet.
Sattva is Supra-consciousness. Its attributes are calmness, serenity, awareness, lucidity and balance.
It is represented by the sphynx, a symbol of stability amid change. This is the synthesis of elemental
forces, represented by the four cherubim. Other traditions emphasize the role of guardian at the threshold
of mysteries. Crowley relates it to alchemical Sulphur. When Sattva rules, these are golden ages of
humanity, where love, consciousness, prosperity and solidarity prevail.
The movement of the wheel indicates that nothing can remain immutable, as the I Ching expresses:
"The only thing that is unchangeable is change itself". What remains is that which changes, which adjusts
to the passage of time. “However dense and dull that thing may be, a time will come when it begins to
stir,” says Crowley.
The movement of the wheel creates ten spirals, showing its power of regeneration. Above we see
blue and yellow stars, arranged in an orderly fashion, behind which we guess is Nuit’s ring. Nine rays,
symbols of the divine spark that gives life and fertilizes all existence, precipitate. Lightning, the flashing
weapon of Zeus (Jupiter in Rome) is compared to the release of divine sperm. For the Mayas, lightning is
the written word of God, while thunder is the voice.
In the center of the wheel is the Sun (Arcana XIX=19=1+9=10=Fortune), symbol of individuality
and consciousness.

GENERAL MEANINGS
This card illustrates the Universal Principle of Movement and Expansion. It shows the Universe,
constantly changing. These changes, despite being governed by laws, are not predetermined and have no
governing intelligences. Just as the purpose of Life is to stay alive and multiply, we can say with Osho that
"Existence has no purpose". Fortune also refers to the unknown and unpredictable factors that influence
global dynamics.
On a more human level, this card shows the opening of opportunities, possibilities, encounters and
proposals. In the challenge of accepting them or not, the person grows, rescues and polishes his/her being
and at the same time transforms according to new experiences.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is feeling an internal urge to expand horizons; perhaps her world has
become too small, perhaps she feels suffocated by her current limits, especially if it is accompanied by the
Tower, so that she feels strongly attracted by the unknown. She feels the need to meet new people, to
explore activities, cultures, ideas, geographical locations, interesting courses, internal discoveries and
spiritual glimpses. The second card can indicate in which aspect of life this desire for expansion plays out
most strongly. Not accepting it by burying your head in the sand would lead to missing out on a beautiful
opportunity to grow without pain.
Anchor. Here we have two possibilities: In excess, the person compulsively pursues what is new
and what helps her escape the present, because the new is in the future, leaving her uprooted and making it
hard to reach concrete results with what is in her hands. Thus, she doesn’t finish anything, and she lacks
the foundation to really move forward, so she remains unsatisfied. The lack of center and roots lead her to
waste her energy on ineffective movements and not take advantage of the opportunities that may appear.
On a more internal level, this compulsion for the new manifests itself as a major difficulty to internalize
(Fortune and The Hermit are complementary opposites), so that she does not draw lessons from her
difficult moments. She thus ends up dragged through events. Behind all apparent change, this person is
always repeating the same story. If something pleasant happens, she becomes euphoric. If unpleasant, she
gets desperate, passing from euphoria to despair without an instant of serenity and calmness. She may try
to compensate with food, drink, sex, distractions, etc., especially if this appears with the 7 of Cups,
attempting to continue deceiving others and herself with a façade that everything is wonderful. If she
displays a false sense of well-being, we will suggest using Agrimony to help her honestly accept her true
feelings, while essence of Chesnut Bud can help her to be more attentive and to observe herself better.
In lack, this person is terrified of everything that is new, so she wraps herself in the known,
refusing to see what is beyond her four walls. This interpretation would be suggested if Fortune appears
with The Moon or a four, in which case we will suggest Aspen flower to strengthen courage and inner
strength.
Childhood. This may indicate that the child was naturally adventurous, and that such attitude was
repressed, criticized and condemned by the family. It may also show that the child, like the son of a
diplomat who changes country, school, home and friends every few years, experienced too many
unexpected and intense changes and situations that left him insecure. He felt at the mercy of events,
without stability, solid references or paternal figures that gave him a sense of stability and protection and
placed limits on him lovingly. We can imagine that the child felt abandoned and unprotected. Thus his or
her relationship to change and the unknown became problematic.
Relationships. a) A relationship helps the person expand his/her horizons, opening up to new
people, jobs, ideas, taking an interest in other cultures or geographical locations. Of course, this may come
about in very different ways. The least pleasant would be if the partner transforms the relationship into
something unbearable that forces the person to pursue new paths. b) This person is incapable of settling
down emotionally. His attraction to novelty and fear of commitment is so great that he doesn’t delve
deeply into any relationship and ends up dispersed and/or living several superficial relationships at the
same time.
Inner Voice and Method. This person probably narrowed his horizons for a long time, perhaps by
living shut in and/or dedicating himself to someone or to a specific issue. No matter how much you cling
to your comfort zone, which is becomes increasingly uncomfortable, the essence is asking for novelty. The
known has become obsolete, a space in which there is no longer any room for growth. The person needs to
identify, address and disable fears, beliefs, behavior patterns and other internal blocks that make it hard to
venture out and explore the unknown, expanding his or her horizons, making contact with new people,
ideas, activities, cultures, geographical places, etc. Expanding the radius of emotional, professional and
mental action, and therefore of experience. Also, if you tie yourself to the known, if you barricade yourself
behind the Great Wall, it will be difficult for the new to arrive. It’s important to create a crack through
which surprise can slip in. We will also suggest that the person look for new opportunities, send his or her
résumé to new companies, look for business partners, open business branches in other cities, etc. If we find
cards in the Anchor that indicate apathy and a tendency to seclusion and unhealthy introversion (The
Hermit, The Priestess or the Eight of Cups - Indolence), essence of California Wild Rose* will help renew
enthusiasm for life.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person is losing the
fear of the unknown and beginning to expand horizons and take advantage of new opportunities that may
have always been there but were not seen. These new experiences will help her develop greater resolution
and self-confidence.
Internal result. A product of the whole process we have seen so far, this person has been able to
identify, understand and disable existing internal difficulties in order to leave her safety zone and leap into
the unknown. She has left the periphery of the wheel and, from the center, she contemplates phenomena,
learns from situations and chooses to experience those that most gratify her. Without expectations, she
interacts with the world, without destructive friction. What must be done will be done.
External result. This person is facing the world with an expansive and adventurous attitude, with
her attention focused on a whole set of new situations: jobs, businesses, relationships of all kinds and
knowledge, without losing her center.

ENTHUSIASM (LUST - STRENGTH)

Titles. Called Strength in most decks, referring to what in the past was considered moral strength,
the self-control necessary to dominate the so-called “lowly passions”. Thus, they show an impeccably
dressed woman, closing the mouth of a lion. We would have the subtlest aspects of the being (intellectual
and spiritual) here, subduing the animal side (emotions and instincts). The soul, the house of God, controls
the body, the house of the devil; thus instincts are restrained but the soul will be rewarded with paradise.
All the hatred and fear that religions have for the body, for pleasure and especially for sex is passed down
to us. Modern times have shown that mortifying the body to purify the soul is an aberration. Ever since W.
Reich, therapy has included a bodily aspect, as the Romans said: "Mens sana in corpore sano". Likewise,
teachers like Osho, Don Juan and Rolando Toro have warned us that without rescuing the body, there will
be little or no spiritual advancement.
 “Someone who is not in touch with his body will never be able to be in touch with his spirit,
because this is a deeper region. You are not aware of the spiritual because you have a lot of tension in the
body and a lot of tension in the mind. Bodily tension was created by those who in the name of religion
preached anti-body attitudes.” Osho

It’s not a matter of one of our parts controlling the others, but that by integrating them, we will
obtain the best results: “unity is strength”. In the Egyptian Tarot, a more mental connotation is given to this
control, titled “Persuasion”. Thus, a purging became necessary; these prejudices could not pass the
threshold of the New Age without being unmasked.
Crowley, breaking with the old paradigm, calls it “Lust”, a suitable title for Nature (is there
anything more lustful than nature in spring?) but which falls short for human beings, because it gives a
limited connotation to sexuality. Lust can be considered in a broader sense, not restricted to pure sexual
desire but generalized to all aspects of life. We direct a lustful desire to live, which we feel as enthusiasm
and overwhelming force, toward certain activities that arise in certain circumstances and which lead us to
flourish in energy, diversity, creativity and beauty, releasing pleasure and gratification. That’s why I prefer
to call it Enthusiasm. In the Osho Zen Tarot, it is called “Advancement”. Kabbalists know it as “The
Daughter of the Flaming Sword” and “Lord of the Lion”.
Number. With the exception of Waite’s Tarot, which switched the numbers of Justice and Strength,
and all the Tarot decks inspired by it, this card corresponds to the number Eleven.

Fig. VII. 16. Eleven

If we concluded a cycle with the Ten that led to a return to unity: 10 = 1 + 0 = 1 = Unity =
Everything that exists, with the Eleven, we start toward a new polarization: 11=1+1 = 2, and we receive a
push toward the unknown. The Eleven and the Two, which are both prime numbers, are equal when broken
down, and in the cards associated with them (The Priestess and Enthusiasm), the central figure is a woman.
The patriarchy in general and Christianity in particular that saw the One as representing their
masculine god, did not have much sympathy for the Two, which represents the feminine and is a number
of opposition and nearly diabolical fight. The Eleven would end up representing transgression of the law
and the limits determined by the Ten. St. Augustine referred to this number as “the blazon of sin”. In
Egyptian mythology, the Eleven is the number of Nuit. In Africa, Eleven is related to the mysteries of
motherhood, because there are eleven openings in a mother’s body. The Masons represent this number
with the Pentaphic Hexagram, the pentagram inscribed inside the hexagram, as we see in the Fig. VII.15.
In the Chinese tradition, Eleven is the number by which the path of Heaven and Earth is established
in its entirety: tch'eng. Some consider it the number of the Tao.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ט‬. Teth, the letter attributed to Enthusiasm, is single, female, yellow-green, and its
numerical value is nine. It means serpent and it represents the archetype of the Primordial Feminine
Energy, according to the occultist C. Suares. Teth is man’s asylum, his shield and protection. Its sound is T.
Kabbalistic path. The path of Teth, the 19th, joins and balances Chesed – Mercy – with Gevurah –
Severity.
 Fig. VII.17. Path 19.

It is the bridge that integrates the polarity of construction and destruction. We know very well that
human beings are strengthened when they want to build something and encounter obstacles and resistance,
facing them and moving forward. Madonna Compton says in “Archetypes of the Tree of Life”: “Gevurah
and Chesed are the light and shadow of the world’s drama”. It is the second horizontal path, balanced at
the edge of the Abyss.
Astrological association. Leo is a fixed Fire sign, ruled by the Sun. Like the king of the jungle,
Leo feels like the center of the world. In the physical body, this sign governs the heart, the back, the spinal
cord, the aorta, the coronaries and the eyes. Leos are willful, active and love luxury and fine, lofty things.
They have a tendency to want to dominate others. Pettiness and rudeness are repugnant to them and they
tend to be noble and generous, but they may be offended if others forget favors they have done, because
they imagine that such people owe them everything in life. Their nobility can become haughtiness, pride,
conceit, arrogance, self-importance and even contempt for those around them. They like to make decisions.
They are perfectionists, intuitive, honorable, exhibitionists and worldly, and they need to shine and feel
important both in front of others and in front of themselves. They are passionate and usually surrender
themselves easily to their loving and instinctive urges. They are usually spontaneous, extroverted, good
actors and they tend to suffer from megalomania, fevers, dehydration and heart problems when they
repress their extraordinary emotional charge. Their verbs are: “I want” and “I believe” and their integrating
phrase is: “The creative power of the universe is flowing through me, now beneath the light of love and
humility”.

Fig. VII.18. Leo. Johfra

SYMBOLS
The central figure on the card is a naked woman voluptuously mounted on an enormous seven-
headed lion. She is Babylon, the woman riding the Beast, who caused so much horror to John the
Evangelist, as revealed in chapters 13, 17 and 18 of the Book of Revelations. In all the narratives of the
Old and New Testaments, we must always be alert to the projections of their authors, to the Kabbalistic
mysteries carefully placed by the initiates and to the symbols conveniently manipulated by the Levites in
order to accumulate power and justify their interests.
The immaculate virgin of the ancient decks, who with her purity managed to stop and dominate the
instinctive and irrational beast, appears in equal terms in the Golden Dawn Tarot, transforming in
Crowley’s Tarot into the sensual woman riding the lion. In this relationship between Beauty and the Beast,
no one dominates anyone: the woman surrenders herself to her urges; she is not controlling her ride. The
red bridles are a symbol of the passion that unites both our subtlest human aspects and our animal nature.
Both the lion and the woman appear in golden yellow, the brightest color. Intense, violent, sharp to the
point of being harsh, blinding like molten metal, it is the color of the Sun, considered to be of divine origin
and a symbol of eternity. In China, only the imperial family could use it. It is also the color of mature fields
in summer. Crowley tells us that there are seven forms or expressions of passion represented by the heads
of the lion: “The head of an angel, of a poet, of an adulterous woman, of a man of valor, of a satyr, and a
lion serpent,” Kundalini, the serpent, Teth, the most spiritualized aspect of Fire.

Fig. VII.19. Strength in the Tarots of Marseilles and Waite. Lust in Crowley.

This change of attitude toward the body and sex is one of the signs of modern times. Along with
the liberation of women (driver of the Age of Aquarius), it is one of the clearest transformations that
confirm the entry into a new era. The times of division are giving way to a time of integration. Acceptance
of our traits is the first step toward happiness. The woman and the lion are a living representation of the
new paradigm, where each being is part of the Whole, in a continuous Universe. We also have the new
model of the feminine, the woman in ecstasy, mistress of her own body and sexuality, breaking with the
cruelly degraded role that patriarchal religions have imposed on her, with the old model of the Virgin
Mary, submissive wife, self-sacrificing mother, who felt no pleasure even when she was fertilized by the
dove. The males who froze her heart when they surrendered to the pursuit of power, always wanted to keep
women imprisoned and uneducated, as they were terrified of the woman who lives in touch with the
sources of her inner pleasure. See http://rohaut.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/la-mutilacion-genital-
femenina.html for the map of female genital mutilation.
The woman and the lion shine, radiate sensuality, vitality, pleasure, joy and strength from deep
animal roots. In her right hand, Babylon holds the Grail, the source of her abundance, from which ten
snake horns emerge, symbol of the most exalted creativity, which expand in all directions. Ten rays of
white light emerge from the tip of the colorful and incandescent matrix, energizing the ten stars of Assiah,
indicating that the energy of the matrix also takes shape on material planes. These ten luminous rays
arranged in a semicircle represent, according to Crowley, the new order of the Age of Aquarius.
 Fig. VII.20.Nuit

Let’s look at how the Feminine Principle (Nuit) is presented in the Book of the Law: "I am the
naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky... I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the
innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendor within you: Come unto me...
Come forth, o children, under the stars, and take your fill of love... I am above you and in you. My ecstasy
is in yours. My joy is to see your joy... Bind nothing... Let there be no difference made among you between
any one thing and any other thing, for thereby there cometh hurt. Also, take your fill and will of love as ye
will, when, where and with whom ye will... Love is the Law, Love under will... Thou hast no right but to do
thy will. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect... I
love thee!”
Behind the woman appear ten striped and shaded circles representing the old order, the archaic
classification systems of the universe. Between the legs of the lion we see the images of those who
surrendered to Babylon, reached the Grail and merged with the Whole.

GENERAL MEANINGS
Here we have the vitality, beauty and brilliance of living beings. It is the vibrant and lustful vitality
of nature. In the human world, this card illustrates integration of the animal side (instincts, emotions, vital
urges and biological and bodily needs) with the rational side, with its corresponding side effects:
enthusiasm, vitality, joie de vivre, self-esteem and self-confidence, also making the person feel more
sensual and sexy. The primordial biological creativity that is originally directed toward continuity of the
species by filling the planet with children is elaborated by the mind and expressed in a wide variety of
possibilities, as shown by the snake horns. Here, animal energy sprouts naturally and wild, integrating
lovingly with the rest of the being, giving rise to an overdose of energy that is channeled into creation,
self-fulfillment and transcendence, as taught by the Tantra.
Here, there is no longer any identification with a certain image: “I am this or that”, but rather I am I
and I express myself as I am. An enormous range of latent possibilities thus opens up within each
individual, which were not feasible before. In this sense, in the tarots of Marseille and Waite, we have the
symbol of infinity above the head of the woman who, as we saw in The Magician, represents connection
with the infinite possibilities of existence.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is getting in touch with an internal desire to accept and welcome his
or her animal side (emotions, instincts, vital urges, biological and bodily needs), giving them an
appropriate expression through reason. She realizes that she spent part of her life repressing or even
condemning that side, and she perceives that life lost its grace as a consequence, and vitality and creativity
have been extinguished, being able to generate bodily somatizations.
Anchor. It indicates an energetic excision between the heart and sex, which we can see as a
horizontal line on a woman’s body a little above the navel. A set of seductions and rejections by the parent
of the opposite sex generated this excision. When the child surrendered “Oedipally” body and soul to the
attraction felt for that parent, he/she was rejected. He built a rigid defense structure characterized by the
fear of letting go and surrendering because he fears being manipulated and rejected. He or she has a hard
time feeling pleasure without guilt. He hides behind a perfectionist mask, proud, orderly and ambitious,
and develops a body with an upright and proud posture and a very erect head and spine. Although his body
tends to be proportionate and harmonious, with a bright and vibrant gaze, he avoids surrendering and
loving.
This could be experienced in two ways:
In excess, with over 60% Fire, it shows a person who has a strong instinctive side and an intense
sensuality. However, he does not trust his creativity or his ability to achieve his goals by his own means, so
he uses his sensuality and power of seduction as currency. He is afraid that he lacks that attention and
interest that he gets when he seduces and from which his ego feeds. He lives his sexuality intensely but
does not get involved emotionally. The essence of Hibiscus* will help you to recover your affection and be
able to integrate sex and emotions.
In lack, it indicates that this person not only chronically represses his sexuality, disconnecting
himself from the internal sources of his energy, but turns his back on the impulses of his animal nature in
function of a set of beliefs of social consensus, which he did not invent, to judge his impulses that are
absolutely his. He ends up believing that what’s right is the collective delirium that we call normal
behavior and what’s wrong is his desires, his impulses, his desire to...

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
Indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish
than sensible.” Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

Undoubtedly among the most powerful patterns are the family, where identity, sensuality,
instinctive impulses are sacrificed in the name of roles: wife, husband, mother, daughter, and so on.

“Sensuousness is one of the greatest blessings to humanity. It is your consciousness filtering

through the body. Orgasm is not something necessary for reproduction. It is something to open a window
for the higher evolution of consciousness.” Osho

A puritanical education, indicated by The Hierophant or the Four of Swords - Truce in Childhood,
can generate repugnance or shame before your own body and its physiological functions. The necessary
acceptance of one’s body is made easier by using essence of Crab Apple.
Childhood. We have several possibilities: a) A strong and continuous repression or invalidation of
the creativity of the child as well as of his corporal, emotional and instinctive expressions, of his sensuality
and vital impulses, that could come reinforced by the Eight of Swords - the Interference. b) The children of
3 to 4 years go through a strong hormonal discharge that takes them to live a phase of precocious
expression of their sexuality and they fall in love with the genitor of the opposite sex, looking for with him
a corporal and sexual intimacy, known as "Oedipus or Electra Complex". Children of this age experience
sexuality in their whole body and not specifically in the genitals as adults do. They seek sexual contact, but
not penetration. The repression or punishment of such expressions, as well as sexual abuse leave the child
traumatized and poorly resolved in the relationship to his or her body. c) Seduction and rejection were the
tonic of childhood. The genitor seduces and when the child gets excited, surrendering and waiting for the
loving contact, he plugs in the TV and sends it to his room. This ends up creating a link between
excitement, surrender and suffering.
Relationships. a) The relationship helps the person to identify, respect and welcome their emotions
and instincts, their impulses and biological needs and give them an elaborate expression thus integrating
the animal and rational sides. b) Has difficulty to surrender and thus, consciously or unconsciously, uses
his attributes to seduce and manipulate his partner, while freezing his emotions. She feels nourished by the
attention and interest she gets when she seduces. Thus she tries to keep her partner permanently seduced in
order to guarantee the continuity of her relationship. However, if she is afraid of losing her freedom, she
doesn't commit to becoming promiscuous, but without emotional involvement. It puts all the wood to the
fire, showing very sensual, sexual, attractive and creative until it seduces and gets the love of the other.
Then she loses her temper because what really excites her is conquest. He does not establish deep and
lasting relationships, as his seductive compulsion requires him to be always available. You may be waiting
for the ideal couple who will one day arrive and for whom you have to be available, or you may be afraid
of being rejected if you surrender.
Inner Voice and Method. Integrating this archetype begins by listening to, welcoming and
respecting the impulses coming from the animal side (instincts, emotions, vital impulses and bodily and
biological needs) and giving them an adequate expression using reason. Finally, the equilibrium of the
human being depends on the integration of the conscious and the subconscious. He thus recovers his
energy and will take a great leap forward in his life. The moment a person accepts his impulses he no
longer needs to impose himself, he has nothing to prove and no one to convince.
Essence of California Pitcher Plant* will help her increase her vitality by developing the more
instinctive aspects of being. It is essential to increase the activities that generate enthusiasm and pleasure
and activate creativity. Belly dancing, samba or body work that releases the pelvis (such as tantric
pulsation or certain Bioenergetic Analysis exercises) are highly recommended in this case. Using essence
of Indian Paintbrush* will revitalize creative expression, rooting it with telluric forces. We will suggest
essence of Sunflower* to develop self-centering and self-confidence.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person is allowing
him/herself to integrate his/her animal side, perhaps for the first time ever. This leads to an ever-increasing
liking for oneself and for relating and undertaking creative activities with enthusiasm, energy and
gratification. This is not a compulsive enthusiasm, the product of mental exaltation or euphoria (attitudes
characteristic of the Knight of Swords), but rather an increase in vitality that pushes for creative
concreteness. On the other hand, sexuality expressed with ever increasing force.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has been able to
identify, understand and disable existing internal difficulties in order to integrate both the animal and
rational sides. She feels firmer, cheerful, sensual, light and in love with life and herself, more spontaneous,
receptive, more instinctive and spiritual, more Zorba and more Buddha. With greater self-confidence, she
dares to express her creativity.
External result. The querent radiates brilliance and enthusiasm. Her sex life is full and creative.
Her occupations give her pleasure and profound gratification. Her inventiveness and enthusiasm for action
give a special glow to everything she does. She opts for activities in which she can fully express her
creativity. She must be careful to keep the ego from taking over all of this, transforming love into
arrogance and derailing the train.

THE HANGED MAN

Titles. According to Crowley it would be called "The Drowned Man" before receiving its current
title, which is "The Hanged Man". This makes its relationship with the Water element more obvious. The
name “The Hanged Man” is odd, because he is clearly not hanging by the neck. In the Egyptian Tarot, it is
“The Apostolate”. In Osho Zen, it is “New Vision”. Kabbalists call it “The Spirit of Might Waters”.

Fig. VII.21. Twelve

 Number. The Twelve is the manifestation of the trinity -Spirit- in the four corners of the horizon
and in the four cabalistic worlds, passing on to us the idea of final realization, of concrete conclusion.
We live in a world structured in space and time around this issue. The Zodiac is formed by twelve
signs obtained not only by the multiplication of the four elements by the three qualities (cardinal, fixed and
mutable) but also by the observation of the firmament. The year is made up of twelve months and the day
2x12=24 hours. The Chinese divide time into groups of twelve years and assign an animal to each. In
African thought, the audible vibration in forming the cosmic egg defined the four cardinal points, and
made three spiral turns above each of them. Then Heaven and Earth separated and the Great Demiurges
who organized creation appeared. For these peoples the Twelve is the number of the action while in the
West it is the number of the complete, of the total.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ מ‬or ‫ ם‬The second mother letter, Mem, is attributed to The Hanged Man. It is blue,
its numeric value is 40 or 600 if it is at the end of the word and its sound corresponds to the M of our
alphabet. It means Water or Seas. Mem hums or murmurs, and symbolically represents the woman, the
mother and her sound. Like AUM, it is the return to eternal silence.

Kabbalistic path. Path 23 of Mem lifts the concrete mind of Hod - Glory, Splendor - to the
powerful force of Gevurah - Severity. Here Hod represents the profound concentration of the intellect and
Gevurah the law of inexorable justice. On this path the forms of Hod, i.e. the mental concepts are animated
and tested by the power of Mars. It is the path of Water, while The Fool is the path of Air, Aeon is the path
of Fire and The Universe is the path of Earth. The task for the one who walks this path is to be a channel
for the infallible cosmic laws affirmed by the Kabbalists.

Fig. VI.22. Path 23.

Astrological attribution. The element Water and the planet Neptune are assigned to this Arcana. A
12th century Chinese text reads: “Of all the elements, the wise man will take Water as his teacher. Water is
submissive, but it conquers all. It extinguishes Fire and, seeing that it could be defeated, it escapes as
steam and takes on a new form. It carries soft soil and when challenged by rocks, it seeks a path around
them... It saturates the atmosphere so that the wind dies down. Water yields to obstacles with a humble
deceit, because no power can prevent it from following its path toward the sea.”

In alchemy, Water is considered the First Principle, which underlies all things. Life appeared in the
water, science confirms, and in the water of the womb we developed to later encounter the elements Air
and Earth. We can thus say that Water is the most stable and primordial of the elements. Water represents
emotions in a wide range from fears and compulsive passions to attachment-free love and universal or
devotional love. It is directly connected with the process of becoming aware through the perception of the
deepest longings of the psyche. This idea is shared by alchemists, for whom the element Water is
consciousness, also called Thinking Principle. Consciousness and Water share certain properties, among
which is their undulating movement. This is why we speak of “the wave of consciousness”. The three
Water signs (Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces) are the farthest from reason. They are represented by three cold-
blooded animals, beings of low level of evolution that move by instinct. They are emotionally motivated
and can be enormously intuitive, sensitive and inspired. We always see a great preponderance of Water in
the maps of healers, let's not forget that water in nature cleans, heals and purifies.
Neptune represents the Principle of Dissolution and leads to the experience of transcending the 'I' in
order to merge with the Totality. The Neptunian type is idealistic, receptive, compassionate, inspired,
intuitive, sensitive, peaceful, with a keen artistic sense (Neptune is traditionally considered the planet of
music) and introspective, although it can be scattered, unrealistic, escapist of the demands of the concrete
world, of weak will, being able even to develop the mask of victim or martyr.

SYMBOLS
The central figure is a man hung and tied by a foot and nailed to three green spheres. His legs form
a cross and his arms an equilateral triangle. This position is exactly the opposite of the one we will see in
the card of the Universe, whose letter Tau is complemented with Mem, forming together the word Tum,
which means perfect, firm and complete. The numbers of the two cards, 12 and 21, are also opposites.
Emphasizing this opposition, we see that the number of the Hanged Man in some Tarot of Marseille decks
is written backwards: IIX.

Fig. VII.23. The Hanged Man

In Waite’s deck, the subject hangs from an Egyptian cross (shaped like a T) symbol of the letter
Tau. In the Crowley deck, is an ankh or crux ansata, symbol of life and immortality that holds the foot of
the hanged man. The ankh is inverted to refer to Mem, which is considered the inverted Tau. On it, a snake
coils around the left food of the hanged man. It is the one that propitiates all transformations, it is the
Creator and Destroyer Principle that operates all changes. Emphasizing the Three (number of Spirit,
synthesis and The Empress), the hanged man is nailed to three green disks, the color assigned to Venus.
The shape of the ankh and the symbol of Venus are very similar. Just as nails, Vau, subject Spirit to matter,
The Hanged Man is attached, nailed, imprisoned to love (which is the essential nature of Being) and to life
in the highest sense. The card is divided into two regions. The upper part of the ankh is bathed by a subtle,
evanescent white light radiating from a high central point. This the light of Keter. This luminous breath is
manifested through two circles that divide this area into three spaces corresponding to the three cabalistic
worlds: Atziluth, Briah and Yetzirah. The lower, denser part of the card refers to the material world or
Assiah. In this part we see the Elemental Tables that in number of 400 (10 x Mem) represent all the
energies of nature. All this "play of lights" is showing the immersion of light in matter, illuminating it and
helping it to evolve. Emerging from the Sahasrara chakra or coronary center, 18 rays of light (number of
the Moon) illuminate the darkest space where the ego dies, dissolving into the Whole. Let us not forget
that Keter's spiritual experience is Fusion with Wholeness. It is precisely in this space where the serpent of
transformation and new life begins to stir. The Hanged Man keeps his eyes closed, indicating that his
attention is basically directed inward. His expression is ecstasy, not suffering, and his head is shaved like
that of the Buddhist monks to indicate that he has surrendered his ego.

GENERAL MEANINGS
Many warped ideas arose in the interpretation of this Arcana. The most amusing was that of
Antoine Court de Gébelin who, standing him up, saw him as a symbol of prudence: with one foot on the
ground he is deciding where to place the other. Certain authors linked to Christian doctrine see a symbol of
redemption in the card. The redemption of matter by spirit, of darkness by light, of human sinners sons of
Eve by Christ the Redeemer. For the present times, this idea is not suitable Redemption implies debt, fall,
sin. What sin? In an age when "every man, every woman is a star, the only sin is to consider something a
sin," Crowley tells us.
The universe is continuous; separations lead to deception and suffering. The ultimate nature of
Spirit is the same as that of thoughts, as that of emotions, as that of physical matter. The apparent
difference is just a variation in the degree of density. The densest did not sin, should not pay for a crime he
did not commit, and need not be redeemed.
It is the card of the immersion of Spirit in matter, of light in darkness to illuminate it, to become
One with it. The Creator Principle infuses the manifestation, dissolves into it.
In the human world, it is consciousness surrendering to the subconscious. The being surrenders his
mind and without judgments or prejudices he lets himself flow in the emanations of his unconscious, with
the determination and detachment of the water on his way to the sea, which as Bécquer said “it is to die”,
to die of the ego. In The Hanged Man we have an inversion because always the conduct (concrete, matter,
4) was submitted to morality, to principles (abstract, spiritual, 3) but here the square (the cross of his legs)
is above the triangle (arms).
In other words, The Hanged Man is hanging and cannot free himself. The question is: What are we
tied to that we cannot break free from? Something that we paradoxically did not choose: Our own nature.
We are what we are and we cannot be anything else. The elm tree does not give pears, and the pear tree
does not give samara. If we convince the elm to give pears, it is going to make a brutal effort; it is going to
get frustrated because it is never going to give pears and it is going to suffer because it is going to deny its
own nature, which is to give samaras. Thus, The Hanged Man on a concrete human level represents the
Principle of Surrender to one’s own nature. And he who surrenders to his own nature will more easily
surrender to a greater cause, to a social, scientific or environmental cause, to an ideal, to an enlightened
teacher, to life and to the world, and it will be a real surrender without having to give up anything.
We approach the most universal to the extent that we dive into the most intimate, so in this process
of surrender to what we are we connect with the Whole, being able to make contact with the inner Divinity
and the omnipresent Great Spirit. We can say that the first step towards happiness, harmony or nirvana is
full self-acceptance regardless of the opinions that society, the family or our own mind, full of imported
beliefs, may have in relation to certain aspects of us, generally catalogued as defects. If we accept them,
we can understand and polish them, but if we don’t accept them, they will be constantly manipulating us
from the shadows through projections. See the 1st Key to Well-being: Full self-acceptance at
www.tarotterapeutico.info Spanish VIDEOS.
Renunciation and sacrifice are ideas that have always accompanied this Arcana. The renunciation
of personal will must be understood. Whoever surrenders to his intimate nature, leaving aside doctrines,
beliefs and good reasons around which the ego is structured, melts unconsciously and consciously and
approaches his Spiritual Being, Supraconsciousness, or Divine Essence that is perfectly attuned to Totality
and ends up living the ecstasy of being a channel of the Divine.

“No man is an island. We are all part of one life force, part of one oceanic existence. Basically,
because we are one deep down in our roots, the possibility of love arises.” Osho

This surrender has nothing to do with renouncing and sacrificing oneself obeying norms and
prohibitions, blindly following stereotyped behaviors, family or social expectations to feel protected within
the flock waiting for the corresponding promises to be fulfilled. This would be denying oneself, defecating
on one's own potentials and our divine essence, and ultimately suffering and wasting life.

“It should be the chiefest aim of the wise to rid mankind of the insolence of self-sacrifice, of the
calamity of chastity; faith must be slain by certainty, and chastity by ecstasy.” The Book of Thoth. Crowley

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is questioning the extent to which he is accepted as he truly is. It may
be that, by insisting for decades on being what he is not, he has lost the notion of what he truly is, but he
realizes that he cannot go on like this because his lack of self-acceptance has dire consequences in his life:
This superlatively increases the need to be accepted by others.
He pays an absurd price to gain that acceptance.
He is hypersensitive to any rejection or criticism.
He becomes more and more phony in order to gain the acceptance of others.
This increases his devaluation

Anchor. In lack, it shows a chronic difficulty in self-acceptance, product of a childhood

programming with strong rejections and stimulations where he was required to appear what he was not and
hide what he was, and which has not yet been released. He continues trying to be what he is not, probably
far from the faintest glimpse of what he really is. As side effects, we see pain, for not being what he is and
frustration, for not getting to be what he thinks he should be. Floral essence of ButterCup* will help
improve self-acceptance, and Larch, self-confidence.
In excess, which may be suggested by the presence of much Water or the Ten of Wands -
Oppression, indicates that this person chronically throws on the back tasks and obligations to gain the
acceptance of others, becoming the martyr who imagines sacrificing himself, renouncing his desires and
opinions and devoting himself submissively to the husband, wife, children, a social work or pseudo-
spiritual or any major cause will not only be accepted, but recognized and praised. She makes suffering a
merit and sacrifice a badge.
Seemingly, her actions are aimed at helping others, but in reality she tries to buy acceptance and
hide her emotional deficiencies. She is tired and depressed, she can even think of suicide, but she continues
to try to manipulate and emotionally control others by repeating: "I am so good, I help everyone and
nobody pays any attention to me", "I sacrifice so much for you and you pay me back". Behind that need to
be loved is always a great lack of self-acceptance.
Beneath her disguise of a good person, she distills hatred and negativity, especially with the Five of
Swords - Defeat. With the Eight of Wands - Speed, she feels always bordering on explosion, identifying a
defense structure of masochistic character. She always delays pleasure and equates sacrifice with love.
Essence of Centaury will lessen her shyness and tendency to submission and servility, giving her a greater
sense of individuality, self-esteem and the ability to say no. Chicory will help address the emotional lack
covered with a false appearance of loving behavior that is used as a means of soliciting and manipulating
the attention of others for one's own benefit, with touches of self-pity, martyrdom and possessiveness.

Childhood. Acceptance shone through its absence, nothing was given to him for free, only for the
fact that he existed and was originally a spontaneous and affectionate child. Each crumb of attention and
approval was conditioned on the renunciation of one's own initiatives and one's ability to choose. Each
crumb of attention and approval was conditioned on the renunciation of one's own initiatives and one's
ability to choose. He ended up making renunciation, submission and blind obedience his law of life to try
to guarantee his physical and psychic integrity. Perhaps he grew up in an environment where sacrifice,
renunciation and obligations were exalted. "Paradise, pleasure, will come as a reward for suffering and
sacrifice in this valley of tears.”

Relationships. a) The relationship is helping the person to recognize that the only thing to which
he or she is really attached and cannot be released until death separates them is his or her own nature. This
can be perceived in more or less loving ways. Her partner may support her to be herself, but there may also
be evidence that trying to be what her partner wants her to be only brings suffering and frustration. b) This
person has a strong tendency to live for her partner, becoming nullified and adapting to her partner as
water adapts to the container that holds it. She is dedicated to satisfying her desires and expectations
because she believes that submission is the only way to be accepted. Essence of Pink Yarrow* will help
her establish healthy emotional boundaries based on her notion of individuality.

Inner Voice and Method. To integrate the archetype of The Hanged Man means:
1. Recognizing that our essential nature does not depend on will, beliefs, feelings or situations.
2. Stopping trying to adapt to what we think we have to adapt to, and adapting to the only thing we
can adapt to, which is ourselves. In fact, when we stop insisting on being what we are not, it will be easier
to perceive what we are and act accordingly.
3. Accepting, assuming and expressing what comes from within. When we assume that we are who
we are, the ego deflates, because what merit has to be what we are? We can neither lose nor conquer our
essential nature. The best we can do is rescue, polish and preserve it.
We will suggest that the person work to identify, understand and deactivate the internal difficulties
they have in fully surrendering to who they are. Some questions can help to better understand the process:
What to I do and what do I refrain from doing for others to accept me? What would I do or refrain from
doing if I wasn’t seeking acceptance from others? What keeps me from accepting myself fully? What were
my first experience of non-acceptance in my family? Do these experiences somehow repeat?
We will suggest that she stop submitting and nullifying herself, subordinating all obligations to
family, work, society, partner, etc., to be honest with herself, surrendering to her essential nature. And if
something has to be renounced it is what the ego wants and not the opposite, which is what we usually do.
Then if she feels compelled to give herself to an ideal or to a greater cause that is allowed to do so.
Deerbrush* flower will help her be more honest regarding her motivations, transforming emotion
into external action. Essence of California Wild Rose* will stimulate the loving forces of her heart, helping
her to feel enthusiastic about life. A good exercise to unblock emotions is Rebirth which, dealing with the
breath, dissolves the thoracic armor that blocks them.

Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person perceives that it
had never been accepted as it was and what were the consequences of this attitude: self-annihilation,
renunciation and sacrifice to obtain the acceptance of the world. In this way she begins to accept and value
herself, allowing herself to be more herself, respecting her impulses and emotions.

Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has been able to
identify, understand and disable internal difficulties in order to surrender to his or her nature regardless of
the opinions that family and society may have regarding some of his or her aspects or talents. As a
consequence, he or she surrenders to life and to the world. The being surrenders, integrates, reintegrates
into the cosmic flow where everything rests, flows, vibrates, smiles and dances.

External result. We see the querent facing the world with the attitude we saw in the Internal
Result. She gives herself to life and the world, radiating her love, her compassion, with awareness of the
deep and universal meaning of her life. She may be attracted to activities that seek to improve the quality
of life of beings.
 DEATH
Titles. This was for centuries the most feared card of the Tarot, to the point that in the Tarots of
Marseille, it appears without a title. In the Egyptian Tarot it is "Immortality", and in Osho Zen,
"Transformation". In most decks, including Waite and Crowley, it appears as “Death”. Its esoteric titles are
“Child of the Great Transformers” and “Lord of the Gate of Death”.

Number. Death is Arcana Thirteen. This number was and is considered popularly as a bad omen,
sign of malfortune and all kinds of misfortunes. In the old decks, the place where this number should
appear was often left blank. All this apprehension of Thirteen doesn't stop making sense. If the Twelve
transmits the security of something that is complete and structured, the Thirteen means the breaking of all
this in order, risking to face the unknown, to continue the evolution. We can say that destruction is a
phenomenon inherent to evolution. Thus, the Thirteen is related to death of the old to make way for the
new. This was very frightening to the ancients, who said: "It is better to be known as bad than good to be
known". For the Aztecs the Thirteen was the number that regulates the cycles of time, their weeks had
thirteen days and their centuries 52 years, that is to say 13 times 4.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. It is Nun, ‫ ן‬or ‫ כ‬if it comes at the end of the word. Its numerical value is 50, and 700
when at the end. According to the Kabbalist Suares it is "the principle of indeterminacy in which one's own
life is at stake". Nun, which means fish, can also be translated as perpetuity, continuous and prolific
growth, which are ideas associated with the enormous procreation capacity that fish have. As a verb it
translates as sprout, germinate and generate, and is associated with procreative strength. It is a male letter,
blue-green, which corresponds to the sound of our N. Jeroglyphically represents the new, the young, the
funny and the beautiful.
Kabbalistic path. The path of Nun, the 24th, unites Netzach (Victory), the emanation of the vital
energy associated with art, love, feelings in general and nature, with Tiphareth (Beauty), the center, the
Sun. This is one of the paths that unite personality with individuality, transcending the sphere of Netzach's
desire to integrate into Tiphareth's love. Eros is transformed into Philia. On this path the personality energy
projected by individuality is absorbed in physical death or reconceptualized in an initiation. The concrete
and perceived beauty in the object of desire, the cabalists tell us, is the reflection of the beauty of
individuality and this path unites them.

Fig.VII.24. Path 24.

Astrological association. Scorpio is the sign of Death. Being a Water sign, it tends to dissolve
shapes, giving rise to a recombination of elements that produces new creatures. It is a fixed sign and ruled
by Pluto, the transformer, and by Mars. In the human body it rules the bladder, anus, genitals and nose.
There are those who say that it also governs the uterus, which others attribute to Cancer.
 Fig.VII.25. Scorpio. Johfra.

People born under this sign are generally heated, with intense emotions and desires, strong sexual
will and instincts, however, their need to maintain control over their life situations leads them to hide them.
They like to fight and overcome obstacles. They feel an attraction for they mysterious and the occult. They
are very creative and have an exceptional ability to work, so they almost always get what they want
because they are stubborn and know how to concentrate on what they do. When something interferes in
their path they become so irritated that they can explode dangerously, destructively and self-destructively.
They have a reputation for vindictiveness, jealousy and envy, but they are also sentient beings,
vulnerable and although they sometimes want to show themselves to be self-sufficient and lonely, they
have an enormous need to relate to each other and tend to despise superficiality. Their accentuated
sensitivity allow them to perceive the falsehood and hypocrisy of the world, against which they rebel,
sometimes impulsively and violently. They are usually passionate about everything they do, putting all
their potential and energy into it. Scorpios have a tendency to suffer from infectious diseases and problems
in the urinary tract and genitals. They run the risk of being poisoned and having to undergo surgery. Its
verb is "I desire" and its integrating phrase "I use my inner power constructively in self-transformation and
healing".

SYMBOLS
The central figure of the card is a skeleton, the personification of death, not as a final state but as a
passageway leading to a new way of life. The skeleton is also considered a symbol of the knowledge
reached by the one who crossed the frontier of the unknown and who, thanks to death, penetrated the
secrets of the beyond. On another level, it symbolizes the brevity of this life. When everything is lost,
something remains, which is the most important: the skeleton. It is that which is not seen, but which
supports everything we see. In this sense it can represent what is essential, what remains when the body
disappears.
 Fig. VII.26. Death

The bones of the human body are governed by Saturn, which represents the basic structure of
things: the energy that shapes beings to the maximum degree of density and solidity. One of its names is
“Lord of the Stones”. The skeleton with its saturnal scythe (with which Saturn, Chronos in Greece,
emasculated his father Uranus on the order of his mother) is crowned with the helmet of Osiris. Grandson
of Ra, Osiris originally represented the vigor of vegetation. According to mythology, he was a king who,
with his sister and consort Isis, civilized his people of nomad hunters. He taught them agriculture,
metallurgy, bread making, and taught them how to make wine and barley beer. Jealous of his work and of
his power, his brother Set, set a trap for him by locking him in an ark and threw him into the Nile. Isis,
knowing that the soul is not liberated from the body without the corresponding funerary rituals, went out in
search and finding it in Byblos (Phoenicia), returned to Egypt, hiding in the swamps of the delta. One night
of hunting, Set, who usurped the throne, discovered the ark, split Osiris into 14 pieces and threw them into
the Nile, hoping that the crocodiles would devour them and he would never have access to eternal life. The
crocodiles did not dare to devour him and Isis managed to rescue 13 pieces (the penis was eaten by a fish),
with which and with the help of Anubis and Thoth reconstituted his body.

Fig. VII.27. Isis, Osiris and Horus

Isis breathed life into him with her wings and, using her magic, conceived Horus, who would have
the mission of avenging his father’s assassin and retaking the throne. From here Osiris was identified with
the night Sun that dies every night to resurrect the next day, becoming the god of the dead, death and
resurrection. As a funeral deity, Osiris was one of the most revered and popular Egyptian gods. He
represents the necessary prior annihilation that makes the emergence of a new life possible, just as the seed
decomposes in order to germinate. This process of annihilation and rebirth is also explicit in the dance of
the skeleton (and dance is one of the best ways to deactivate the ego) that with its scythe destroys the
existing and creates a series of bubbles where new figures become part of the great dance of life and death.
These bubbles represent the essence liberated by the destruction or putrefaction of ancient forms.
Alchemists would tell us about putrefaction: "Putrefaction is the death of bodies and the division of the
materials of the compound, which leads to corruption and disposes of them for the generation"
(Dictionnaire Mytho-hermetique. Pernety, 1787).
Putrefaction means the destruction of forms, so that life is reborn in another way. The form is gone but
the essence remains to take on other forms. In truth, it is death that gives life continuity, without which it
would be stagnant. Death is nothing more than the ongoing process of destruction without which nothing
could come into existence. At the feet of the skeleton appears a scorpion, next to it a snake and above it an
eagle. These three animals express three different levels of the alchemical concept of putrefaction and of
the sign attributed to this operation: Scorpio. In the scorpion that illustrates the lowest level, the accent is
placed on destruction. After copulation, the male is killed by the female. When the young are born their
first food are the entrails of their mother, showing how the life of the species (and therefore of its
individuals) is perfectly assembled and determined by the death of those same individuals. Surrounded by
fire or in the face of serious danger, this arachnid prefers to be sent to the other neighbourhood, taking a
lunge with its sting. Life and death, creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin. It is interesting
to note that the sign of Scorpio, in the northern hemisphere, falls in autumn, a time when much of the
vegetation dies, decomposes, ferments, sometimes under snow and it is in this new chaotic raw material,
humus, that the rebirth is prepared for a new life. On both sides of the scorpion we see two flowers, to the
right an opium button and to the left a datura flower reinforcing the idea of destruction. The use of
psychotropic plants can be of notable help at specific moments along our individuation path. However,
these two are especially physically and psychically destructive.
The intermediate level is illustrated by the snake. The ancient people believed that the serpent,
’’The Lady of Life and Death’’, was immortal. In truth, it merely transforms, shedding its skin. We find it
as "The Lady of the Vital Principle", timeless, prior to all gods, bridge between chaos and Cosmos. It is the
deposit or potential where all manifestations and transformations originate. According to one of the oldest
Mediterranean traditions, the snake Atum, emerging from the primordial waters, spat (in another version
ejaculated) all creation. In Neolithic antiquity, the serpent was the main symbol of the Great Goddess, both
in Crete and in the Middle East. In Mesopotamia, an archeological site from the 24th century B.C.
discovered a representation of the Goddess with a serpent coiled around her neck.

Fig. VII.28. Minoan, goddess of earth, sky and sea. (Crete)

In India we see the nagakals, related to the Tantric cults of the feminine. In Egypt, the serpent
goddess Ua Zit would be the original creator of the world. In Canaan, the goddess Astarte was represented
by a snake With the arrival of patriarchy and its male gods of war, revenge and death, the symbols of the
Goddess in general and of the serpent in particular were either assimilated by the new cults to "legitimize"
the power of the new rulers or were simply degraded. Thus, at Zeus’ side, the snake becomes a symbol of
new power. It appears on Athena’s shield. It seems that in the Ark of the Covenant, the most sacred symbol
of the Jewish religion, there was a bronze serpent made in the desert by Moses and which was worshipped
in the temple of Jerusalem. This cult existed until King Hezekiah (700 BC ) destroyed it. Zeus defeats the
monster Typhon, but does not kill him, he exiles him under Etna from where he continues to spit fire;
Apollo exterminates the serpent Python; Hercules kills Ladon; Baal, Phoenician god, subdues the serpent
Lotan; Jehovah kills Leviathan.
In Christianity Mary kills the serpent by stepping on its head, giving continuity to the Hebrew myth
that the serpent and the woman would be the cause of all the pains of the human race: "The serpent that
seduced the virginal modesty of Eve, inspired the desire for bestial intercourse and all impurity and
prostitution of men" (Jacob Boehme 1575-1624). The feminine is mutilated and degraded, leaving it as a
dark and ridiculous shadow of itself, with "Esta noche me emborracho" by Carlos Gardel as background
music.
In many traditions the snake is a mythical ancestor who brought diverse knowledge helping in the
evolution of the human species. Its best-known form is Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent of Toltec origin,
later retaken by the Aztecs. The snake is also a symbol of fertility. In India, women who want to conceive
adopt a snake. It is said that the ancient Tupi-Guarani whipped the hips of sterile women with snakes to
make them fertile. In Angola, certain tribes place a wooden snake under the bridal bed to ensure
fertilization.
There are those who see the snake as a virile symbol due to its sudden appearances, rigid and erect
to throw its poison. Crowley defined it as “the primary symbol of masculine energy”. We can consider it
sexually ambivalent: its body is phallic and her rings are vaginal. We can consider the snake as the
Primordial Vital Principle, timeless, prior to the masculine and feminine or, as Jung says in "L’homme à
découverte de son âme: Structure et fonctionement de l´inconscient" (1933): "The snake is a vertebrate
that embodies the lower psyche, the dark psychology, what is strange, incomprehensible and mysterious."
The eagle illustrates the highest level, depicting exaltation above solid matter. It is a symbol of
Zeus, the Lord of Thunder and Lightning both in cold Siberia and in North American prairies, in Japan,
China, Africa, Mexico, etc. Witches, priests, kings, heroes and armies use it as an emblem with the aim of
participating in its powers. Several eagle feathers tied on a stick is the healing instrument used by most
red-skinned wizards. Able to face the sunlight head-on, the eagle is a symbol of clairvoyance in many
cultures. The Greeks, Romans, Persians and desert Bedouins interpret the flight of eagles as premonition or
expression of divine will. This bird of prey represents that which is above matter, free from attachment to
the laws of the material world, and symbolizes spiritual elevation and purity. It represents the essence of
the human being: free, eternal and divine. Reaching the eagle, surrendering to the essence, is the final
result of transformation. It is the new life that arises after the putrefaction, it is the state of the eagle of
which Don Juan speaks to us: "I have already surrendered myself to the power that governs my destiny and
I don't attach myself to anything, so as not to have anything to defend. I don't have thoughts to thus be able
to See. I fear nothing so that I can remember myself. Detached and natural, I will pass through the Eagle
to become free" (El don del águila, Carlos Castañeda).
Next to the snake appears the fish, traditionally a symbol of life, fertility and prosperity, due to its
prodigious capacity to reproduce by laying millions of eggs. It must be the fish that ate Osiris’ genitals! In
ancient Asia Minor the fish was considered the father and mother of the species, while in Syria it was an
attribute of the goddesses of love, happening in Greece to be, with the form of the dolphin, an attribute of
Aphrodite and also associated with the cult of Apollo, giving name to its temple of Delphi. In China, it is a
symbol of good luck. For the Indians of Central America, it represents the god of corn and the primitive
Christians used the fish to represent Christ and their communities.

GENERAL MEANINGS
This card symbolizes the Universal Principle of Transformation, which demands the death of the
old, of that which lost its capacity to pulse in the cosmic rhythm and which only through destruction can
become energetically alive again. An astrophysicist could very well see in the undulating movement of the
scythe, the role of the comets that drag in their tail the celestial bodies that lost energy and are old and
devitalized. A whole series of physical-chemical restructuring processes takes place there. When new
bodies reach a kinetic potential sufficient to become independent beings, they are released from the comet
when part of its tail is released. In ancient times comets were considered a bad omen, heralds of
catastrophes, famines, wars, epidemics; today they are seen as premonitors of great transformations not
necessarily frightening.
In the human world death represents a profound transformation, product of the identification,
comprehension and deactivation of a whole series of behavior patterns, that although they were necessary
in childhood to have a minimum of approval, they crystallized becoming the axes of the false personality
(ego) and decades later the person continues making his life choices and taking his initiatives
automatically from those patterns and not from the essence. This is the moment when the destruction of the
heart begins, where all kinds of blockages, fears and traumas crystallized. Muscle tensions are relieved and
behavioral patterns unmasked. The repressive armor that we saw in The Chariot begins to crack and
through the cracks appear the essential bubbles of the most authentic being. Even when this transformation
is desired it can be a crisis, the intensity of which will depend on the degree of attachment that the subject
has to his neurotic patterns of behavior and defense mechanisms.
The dance that leads to trance is a means of getting rid of the conditioning, leading the subject to
make contact with his true nature. So it was in the Dionysian rituals, in ancient Egypt, with the dancing
dervishes, with the shamanic dances, the candomblé and with the active meditations of Osho, especially
the Kundalini and Nataraj. In India, Shiva, the transformer, is represented as Shiva Nataraj, the one who
dances and kills his ego.

Fig. VII.29. Shiva Nataraja

In this sense, rock helped save humanity from a nuclear disaster. It was at the height of the Cold
War, when the emperors of the day and their hierophants were willing to lead young people to new wars,
that the rockers put the youth to dance, alchemizing and dissolving the anger and frustration that would be
used by the "intelligence" agencies to further destroy the planet.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment: The person is going through a crisis, processing a profound internal
transformation. He perceives that different attitudes and impulses arise from within than usual and he feels
like facing situations in a new way, although this also generates fear. He realizes that the more he identifies
with the old patterns of behavior needed to survive childhood, the more acute the crisis. The contiguous
card can show in which aspects it will be given with greater intensity or which blockages make it difficult.
Anchor. In lack, this is a person who always says “Change? I’d rather die!”, remaining anchored in
the past and in the patterns of conduct he or she identifies with. She has never been able to keep up with
the changing times and avoids confronting her internal conflicts by fleeing or anesthetizing them. We
suggest the use of the floral essence of Sagebrush*, which makes it easier to break with old habits and
false identifications and helps to rediscover the essence and inner truth. Walnut essence will provide the
courage to free oneself from the past and other people's ideas, especially if one is emotionally attached to
the family, as a Ten of Cups - Satiety in the Anchor would indicate.
 This attitude generates tension that makes the possibility of transformation even more difficult. A
second card in the Anchor may indicate to us how that tension would manifest:
With coercive cards such as the Four and Eight of Swords (Truce and Interference) there can be no
transformation by asking for the use of Cayenne*, which, like a catalytic spark, facilitates an intense
energetic response capable of overcoming blockages.
The Princess of Swords gives a defensive, critical, distrustful and aggressive attitude toward
everything new. Oregon Grape* flower helps dissolve this patter of mistrust. Cherry Plum flower will
help her surrender more to life and to handle challenges better. With the Queen of Swords, tension is
projected onto the outer world. Instead of transforming her life, she wants to change the world. She’s a
hardcore nonconformist who throws her own dissatisfaction onto the world. In her defiance, she destroys
herself and her environment. We can recommend Saguaro*, which alleviates her extreme defiance and
resistance of authority.
In excess it can show a person who is constantly attending self-awareness workshops, at the
psychoanalyst’s office, in rituals with psychotropic plants, etc. She ends up with a head full of information
that she doesn’t put into practice and with which she inflates her own ego. Transformation comes from
consciousness and consciousness comes from the depth with which we live the experience. A small
experience lived with depth can bring much more awareness than innumerable superficial experiences.
Essence of Blackberry* can help lead to practical solidification of all this information.
Childhood. This is the only position in which this Arcana can mean physical death. In the first
place of the child: an encounter with death in the womb, in childbirth or in the first years of life, confirmed
by the presence of Pluto close to the natal chart ascendant. It can also mean the death or loss of a parent,
who disappeared from the child’s life. This death may be symbolic, such as the father doing something
barbaric, such as raping his daughter, who is so shocked, hurt and angry that she says: “This bastard is no
longer my father. You can also talk about the loss of siblings or someone close to you, including a pet that
marked the child intensely.
Relationships a) The current relationship is helping the person transform. Again, this may occur in
very different ways. She can feel lovingly supported to get rid of outdated patterns of behavior as soon as
she enters a crisis when she perceives that if she wants to give continuity to the relationship she has to
release those patterns and rules of behavior in order to live from her inner truth. b) She can also show the
person who proclaims herself as the catalyst of the transformations of her partner, who "knows" what she
has to understand or do to improve the relationship and life, thus protecting herself behind the couch.
Inner Voice and Method. The time has come to grab the bull by the horns and face the crisis:
identifying, understanding and deactivating fears and other inner difficulties to abandon behaviors, habits
and routines and give more attention to inner truth. We will suggest therapy, especially child
deprogramming, because the old patterns of behavior and the beliefs and fears that sustain them are rooted
in it. The being is suffocated under defensive shells and role models that block and disconnect the person
from his or her nature and that have to be abandoned. To integrate the Arcana of Death also means to
accept the situations that we attract, even though they are the ones that most frighten us. It is those
situations and not those we expect (when I retire..., when my soul mate appears...), that will help us to
transform ourselves.
Floral essence of Morning Glory* can help the person break free from more destructive habits. A
good starting point is to de-automate each act, each gesture, each thought, placing full attention on each
thing, breathing consciously, trying to make each instant something unrepeatable.
A very common mistake when we talk about transformations is to give it a sense of improvement.
The definition of better or worse is subject to doctrines, beliefs and fads. It isn’t about improving, but
about being truly who we are.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person begins to
transform. He or she is also the product of perceiving the consequences of having lived for decades
obeying invasive patterns of behavior from which s/he is now becoming independent. These are internal
changes that will be reflected in the external world. S/he thus takes more authentic, firm and profound
stances. Accompanied by The Hermit it indicates that this transformation is the result or runs parallel to a
process of self-analysis. With the Princess of Cups, it shows an awakening of creativity and the ability to
express feelings. With the Three of Spades it indicates that the querent faces the challenge of being
rejected, blamed or abandoned by people who do not approve of his/her changes.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has been able to
identify, understand and disable existing internal difficulties in order to eliminate outdated patterns of
behavior that set in during childhood and express herself from her essence. It shows the death of the
puppet programmed and disconnected from the true being.
External result. This person faces the world with the attitude we saw in the Inner Result and as a
result of his inner changes he not only stops attracting what he attracted, but he may also be placing his
energy in the transformation of his environment, firmly supported by his inner truth.

ART (TEMPERANCE)
Titles. In the Marseille tarot and most other decks, it is called “Temperance”. Along with “Justice”,
“Strength” and “The Star”, which to may authors continues to mean hope, we have an allusion to the
virtues of Catholicism. Of these four cards, the first three were renamed by Crowley, calling them "Art",
"Adjustment" and "Lust". In Osho Zen Tarot, it is “Integration”. Its esoteric titles are “Daughter of the
Reconcilers” and “Bringer-Forth of Life”.
Number. Art is Arcana Fourteen. Two times Seven, it is the union of two pure entities, which,
completing a cycle in themselves, reach new state of perfection together.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ם‬, Sameck, a single blue letter, which is worth 60, is attributed to Art. It sounds like
our S. It means support, brace, spine, sustain or establish. Hieroglyphically it represents a snake biting its
own tail: it is the one that feeds on its own substance. It is the ouroboros, the cosmic womb or uterus that,
embracing the Cosmos in an immense continuous circle, avoids disintegration. It is one of the oldest
symbols, it represents cyclic manifestation and reabsorption, sexual union and permanent self-fertilization.
It is the perpetual transformation of death into life and of life into death, the death that comes out of life
and the life that comes out of death. It would also show the union of the animal world (the serpent) with
the spiritual world (the circle). There would exist here a kind of union of opposites that is seen more
clearly in some representations in which the snake is, longitudinally, half white and half black, as we saw
in illustration VI.06.
Kabbalistic path. The path of Sameck (25th) goes from Yesod, the Foundation, the foundations,
the sphere of the Moon, with Tiphareth - the Beauty, the vision of harmony, the sphere of the Sun. It is a
vertical path, balanced in the central column of the Tree and considered one of the most important and
difficult paths of practical Kabbalah. It is, in alchemical terms, the distillation of black. Going from the
Moon to the Sun, it connects Yesod’s personality or astral psychism with Tiphareth’s individuality. Here
the walker submits and verifies his beliefs in the challenges of everyday life by establishing - Sameck - his
own truth in a continuous process of trial and error.
 Fig. VII.30. Path 25.

Astrological association. Sagittarius is a mutable fire sign ruled by Jupiter. It governs the hips,
back and buttocks in the human body. Those born under this sign have excellent and overflowing vitality,
which implies a great need for activity and movement.

Fig. VII.31. Sagittarius. Johfra

Of enthusiastic, ardent and impulsive temperament, they are tremendously extroverted. Sagittarius,
which means 'archer', is represented by an armed centaur, as Diana goddess of hunting and the Moon, bow
and arrows. Diana governs Yesod's astral currents as well as tides and feminine cycles. Sagittarians
approach life as an adventure, a journey, a quest. Their hobby is to make this trip an interesting, varied,
expansive journey, full of novelties, encounters and knowledge. They feel a real fascination for the
unknown, for risk and gambling. They love to travel and everything that is exotic and far away. They have
a cheerful, youthful and optimistic character so that they relate easily, although they are also fickle and
superficial. The world of security, domestic routines and tranquility does not convince them. They need to
set goals to achieve, surpass their limits and live in constant change. They are excellent actors, but honest
and frank. Their lofty sense of justice makes them question the social system. Their mission is to transform
and drive. They tend to suffer from attacks of sciatica, gout, rheumatism, joint problems, as well as tumors
and liver disease. As good Jupiterians, they don’t know how to set their own limits and tend to fall into
exaggerations that are sometimes destructive. The Sagittarius verb is ’I see’ (vision = 60 = Sameck) and its
integrating phrase is "I manifest inner wisdom and see the supreme in the simplest things".

SYMBOLS
The central figure of the card is Diana the Huntress, the one with the many breasts, as she was
adored in Ephesus (Turkey) representing the feminine in a more global way: the Great Goddess, who gives
to all life and also death.
 Fig. VII.32. Diana of Ephesus

The Aryan warriors who invaded the Mediterranean basin, which had been fundamentally
matriarchal up until then (1500 B.C. ), wed their gods of war and death to the native goddesses, but they
did not allow worship of the Great Goddess. Because they couldn’t eliminate it, they dismembered it.
Diana, represents the natural structure, support - Sameck - for the ebb and flow of Existence.
Here she integrates the black king and the blonde queen who were wed in The Lovers, assigned to
Gemini, the opposite and complementary sign to Sagittarius. One side of her face is black and the other
white. The white side has black hair and arm, and the golden crown of the king with a silver band. The
black side has blond hair encircled by the silvery crown of the queen with a gold mark and white arm. Her
left hand, white and feminine, holds the silver cup of the queen, and the right, masculine, holds the lance of
the king in the form of a smoldering firebrand. Her clothes are green to indicate that she, like the Empress,
favors plant growth and creativity. We also see bees and snakes on the clothes of the imperial couple. The
Lion and the Eagle increased in size and the former exchanged its blood with the white gluten of the latter.
The polar symbols of the Lovers are here perfectly complemented, counterbalanced and balanced. It is not
just a sum of polarities, but a merging and deep complementation of the Masculine and Feminine
Principles. Each of these principles is not complete in itself, but neither are they totally incomplete, for
each of them, in order to exist, needs to carry a reference to its opposite in its own nature.
The symbol that best expresses this idea is the Taoist Yin-Yang where each aspect carries in its
center a drop of its complementary opposite.

Fig. VII.33. Yin Yang

On the card, we can perceive this same idea in the fact that the two sides of Diana’s face are greater
than the exact half: each participates on the other side.
She’s mixing the two principles in the golden cauldron: Fire and Water, which appear on the
ground perfectly harmonized, showing graphically, as Crowley tells us: "the satisfaction of the desire of
each element, partially incomplete, to become complete through the assimilation of its opposite. Water was
poured onto Fire, mingling with it.”
Every alchemical operation also takes place within the alchemist whose physical vehicle is
represented by the golden cauldron (symbol of happiness and prosperity in the I Ching) indicating that by
virtue of the operation he was spiritualized.
 The application of Yod - Fire, the sexual energy of the kundalini - on He - Water, consciousness -
produces Vau - Air, spiritualized consciousness - within the physical body which is the final He. The result
is bigger than the single sum of its parts. The four elements are present in the cauldron, as suggested by the
cross of equal arms engraved on its edge.

Fig. VII.34. Temperance in the Tarots of Marseilles and Waite. Art in Crowley

Emerging from the cauldron as a result of the operation performed therein, a ray of light emerges
and ascends, transforming itself into two rainbows that form the border of the ermine mantle that covers
Diana’s shoulders. The rainbow is in the first place the expression in Nature of the perfect union of the
Water -the rain of day or the humidity of night- with the Fire -the light of the Sun or of the Moon-. A result
that also goes further in beauty and color than the simple union of the qualities of its components.
Secondly, the rainbow represents the bridge that unites Earth and Heaven, passing ideas of elevation and
spiritualization.
For the bororos of Mato Grosso -Brazil-, the red skins of Nevada -EUA- and other African and
Asian tribes, the rainbow is a snake -Samek- generally malicious, which steals children and announces
catastrophes. Astrologically, the rainbow is attributed to Sagittarius. The archer’s arrow is a symbol of
penetration, unification, decision and sparkling intuition. When it reaches its objective it represents the
final realization and ascending together with the ray that forms the rainbow, it suggests the aspiration to
unite with the Divinity. Since this operation of joining Fire and Water involves the manipulation of sexual
energy, we can consider the release of the arrow as a spiritual orgasm. It is the wave of bliss of tantric
ecstasy or Mahamudra, the climax of the mystics. Saint Teresa of Avila described her spiritual experiences
as an angel piercing her heart with a flaming arrow. The ascending arrow symbolizes liberation from
material conditioning.
Two moons of three days, venerated in India as the Moon of Shiva, the most feminine and
receptive of its forms, the Moon of Yoni, cross in front of Diana's head. And they are complemented with a
solar disc that occupies the bottom of the card in which the alchemical maximum is recorded in Latin:
“Visita Interiora Terra Rectificando Invenies Ocultum Lapidem” which literally means “Visit the interior
of the Earth, rectifying you will find the Hidden Stone” and which we can interpret as "Rectifying your
direction, going inside yourself, you will find the Philosopher's Stone", the catalyst for the transformation
of metals into gold and the alchemist into a sage, as well as the elixir of eternal youth. These eight words
correspond to the eight alchemical operations.
 Fig. VII.35. The seven operations of alchemy

Notice that the raven, which in Greece was consecrated to Apollo, above the skull corresponding to
the 1st operation: the Calcination, appears on the card in the center of the cauldron, perched on a skull is a
symbol of the continuity of life through death and rebirth. The initial letters of the alchemical mandate
form the word 'vitriol', the universal solvent formed by the balanced combination of the three alchemical
principles: Sulphur, Salt and Mercury.
The two moons look like two bows poised to fire their arrows. The three initial letters of the three
lower paths of the Tree: Kaph 29th path - The Moon - Shin 31st path - Aeon - and Tau 32nd path - The
Universe form the word ‘Qesheth’, which means ’bow’ and ’rainbow’ that shoots its arrow toward the top.

Fig. VII.36. The Arc.

The path of Sameck, the serpent that sustains, is an arrow that crosses the rainbow, between Diana's
breasts ordered as the six planets, or metals, around the Sun or the Gold, which we can consider as the
seven levels of consciousness. This path is a stage of the Way of the Arrow that ascends by the central
pillar of the Tree. It is the path that leads the aspirant without detours from Malkuth to Keter, crossing
Yesod (the Moon, the past, the mother, the astral psyche), passing through Tipharet (the Sun, the eternal
present, individuality), and finally overcoming the Abyss, by the hand of the High Priestess to fall into full
light. The alchemical maxim of the solar disk tells us how to make this path successfully. The arrow is also
a symbol of Mercury as it represents guided will.

GENERAL MEANINGS
 This card illustrates the Principle of Integration of Opposites that here are perfectly united and
complemented. In it is given the consummation of the Royal Wedding that we saw in the Lovers and that
with Art form the alchemical polarity 'Solve et Coagula', ‘Separating and Joining’; with the ‘Joining’
aspect emphasized here. Along with the process of integration, it brings the process of spiritualization. If in
Arcana XIII the death of the robot gave rise to liberation of the Essence of Being, in Art, the essence is
manifested in practice. The Fool reached the second initiation (2x7); praxis is possible. The essence begins
to express itself without tension or anguish, imprinting its beauty and fragrance on everything a person
does. Thus it enters the flow, which would be a good title for this card, and walking becomes a dance, the
word poetry and silent meditation. From the inner calm, from the non-action, The Fool acts and the result
is Art. Now we can understand why Crowley gave this title to this card, much broader and deeper than
"Temperance," which at best indicates moderation and, at worst, dominion over passions.
In Taoism we have Wu Wei, action without action, which is not the result of mental activity or the
ego but of inner silence that makes possible the connection with the essence and the exercise of the true
will. It is doing without doing, external action from inner calm. As the Taoists say: “Be like a hollow
bamboo”; You don’t make the song, the song is made by the wind. You are only a channel. But who is the
wind? It is what comes from within, what emerges from the unconscious with its own energy, joy and
breath.
From a Taoist story: “- What is the Master doing? asked a monk at the doors of the monastery.
- The Master is resting - they answered him. Not wanting to interrupt the Master’s rest, the monk
withdrew. The next day he asked again and received the same answer. The same thing repeated on the third
and fourth days. Already irritated, on the fifth day he asked: - How does this Master rest?
- The Master rests working - they answered him.
In action from the center, from inner silence, there is no wear and tear, there is no tension, there is
no anxiety for results, there is no effort, but pleasure, the action is total, the balance of things is not
violated, the Master rests at work. This Wu Wei attitude is the true Philosopher’s Stone.
Another integration of what has always been shown to us as opposites is having fun working.
Whenever we express a talent, it comes with pleasure and energy, so if we opt for activities that provide us
with that pleasure coming from within, when we make our work fun, we are guaranteeing that our work
will have quality, because specific talents are being expressed by it. So we stop being divided from
Monday to Friday doing something that does not give us pleasure to get money and Saturday and Sunday
we spend that money to buy pleasure that does not come from inside but from outside.
And if we need to incorporate knowledge in order to do better this work that amuses us, we are
going to absorb it easily so that the quality of our work increases even more and we will earn money,
because the society that hypocritically says that values effort is really paying for quality. In addition, if we
make our work fun when the work day ends we will face the relationships, whether family, loving or
friendly as donors and not as vampires with what will be easier to flow into them. Also, when we do what
we like we don’t see time pass, so we age more slowly. With a healthy body, heart and pocket it will be
easier to open the door of spiritual transcendence. See the “4th Key to Well-being” at
www.tarotterapeutico.info Spanish videos.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. We see the person in contact with an internal urge to make career choices that
give him pleasure. He asks himself: Would it be possible to make what I enjoy my work? He was probably
always involved in dull activities, just for money, family satisfaction or status. Perhaps certain beliefs that
prevented him from doing what he really liked are losing strength while he is increasingly dissatisfied, if
not fed up, with his usual professional occupations.
He may perceive that making an effort doesn't work. He observes that the best results come when
he does what gives him the most pleasure, which naturally comes from within, and that does not require
effort. What effort does the apple tree make to give apples? He also perceives that the less he thinks about
results and the more he is absorbed in action, when action is an end in itself rather than a means to an end
in the future, the better the results.
The will of the ego, projected in the future, in the results of the action, establishes objectives that
inflate the true will the desire comes from the unconscious, takes the whole body and is manifested in the
action without yearning for results.

Anchor. In excess we have a person who identifies with his professional role so that his self-esteem
and humor are a function of work and recognition. It is obvious that this pattern of behavior will be more
difficult to maintain if he doesn’t like his job. We can have the case of the person who made of his
amusement his work but who was absorbed in such a way in it that he stopped living other things. With
this perfectionist and sometimes cheerful and popular mask she flees from herself and hides her deep
emotions and desires, especially if we have in childhood cards that emphasize rationalization and
repression such as the Four, Six or Eight of Swords -Truce, Science and Interference respectively. With the
Seven of Cups - Corruption - this may indicate dependence on stimulants such as coffee, alcohol or
cocaine to maintain his facade of an enthusiastic worker. Agrinomy floral essence could help him be
emotionally honest, acknowledge his sorrows and express his feelings.
In lack, it shows a person hostage of the curse of Jehovah: "You shall earn the bread with the sweat
of your brow" convinced that it is one thing to work and another very different thing is to have fun so that
it does not occur to him that he can earn money with something that gives him pleasure, because according
to him work can not give pleasure, because it would not be work. His pleasure comes from spending the
money he earns without pleasure. The Seven of Wands - Courage indicates that this person demands too
much, thus violating the natural rhythms of his body, and may accumulate muscle tensions. Dandelion*
flower will teach him to listen to body messages, allowing dynamic energy to work with less effort.
Childhood. At least one of his parents was a compulsive perfectionist, probably a competent,
accomplished, and productive professional, or would have liked to be. This adult demanded that the child
acquire these characteristics and also demanded that he be absorbed in the performance of tasks, perhaps,
unsuitable for his age. Not only did the child often feel incapable and undervalued by the adult, but it was
also believed that he would only be accepted by the family, and as an extension of it, by society, if he
managed to show efficiency, capacity for work and self-control or, in the worst case, perfection at all costs.
Relationships. a) A relationship helps this person integrate polarities, especially in the professional
aspect. Thus the partner, in different ways, drives the person to opt for professional activities that give him
pleasure, to transform those internal impulses, which are actually his talents that want to express
themselves, into a source of income. It can also show that the relationship encourages the person to
identify and integrate their masculine and feminine polarities. b) It sells in the relationships market an
image of excellent professional, intelligent, busy and probably done or about to be done. Behind this
facade, he hides his feelings and emotional needs. We will advise using Evening Primrose* floral essence
to facilitate a warmer and more committed emotional expression.
Inner Voice and Method. The Art card in this position indicates that the person is involved in
activities that he does not like or if he likes is obsessed with his objectives. He loses the moment, that is,
life, in an effort that he imagines will only end when the goals are reached. If we have difficulty reaching
our objectives it is because: a) they are not our true objectives, rooted in the unconscious so that through
them our talents are expressed releasing energy and pleasure or b) we still have to learn something before
reaching them. There is pleasure in the second option, and none in the first.
Integrating this archetype means learning to flow as a result of complementing polarities.
Professionally, this suggests that the person makes what he enjoys his work. Activities that are really
related to him, to his potential. They will be activities that come naturally from within with pleasure and
energy will guarantee not only enjoy the moment but the quality of the results and therefore the economic
return and recognition. We will suggest that the person answer a few questions: Of all my activities, which
do I do solely for money? What would I do if I didn’t need to work to live? What fears and threats emerge
when I feel the need to leave a joyless job and do what I like? Where do these threats come from?
Essence of Wild Oat will help him choose his work as something that answers a true inner call.
With the Princess of Cups, this will underscore the importance of participating in creative activities. Iris*
flower will help him develop and integrate artistic creativity with daily work.
If it is a woman with the Ten of Cups - Satiety or The Empress in the Anchor, we can imagine that
she is divided between her home, her children and her professional fulfillment. In this case, using essence
of Pomegranate* can facilitate a more conscious choice.
On the relationship plane, it is important that the person understands that as long as he hides or
denies one of his polarities (masculine or feminine) he is going to feel manipulated by her and by the
people on whom she projects this polarity. As she develops and integrates them, toward what esotericists
call 'the Inner Androgenization', this ceases to happen, she no longer feels more blindly and compulsively
attracted or repelled by anyone and will be able to flow into love relationships. If in The Lovers the person
is in the masculine when he has to be in the masculine and in the feminine when he has to be in the
feminine, here in Art, he is in both at the same time. As Che said: "We must become tough without losing
tenderness".
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions the person realizes that he
cannot devote most of his day, that is, of his life to meaningless activities that he does just to earn money.
She knows what gives her pleasure and she’s investing in it.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has been able to
identify, understand and disable existing internal difficulties in order to make what he or she enjoys a job.
She has freed herself from the curse of Jehovah and ceased to be divided between week and weekend,
work and vacation, enjoying all the time with which she faces relationships radiating pleasure. Her
work/fun recharges her energetically so that she can even rejuvenate. Her feminine and masculine
polarities develop, perfect and integrate, opening the door to spiritual transcendence.
External result. The person faces the world with the attitude we saw in the Internal Result,
working on what he likes and how he wants. He is naturally efficient and dedicated, fluid and loose. The
fruits of his labor and work are imbued with the fragrance and beauty of his essence. It is important not to
forget that in life there are more things than work, because when we make what we enjoy our work, it is
easier to fall into temptation to spend the day working.
 CHAPTER VIII

THE THIRD SEPTENARY

THE DEVIL
Titles. In nearly all tarot decks, this card is titled “The Devil” or “The Demon”. Devil comes from
the Greek “διάβολος”, diabolos, which in the 5th century B.C. meant “slanderer” or “accuser”, like Sâtan
in Hebrew. Demon comes from the Greek daimónios, which means “proceeding from a deity”, “heaven-
sent”, divine, miraculous, marvelous. They are carefree and festive creatures, lovers of sex and dance,
intermediaries between gods and men related to the forces of fertility, such as satyrs and nymphs. I prefer
to call it the Demon.
In the Egyptian Tarot, it is called “Passion”, and in the Osho Zen Tarot, “Conditioning”. Its esoteric
titles are “Lord of the Gates of Matter” and “Child of the Forces of Time”, because of its allocation to
Capricorn governed by Saturn (Chronos in Greece), the Lord of Time. Waite calls it “The Dweller on the
Threshold”. He is also known as “Prince of the Power of the Air” because his energy is mediating the flow
of astral currents.
Number. Fifteen is the number attributed to this card. By breaking it down (1+5), we get Six,
number of perfection resulting from the union of opposites, and the number of sex. Fifteen is a Six in a
new state, with the experience accumulated along the way. Because it is three times five, it is more related
to the human plane than Six.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ע‬. Ayin is a single letter, indigo colored, with numeric value 70. It means eye, and
esoterically it would be the all-seeing eye. It is a silent letter that hieroglyphically represents the more
material side of things. The sense of sight allows us to know this material side of things, known in the East
as Maya or world of illusion. Today’s physicists also agree: what seems real on a material level is an
illusion. As the saying goes: “Nothing is real or a lie; it all depends on the color of the glass you’re looking
through.”
Kabbalistic path. The path of Ayin (26th) connects and balances Hod - Splendor - with Tiphareth -
Beauty -; the sphere of the rational mind of Mercury with the sphere of individuality, governed by the Sun.
This is a process of transferring conscious perception from the concrete mind to the abstract mind. On this
path, we reorganize our perspective and gain a renewed vision of the world.
 Fig. VIII.01. Path 26.

Astrological association. Capricorn. One of the three Earth signs, it is the most stony and resistant.
It is ruled by Saturn, the lord of stones. It is considered a heavy and dark sign that symbolizes the highest
and lowest at the same time. It represents conditioning and consequent release.

Fig. VIII.02. Capricorn. Jofhra

In the physical body, it rules the knees, bones, joints, teeth, skin, cartilage and pituitary gland,
which in turn corresponds to the Ajna chakra or third eye. People born under this sign grow up probing the
mysteries of Nature and favoring the benefits derived from the use of foresight and prudence. Capricorns
are usually cunning, prudent and ambitious. They are so drawn to social success that they are capable of
making any sacrifice to achieve it. They are very materialistic, responsible, serious and suspicious.

“They have a mystery hunter side, like a magician who hides his secrets, afraid that they might be
used against him.” (Knowledge of astrology). Ana María Ribeiro.

This dual nature is represented by its symbol, half goat, half fish: when the sea covered the
mountains, the goat was submerged in the Ocean, acquiring inner wisdom. Legend has it that when the sea
withdrew, the goat had to leave the fish half behind and accept the conditions of solid matter. Slowly and
surely, Capricorns usually accomplish all of their goals. When obstacles arise, they get extremely irritated,
seeing enemies everywhere. They are spiteful and lack a poetic sensibility. They are very utilitarian,
realistic and very concerned about what others will say. They don’t tend to be overly inclined to establish
caring relationships. They are skeptical about love, but at the end of the journey they tend to get deeply
involved for a long time. Behind their serious and cautious appearance, we find intensely proud beings.
They love power and are very prone to depression and isolation. They are predisposed to rheumatism and
bone problems in general. The verb for Capricorn is “I use” and its phrase is “I reach my goals in a relaxed
manner, enjoying every step along the way”.

SYMBOLS
In the Tarot of Marseille, we see a strange, unnatural, grotesque and frightening animal, with deer
horns, bat wings and women’s breasts, just as medieval Catholicism represented the idea of a demon
inspired by the horned Cernunnos (Celtic god of vegetation, lord of animals, symbol of the fertilizing
masculine principle, consort of Cerridwen, the Great Mother, goddess of fertility, considered the father of
the Welsh race and its gods: Toutatis, Esus and Taranis) in Pan, Lucifer and in the Egyptian Mendes, a
mixture of faun and satyr, which would represent the antithesis of the Divinity.
 Fig. VIII.03. Cernunnos and Cerridwen

Contemporary decks like Waite’s and the Golden Dawn continue showing unnatural and
threatening beings who enslave human beings, with the appearance of high priests of some terrible black
magic. This attachment to Catholic folklore and outdated ideas is anachronistic, especially since Éliphas
Lévi reformulated this card in the 19th century (Fig.III.06) titling it “Baphomet” and eliminating
grotesque, unnatural and malignant elements. With the wings of an angel, a lit torch on his head, the
caduceus on his belly and sitting on a sphere with the evolutionary pentagram in front of him, he points,
like The Magician, with one hand to the sky and another to the ground.

Fig. VIII. 4. The Devil

Crowley, removing any trait of negativity, placed a being of Nature: Markhor (Capra Falconeri),
the largest known wild goat, which appeared twice behind the Emperor. Markhor means snake eater in
Persian, Punjabi and Urdu, because according to popular belief, these goats chase and devour snakes. An
emblematic animal of Pakistan, it dwells in the Hindu Kush (Afghan and Pakistani Himalayas). With sweet
grapes on its head, it reminds us of Pan Pangenetor, the all-begetter.

“All things equally exalt him. He rejoices in the rugged and the barren no less than in the smooth
and the fertile. He represents the finding of ecstasy in every phenomenon, however naturally repugnant; he
transcends all limitations; he is Pan; he is All.” The Book of Thoth. Crowley

His spiral-shaped horns symbolize the generating force. Zoroaster defined God as having a spiral
force. Modern science has proven that the universe and DNA have a helical structure. Its horns are a
symbol of power. The Hebrew word “qeren” means horn, power and strength at the same time. The horns
of the bull have lunar symbolism and are attributed to the Great Goddess of fertility, while those of the ram
are solar and represent virile potency. In Italian slang, the penis is called the corno (horn).
 Behind Markhor we see a phallic representation of the Tree of Life, whose trunk –penis– rises from
the dark brown of the Earth (Malkuth), ascends and, becoming golden and luminous, penetrates the ring –
vagina– of Nuit-Binah-Saturn. The roots of the Tree are two testicles, transparent in order to be able to see
the figures that represent life in different states of evolution. Those on the left are female while those on
the right are male, one of them semi-caprine, suggesting that man is more animal than the woman. In each
testicle there is mitosis, the cell division process, with the two new nuclei and the chromosomes paired in
the center. In front of the goat we have the Chief Adept’s wand, a form of the caduceus in which the snakes
do not cross but look in opposite directions. Just as the trunk of the tree crosses the heavens, the staff
descends to the center of the Earth. The background of the card is formed, as Crowley says, by "exquisitely
tenuous, complex, and fantastic forms of madness, the divine madness of spring, already foreseen in the
meditative madness of winter”. These forms resemble the so-called channels of Mars, the planet that
governs instinct.

GENERAL MEANINGS
This card has always been linked to sexuality and the instincts in general, so it received all the
negative connotations that morality of the times assigned to instinct. It was thus considered the
representation of everything negative. Modern authors also keep insisting on such meanings:

“He expresses the desire to satisfy one’s passions at any price; the restlessness, exaggerated
excitement, the use of illicit means, frankness which gives rise to deplorable influences”. The Tarot of the
Medieval Image-makers. 1926. Oswald Wirth (1860-1943).

“The Devil is the bearer of death, suffering and misery. He personifies an evil-doer who does not
think about others and the impending consequences.” Tarot Classic. 1972. Stuart R. Kaplan.

From another point of view, but also giving it a negative character, in the Osho Zen Tarot, The
Devil means the set of beliefs and conditioning that make us not express what we truly are. To Crowley,
the Devil represents the Creative Energy in its most material aspect. At the human level, it illustrates
instincts, which are the natural forces that keep us alive as individuals and as a species. Basically, four:
1. The instinct of defense.
2. The sexual instinct, to procreate.
3. The instinct to preserve life.
4. The herd instinct.
The defense instinct makes us defend ourselves when we’re attacked. When we find ourselves in a
life-threatening situation in the face of an attack, the defense instinct is triggered with incredible force that
we would never have imagined we had. The sexual instinct leads us to the urgent desire to come together
intimately. In the instinct for preservation, we have the fears that lead us to avoid real dangers, body care
and respect for the body’s rhythms. The herd instinct leads us to come together to face the challenges of
survival and work as a group, and also celebrations and festivities, as happens in indigenous communities.
Pleasure and joy are inseparable companions of the conscious exercise of our instincts. We can say
that pleasure is the tip of the iceberg, while the rest is biological necessity. The most striking example of
how Mother Nature took pains to give human beings the ability to feel pleasure is the clitoris, in women,
which is absolutely dispensable for reproductive tasks and has astonishingly complex and numerous nerve
endings.
When instincts are repressed, sublimated or manipulated, we become alienated. We end up
unconsciously being slaves to commonplace, habit-forming patterns of behavior (especially among
children and teenagers) and confuse the superfluous with the necessary, appearance with reality, over
which we project our desires and our emotional deficiencies. That repressed instinct becomes the seat of
hatred, fear, sexuality for sale and revenge, imprinted in behavior so much that we can agree with Broden
that a psychic being is created, called the Id, incorporated into psychoanalysis by Freud, which
manipulates us from within. That’s why The Devil in Crowley’s Tarot is smiling: he knows our vital
energy is in his hands. Half ironically, half compassionately, Markhor smiles, as if to say, “Choose: if you
give me a channel to express myself, I will give you energy, pleasure and joy; if you repress me, you will
become sad, sick and crazy.” If we decide to accept our instincts, live them fully and attentively,
integrating them into our daily life, we will see how they gradually get expressed more fluidly, without
anxiety or compulsion, with increasingly greater sensitivity, greater awareness and greater creativity. A
population without sexual conditioning has so much vitality that it will be hard to manipulate, catechize
and/or alienate them. That is why all hierarchical power structures, whether political, ecclesiastical or even
esoteric, repress sexuality.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is feeling the urge to live his instincts, probably long repressed.
Certain beliefs and fears that hindered his instinctive expression are losing their strength, especially if this
card appears with Enthusiasm (Strength), the Six of Cups – Pleasure – or Art, indicating a rescue of
sexuality and instincts in general and a more conscious approach to the body and its needs, resulting in
increased pleasure, joy, energy and self-affirmation. He also perceives the consequences of curbing
instincts: decline in self-esteem and vitality, manipulation by what is repressed when it is not transformed
into anger, aggressiveness, obsessions and/or perversions.
Anchor. In lack, this shows someone who has never allowed himself to live his instincts. Based on
introjected beliefs, principles, doctrines, prejudices and fears, he has spent his life denying what is most his
own and most intimate. It may be any of the four:
Instinct of defense: If he does not defend himself when attacked, not only will he attract more
aggression, but he will also be manipulated by the rage he builds up, distilling it in his environment or
expressing it in a self-destructive or explosive way.
Sexual instinct: If he does not accept and experience his sexual impulses, setting a list of
prerequisites for “getting horizontal” with someone, he will attract people who will not accept such
conditions, and repressed sexuality may manifest in an unhealthy manner, without love, with anger or
emotional apathy, or as perversions.
Instinct of preservation: If, when his body asks to sit down on the couch, he gives it a double
espresso and another three hours on the computer, not only will this undermine his vital energy, it will also
bring on somatic symptoms, warning cries from the body to listen to it and take care of it.
Herd instinct: The person isolates himself, is afraid to make contact, and may end up imagining
hostile intentions in others and becoming a paranoid. At any given moment, he may want to take revenge
on the cruel world.
With the Seven of Cups - Corruption - this indicates immature sexual expression, such as obsession
with pornography, compulsive masturbation, voyeurism or perversions with a tendency toward rape,
sadomasochism, etc. This may at times alternate with a strong feeling of guilt. We will recommend Basil*
floral essence to integrate physical sexuality with spirituality in a conscious and pleasant union. A not so
drastic case is that of someone whose conflict in relation to sex, the product of a morally severe education,
is balanced between puritanism and compulsive promiscuity. In this case, we suggest using essence of
Easter Lily*. The Five of Spades – Defeat – indicates that the repressed energy of the libido rises to the
head and manifests as mental and verbal hostility. Snapdragon* will be recommended to redirect sexual
energy through its natural channels.
In many cases, so-called spirituality, such as that touted by the pious, is a compensation for under-
experienced instinct. Love and spirituality are the most transcendent manifestations of desire. One who
denies natural desire suffocates love and spirituality.
This occurs in many women who do not integrate feminine consciousness on the physical planes,
rejecting their body and its instinctive manifestations, resulting in stress and reproductive organ problems.
Use of Alpine Lily* flower will help integrate the instincts with the spiritual feminine I. With the Four of
Discs – Power – this shows the channeling of sexual energy toward power and material wealth to
compensate for the fear of intimacy that a sexual relation involves. We will suggest the use of Poison
Oak*.
Here we don’t have the option for excess, because as a biological process, it is self-regulating, just
as we stop eating when we satisfy our hunger. We wouldn’t keep eating because of hunger, but rather to
compensate some lack. A permanently defensive attitude or an obsession with sex would also be
compensation and not a genuinely instinctive expression.
Childhood. Instinctive expressions in particular and physiological functions in general were
repressed. Contact with his own body, games with water, dirt and the outdoors were very limited. There
was exaggerated cleanliness, and eating, pooping and peeing were treated as unnatural, subject to the right
manners and appropriate schedules. It goes without saying that sexual expressions that the child
experiences between the ages of three and six, resulting from the so-called Oedipus or Electra complex,
were massacred with threats and punishments. The sexual aspects of life were hidden from him and/or
charged with negativity.
Relationships. a) The relationship helps the person to accept and live the instincts that were
probably imprisoned long ago, so there may be a strong accumulated sexual charge that may be lived in a
fluid and loving way, but which may also lead to disturbances, fights, jealousy, projections and negative
fantasies, especially if it appears along with the Eight of Wands - Speed. In this case, essence of Black
Cohosh* will help to develop the courage to actively confront and transform these destructive
circumstances rather than shrink away from them. b) We have a person here who relates driven solely by
instinct. He is unable to see in others anything other than sex and he is incapable of expressing affection in
bed. He seeks sexual relations that don’t involve his emotions, and when the desire passes, he simply
withdraws; he may be a good customer of the local brothel. Use of Sticky Monkeyflower* will help him
lose the fear of exposing himself in intimate contact and will facilitate the expression of his feelings.
Inner Voice and Method. To integrate The Devil means to liberate instinctive expression, to stop
inventing intellectual, moral or any other kind of apologies, to repress it and thus maintain a false control
over situations. Living instinctive needs and especially sexuality is a priority nowadays, without this being
contingent upon anything other than one’s own sexual desire. Sex is a bodily necessity just like eating,
sleeping, peeing, etc. Although we can repress it more easily, it must be experienced fully without
moralism or conditions. Conditioning sex to anything other than sexual desire itself is a form of
prostitution.

Why not create a life in which sex is simply fun, nothing more than any other game, just a
biological game? Osho

An exaggeratedly dissociative religious philosophy, detected by The Hierophant in Childhood or in

the Anchor, may have fueled a feeling of devaluating the physical body, ignoring and/or rejecting basic
survival instincts. In this case, we will suggest the use of Manzanita* flower, which helps rescue the body
and integrate it with the spiritual side. Floral essence of California Pitcher Plant*, an insectivorous plant,
helps to integrate the most instinctive desires and expressions of our animal nature.
We will suggest that the person identify the beliefs and fears that keep him from experiencing the
instincts fluidly. He will then need to revisit his past to relive the specific situations where those beliefs
and fears were instilled, also remembering the threats and blackmail that were established. He will then
realize that what was striking in childhood for a dependent and vulnerable child has no power over the
current independent adult.

“When we take a firm stance against something, it indicates that we are linked to that something.
Those who angrily condemn homosexuality or other behaviors that fall outside of the "good manners" box
have a desire to experience such behavior, but they don’t let themselves.”. Enrique Eskenazi (1949 – 2012)

As anger is an emotion particularly connected to the repression of instincts, we will suggest Osho’s
Dynamic Meditation. It is important to be able to say no and set limits as a way of defending yourself. We
will suggest identifying self-destructive attitudes and observing, behind the accumulated rage, what natural
needs are being denied. Bioenergetic analysis exercises that help release pelvic tensions can facilitate more
natural instinctive expression.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person is beginning to
dilute the beliefs, fears and other blockages that repressed the expression of his/her instincts, which are
now beginning to bloom. A side effect is a crescendo of vitality, of personal affirmation, of the most basic
and clear pleasure of sexual life.
Internal result. Fruit of the self-awareness and transformation process that we see in the cards, the
person has been able to identify, understand and disable existing beliefs, fears and other internal difficulties
in order to fully experience the instincts, whose creative energy begins to manifest in all aspects of life,
feeling more vital, more disposed, joyful, loving and beautiful, with the door open to transcendence.
External result. Firmly rooted in his instinctive nature, living his sexuality fully, expressing his
drive and his creativity, the person leads life with pleasure, taking an interest in activities where he can
express his instinctive energy - sports, adventure tourism, activities in nature, dance, etc.

THE TOWER
Titles. In the Tarot of Marseille, it is called “La Maison Dieu”, which means “The House of God”.
Some scholars affirm that this was the name of certain hospital-monasteries which, in the Middle Ages,
welcomed pilgrims, the poor and the sick. Other authors say that hospitals were called “Hôtel Dieu” and
not “La Maison Dieu”, which referred to the church itself. Hotel and Hospital come from the Latin word
“hospes”: host. This is a somewhat odd name for what appears to be a collapsing structure. Other scholars
affirm that “La Maison Dieu” came from “La maison du Feu” (The House of Fire).
Later it was called “The Tower struck by lightning” or simply “The Tower”. Other titles are “The
Hospital”, “The Heavenly Fire”, and in the Egyptian Tarot, “Fragility”. Its esoteric title is “Lord of the
Hosts of the Mighty”.
Number. Number 16, as the square of Four, takes the qualities that this number represents to the
extreme. When we develop one aspect of a given polarity to the limit, we are strengthening its opposite. If
the Four represents stability, order, law, the material structure of things, the solid, its square will be the
number of destruction of forms, of laws, of the established order. It transmits the idea of returning to the
formless, to Nothing.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. Phe, ‫ ף‬or ‫ פ‬if it comes at the end of the word, is double, female. Its numeric value is
80, or 800 at the end of the word. Its hard pronunciation is P and soft is F. It means mouth and it is related
to the processes of food ingestion and speech. We know that for a food to be assimilated by the organism,
its structure has to be broken down. One aspect of this happens in the mouth. Hieroglyphically, Phe
represents the power of the creative word.
Kabbalistic path. Path 27 connects the center of the processes of reason, Hod –Splendor–, with
the sphere of natural desires, Netzach –Victory–, pure intellect with pure feeling. This entails the
destruction of old ways. It is a horizontal path, balanced in the world of personality.
 Fig. VIII. 4. Path 27.

Astrological association. Phe, a double letter, corresponds to Mars, which represents the principle
of dynamism and strength. It is pure action and impulsiveness. In the human world, it is the energy of
survival and self-preservation. It is instinct that gives courage and momentum in the struggle for life. Mars
is self-affirmation to face external pressures. For this reason, it is also aggression, competition, war and
fighting. If Venus leads human beings to sweetness, affection, driving them to seek a peaceful and pleasant
life, Mars pushes them to use force, to fight and conquer. Venus is passive and magnetic love, pleasure and
union; Mars is the animal side of sex, the need to conquer and possess to procreate. Those ruled by Mars
don’t like the relaxed and calm life, needing to live intensely as if bewitched by danger and risk. Their
natural impulsiveness makes them very impatient. They want their desires satisfied now, not caring about
the past and future consequences of their actions. So, they make decisions continuously, looking for the
most radical solutions. Mars governs Aries and, with Pluto, it rules Scorpio.

SYMBOLS
The Crowley image shows a tower being destroyed by flames and lightning.

Fig. VIII. 5. The Tower

The first known towers are the Mesopotamian ziggurats, which reached one hundred meters high.
Each floor was painted according to the color of each of the seven planets. They were astronomical
observatories, although they represented staircases where one day the gods would descend to earth and
humans would ascend to heaven. They were crowned by a temple and embodied the human effort to
approach the Divine that they believed was outside, up there, far away in the sky. When we seek the
Divine outside of ourselves, someone always appears presenting her/himself as an intermediary, stipulating
behaviors, commandments, dogma and tributes in order to better obtain mercy and rewards from that
projected entity. We end up looking like those dogs chasing their own tail, imagining that it is something
outside of them. These common behaviors that give a false sense security while at the same time enslaving
us are part of the Tower that is being destroyed. Four human-geometric figures fall from above. They are
the soldiers of the garrison who identified with the role of guardians of the tower. They acquired a
geometric rigidity that is going to shatter when it hits the ground. The eye of Shiva, the destructive and
transforming Principle of the Hindu trimurti, appears open at the top. According to this tradition, when this
happens, opposites are reintegrated and the Universe is annihilated.
In other decks, a lightning bolt falls from the sky and destroys the tower. In the first Tarot of
Marseille decks, the lightning came out of the tower. Starting with Nicolas Conver, the lightning falls from
the sky. In the Visconti-Sforza deck, this card was lost.

Fig. VIII. 5. Jean Noblet +/- 1650 and Nicolas Conver 1761

In the lower right corner, the open jaws of Dis, the Roman god of death, spit fire at the foundations
of the tower, indicating that destruction also comes from the base.
Bathed in the brightness of the eye are the dove and the snake that we have already seen in The
Hierophant. The dove and the snake show two paths. The will to live and the will to die. The path of the
snake is Hindu tantrism, work with the Kundalini using primordial energy in sexual practices, surrender to
natural energies, Dionysian rituals and Eleusinian Mysteries. The path of the dove is the path of pure
devotion, where instinct is sublimated. Here, the serpent has a lion’s head, as it appears in Enthusiasm
(Strength), alluding to the Kundalini and Abraxas, the entity that assimilates the positive and the negative,
the light and the dark into itself.

GENERAL MEANINGS
The Tower is the graphic expression of the Principle of Destruction. In it we see destruction of the
existing material order by fire. When a physical system reaches its point of maximum internal stress, its
structure is destroyed in order to reach a new balance. One example would be ice melting when the
temperature rises. In the Shaivist tradition of southern India, Supreme Perfection is achieved through
death, through the destruction of the existing, of the manifest forms.
This is often interpreted as disasters that destroy the querent’s structure. To Crowley, it is the
destruction of prisons, of the mechanical routines that alienate human beings. It is breaking the chains that
imprison us in new towers or apartments or office buildings, where we repeat meaningless gestures, deeply
disconnected from ourselves, from Nature and others. Connected to the television, internet and bank
balance, we live polluting, consuming, self-destructively compensating for our frustrations, hiding,
manipulated by the hierophant on watch, unaware that we are divine beings.
 The falling characters are the guardians of the tower, who identified with their role as defenders of
a stifling order established by third parties, with no escape route, becoming their own jailers. When the
tower collapses, they fall. The impact destroys their fake personality and they can once again come into
contact with themselves and with external reality.
These suffocating and binding structures may be two types.
External: professional ties, family commitments, financial demands, romantic relationships that no
longer have any love, etc.
Internal: “This is how I am; I have to be like this; I built this façade to be accepted and never again
go through situations in which I have suffered, so that I don’t let anything through if it’s not in tune with
that façade.” That straitjacket is the Ego, with its false identifications, its fantasies, ambitions and unreal
illusions. It is the destruction of the veil of Maya torn by the lightning rod of consciousness. These ideas
are familiar from the Death card, where the focus was on internal transformation, usually slow, the result
of disabling obsolete patterns of crystallized behavior with the consequent liberation of inner essence. In
The Tower, destruction occurs both internally and externally and is faster and more explosive. At times it
can be a spontaneous reaction to a prolonged state of stillness, inertia and internal pressure.
Here, a whole lifestyle is destroyed, relationships, bonds, jobs are liquidated... along with all the
structures that suffocate and limit the Being. Depending on attachment to that which disappears, passing
through this stage can be a pleasant feeling of release and relief or a painful experience of loss.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person feels suffocated and can’t bear it anymore. She is in touch with the
internal urge to dynamite her prisons, whether external (professional or emotional bonds, family or
financial commitments, etc.) or internal (any type of identification that has nothing to do with the true
nature of being, which we would usually insert after “I am”. In short, the ego). She also perceives the
consequences of having remained in those prisons. In fact, the origin of the external prison is internal. The
second card may show in which area of life this questioning is taking place or which beliefs or excuses this
person uses to keep from destroying what oppresses her.
Anchor. In lack, especially with a Four in the Anchor, it shows a person who is so afraid of the
unknown, of changes, of “missing out”, showing vulnerability, that she has spent her life building prisons,
identifying with groups or activities and organizing her routines so that nothing can catch her off-guard
and she can thus feel secure. She emanates anger and negativity toward issues that are not directly related
to the true causes of her anger and frustrations that she doesn’t want to face. She destroys herself by
compensating and emits a heavy vibration of hidden grudges and suffocating frustrations, all in the name
of security. She uses her surplus energy to prop up her prison. Floral essence of Star Thistle* will increase
her internal security and independence by encouraging generosity and awareness of internal and external
abundance.
In excess, we see a destroyer, who destroys everything he touches, especially himself. He opts for
activities that don’t give him pleasure and which represent a heavy, self-imposed burden, perhaps due to
family pressure. This causes him to live in constant tension that builds up until he explodes outward,
destroying the material structure that supported such activity, by leading his company to ruin, for example,
or by destroying his physical body. When something or someone gets in “his way”, he has fits of rage. His
problem lies in his lack of firm inner references to choose the life that really reflects his inner nature. His
business collapses. His emotional relationships end in fighting and displeasure. He is fired from his jobs
like a troublemaker who does everything wrong. He may be self-sabotaging so as not to grow, to not
structure himself and not take responsibility for anything. In this case, indicated by the presence of the
Fool, it would be feasible to use floral essence of Fairy Lantern* to help him take responsibility. This
destructive behavior, in some cases delinquent, which may be the result of strident rebellion against family
authoritarianism, indicated by The Emperor or a Four in Childhood, could be alleviated with the use of
Saguaro* essence.
 Essence of Wild Oat will help him discover and invest in his calling, and Cerato will increase his
self-confidence and help him be independent of outside pressures and opinions. Essence of Scarlet
Monkeyflower* will favor greater emotional honesty to recognize and work out what leaves him on the
verge of exploding (especially with an Eight of Wands - Speed) without allowing emotions to accumulate
and take on a disproportionately consciousness blinding character.
Childhood. There were violent events that undermined his internal security and trust in the world.
It may have been a breakdown of the family home, family fights, fires, wars, bankruptcy, etc. With the
Seven of Cups - Corruption, this may indicate sexual abuse.
Relationships. a) A relationship helps the person identify and eliminate his or her bindings. This
may happen in different ways. The partner may lovingly encourage and support her to get out of, for
example, a stifling job, but it may also be the relationship that suffocates and oppresses her to such an
extent that she can no longer stand it and is feeling the need to get rid of it. b) This person is incapable of
creating bonds. The slightest commitment is an unbearable prison. She doesn’t want to be tied to anything
and she ends relationships explosively when the initial euphoria ends.
Inner Voice and Method. The true being feels enclosed in a prison in which the ego became the
jailer. Internal tension increases, with the danger of bodily symptoms. There is an urgent need for
rethinking lifestyle, the priorities that define daily life, in order to break free from this limiting structure,
which is only possible through destruction: there is no longer any flexibility or possibility of
circumventing the situation. This suggests that the person needs to identify what is suffocating, oppressing
and limiting her, whether it be external prisons such as professional ties, overly busy schedule, family
commitments, relationships, financial demands, tiresome and burdensome routines, or internal: false
identifications, fantasies and other constituent elements of the ego. How can we recognize them? When we
lose our center, we get worked up, the heart starts beating quickly, the blood rises to the head, or breathing
gets blocked and we feel compelled to act compulsively; there is identification. We need to perceive the
fears, blockages and other internal difficulties that keep us from dynamiting our prisons, understanding and
working on them.
In order to take this leap toward freedom, knowing better what to let go of and with a more vibrant
awareness of the inner Being, we will suggest essence of Sagebrush*.
When The Tower appears in the Inner Voice position, it asks to identify and destroy prisons. The
Method will tell us how to do this, which may take some time. For example, gradually, with the Two of
Discs - Change, or quickly, with the Eight of Wands - Speed. However, if it appears in the Method, this
must be done as soon as possible before the body pays the price.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person has perceived
the consequences of remaining in her prisons (external and/or internal), understood why she has remained
in them and, if these prisons have not been destroyed already, she has already gone to buy the dynamite.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has managed to
identify, understand and disable the existing internal difficulties in order to dismantle the binding structures
that imprisoned her. So here, we have the destruction of outer prisons and the ego which, like The Tower,
is usually built with double-sided bricks. The external is usually pride and arrogance, and the internal, fear
and self-annihilation. Tell me what you brag about and I’ll tell you what you lack, as the saying goes.
External result. The querent, who spent part of her life imprisoned in a labyrinth of activities and
bonds that suffocated her, holding up an ego that oppressed her true self, has become so strengthened
through the whole process we have seen so far that now, when a situation appears that would overwhelm
her even more, instead of continuing to endure increasing tensions, she dismantles the labyrinth. She tears
down her prisons, walks away from her alienated way of life, and puts an end to the ego or at least to its
coarsest and most limiting aspects.

THE STAR
Titles. This arcana corresponds to the Etteilla arcana VI, titled “Air”, while in the majority of tarot
decks it is titled “The Star”. In some tarot decks it appears as “The Stars”. In the Egyptian Tarot, alluding
to one of its traditional meanings, it is called “Hope”. In the Osho Zen Tarot, it is “Silence”. Its esoteric
titles are “Daughter of the Firmament” and “Dweller between the Waters”.
Number. Seventeen conveys the idea of purity and spirituality, especially in the Muslim tradition
where there are seventeen liturgical gestures and words that make up the call to prayer. The Sufi alchemist
Jābir ibn Hayyān considers seventeen as the canon of balance of all things. We can also arrive at this idea
without reading Jābir’s Books on Balance, as 17=1+7= 8, which symbolizes cosmic equilibrium and is the
number of Adjustment (Justice) represented by a scale.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ה‬. Before revelation of the Book of the Law, the letter that was attributed to it was
Tzaddi, as it was in the London manuscripts. But when Nuit let it be known that “All these old letters of
my Book are aright; but Tzaddi is not the Star”, Crowley was impelled to change them. Observing that
etymologically Tzaddi means tsar, kaiser, senate, sir, etc., he attributed it to the Emperor, whose letter was
He. He also saw that He could be assigned to The Star, as, in the Tetragrammaton, it represents the
Feminine Principle as it appears on said card in human form. In chapter V we saw how astrological
associations were deduced from correspondences between the Major Arcana and the Hebrew letters. Let us
now see how this letter switch perfects the symmetry of the sequence of signs. Placing the traditional
sequence of the Major Arcana in the first column, Leo and Libra are switched around Virgo in the
astrological association column, which we can represent according to figure VIII.07.
 Fig. VIII.07. Before the Change

By switching Tzaddi with He, The Emperor for The Star, a new inversion appears: Aries and
Aquarius cross around Pisces, thus obtaining what Crowley called the “Double Loop of the Zodiac”.

Fig. VIII.08. The Double Loop of the Zodiac

Waite favored the sequence of signs and modified that of the arcana, switching Justice-Libra with
Strength-Leo.
He is a single, female, red letter that sounds like the breathy H in the word home, with the numeric
value of five. It means window and hieroglyphically it represents universal life, the breath of life, the
breath of the human being, everything that animates and enlivens.
Kabbalistic path. The path of He joins Tiphareth – Beauty with Chokmah – Wisdom. Here,
individuality is confronted with the dynamics of pure divine energy. On Path 15, individuality becomes
aware of its origins and purpose, say the Kabbalists.

Fig. VIII.09. Path 15

 Astrological association. Aquarius is an Air sign, fixed, governed by Uranus and Saturn. In the
physical body, it rules the ankles, the heels, the circulatory system and the spinal cord. Uranus conveys a
strong desire for freedom to innovate, to part the veils of mysteries and to destroy obsolete and prejudicial
structures. In turn, Saturn, the principle of cohesion, structuring and order, makes Aquarians lean toward
solid ethical principles to govern their lives. They grow up seeking truth and strive to make this world a
paradise, both through the practical application of their ideals and the use of their scientific knowledge.
The purest Aquarians become impersonal and objective, with very few emotional considerations. They are
citizens of the world, free, without attachment or roots. They are apparently more interested in knowing
and perfecting society than in knowing and perfecting themselves. They seem to love humanity more than
their own flesh-and-blood neighbors. They say that friendship is more important than love, and they devote
themselves body and soul to a cause, but they have serious difficulties expressing their intimate emotions
and deep relationships. As Ana María Ribeiro says: “It’s important for Aquarians to remember that there is
a body between the head and the feet.”

Fig. VIII.10. Aquarius. Johfra

They have a progressive, bold and revolutionary mentality; they love freedom, justice and
brotherhood; they are humanitarian while not accepting false conciliations. However, they lack capacity
for adaptation and indulgence, although they end up acquiring these abilities because they are very
sociable. They usually have many friends. They love to change and know. Their intuition is sharp. We can
say that they are beings who are ahead of their time. Aquarians are caught between genius and madness,
between glory and prison. Their verb is “I know” and their phrase is “I sow a better world by living cosmic
awareness here and now”. As Aquarius is the opposite of Leo, ruler of the heart, its pathological tendencies
are anemia and a weak heart, spasms and palpitations, intoxication, circulatory problems and mental
illness.

SYMBOLS
The central figure is a naked woman. Her nudity is a symbol of purity and innocence. She is the
purest manifestation of the Great Goddess, prior to any involvement with matter. That is why she appears
naked here, while in The Priestess she is veiled and in The Empress, crowned. In Aeon, arcana XX, she is
shown as the celestial vault. She is Nuit, Lady of the Stars, in human form. In her right hand,
corresponding to Jachin, the pillar of love, she holds a golden cup from which she pours a nectar “also
milk and oil and blood, upon her own head, indicating the eternal renewal of the categories, the
inexhaustible possibilities of existence”, says Crowley.
 Fig. VIII.11. The Star

With her left hand, corresponding to Boaz, pillar of severity, she pours fluid from a silver cup at the
point where the Water of the Sea of Binah, another manifestation of Nuit, meets the Land of Malkuth. It is
interesting to note that the strong lines of the two fluids are different. The ones falling into the Abyss are
straight lines. Euclidean geometry –or that of straight lines– was set aside by modern mathematicians and
physicists when they perceived that the Universe is curved and that the straight line does not conform to
reality. There are no straight lines in Nature. Einstein said that the Cosmos was spiral-shaped, just like the
lines of fluid from the golden cup that end up enveloped with Nuit and twirling the hair that is gently
immersed in the Abyss.
The cups, which according to various traditions are the breasts from which the milk that feeds
humanity flows and overflows, are made one of gold, solar, related to the conscious aspect of being, and
another of silver, lunar, related to the subconscious. It seems therefore that the subconscious is clearing
itself of outdated categories. As a result of the woman’s work with the fluids, crystals emerge from the
Abyss, symbolling the beginning of the development of life and universal knowledge, and the earth is
fertilized as shown by the roses appearing in the lower right corner. Butterflies, which also symbolize
freedom from old cocoons, fly over the roses. Growth occurs in the three kingdoms: mineral, vegetable
and animal. Behind the woman we see the celestial vault, another form of Nuit, emphasizing Venus, the
seven-pointed star, stressing that the main attributes of Nuit are love, beauty, pleasure, union and creativity.
A generative and creative love, as suggested by its spirals.
In the upper left corner is the Star of Babalon, also seven-pointed, like the letters in this word. Its
rays, also in a spiral, bathe the bottom of the card with a subtle and tenuous light. Babalon or Babylon is
another form of Nuit: the Scarlet Woman, the voluptuous woman who rides the seven-headed lion in the
11th Arcana.

Fig. VIII.12. The Star of Babalon

GENERAL MEANINGS
 Crowley breaks with the traditional meaning of hope, a trap with which elites control people. “We
know that you are suffering, but don’t despair, don’t rise up, don’t lose hope, because things are going to
get better.” The idea of hope, which should not be mistaken for self-confidence, has always been related to
external salvation, that is, of someone coming to save us, so we devalue ourselves and remain infantilized
as can be seen in www.tarotterapeutico.info Spanish VIDEOS “Introduction to the Five keys to well-
being”.
For Crowley, the Star illustrates the Universal Principle of category renewal. The old is integrated
into Existence by returning to the unmanifest and new experiences are fulfilled. This card embodies the
cosmic forces that lead to the evolution of galaxies, of species, of society, of ideas, of the human being, in
short, of everything that exists. Something differentiated has to dissolve into the undifferentiated to allow
for movement, evolution, continuity, eternal return. However, those lines of force in the upper cup are not
really spirals, but straight lines that accompany a spiral path. Because the straight line, non-existent in
nature, is a mental concept - the shortest distance between two points - all beliefs, principles and values
end up being just mental abstractions outside of reality.
On a human plane, it represents a Reformulation of Beliefs, which leads to revival of the perceptive
mind. The more beliefs, principles and values we have in our heads, the more our vision of reality is
warped. “Nothing is real or a lie; it all depends on the color of the glass you’re looking through,” goes the
Castilian proverb. Well, beliefs are crystal. Zen Buddhism says: “Do not seek the truth; only cease to
cherish your opinions.” As we eliminate the beliefs, ideas and prejudices with which we were numbed, we
revitalize the perceptive mind of the unprogrammed child. The Star demonstrates this process.
Most of these beliefs are related to a person’s need to be accepted. Although things are changing a
lot, the woman says: “If I want to be accepted, I have to be a good girl, very polite and pleasing, not say
no, be attentive to what others expect of me, wait in silence to be acknowledged, always keep my defects in
mind, appear helpless, incapable and dependent, expect help from others or from fate, not demand what I
am owed, not be competitive with my coworkers or authoritarian with my subordinates, not force others to
do what I want, forego taking initiative, express opinions only if asked and without much emphasis, be
willing to change my mind, hide anger, be helpful and tolerant, sacrifice myself, pretend, be pretty, kind,
seductive without becoming provocative, sympathetic, be guided by the desires and needs of others, make
snagging a husband a priority (for status, economic security and self-affirmation of my femininity). And
once I have taken care of my children and my husband, I must be sympathetic to others’ hardships and
mistakes, even if my husband undervalues or mistreats me, overload myself with work, never come off as
superior when I am original or creative, obey the rules of the game, achieve what I want in secret and not
openly, let others discover what I want instead of stating it clearly, know how to wait, be willing to follow
orders, undervalue my knowledge or my intellectual capacity, not accept any responsibility to myself or
analyze my experiences, blame myself for my failures, accept what “God or fate commands me”, dress
fashionably, sit with my legs together, not gesture too much, bow my head, not stare, not interrupt, know
how to listen. I should smile without laughing, make myself smaller instead of standing upright, appear
timid, modest and humble, turn the other cheek, avoid conflicts, not disagree, work for the “common
good”, allow or ask others to decide for me, sabotage my own independence, forgive, “be happy if you are
happy”, have no interests or criteria of my own, pity the weak, care for and help them, give up my own
dreams and freedom, let go of my own ideas, convictions and ideals, not expect to be happy, renounce my
own merits and the expression of my talents, give up my own time and, definitively, forego being myself.”
And the man: To be accepted, I have to be the man of the house, the provider of material needs. I
must not cry or show fear. I have to prioritize work even if health and relationships are a mess, always
appear assured and capable, be competitive, overcome, impose myself, be the best, never give up,
materially satisfy the family and sexually satisfy the wife (and some other woman if possible), keep my
emotions under control, take initiative, make proposals, show that I know about any subject, express
opinions, be the boss of the home, show that I am superior to the woman and her children, walk as if I
knew where I was going, stand upright, be insensitive, practical, face down any danger and stress[27].
Here we rescue our perception, which becomes more objective, realistic and global, able to identify
the forces that are transforming the Universe. When a being reaches this state of consciousness, s/he no
longer feels alone, isolated or lost in a threatening, unknown and strange world, perceiving that s/he is an
integral and interactive part of the planet with which s/he pulsates.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person, realizing that a good part of her ideas, beliefs and opinions do not
work, because they sustain initiatives and decisions that continuously lead to suffering, is questioning
them. The second card of the Present Moment may show internal factors that hinder this cleansing or the
first consequences of this process. In this way, her mind becomes permeable to new understandings,
resulting both from her own experience and from a more realistic and global life view.
Anchor. In lack, this person has a very hard time changing her way of thinking. She is so attached
to her beliefs, principles and values that no matter how dysfunctional, outdated or false they may be, she
continues to defend them and use them to guide her actions. Identifying with her beliefs, she neither sees
nor wants to see anything except that which seems to match such beliefs, so that her perception of both
internal and external reality is minimal. Essence of Rock Water will help her become more mentally
flexible.
In excess, she wants to change or “improve” everything. She is a compulsive objector who
questions everything that, according to her, represents obstacles to the evolution of humanity. She peddles
an image of an avant-garde and enthusiastic person, the spearhead of postmodern thought. She is always
right, with the most brilliant and modern ideas. When arriving at a gathering, she says: You are all wrong.
What are you talking about? Intellectually, she seems to be fleeing from the superficial and trivial, but in
the end, it is she who ends up being so mental that she doesn’t allow herself the slightest expression of her
feelings and instincts and keeps repeating pretentious sayings. She is trying to change the world, but she
doesn’t know herself. She can neither relax nor extract her own experiences and criteria from what she
lives. We will suggest using Vervain to help her root her ideals in her own being. This excessively critical
and condemning spirit can be a cover for her feeling of inferiority and the result of a childhood filled with
criticism and devaluation if the Five of Swords - Defeat - appears in Childhood. Use of the Beech flower
will favor her tolerance, her acceptance of differences and ability to see the positive side of each person or
situation.
Childhood. Here lies a conflict of values. The principles that were taught or imposed at home were
very different from, if not contradictory to, those of the school or the street. In the worst case, indicated by
the Lovers in this position, the father defended ideas that were attacked by the mother, and vice versa. The
child was caught in the crossfire because accepting such values, ideas or beliefs was a condition for the
acceptance and treatment that the child received. She may have been raised in a “progressive” and/or a
fanatical home. She had to adapt to thought patterns that, although they may have rejected outdated
authoritarian and religious forms of the past, were ideas instilled without affection. This all left the child
divided and insecure.
Relationships. a) The relationship is leading the person to question her beliefs, principles and
values in different ways, thus helping her regain a more realistic and functional perception. If the
relationship was based precisely on those beliefs and fantasies, it is very possible that it will go through a
crisis. b) In the romantic relationship market, this person sells an image of someone progressive, original,
innovative who objects to everything that is outdated, strictly mental , anything that doesn’t show emotions
or instinctive desires, as we saw in the Anchor for excess.
Inner Voice and Method. To integrate this archetype is to perceive that what matters is not
whether beliefs are right or wrong, but that some beliefs prevent the person from being herself and support
decisions that lead to suffering, and some beliefs do not. Once we understand this, we can reformulate our
beliefs, set aside the false personality that old beliefs sustain and relate to each other without prejudice.
The querent is imprisoned in strong mental conditioning that needs to be questioned within a general
reformulation of principles, values and beliefs.
We will thus suggest the following task: Draw six columns on a piece of paper. In the first, place
two or three words retrospectively, identifying facts that made you suffer after a decision you made (or
remained undecided) and for which you take full responsibility.
Now, in the second, place the argument that led you to make such a decision or to remain
indecisive. If you found ten facts, you’ll probably find ten arguments. When you finish the second column,
place the belief that supported the argument in the third. You will see that there are not ten, but rather three
or four that repeat. So, now you know which beliefs you should pay no mind to.
In the fourth, you are going to identify the emotion that gives strength to the belief, because the
strength of a belief comes from the intensity of the emotion that we felt when that belief was instilled.
That’s why there are beliefs that have a lot of power and others, none at all.
In the fifth, transform this belief into a criterion that is as objective, functional and realistic as
possible. Although it is still a curtain, it is a nearly transparent veil that provides a basis for concrete
actions, because if we want to reprogram the brain, we have to start with action. The mind alone is
incapable of this task.
Thus, in the last column, we will place several actions that we can take from each criterion.
Essence of Sage* favors the ability to draw wise conclusions from self-observation and to perceive
one’s own life in a broader context. Shasta Daisy* flower helps the mind have an everyday life view
integrated into a more global perspective, while Filaree* flower provides an understanding of things and
life with a cosmic sense.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person not only
realizes the nefarious consequences of holding onto beliefs she didn’t invent but which she needed to
incorporate in order to be accepted by the family and society. She thus begins to question and eliminate
them, improving her perception.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has been able to
identify, understand and disable existing internal difficulties in order to eliminate the principles, values,
prejudices and other beliefs that kept her from being herself and led her to frustration and suffering. Her
way of thinking has thus changed. Her mind has become more perceptive, flexible and tolerant, without
keeping her from being spontaneous. She has increased her sensitivity, so that now she is better attuned to
her environment and interprets the messages brought by the circumstances she attracts. She is also able to
give herself to experiences that were previously forbidden due to beliefs.
External result. The person is facing the world with the inner attitude we saw in the Internal
Result and has consequently changed her life. She may be interested in activities striving for the evolution
of humanity, in any aspect: ecology, natural therapies, body awareness, psychotherapy, organic agriculture,
or in the media, helping others to free themselves from beliefs, doctrines and dogmas of faith.

THE MOON
Titles. Since the Tarot de Marseille, it has appeared in most tarot decks with the title “The Moon”.
In the Osho Zen Tarot, it is called “Past Lives”. Its esoteric titles are “Ruler of Flux and Reflux” and
“Child of the Sons of the Mighty”.
Number. The Moon traditionally bears the number 18. Two times 9, number of the elevated, and
also 9 when broken down, 18 is the number of the dark, deep and inaccessible.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ק‬. Kuf or Koph is single, male, crimson, and its numeric value is 100. It means “the
back of the head” and it is related to the cerebellum, the organ that governs involuntary processes such as
heartbeat and breathing. It is the link between the upper brain centers and the spinal cord. The bodily
function attributed to this letter is sleep and it sounds like the K. Its sound is louder than the hard Kaph.
Kabbalistic path. The path of Koph (29th) leads from Malkuth (the Kingdom) to Netzach
(Victory), uniting physical and emotional natures. Here, the biological body is perfected to come into
better contact with the subtle planes. On this path, the initiate becomes aware of the physical body as a
fundamental instrument for evolution, encountering the ghosts of the Malkuth material world that are
settled into the mind. They are the ghosts of the darkness of the collective subconscious, some scholars
believe.

Fig. VIII.13. Path 29

Astrological association. Pisces is the sign corresponding to this card. It is a mutable, feminine
Water sign, governed by Neptune and Jupiter. It governs the feet, the mucous membranes, the lymphatic
system and the aura. As the last sign of the Zodiac, it represents the possibility of transcending.

Fig. VIII.14. Pisces. Johfra

Those born under this sign grow through serving and healing others. They are very sensitive and
impressionable, and easily unbalanced. Their state of mind is reflected like no other sign in their physical
health. We can consider two types of Pisces: the first is more intuitive, spiritual, free from the heavier
bonds of material life. They are seekers of deep, altruistic, humanitarian, creative and inspired truth. Their
desire is for all beings to be free from suffering and their tolerance leads them to surrender themselves
lovingly to the world. The second type is an escape artist, scattered, indolent, often drug-dependent, with
minimal self-affirmation and self-esteem. This type loves to play the victim. The second does not find
him/herself and tends to be confused, also confusing others. These two types usually coexist within the
same flesh-and-blood Pisces.
Anna María Ribeiro says: "This king of illusion has his own, totally non-rational mechanisms for
communicating, such as telepathy, empathy, clairvoyance and other paranormal perceptions.” People born
under the sign of Pisces tend to get fat, and to suffer in the lungs and glands. Their feet swell easily and
they are very vulnerable to intoxications and infections. Their emotional crises often leave them hanging.
Their verb is “I believe” and their phrase is “I am one in my integration with life”.

SYMBOLS
 At the bottom is a scarab carrying the solar disk between its mandibles. It is Khepri or Khepera, the
sacred Egyptian scarab which, like the Sun, rises from the darkness of night reborn, which is why it is also
called the Rising Sun. In Egyptian art, it is depicted pushing a ball of fire where it deposited its semen.
This idea is inspired by actual fact: this beetle lays its eggs in a ball of manure, which it then pushes
continuously under the rays of the sun. The manure, heated by the sun’s rays, ferments and hatches the
eggs. The ball represents the Sun, as it contains the elements necessary for growth and nourishment.
According to this tradition, Khepri is the father of the gods, the Great Lord of creation and resurrection. It
symbolizes the solar cycle of day and night. It bears the Sun in silence through the darkness of night and
the bitterness of winter. On this card, Khepri emerges from the waters of Nuit, where primordial chaos
rests, and with the light of its consciousness, the Sun, between its mandibles, discovers a somewhat sinister
landscape. Crowley writes: “Khepri is the highest creative force, beginning to materialize in the most
primitive organic form.” It also represents the organic evolution of the human race and the cellular
development of the human physical vehicle, from the deepest roots of Nature.

Fig. VIII.15. Khepri, Anubis, Ibis and the Crux Ansata

In the Marseille, Waite and Golden Dawn Tarot decks, a crab or a lobster appears coming out of the
primordial waters, symbol of the first signs of conscious perception, representing humanity coming out of
unconsciousness. The crab sometimes walks backward, showing the danger we have of losing our
consciousness and involuting.
At the front, we see a road or a river stained with blood, which emerges between two high and
barren mountains. On it, nine drops of lunar blood (menstrual) fall in the form of Yod from the Moon. The
root mens means Moon and Artemis, the Greek goddess of the Moon, means “the high source of water”.
On both sides of the road lurk two jackals, howling incessantly, frightening insecure travelers. The jackal
is considered a bad omen because it is nocturnal; it lurks in cemeteries and feeds on corpses. It is a symbol
of greed, cruelty and insatiable desire, i.e. of exacerbated emotions and sensations. Consciousness is in
serious danger of being annihilated by these jackals, who here represent not only blind and compulsive
instinct, but also hatred, fears, guilt and all destructive feelings.
The jackals are at the feet of their master, the god Anubis, son of Osiris and Nephthys, the protector
of the dead and sister-wife of Set, also by a dual split. He presides over funeral rites, takes care of the
deceased, embalming and weighing their hearts. If a heart is lighter than the Ma’at feather in the other
dish, this indicates that it is guilt-free.
This Psychopomp, which according to legend was embodied in a wild dog, symbolizes death and
the path of the deceased until reaching the valley of immortality. In one hand, he carries the Phoenix staff,
attribute of the Ibis-headed Thoth, which by the shape of its beak is a lunar bird, a symbol of foresight,
wisdom and resurrection.
In the other hand, he holds the crux ansata or Ankh, was the key which opened the gateway of the
tomb into the fields of Aalu, the realm of eternity, especially when it was held by the upper part, as in the
card. This cross is considered a symbol of integration of the Active and Passive Principles, and therefore a
symbol of life.
 Fig. VIII.16. The Moon

Behind Anubis stand two dark towers, of sinister appearance. In them are all the prejudices,
superstitions, dead traditions and ancestral fears that block the human being’s evolution. There are also the
threats and fears instilled by parents and cures in childhood. In truth, the towers are empty. We are the ones
who project onto them everything we fear. In Salvador Dalí’s Tarot (1984), these towers are the
skyscrapers of New York. Behind the towers we see two blue mountains. If their peaks were the knees of a
woman seated in gynecological position, she would be giving birth to light, giving birth to the Sun that we
see between the legs of the scarab, indicating that true light only emerges to the extent that it crosses,
illuminates and integrates the shadow. Light that denies the shadow is a farce, or as Jung said: “Nobody is
enlightened by fantasizing about figures of light, but rather by becoming conscious of their darker side."
The design of this card is inspired by the movement of the sea, whose ebb and flow is governed by
the Moon. However, it is not the Moon of The Priestess, the receptive Principle that governs the
subconscious and the home, the esoteric and intuition, which unites individuality (Tiphareth) and divine
essence (Keter). It is not the full moon of the Bonfires of Beltane, where the people paired up to fertilize
the fields and bring prosperity to the clan. This is the Black Moon, which, with its horns pointing
downward, is the Moon of sorcery, of black magic, of drugs that drive people crazy. There is no longer any
light here, but this darkness is also a necessary condition for the rebirth of light. This Moon is the goddess
of the dead, the dark side of Hecate. Represented with three bodies and three heads, she is the
necromancer, the goddess of sorcery, of night terrors, of ghosts and monsters that instill panic. With
torches in her hand, she presides over the spells, accompanied by donkeys, dogs and wolves. In Hinduism,
she is Kali, the destructive aspect of the feminine, surrounded by jackals and other animals that lurk
around crematoria, apparently drunk, wielding deadly and bloody weapons. She is depicted standing over
the corpse of Shiva, her masculine polarity.
The question is, what is it that bewitches us? What bewitches us by manipulating us without us
realizing is everything that we have hidden in the shadow: Our talents and aspects that we manifested in
childhood and were censured, repressed, threatened, rejected or punished, generating suffering and fear.
We thus first hid them from family, then from the world, and finally from ourselves. These aspects and
talents manipulate us through projections. We project onto others that which is hidden in our shadow. Just
as Cupid’s arrows were made of gold and silver, our projections are made of gold when we see aspects or
talents in someone that we had to repress in ourselves but which we did not condemn, and we identify and
hook into the person in question, falling madly in love. When we see or place onto another person aspects
or talents of our own that were so severely repressed that we ended up condemning them, we despise the
person who expresses them. When we feel strong emotional voltage oscillations toward someone or a
situation, we can be sure that we are projecting. Of course, when we go through a situation with these
characteristics, we have a great opportunity to recognize and rescue the aspect or talent that is in the
shadow.[28]. This card is that which the mystics call the dark night of the soul.
 GENERAL MEANINGS
It represents the dark side of the Universe. It is the complementing opposite of the Sun. Light and
shadow are complementary opposites; there is no shadow without light and there is no light without
shadow; necessarily, light and shadow coexist. On the human plane, it represents the darkest aspects of the
subconscious, the shadow, which attracts and frightens the consciousness, as the Moon does with Khepri.
This attraction comes from the need that the being has to become complete, integrating hidden aspects.
This is frightening because s/he fears suffering again as s/he suffered when expressing those aspects and
talents in childhood. This threshold is perhaps the greatest known challenge. If we saw the subconscious of
the unprogrammed being in The Fool, which manifests itself by expressing talents and other particularities
through action, in The Moon, we have the somber subconscious, formed by everything that bounced off
the wall of programmed prohibitions and stimulations and had to be hidden. In order to rescue and
illuminate the shadow, in order to become complete beings, it will be necessary to face precisely that
which is most feared. Here, the unknown is a source of danger, fear and hallucinations. When human
beings try to follow their true path, threats, fears, pains, rage and guilt appear - a negative charge that was
instilled in the early years of childhood. Thus, the child does not become what s/he truly is, but rather what
his/her parents want, doing away with a good part of his internal references. In this sense, The Moon refers
to the past to which we are tied, especially childhood. This psychic area that we call shadow does not
appear in a clear way that can be identified, understood, analyzed and resolved. It arrives as a dark cloud,
tear gas that confuses, irritates and produces a whole series of extremely unpleasant internal sensations that
notably hinder the possibility of advancing.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is realizing that she can’t keep sitting on top of the shadow trunk
pretending nothing’s going on. She has already realized that everything hidden manipulates her and she is
debating between the internal urge to open the trunk and accept, illuminate and integrate what is inside,
and the fear of doing so. This may be the product of her own process of self-awareness or of attracting
situations that touch upon and exalt all that is hidden, so that it is impossible to continue denying the
shadow. It may be a difficult, confusing, conflictive and distressing time where fear manifests itself in a
sharp and paralyzing way, but with enormous growth potential. Rock Rose flower will reinforce the
courage and inner peace necessary to face this tremendous challenge.
Anchor. This indicates that the person had to hide so many aspects and talents, which went to the
shadow, like the immersed part of an iceberg, which barely shows a very limited part of what it really is.
That very powerful shadow manipulates her continuously, keeping her in a state of serious alienation from
herself. She lives with a strong tension in order to maintain control, and with a constant fear that
everything she is hiding will appear. In other words, she is afraid of expressing emotions and desires that
are not compatible with the image she wants to convey to the public. This would be confirmed by
Adjustment (Justice) in Childhood or in the Anchor. Essence of Scarlet Monkeyflower* will help her
nurture emotional honesty, favoring integration of the dark side, as well as Black-Eyed Susan*, which
favors the courage to go encounter the dark or unknown parts of the psyche.
That fear may unfold and manifest itself in different ways:
• undefined fear, especially of the unknown, with negative foreboding, nightmares, superstitions
and constant anxiety and insecurity. Aspen flower lends confidence in the challenge of the unknown.
• the fear of rejection, criticism and any kind of hostility experienced in childhood (Three of
Swords – Affliction) make the person project this paranoid state and react to the world in a distrustful and
hostile way. Indicated by the Princess of Swords in the Anchor, we will suggest using Oregon Grape*,
which breaks the pattern of mistrust.
• fear of failure, which may be the product of strong expectations from parents during childhood.
Creativity and spontaneity were thus curbed, confirmed by the Eight of Swords - Interference or of Discs -
Failure, in the Anchor. Essence of Larch, which nurtures creative expression, spontaneity and confidence
in one’s own ability, will be best recommendation in this case.
• the fear of the common challenges of everyday life, accompanied by shyness and introversion,
may be the result of overprotection/emasculation, affirmed by The Empress, or excessive prohibitions,
suggested by the Eight of Swords – Interference. These small fears may open the consciousness to a more
basic and real fear by using essence of Mimulus, which helps recoup the courage to live with greater
curiosity, joy and spontaneity.
• the fear of being exposed, which may be the product of a compulsive “I don’t like it” detected by
the Five of Cups - Frustration - in the Anchor or in Childhood. If this fear manifests as an avoidance of
intimate sexual and loving contact or by turning sex into impersonal gymnastics, we will suggest the use of
Sticky Monkeyflower* and Pink Monkey Flower* which, by increasing self-acceptance, will help the
person to open up emotionally.
• the fear of losing control, releasing destructive impulses, would be indicated by the presence of
the Four of Swords or Cups - Truce and Luxury - or The Knight of Wands in the Anchor. The ego will
usually want to further strengthen control. Before the explosion happens, we will suggest using Cherry
Plum.
• the fear of growing up and facing adult responsibilities, confirmed by The Fool in the Anchor.
This will be relieved by Fairy Lantern*, which facilitates transit through such emotional blockages until
maturity, which integrates the child side.
• the fear of losing things, so that the person bases inner security on material assets, indicated by
the Four of Discs - Power in the Anchor, comes from a very deep emotional lack, indicated by the Queen
of Swords in Childhood. This type of greed can be reversed with Star Thistle* flower, which strengthens
inner assurance, generosity and confidence in life.
• the fear of dying, from the materialistic identification with the physical body, the result of a
strictly rationalist education, detected by the Six Swords - Awareness, or by a rebellion against a dogmatic,
incriminating and repressive religious programming, indicated by The Hierophant, can be treated with
Chrysanthemum*, which favors the development of spirituality.
• the fear of losing one’s individuality in a group leaves the person shy and withdrawn. (The
Priestess in Relationships would indicate such a case) Despite suffering in loneliness, she shuts herself in
with her duties. Violet* flower will encourage her to trust that others will help her and that her
individuality will be revealed more firmly.
In lack, this can show the creation of a counter-phobic personality: who is so afraid of being afraid
that she acts as if she had no fear. She puts on a carefree mask of assurance, optimism, of everything being
fine, which can be addressed with essence of Agrimony.
Childhood. Everything was dangerous; the outside world was frightening. Be careful! That car will
run you over! Initiative was snipped under threat: Don’t you dare! Don’t even dream of it! I’ll put you in a
time out in a dark room! Thus, spontaneity disappeared. Under this type of programming, an enormous
shadow was created that brought together most of the child’s characteristics and talents, which were later
hidden from the world and from herself. With the Nine of Swords - Cruelty, this can indicate physical
torture, humiliating and violent punishments. Perhaps she even felt her own life was in danger and
acquired schizoid personality traits.
Relationships. a) The relationship is helping the person to recognize that there is a trunk in her
subconscious, locked with seven keys, where she keeps her talents and characteristics, stored there in the
past under sinister threats, and whose acceptance and expression is blocked by strong fears. This can
happen in several ways, the least pleasant of which would be if her partner is the one who touches on her
sensitive areas, stimulates the appearance of dark aspects and triggers her fears, which would be confirmed
by the Nine Swords – Cruelty, indicating that the person feels threatened by her partner. In any case, it may
be an excellent incentive to understanding and disabling fear and accepting and integrating the shadow. b)
Relating is a kind of psychic torture for this person, because to do so would mean to show herself, to
expose herself, to open the trunk of the shadow, and that triggers her fears that the horror caused by
spontaneous expression in the past will happen again. Like ghosts, the possibilities of being rejected,
criticized, abandoned or violated appear if she dares to be true to herself. She does not believe in her love,
in her beauty, in her sex appeal, and she nearly always prefers not to get involved unless there is also a
significant masochistic element in her personality, which would be indicated by the Nine of Swords or
Five of Discs - Cruelty and Suffering - in the Anchor.
Inner Voice and Method. To integrate this arcana means to stop denying the shadow, to accept all
the aspects, talents and characteristics that for different reasons were locked in the trunk. Of course, to do
so, the person needs to identify and disable the fears of what may come out of the trunk. It is about
accepting one’s own shadow as something undeniably our own, making these fears a thread that carries us
ever deeper into ourselves.
There is no point in turning our backs on the shadow and trying to move toward the light, because
when we do this, the shadow increases behind us and as we do not see it, and it manipulates us even more.
There we will also find fears, feelings of vulnerability and fragility, obsessions, paranoia and threats, all
coming from the past. Rescuing and illuminating the shadow means facing exactly what we fear the most,
what we never wanted to see, what we have always denied. Of course, we didn’t deny it and hide it
because we wanted to. We were forced to do so in childhood. The child instinctively knows that, in order
to survive, s/he needs to be cared for, fed, protected and accepted by his/her parents, especially the mother.
When the child expresses her/himself and that expression brings about rejection, criticism, threats,
condemnation, punishment or a spanking, the survival instinct is triggered and the child hides the aspect or
talent that had been expressed. First, she hides it from her family, then from the world and finally from
herself. This task begins with acceptance and recognition of fears and the search for their origins, revisiting
early childhood as attentively and objectively as possible. The size of the fear is directly proportional to the
difference in size between the child and the giant who instilled that fear, and also to the child’s dependence
on that giant. Using current fears as a thread, we can build a retrospective history that takes us back to the
original situation where that fear was introduced. When we relive that situation with our adult size,
independence, experience and consciousness, the fear is minimized. It may not disappear completely, but it
no longer manipulates us. We can thus disable fears and take the corresponding initiatives. Fears are our
allies at this time. Accepting them, recognizing them, discovering how they work and getting rid of them is
the task and the steppingstone. Behind them we can find beautiful potential (XVIII=IX=0), from which we
can gain great pleasure. Here, we will use the floral essences of the Anchor.

“Many of our problems, perhaps most of our problems, are because we have never looked at them
face to face, encountered them; And not looking at them is giving them energy. Being afraid of them is
giving them energy; always trying to avoid them is giving them energy.” Osho.

Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person realizes to what
extent she has always been manipulated by her shadow, perceives the consequences of that manipulation,
and feels capable of confronting her fears, half-opening the trunk and beginning to accept and integrate
aspects of her shadow.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has worked on
and minimized fears, recognized and integrated talents and aspects of her own being that were hidden in
the shadow. Today, her shadow no longer manipulates her and is expressed in life in a much more
spontaneous and authentic way. Although there may still be something in the trunk, we can say that she has
taken a tremendous leap in her evolution.
External result. The person attracts a situation that hits the shadow trunk like a missile, leaving no
option of continuing to ignore it. Everything that is hidden there appears with such force that the person,
even if terrified, has to accept it as a part of herself and try to integrate it. Of course, the growth process we
saw in the cards that appeared in the previous positions are giving her the inner strength to face this
challenge, which would probably not come along if the person wasn’t ready for it.

THE SUN
 Titles. In the Egyptian Tarot, this is “Inspiration”, and in Osho Zen, “Innocence”. In other decks, it
is called “The Sun”. Its esoteric title is “Lord of the Fire of the World”.
Number. Nineteen is a prime number related to the Ten and the One (19=1+9=10=1+0=1) that
transmits the idea of both complete cycle, returning to unity, and individuality.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ר‬. Resh, which means “head” or “physiognomy” is a double, male, orange letter,
with numerical value of 200. Symbolically, it represents Fire and it encloses the faculties of thinking,
wanting and feeling in its spelling. The original sound of the hard Resh has been lost, but we know that it
existed because there are ten words in the Bible that have Resh with Dagesh. Its soft sound is that of an R
between vowels.
Kabbalistic path. This path (30th) joins Yesod - Foundation, the unconscious mind and the psyche
of the Moon, with Hod - Glory, the rational, concrete and conscious mind related to Mercury. Here the
nature of the relationship between the mind and the physical body is clarified. Sensations are refined and
sexuality is understood as the great secret force used by the initiate.

Fig. VIII.17. Path 30.

Astrological association. The Sun is the source of light, heat, energy and life. It is the Universal
Principle by which everything lives and moves. It governs the highest expression of self, individuality, true
will and spirit. The Sun evokes ideas of greatness, superiority, majesty, authority, life and radiant energy. It
governs our creativity, vitality and willpower. The sign where it is found shows the path of individuation.
As the source of energy, it is related to the libido, our psychic energy. It rules the sign Leo and the 5th
House. In the physical body, it governs the heart, blood circulation, arteries, spine and eyes.

SYMBOLS
On the upper half of the card appears the Lord of the New Age, Heru-Ra-Ha, another name for
Horus, manifesting in the form of the Sun, which is not only the source of life, light and energy, but also
the manifestation of Divinity.
The Sun enlivens and manifests things, but it also destroys them. According to various traditions,
there were several suns that were struck with arrows so as not to set fire to the crops. The Sun that sets
every night, reborn every morning, is a symbol of resurrection and immortality. It is in the center of the
system, just as the heart is in the center of the human body, it is the Atman or Universal Spirit. In the
human being, it represents the divine part, the living flame that burns in the heart, symbol of
consciousness. It also represents the super-ego, the area of the psyche incorporated by the influence of
family and society, which represses the being with prohibitions, rules and doctrines.
 Fig. VIII.18. The Sun

The sun is represented in the form of a lotus flower with two rows of twelve petals each,
symbolizing the flowering of solar energy in the external and internal planes (2 rows) in a total and
complete way (12 petals). The lotus in the East is equivalent to the rose in the West, also representing love,
heart, spirituality and immortality. The Rosicrucians place the rose in the middle of the cross, where the
heart of Christ would be. Crowley eliminated the cross, only leaving the rose, the love. By this he meant to
point out that all the artificial limitations, norms and laws of the Piscean Age related to the cross and the
Four no longer have any effect in the New Age.
Under the Sun are the two children who already appeared in The Fool, in the Hierophant and in the
Lovers, this time with butterfly wings, free and innocent. They are celebrating life, dancing life, as
Rolando Toro would say, uninhibited and free from any idea of sin, punishment or death. The twins are
also a symbol of what we are. We believe that we are one, but that isn’t true. We are not one. We are two.
In us lies a conscious nature and also an unconscious nature. Our well-being depends on the balance and
symbiosis of the two.
Behind the children stands a mountain, representing the earth’s aspiration to reach the sky. We can
consider it a mediator between them. It is green, symbolizing fertility. The tip of the mountain is
surrounded by a wall, which delimits an internal enclosure showing that the process of growth or
expansion of consciousness is internal. There is no shop where you can buy half a kilo of consciousness.
According to Hindu tradition, there is a wall of rocks near the Cosmos in the center of which rises Mount
Meru, seat of Shiva and Parvati. This wall can also represent the limitations and natural laws that will
continue to exist. Twelve curved rays emerge from the Sun which, in the song of the card, define the
twelve astrological signs, emphasizing the idea that the Sun is in the center of the Zodiac, Nuit’s belt.

GENERAL MEANINGS
This card represents the totality of light in the Universe. On the human plane, it is Consciousness,
while The Moon was the Shadow of the Subconscious. Our Awareness of ourselves manifests on two
planes:
1. Individuality. It is the true Self, which cannot be maculated by programming, even though it may
be hidden behind defensive structures and mountains of garbage. It is the diamond we saw in Fig.II.01 “X-
ray of a turd”. It is the «Self» of Bioenergetic Analysis, the silent Presence that observes the world and
itself.
Ignorance blinds us to the perception of our true nature and makes us identify with the most
transient and superficial aspects of our being.

“Man Is the Only Creature Who Refuses to Be What He Is”. Albert Camus (1913-1960)
 We identify with our mind, our emotions, our physical body and its instincts or our image in the
mirror, when in truth we are the owner of all that, the observer. Separated from our center, ignorant of our
true nature, we cruelly repress our original impulses or let ourselves be led unattentively and compulsively
by our built-up urges and the pursuit of compensation. The way to eliminate ignorance is by accepting our
instinctive urges and emotions, observing them and expressing them attentively. We will thus transform
and integrate them into our daily lives until the day we no longer identify with them: “I live in my body
that I love and respect, but I am not my body”, “I accept and express my emotions, but I am not my
emotions but rather the one who observes them”. The expansion of consciousness takes us to the center
and allows us to be more objective both internally and externally. On the internal plane, because we are
shining light into dark areas that we didn’t know, and externally, because when we recognize these areas as
our own, we stop projecting them and begin to see the outside world as what it is rather than as a reflection
of ourselves. The discovery of oneself, of our inner Sun that has always been present, manifesting itself
through perceptions, intuitions, expanded states of consciousness and internal visions in general, is also a
discovery of the world.
At this level of awareness, each being, each individual, is unique and unrepeatable, and in that
sense is special. Each being has its own talents and particularities that make it different from others. Love
and freedom reside in this center.

“Where there is fear there is obviously no freedom, and without freedom there is no love at all. The
fearless mind is capable of loving infinitely, and love can do whatever it wants.” Krishnamurti (1895-
1986)

This Individuality is totally different from the ego. It separates us from reality and from others.
Individuality connects us to the world, just like love.
2: Spirituality. When we develop our Individuality (and not before), it can dissolve into Existence,
like a drop of water dissolves into the ocean. On the spiritual plane, we stop being a unique and different
being to be the same with all beings: We are all one. The Great Spirit that permeates every human being
also permeates animals, plants and the entire Universe.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is questioning the extent to which she is being authentic to herself.
She is making contact with an internal urge to further develop her individuality, her notion of identity. She
feels the need to take more of a leading role in her life, to live for herself and not for other people, social or
professional roles, or external circumstances. She feels the need to express herself as she truly is and give
free rein to her talents that are yearning to be expressed, especially her creativity, risking becoming more
visible. The second card may show the internal difficulties that oppose full manifestation of her
individuality or in which specific aspects of life that process is expressed with greater intensity. With the
Hierophant, we could imagine a spiritual quest.
Anchor: This person is disconnected from herself, so she has an unstructured notion of her
identity. In general, this may manifest in two ways:
a) In excess, it is an inflated ego, a Mr. So-and-so who always needs to be the center of attention.
He struts without modesty, displaying his knowledge, his brightness, his successes, his superficial beauty...
When he is admired, he feels satisfied and euphoric. He doesn’t relax as long as there’s someone around. If
no one pays attention to him, he deflates, and beneath the feathers appears a needy and undervalued child.
This excessive identification with illusory aspects of the self can be reversed by using Sagebrush*, which
helps to rediscover the essence of Being. For those who use external beauty as a hook to attract attention
and who don’t know how to go out without a cosmetic mask (with the Princess of Cups in the Anchor), the
use of Pretty Face* will help them connect to their internal beauty, favoring acceptance of their personal
appearance. With The Emperor or the Four of Swords - Truce - in Childhood and any Six in the Anchor,
we would confirm this possibility, showing a conflicting relationship with an authoritarian parent or
guardian.
Just as the Emperor is fascinated by being the leader of something, he presents his candidacy for
president of the associations in which he participates. They both want to rule. The Emperor, to put
everyone to work and accumulate money and power, and the Sun to conquer fame, glory and applause.
Both have psychopathic traits.
b) In lack, it is someone whose identity has disappeared. He doesn’t know who he is or what he
wants. He is incapable of creating. He prefers to go unnoticed. He looks like a ghost, suffering from
diseases resulting from low immune defenses. Resigned to fulfilling his destiny, he is a nobody who keeps
silent and obeys. The use of Echinacea* will help him redeem the integrity and dignity of being.
The Three or Eight of Swords - Affliction and Interference - or the Five of Discs or Swords -
Suffering and Defeat - in Childhood, indicating that parents nullified their child with rejection, criticism,
humiliation, punishment and the like would confirm this case.
A very common means of individual nullification is the quest to be normal. Normal behavior is
nothing more than a state of alienation from one’s own experience. We live as if certain patterns, values,
doctrines, norms of social consensus are our own, while denying our own impulses. We judge ourselves
and question ourselves based on those patterns that we consider our own but are not, and we believe that
right is what is standard and wrong is what comes from within.
For all cases, the most appropriate floral essence will be Sunflower*, which works by rescuing the
balanced sense of individuality.
Childhood. This child’s sense of identity was warped. This may have happened in several ways:
A strong nullification of the child’s individuality, where fears, threats, punishments and
prohibitions broke her notion of identity, especially with The Moon, The Priestess, The Nine or Eight of
Swords - Cruelty and Interference.
A continuous expectation for the child to shine, to stand out, to be the best in the class, on the team
or in the house, is suggested by The Emperor, The Magician or the Six of Wands - Victory.
With the Three of Cups - Abundance, this shows the child being the obsessive center of attentions,
very pampered by the family to the point of developing the belief that the world is at his or her service. She
ended up willing to do anything to keep being the center of the world. In all cases, she came out with a
distorted sense of identity.
Relationships. a) A relationship helps this person strengthen her notion of individuality. With the
Hierophant, we may also see the development of spiritual consciousness. This may come about as loving
support from the partner or as a defensive reaction to attempts at nullification. b) The person interacts by
looking for satellites that inflate the ego, helping him/her shine and stand out in society.
Inner Voice and Method. To integrate The Sun means to broaden consciousness, to be oneself,
which initially entails not only acceptance of subconscious urges, but also appreciation and encouragement
for specific qualities, especially creativity, which make us unique beings. In any case, the presence of this
card here indicates that the person is far from her true self, identifying with roles that have little to do with
her nature and thus feeling a very diluted notion of identity. This card can be addressed on two consecutive
levels:
First is the strengthening of identity. In order to do this, we will suggest working on the solar
qualities:
1st - The sun travels its own path, without orbiting other planets. The person needs to discover why
he or she lives for others.
2nd - The Sun doesn’t ask the planets if they want more ultraviolet rays. The person needs to work
on self-expression by identifying, understanding and disabling the internal difficulties that hamper it.
3rd - It keeps us alive. If the sun is extinguished, we would reach -70o in a week; it is the source of
creative energy. This suggests investigation and working on creative blockages.
4th - It is visible. Which are the obstacles to showing oneself?
5th - It doesn’t fight with the clouds to keep the beings that depend on it alive, seeing it in its
magnificence and glory. The origins of the need for other people’s attention would need to be investigated.
 6th - It knows to withdraw when the time is right. Any trouble feeling comfortable when you’re
alone?
Using essence of Sunflower* would be helpful.
Development of the spiritual side comes later. Spirituality is the perfume of a flower that will be
hard to grow if the ground where it is planted is not fertile (if the physical body is not healthy), if it does
not rain (if the person is emotionally lacking) and if the atmosphere is polluted (if the mind is saturated
with prejudices and doctrines). By working on and harmonizing these three levels, true spirituality emerges
naturally.
Floral essence of Lotus* acts as a spiritual elixir that helps the soul open its inner divinity, while
that of Star Tulip* facilitates meditation.
We can suggest this meditation from Osho: “Fifteen minutes before the sun rises, just wait and
watch as one waits for a beloved. When the sun comes on the horizon, start feeling that it is just near the
navel. No need to stare; you can blink your eyes. Just ten minutes will do. Then close your eyes and you
can see the sun dazzling inside. This is going to change you tremendously.” (The Orange Book).
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person initiates a phase
of special identity affirmation because she has realized that to continue living solely for others only brings
frustration and suffering. She values her creativity and opts for activities where she can express it.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has been able to
identify, understand and disable existing internal difficulties in order to be truly herself. Today she is the
true protagonist of her own life; she expresses herself from her truth, with authenticity and determination,
daring to express her creativity. She feels free, spontaneous and joyful, in touch with her inner voice and
her spiritual being.
External result. The person is facing the world with the inner attitude we saw in the Internal
Result. She is full of energy, properly and spontaneously channeling it into creative activities so that she
has many possibilities of being seen and recognized by society.

AEON (JUDGMENT)
Titles. This arcana, usually titled “Judgment” or “Final Judgment”, was one of the cards whose
meanings, Crowley says, became so deteriorated that it came to convey a different idea that the occult
tradition. To rescue it, he had to draw a totally innovative card, which he called “Aeon”.
The word Aeon means era or large space of time, a measure of time used in geology. In
Gnosticism, however, it is the eternal intelligence emanating from Supreme Divinity. With the title
“Resurrection”, the Egyptian Tarot departs from Christian dogmatism but, as we shall see, it is still
halfway there. In Osho Zen Tarot, it is “Beyond Illusion”. Its esoteric title is “Spirit of the Primal Fire”.
Number. Aeon is arcana number Twenty. According to the Mayan tradition, this number represents
the sun god in his archetypal role of the perfect human being. Also, in the 360-day Mayan religious
calendar, its 18 months have 20 days. Today, in K'iche' numbering, the closest ethnic group to the vanished
Mayan people, Twenty represents human beings with their ten fingers and ten toes. The Hopi people
proceed with a ritual imposition of the name for a newborn at twenty days of life. When broken down, it is
Two.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ש‬, Shin, the third and last mother letter is red, associated with the element Fire and
the antithesis. Its shape is reminiscent of a bonfire with three flames topped by three Yods. Its numeric
value is 300 and its meaning is tooth. Its sound is Sh.
Kabbalistic path. The 31st path, Shin, joins Malkuth, the Kingdom, with Hod, Splendor. In the
texts of the Golden Dawn, this path is called “The splendor of the material world” because of its
relationship with physical body perfection. Paul Foster Case calls the process of this path “Building the
Master’s Body”. This path also refers to development of the concrete mind. From Malkuth, the realm of
the elements, the aspirant goes on to encounter the archive of images and thought-forms, developing
mastery over the mind, as well as selective discernment. The challenge is to connect the intellect to the
concrete reality of material things.

Fig. VIII.19. Path 31.

Astrological association. - The element Fire and Pluto correspond to Aeon. Let’s look at the main
characteristics of Fire:
1. Transformative. It destroys the old, facilitating emergence of the new. This is the most important
aspect in rural cultures. The gods of the Popol Vuh were burned at the stake. Fire burns the fields and
facilitates emergence of a green mantle of living Nature after the rains, usually far more exuberant than
moors that were not burned.
2. Purifying and regenerating. The Irish, Celtic and Breton Druids lit bonfires every 1st of May (the
first day of summer according to their calendar) and passed cattle between them in order to prevent
epidemics.
3. Refining. Fire takes matter to its most refined state through combustion. The flame expresses
fire’s aspiration for the high, for the spiritual, to unite with the flames of the Sun and the stars. Fire,
according to certain traditions, symbolizes Spirit, our divine side. When we come into contact with our
spiritual Being, our whole life takes on another meaning, and a new, more transcendental dimension
appears. It happens as if we burn a whole series of interests, desires, commitments and routines that have
lost their meaning. Other authors consider Fire and Spirit as distinct elements.
4. Source of energy. In human beings, Fire is the energy of the libido, our sexual energy that drives
us to live, to seek pleasure, to come together, to reproduce and to transform the world around us.
Relating Fire to Spirit and sexual energy at the same time may seem frighteningly heterodox to the
Christian tradition. In Hinduism however, the Kundalini, the serpent of fire coiled at the base of the spine,
is sexual energy that, when properly awakened and channeled, ascends through the central channel of the
subtle body, Sushumna, opening the successive chakras and developing consciousness. As it rises, without
ceasing to be sexual energy, it becomes spiritualized. When it reaches the crown chakra – Sahasrara, Keter
– it is transformed into pure light and the human being enters divine ecstasy or Satori.
5. Source of light. In this sense, we can assimilate Fire with intuitive knowledge.
Pluto represents the principle of destruction and transmutation. It drives the individual toward
rebirth and toward deepening of experience. People with strong Pluto in their charts will have enormous
willpower that can be directed toward creative goals, an inquisitive mind, paranormality, transcendent
desires, although sometimes their ambitions are excessive, their mind obsessive, their emotions explosive,
and they can be cruel and manipulative in achieving their goals.

SYMBOLS
 The central figure, a child with big and beautiful eyes, is Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, in the form
of Har-pa-khered, the infant Horus. Above his head is the god of wisdom, Ohyros, in the form of a winged
two-headed serpent.

Fig. VIII.20. Horus

The child is the representation in human form of the Lord of the New Age, also called Heru-Ra-Ha,
of solar nature and bathed in golden light. His index finger is in his mouth as if he had not yet decided
what the world he would like to rule will be like. According to this tradition, the Universe is a reflection of
his thoughts. We ourselves would only exist because Horus would imagine us.
In this sense, we can understand the first principle of the Kybalion: “All is Mind; The universe is
mental". There are those who believe, reversing the process, that this entity is the unifier of our thoughts,
sifting through them and giving them back to us. This would be a collective thought-form of humanity.

Fig. VIII.21. Aeon (Judgment)

Behind the child Horus sits Hawk-headed Horus, Lord of Silence and Strength, as represented in
the Cairo museum and described in chapter III. He represents the rising Sun and is a symbol of
resurrection. Enveloping the child in a blue womb, Nuit, represented as the nocturnal celestial vault,
surrounds and protects him maternally. Her nipples are spiral galaxies and in her body the stars shine. Her
belt, as in The Empress, contains the constellations of the Zodiac. Perfectly embedded in Nuit is Hadit, her
companion, the Masculine Principle, in the form of a winged egg, to emphasize that he is pure energy in
motion, the primordial impulse.
As you can see, this card is inspired by The Stele of Revealing, which we spoke of in chapter III.
 Fig. VIII.22. The Stele of Revealing

Let’s look at some excerpts from the second chapter of the Book of the Law to get to know Hadit
better:
“2. I, Hadit, am the complement of Nuit, my bride. 5. Behold! The rituals of the old time are black.
6. I am the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star. 9. Remember all ye that
existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass and are done; 22. I am the Snake
that giveth knowledge and delight and bright glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness. 26. I am
the secret Serpent coiled about to spring. 27. There is great danger in me; for who doth not understand
these runes shall make a great miss. He shall fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall
perish with the dogs of Reason. 44. Aye! Feast! Rejoice! There is no dread hereafter. There is the
dissolution, and eternal ecstasy in the kisses of Nuit.”
At the child’s feet is the letter Shin, suggesting a flower. In his three Yods appear human figures:
three babies about to be born. Horus is making up his mind. He is about to create, conceive of a new
universe. The new world is appearing everywhere, despite the fact that the fundamental structure of the old
Pisces world is still standing. This card is representing the cosmic moment, which for us can last centuries,
of transition between one era and another.
The third chapter of The Book of the Law is the hardest to understand. Horus’ words foreshadow
wars, destruction, as has been happening (this book was received in 1904 before the two world wars), as
well as the end of religions as organized and hierarchical sects and the beginning of women’s struggle for
emancipation. Let’s look at some excerpts: “3. Now let it be first understood that I am a god of War and of
Vengeance (Horus was conceived and raised to avenge Set, murderer of his father Osiris and usurper of his
throne. See note 59 in Chapter VII, The Second Septenary). 11. Let the woman be girt with a sword before
me… 17. Fear not at all; fear neither men nor Fates, nor gods, nor anything. Nuit is your refuge as Hadit
your light; and I am the strength, force and vigor of your arms.”
The finger on the lips is also an allusion to Nemesis, the Roman goddess of justice and revenge,
sometimes represented by covering her lips with her index finger, indicating that prudence and silence are
more advisable than arrogance and charlatanism.

GENERAL MEANINGS
This card represents the transition between one Eon (an Era) and another, which means the series of
transformations that happen in the Cosmos when we change eras. An order or system has become obsolete,
is disappearing, is being destroyed relentlessly by a series of emerging forces that give rise to a new world.
In the human world, this change is a maturing that comes from putting into practice the consciousness
developed in the Sun card. Traditionally, this card is interpreted as a new consciousness, as if the
consciousness of the Sun were not enough or needed to be renewed. It so happens that although the
individual becomes aware of certain internal issues, there lies with a needy and insecure child, known as
the wounded child, which prevents this awareness from materializing in practice. In general, childhood
programming leaves us needy and insecure. A part of us grows up and becomes a generally busy and
sometimes important adult. Without having received enough love and attention, that adult has a hard time
lovingly nurturing the inner child who in turn is dying to be accepted and terrified of going through the
suffering experienced in childhood. Both factors create immense potential for manipulation.
The adult may realize she needs to do one thing or stop doing another, but when the time comes to
take the corresponding initiative, the inner child trips or pushes her down. Passing through Aeon is
therefore a maturing, the result of integrating the adult and the child to the extent that the adult gives love,
attention and security to the child, who begins to grow and stops manipulating. We can call this maturing
rebirth, another traditional interpretation of this arcana.
Now we can understand the Tarots of Marseille and those inspired by it: Court de Gébelin, Papus,
Waite, etc. In Catholicism, there is no idea of expansion of consciousness nor of the succession of eras. If
inner peace and supreme understanding in the East are achieved in this world based on dedication and
inner work, in Catholicism, God’s grace is something that He gives to whomever He wants, usually after
death. The closest ideas to a new time and a new understanding in Catholic doctrine would be the coming
of the Kingdom of God, an event immediately following the resurrection of the dead dogma. At this point,
humans endowed with a new consciousness would self-judge. Thus, the images of these ancient decks
show resurrection of the dead, although its title is Judgment, which was always the sword of Damocles,
with which the churches manipulated humanity.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is realizing that she is being constantly manipulated by her inner
child, driving her to childish attitudes that bring frustration and suffering. She perceives the need to
address this child’s needs and fears from her adult side in order to be able to put her conscious initiatives
into practice without sabotage. The contiguous card will tell us on which planes these initiatives can be
taken or which blockages hinder the transition, for example, an Eight of Swords –Interference– or Seven of
Discs –Failure– will indicate that such decisions are being paralyzed by mental excuses or the fear of
failing.
Anchor. This person has a chronic difficulty in putting her perceptions into practice, as they are
manipulated by the fears and emotional deficiencies of her wounded child. This may be experienced in
different ways. It may entail compulsively seeking security, protection and acceptance. If it appears with
the Four of Discs - Power, the priority will be material security. With The Empress in Childhood, she may
have difficulty leaving the parental home and if she does so, overcoming her fears, she repeats the same
family structure in her own home. She obeys and represses her urges in order to try to gain the love of her
overly protective/overbearing mother, or of people with maternal characteristics. She may become hostage
to a job that she doesn’t like and which doesn’t offer her a chance to grow, in exchange for security.
Prisoner to a relationship out of fear of loneliness. In short, prisoner of any uterus that prevents him from
growing and developing his talents and potentialities.
He is afraid that if he takes independent attitudes, he will be rejected. In this case the floral essence
of Fairy Lantern* will help him grow, break free of the neurotic link that makes him think he will only be
accepted if he shows himself to be a “poor thing”, overly dependent and obedient, as his parents taught
him. A childhood illness or accident revealed by the Five of Discs - Suffering - may have developed a
pattern of excessive dependence on the family.
The Seven of Swords - Futility - in the Anchor or in Childhood indicates that this person allows
herself to be influenced too much by the opinions of others, and this dependence makes her unable to take
a stance. With the Ten of Cups - Satiety in the Anchor, this indicates that she lives suffocated by the
familiar atmosphere, annulling her ability to make decisions. In both cases, essence of Red Clover* will
help to strengthen conscious self-perception, favoring independent initiatives. With the Five of Swords -
Defeat - as the second card in the Anchor, she is also unable to put her perceptions into practice, rather
using them to criticize and judge others. Essence of Beech will help her deter this attitude and be more
tolerant, indulgent and understanding.
 Childhood. The child was prevented from making her own decisions. Her perceptions were
invalidated and her initiatives snipped. In compensation, she was wrapped in a cocoon of overprotection
where her autonomy and self-affirmation disappeared. She was manipulated in an environment
emotionally charged with occasional tsunamis and became a manipulator, needy and insecure.
Relationships. a) The relationship is helping the person realize to what extent she is being
manipulated by her inner child, who up to now she did not see or did not want to see. Anything leads her
to create drama, throw tantrums, blackmail and spew threats, like in Mexican soap operas. If her partner
does not join in the game, she may have minimal objective perception of her attitudes and identify the
wounded child who plays out the whole circus. This would already be the first step toward maturing. b) In
the relationship market, this person presents an image of a helpless child, dependent, extremely sensitive to
any impact, reacting in compulsive, manipulative and hyper-emotional ways. She looks for someone in a
partner who will nurture her lovingly and give her security. She will attract people who will do none of
this. Either they are going to remain impassive with their attitudes or they are going to be as childish as she
is, transforming the relationship into a pandemonium. Use of Fairy Lantern* is helpful.
Inner Voice and Method. Integrating this arcana means taking full responsibility for one’s own
actions and omissions, making decisions and taking initiatives from a conscious and understanding place
without being deceived by the manipulations of the needy and frightened child. We will suggest that this
give affection, attention and support to her manipulative injured child from her adult side, instead of
looking for someone to give her all of this. That is something that will never happen, and if someone gives
her a few crumbs of attention, she will pay a very heavy price. Among so many activities that are means to
reach ends, it is crucial to have some activities that are ends in themselves, such as playing, watching the
rain or clouds pass by, lying on the couch to listen to music, color, etc.
In this way, the child grows, becomes integrated with the adult and the mature person. She will
become the master of and responsible for her own life and will take practical initiatives from her
awareness and perception regardless of what others will say, think or do. Cerato flower will stimulate
confidence in her own perception to make firm and precise decisions.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person realizes to what
extent s/he is a puppet in the hands of his/her needy, insecure and manipulative childish side. S/he stops
waiting for the world to adapt to the needs of that little being and starts providing attention and affection.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has managed to
free herself from the manipulations of her childish side that is nostalgic for the safety and comfort of the
uterus. She has nurtured her needs for love, attention, contact and security, putting an end to her feelings of
lack and fears, and today she is a mature person who puts her perceptions into action. The insecure, needy
little boy became a spontaneous child, cheerful and curious to learn new things. This maturing can be
considered a rebirth of the being for the great adventure of life.
External result. We see the person facing the world with the attitude we saw in the Internal Result.
She becomes her own master and responsible for herself, does what she really wants, accepting the
consequences and not worrying about what others will say. Her need for security and protection was
minimized so that she comes out of the womb and is attracted to activities or a way of life where she feels
more free, independent and autonomous. She may leave her job to start her own company, leave her
paternal home or a backward relationship, get rid of a certain ideology and start thinking for herself, etc.

THE UNIVERSE
Titles. The last major arcana appears in the decks of Marseille with the title “The World”. In the
Tarot of Eteillah it is called “Earth” and in the Egyptian, “Transmutation”. In the Osho Zen Tarot, it is
“Conclusion”, and in Crowley, “The Universe”. Its esoteric name is “The Great One of the Night of Time”.
Number. Twenty-one symbolizes final perfection (21=3 x 7). Allendy says “Twenty-one is number
Twelve in reverse. Twelve is even and represents a balanced situation resulting from the harmonious
organization of perpetual cycles, while Twenty-one is odd and symbolizes the dynamic effort of
individuality, which is elaborated in the struggle of the opposites and embraces the ever new path of
evolutionary cycles.”
In many cultures, adulthood is reached at twenty-one years of age, right when the teeth are fully
formed. In this sense, we can consider it as the number of maturity, of responsibility and of something that
has reached completion.

CORRESPONDENCE
Hebrew letter. ‫ ת‬. Tau or Taw is double, dark grey and its numeric value, 400, is considered a limit
value. It is the last letter of this alphabet; its strong sound is that of the T and soft is that of Z in Spanish
from Spain. It means cross or sign. It graphically represents the Egyptian cross, which is an instrument
used to measure the height of the waters of the Nile. Architects and masons used it to calculate depth and,
squared, to pull right angles. It is still in use today in the studios of architects, draftsmen and tailors.
Hieroglyphically, it represents the universal soul, reciprocity, protection, abundance and perfection. Carlos
Suares calls it “the cosmic resistance to the breath of life (Aleph) that animates it”, considering it the
opposite and complementary principle of Aleph, the first letter.
Kabbalistic path. This vertical path joins and balances Malkuth - the Kingdom with Yesod -
Foundation: it goes from the Earth to the Moon. It seems to be the last path, but in truth it is the first,
because it is from here that the wanderer begins evolution, leaving purely material conditioning toward an
understanding of the personality, a reflection of the individuality of Tiphareth in Yesod, where the
underground world of subconscious psychology is experienced. It is here and now, in the body and on the
physical planes, where we begin our spiritual journey or, as the Taoist saying goes: “The journey of a
thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet”. The challenge of this path is to perceive that divine energy is
present in our human nature, meaning that we are divine beings. Here we perceive that matter is sacred.

Fig. VIII.22 Path 32.

Astrological association. Saturn is slow and cold like a snowball in space. It was considered to be
the Great Malicious One, in opposition to Jupiter, the Great Benefactor. Today it is seen in another way:
Saturn sets limits on the development and expansion of things. It stipulates obligations, rules and needs in
personal life and in society. Saturn shapes things, takes phenomena to their final synthesis, to the ultimate
materialization and consequences. It is Kronos, the Lord of Time, who solidifies and stabilizes things.
Those governed by Saturn are often ambitious and power loving. Saturn-Kronos, according to myth,
dethroned his father Uranus by cutting off his testicles, destroying his creative capacity with a scythe of
stone that Gaia, Mother Earth, wife of Uranus, the celestial father, had prepared. To keep history from
repeating itself, Kronos devoured his newborn children, as we see on the canvases of Goya and Rubens.
This thus shows that Kronos-Time gives form to all that exists, but it also destroys forms and
dissolves appearances in the eternal dance of existence, where everything appears and everything
disappears, where everything manifests and everything returns to its origin, as taught by the fifth principle
of Kybalion: “Everything flows out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-
swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right, is the measure of the swing to the left;
rhythm compensates.”
And just as Gaia killed Uranus, Rhea, Saturn’s wife, saved Jupiter, who when he grew up gave his
father a potion so that he threw up all his (living) children. Jupiter, Hera, Demeter, Pluto and Neptune
fought against their father until they chained and castrated him, giving rise to a third generation of gods.
Saturn embodies the principles of cohesion, concentration, fixation, condensation and inertia, which is why
it is sometimes represented as a skeleton wielding a sickle, as it appears on the Death card. We can also
attribute the element Earth to it. This passive and receptive element has great resistance and persistence.
An individual with dominant Earth signs in his or her natal chart will make solid contact with the physical
senses and material reality so that s/he has a good capacity to earn a living and persevere until s/he reaches
his or her goals. She is cautious, premeditated, conventional and reliable, fond of routine and order, and
may have limited imagination, with some difficulty dealing with abstract things. She moves more
impulsively when she feels her security or material possessions threatened.

SYMBOLS
The central figure on the card is a woman or androgynous figure dancing in perfect harmony with a
huge snake. This pair represents the conscious and the subconscious, finally and perfectly integrated,
whose result is knowledge, joy and celebration.

Fig. VIII.23. The World in the Tarots of Marseilles and Waite. The Universe in Crowley.

The woman forms a triangle with her arms and a cross with her legs; the same figure as The
Hanged Man but inverted just as the 21 is the inverted 12. Here, the spiritual triangle is above the cross of
matter, symbolizing culmination of the task of illuminating darkness that began in that card. With her right
hand, the dancer holds a sickle, a symbol of the harvest, whose grip is a ray that emerges from Shiva’s
closed eye, indicating that this is not the time for annihilations. Because of its shape, the sickle, like other
curved weapons, has lunar symbolism, so we can say that it is subject to the Moon. Crowley says in The
Book of Thoth: “In her hands she manipulates the radiant spiral force, the active and passive, each
possessing its dual polarity”.
In the corners of the card are the four cherubs, which are no longer masks as in The Hierophant, but
springs flowing water. The springs, sacred in many cultures (the descendants of the Mayas do not fish at
the source of rivers or cut down the trees around them), are a symbol of generation, purification,
abundance and youth. The cherubs suggest the complete structuring of the Universe. They form a plane in
a solid earth-colored frame whose shape reminds us of a vagina. On the other side we have a second, more
subtle space where the dancer who transcended the physical conditioning of matter celebrates the
fulfillment of the Great Alchemical Work. It is surrounded by the Milky Way, represented by the 72
Quinaries of the Zodiac (72x5º=360º), where we see the different constellations: Nuit’s belt. In the lower
part, the House of Matter appears, where the 92 chemical elements are arranged by H.P. Sullivan according
to their hierarchy. Behind is the geometric solid of Moebius, whose surface or strip we saw in The Hermit.
This solid, formed by two tetrahedrons that mutually inscribe and circumscribe each other, is postulated in
his 1865 studies with polyhedrons in “Ueber die Bestimmung des Inhaltes ieder Polyëders”, where he
mathematically demonstrates the existence of polyhedrons without volume.

GENERAL MEANINGS
This card represents the Final Synthesis of any process, suggesting a transcendence and a new
beginning where the being, free from programming (from karma), is integrated and full, in communion
with the subconscious vital impulse, free and happy, dancing in ecstasy, celebrating self and life. On a
spiritual plane, this indicates enlightenment, where the conditionings of the world, the illusion of Maya, no
longer limit the being who continues to live in the world, but who has already transcended it and is no
longer its slave. Specifically, it represents personal fulfillment, the culmination of some company, the
concrete and final accomplishment of a certain project or activity whose conclusion is a springboard to
move into a new phase, characterized by dancing with the snake, transforming the impulses that come
from the subconscious into concrete actions.

IN THERAPEUTIC READING
Present moment. The person is in touch with the inner urge to put an end to a chapter of her life
by concluding a series of issues and opening a new chapter, characterized by doing what comes from
within. This conclusion is more a result of the development of her capacity for fulfillment than of
seemingly external factors. The second card may show which internal factors, such as blockages or fears,
hinder this process. For example, with the Three of Swords - Affliction - this indicates that the fear of
being rejected or abandoned slows down the previous impulse.
Anchor. We have here, in lack, a person incapable of ending stages and opening new ones. She
always remains at the same point. She has become content, attached and accustomed to her repetitive life,
without novelty and probably boring and tedious. She may build a pedestal where she can boast and
pretend she has achieved everything she wanted; nothing needs to change. “Why, if I’m doing so well?”
she says, trying to fool herself. Her body may also be stiff, perhaps with a rigid defensive structure,
detected by the presence of a Four of Swords - Truce or Discs - Power in the Anchor. This excessive
rigidity can be addressed with Rock Rose, which helps to enable greater internal flexibility and allow the
person to better sense the pulse of life and her own emotions. Cayenne* flower is an igneous catalyst that
can help her break out of the prison of old patterns of behavior and take the next step.
In excess, this may show an excessive perfectionism that prevents her not only from concluding
matters, (she is always editing the book she wrote and never takes it to the publisher) but also the
impossibility of initiating new ones. Essence of Buttercup* may help her accept herself and her
contributions.
Childhood. The family environment was very serious and disciplined, with the accomplishment of
material objectives the priority, perhaps in order to achieve a higher social or economic level. Everything
was decided, organized and established. In order to be accepted, she had to adapt to a system of habits and
prejudices, demands, values and tasks, without the possibility of inventing or taking any initiative outside
of established patterns. With the Four of Disks - Power, this person’s early years were a prison in which
her horizons were restricted and any spontaneous expression was condemned to fail. It may also show that
her childhood was clearly divided into two stages. For example, a period with her parents and another with
her grandparents, in which behavioral demands were different, leaving the child even more confused.
 Relationships. a) The relationship is helping the person to conclude a life cycle by closing a whole
series of matters, either by abandoning them because they are no longer of interest, or by reaching their
concrete fruition to enter another cycle with new motivations and interests. Of course, a relationship may
be included in such matters. With the Eight of Wands - Speed, the Tower or the Five of Cups - Frustration,
this may indicate that the querent is ending or has already ended her couple relationship and embarking on
a new moment of life. However, it may indicate a new stage of life together. Certain issues that were the
focus of the couple’s attention have ended, such as raising children. Today they have more time, freedom
and energy available for other things. b) This shows someone who relates hoping that her partner will
provide the necessary support to complete her economic projects and thus move on to a new phase of life.
Inner Voice and Method. Integrating this arcana means learning to reach final fruition in the
affairs or activities that the person carried on her back, putting her hands in the dough and making bread.
The inner being can no longer stand beautiful castles in the air. She needs to materialize and conclude
things to move on to a new phase of life, because the current phase has already given everything it had to
give. The time has come to be less smoke and more stone. Personal growth entails the conclusion of
pending matters. There are two ways of doing this. Those that have become obsolete, which no longer
generate enthusiasm, which have past their expiration date, must be abandoned. In this way, the person
retakes the time and energy to move current issues forward until the slate is clean. Once the page is turned,
the person needs to feel that this is what really encourages and motivates her before saturating her agenda
with new activities.
In these moments, the therapy that can offer the best results is that of Gestalt. Essence of Hornbeam
will stimulate energy to engage more enthusiastically in everyday tasks. Walnut flower helps in times of
transition by strengthening determination and constancy.
Path of growth. Using the keys that appeared in the previous positions, the person is clearly
identifying the matters that should be discarded and those that need to be carried forward to concrete
results. She may be glimpsing a new phase of life as a consequence of the imminent conclusion of these
matters.
Internal result. This person, a product of the whole process we have seen so far, has managed to
identify, understand and disable existing internal difficulties to conclude a series of works, projects, tasks,
responsibilities or obligations, to jump into a new stage of life, characterized by doing what her
subconscious asks of her. This is usually a happier phase with more free time, which may even mean a
spiritual transcendence, especially if it appears with The Hierophant or with The Sun.
External result. The person has concluded a series of matters, harvested the fruits of her work,
reaching the final fruition that gave her the foundation to build a springboard to launch into a new phase
where she feels looser, freer and lighter and pays more attention to herself.
 APPENDIX 1

SUMMARY OF MEANINGS

Involutionary aspect

0 or 22.- The Fool. Absolute Potentiality about to manifest.

The unprogrammed child, EPATIPIC (acronym from the Spanish) meaning: Spontaneous, present,
joyful, total, unpredictable, perceptive, innocent and capable of wonder. Leap toward the unknown.
Peter Pan Syndrome. The eternal adolescent, irresponsibility, dependence, insecurity,
search for acceptance and unconditional love, difficulty in learning from experiences, lacking objectives,
oral character traits in the personality, manipulation.

I.- The Magician. The Universal Masculine Principle: Action, Yang

Action and mind in action, dynamism, communication, analytical mind, skillful and creative,
ability to assimilate knowledge, argue and convince, to develop projects, ideas and theories.
Hostage to the mental tyrant. Agitated behavior, anxiety, difficulty stopping, being quiet, feeling
and observing oneself, disconnection and lack of awareness of the internal side, excessive rationalization.

II.- The High Priestess. The Universal Feminine Principal: Receptiveness, Yin
Receptiveness (to what comes from within and to what comes from without) and the silent and
receptive mind, meditation. Connection with the internal side, calm, absence of anxiety and tension,
wisdom, esotericism, intuition, clairvoyance.
Difficulty acting, making decisions, communicating and reasoning, fear of the world, fantasies,
self-invalidation, false spirituality, sexual repression, shyness, ice queen, passivity.

III.- The Empress. The Feminine Principle Materialized.

The Forces of Life. Nature. The mother who cares for, nurtures, protects and facilitates the growth
of living beings. Unconditional love. Creativity, sensuality, pleasure, bearing fruit, pregnancy, loving
surrender to the world.
“Very good mother”, overprotective, emasculating, controlling, manipulative, seeks acceptance
by making herself indispensable.

IV.- The Emperor. The Masculine Principle Materialized.

Economic and political power. Multinational corporations. The father. Authority. The boss in your
life. He builds materially with method and organization. The leader.
Disconnected from the emotions, he rejects his feminine side, is addicted to work, money and
power. A cold, tyrannical, tense and aggressive person. Psychopathic traits.

V.- The Hierophant. The Principle of Spiritual Transcendence.

The Enlightened Master. Spiritual quest and pursuit of knowledge. The Internal Master. The ability
to integrate the spiritual side into everyday life and/or to impart knowledge. Ideological power, ideologies.
Communication media.
Identified with institutions, sects, religions, political party ideologies, etc. Indoctrinated, he lives
by imported moral and/or ideological principles.

VI.- The Lovers. The Principle of Polarity.

 Creation of the Universe through the interaction of Feminine and Masculine Principles.
Recognition and development of internal feminine & masculine polarities. Perception of the path of life on
which the person is true to him/herself.
Projection of one side of polarity in a couple, leading to dependence, nullification and
identification with the role experienced within a relationship. Fantasies about marriage. Difficulty
choosing. Constant indecision.

VII.- The Chariot. The Principle of Detachment.

Opening a new cycle, eliminating dead weight. Initiation. Regaining independence from external
conditioning.
Fear of getting involved. Hidden behind a mask of self-sufficiency and independence. Difficulty
letting go and turning the page.

VIII.- Adjustment. The Principle of Balance.

The Forces that adjust and balance the Universe. The law of action and reaction. Adapting to the
world without losing authenticity. Eliminating internal and external friction.
Adapting to what you imagine others expect of you. A self-controlled person, upright and fair, “a
saint”, who fears criticism and condemnation.

IX.- The Hermit. The Principle of going inward.

Introspection. The internal quest. Self-awareness through discovering why things affect us the way
they do. Self-analysis.
Fear of the world, of getting involved and expressing emotions. A shy, taciturn, critical,
manipulative and frugal person who tends to self-isolate and defend asceticism and chastity.

X.- Fortune. The Principle of going outward.

Expansion. Growth through adventure. Expansion of horizons. New possibilities.
Addiction to the new that makes it difficult to complete stages; dispersion, lack of focus, method
and knowledge of one’s own limits versus fear of the unknown.

XI.- Lust/Enthusiasm (Strength). The Principle of Vitality.

Integration of the animal side (instincts and emotions) with the rational side. Overflowing energy.
Joy, self-esteem, self-confidence, pleasure, sensuality, enthusiasm, vitality, exalted creativity and sexuality,
celebration.
Repressed animal side, intense rationalization versus seduction and manipulation using inherent
attractive qualities.

XII.- The Hanged Man. The Principle of Surrender.

Surrender to one’s own nature and the resulting surrender to life, the world and ideals. Full self-
acceptance regardless of other people’s opinions. Dissolution of the ego.
Difficulty accepting oneself. By seeking acceptance, you give up on being yourself and become
submissive, self-sacrificing, a manipulative victim.

XIII.- Death. The Principle of Transformation.

Transformation as a result of identifying, accepting, understanding and disabling old patterns of
behavior. Crisis that leads to internal changes. Cracking of shells, giving rise to manifestation of the
essence of the Being.
Difficulty in transforming consciously. Attachment to old patterns of behavior.

XIV.- Art. The Principle of Integration of Opposites.

Opening a new cycle, integrating the feminine & masculine polarities: Internal Androgyny. The
Merging of Masculine and Feminine Principles. Action without action: Wu wei. Making what you enjoy
your job. Resting while working. Flowing.
 A perfectionist who hides behind the mask of an excellent professional.

XV.- The Devil. The Creative Energy in its most material aspect.
Instincts, the forces that keep us alive as individuals and as a species: The instinct of defense, the
sexual instinct, the instinct for preservation and the herd instinct.
Inability to live out the instincts. Sexual repression and/or compulsion. Pent-up sexual charge
that produces anger, frustration and inclination to self-destruction or sexual perversions. Denial of the body
and its functions. Sex as compensation and/or self-affirmation.

XVI.- The Tower. The Principle of Destruction.

Destruction of the prisons that suffocate and bind. Liberation, breaking external prisons:
professional ties, routines, financial demands, family commitments and relationships; or internal prisons:
the ego, with its false identifications, ambitions and fantasies. In touch with reality as a result of breaking
down prisons.
Inability to break free from prisons that generate tension and self-destruction.

XVII.- The Star. The Principle of Category Renewal

Restoring the perception that comes from eliminating outdated beliefs.
Hostage to beliefs. Forward thinking or compulsive reformism.

XVIII.- The Moon. The Principle of Darkness.

The dark side of the Universe. The shadow of the subconscious and its manipulations. Fear of
expressing the shadow side. Hostage to fears. Fear of getting involved. Paranoid traits.

XIX.- The Sun. The Principle of Light.

The bright side of the Universe. Awareness of individuality and spirituality. Protagonism, lucidity,
authenticity, creativity, visibility.
Weak sense of individuality that generates a compulsive need to be the center of attention.

XX.- Aeon. The Principle of Succession of Eras.

The changes in the Universe when one Era ends and another begins. Individual maturing is the
result of healing the injured child, giving that child love, attention and support to stop manipulating and
become integrated with the adult side.
Victim of the injured child’s manipulations; difficulty in putting conscious perceptions into
practice. Dependence, compulsive search for acceptance. Attachment to that which provides security and
protection.

XXI.- The Universe. The Final Synthesis and ensuing transcendence.

Opening a new cycle, concluding matters and starting a new phase characterized by being more
attentive to do what comes from within. Personal accomplishment.
Difficulty closing one chapter of life and opening another, a result of not being able to
materialize. Fear of change. Hostage to attachments, routines and bonds. Extreme rigidity of character.

XXII - The Fool

 APPENDIX 2

OVERVIEW TABLES
This appendix contains the meanings of the cards in Therapeutic Reading positions, shown in the
simplest and most technical way possible, setting aside the possible inferences or more intuitive
contributions that can be read in the previous chapters.
(+) = In excess. (-) = In lack. ↑ = Great, more than 50%. ↓ = Little, less than 10%.
F = Fire. W = Water. A = Air. E = Earth.
SC = Shadow Card

THE FOOL
General Meanings The Principle of Potentiality about to manifest
Present Moment Urge to rescue the unprogrammed child (EPATIPIC[29])
(+) Peter Pan Syndrome. Eternal adolescent
Anchor
(-) Disconnected from the unprogrammed child
Childhood No childhood. Was “adultized”
a) Relationship that helps rescue the unprogrammed child.
Relationships
b) Search for a mother or a father to take care of him/her
Inner Voice & Method Rescue the unprogrammed child
Path of Growth Start connecting and expressing the unprogrammed child
Internal Result The unprogrammed child was rescued
External Result With this attitude, the EPATIPIC faces the world

THE
MAGICIEN
General
Action, the mind in action.
Meanings
Present
Urge to move, to create ideas and projects.
Moment
(+) Difficulty in stopping running around and taking time to think. Identification
Anchor with the mind. Disconnection from the internal world.
(-) Difficulty moving, communicating and creating projects.
Childhood Acceptance contingent upon being active, communicative and intelligent.
a) Relationship that helps one take initiative, communicate and create ideas.
Relationships
b) Hyperactive facade. A lot of talk and little emotion.
Inner Voice
The suggestion is to move, create ideas and communicate.
& Method
Path of
Taking action, starting to communicate and creating ideas.
Growth
Internal
Disable internal difficulties to move, communicate and create projects.
Result
External Facing the world with a dynamic attitude and creative ideas.
 Result

THE HIGH
PRIESTESS
General Meanings Receptiveness, the receptive and silent mind.
Present Moment Urge to stop, to be receptive to what comes from within and from the outside.
(+) Difficulty moving, communicating and exposing oneself.
Anchor
(-) Difficulty connecting to one’s essence and being receptive to the world.
Childhood Acceptance contingent upon being still and silent.
a) Relationship that helps internalize and become receptive.
Relationships
b) Does not relate. Facade of “I’ve already transcended such things”.
Inner Voice & The suggestion is to stop, breathe, feel, listen to the inner voice and be
Method receptive to what comes. Meditate.
Path of Growth Start becoming receptive to what comes from within and from the outside.
Disable internal difficulties to hear the inner voice and be receptive to what
Internal Result
comes.
External Result Receptive to the internal and external, facing the world.

THE EMPRESS
The forces that nurture, care for, protect and facilitate the growth of living
General Meanings
beings.
Present Moment Urge to take care of oneself and others.
(+) Spends life taking care of others; overprotective and emasculating.
Anchor
(-) Difficulty taking care of oneself and others.
Childhood Overprotective and emasculating mother.
a) Relationship that pushes a person to self-care and/or to want to have
Relationships children.
b) A woman takes care of her partner in a maternal way.
Inner Voice & The suggestion is to be the mother you would have liked to have when you
Method were a child.
Path of Growth Start taking care of yourself.
Internal Result Disable internal difficulties to take care of yourself.
External Result

THE
EMPEROR
General
Economic and political power. The father.
Meanings
Present
Urge to be the boss of one’s own life, to materialize projects.
Moment
(+) Tyrant. Psychopath.
Anchor
(-) Projecting the masculine side. Dependent
Childhood Tyrannical father or mother.
Relationships a) Relationship that helps one take control of life and materialize projects.
 b) Powerful and bossy facade. Seeks minions.
Inner Voice & The suggestion is to be the ruling authority in your life. Materializing your
Method projects with method and organization.
Path of Stop projecting the Masculine Principle and start ruling your own life and
Growth materializing your projects.
Disable internal difficulties to be the boss of your life and materialize your own
Internal Result
projects.
External
Face the world in charge and bringing your own projects to fruition.
Result

THE
HIEROPHANT
General
Spiritual transcendence.
Meanings
Present
Impulse toward spirituality.
Moment
(+) Prisoner of doctrines
Anchor
(-) Unable to perceive anything beyond matter.
Childhood Indoctrination.
a) Relationship that helps open up to spirituality.
Relationships
b) Facade of a master, guru. Seeks disciples.
Inner Voice The suggestion is to take advantage of what true masters have taught. Connect to
& Method the internal spiritual master. Teach what you know.
Path of
Start taking an interest in spirituality and/or teaching what you know.
Growth
Internal
Disable internal difficulties to live your spirituality and/or teach what you know.
Result
External
Face the world fully living your spirituality and/or imparting knowledge.
Result

THE
LOVERS
General
Polarity creating the Universe.
Meanings
Present
Urge to develop male and female polarities.
Moment
Projecting one of the polarities and depending on the person on which this was
Anchor
projected.
Childhood Conflicts between the parents with the child in the middle.
a) Relationship that helps develop internal polarities.
Relationships
b) Seeks a “soul mate”.
The suggestion is to realize that the man and woman in your life are inside you,
Inner Voice
your polarities, and not outside. You will thus be able to identify the path of life on
& Method
which you can be true to yourself.
Path of Start developing your polarities, changing your way of relating and envision your
Growth real-life path.
 Internal Disable internal difficulties to fully develop your polarities and move forward on
Result your life path.
External
Face the world from both polarities, without expectations or dependence.
Result

THE CHARIOT
General Change of cycle.
Meanings Detachment.
Present Moment Urge to let go of dead weight.
(+) Mask of detachment. “I don’t need that”
Anchor
(-) Unable to let go.
Childhood Childhood.
a) Relationship that helps the person discard what does not nurture.
Relationships
b) Facade of detachment.
Inner Voice &
The suggestion is to start a new phase of life and let go of dead weight.
Method
Path of Growth Start by eliminating what no longer stimulates you.
Disable internal difficulties to eliminate dead weight, opening up to a new
Internal Result
stage of life.
By eliminating dead weight, one faces the world lighter, closing one stage and
External Result
opening another.

ADJUSTMENT
General
The adjustment between the internal and external world.
Meanings
Looking for a way to authentically express impulses without generating friction
Present Moment
with the external world.
(+) Adapting to what you imagine others expect.
Anchor
(-) Unable to adjust.
Childhood Acceptance contingent upon being a model of behavior.
a) Relationship that helps one be more authentic in the expression of impulses,
Relationships without creating conflict with the external world.
b) Adapts to the partner.
Inner Voice & The suggestion is to find a way to authentically express impulses without
Method generating friction with the external world.
Understand the origin of your internal and external frictions with the world and
Path of Growth
start eliminating them.
Disable internal difficulties to express yourself authentically without clashing
Internal Result
with the external world.
Face the world knowing how to express your urges authentically and without
External Result
creating friction with the world.

THE
HERMIT
General Analytical Introspection.
Meanings
Present
Desire for self-awareness. Why do things affect me?
Moment
(+) Difficulty reaching out to others. Self-isolation. Ascetic.
Anchor
(-) Unable to look inward.
Childhood An atmosphere of sadness, lack of the loving presence of parents. Solitude.
a) Relationship that helps one look inward and understand why situations generate
Relationships impacts.
b) “Better alone than in bad company”.
Inner Voice A change in focus is suggested. It’s not a cruel world. If something has an impact,
& Method this indicates a sensitive area that needs to be worked on.
Path of
Start identifying and healing old wounds in order to become centered.
Growth
Internal Disable internal difficulties to shift focus, heal wounds and become centered and
Result open today.
External With healed wounds, situations no longer affect you. You face the world centered
Result and open, knowing yourself and able to help others get to know themselves.

FORTUNE
General Meanings Expansion.
Present Moment Urge to expand horizons.
(+) Addicted to novelty. Stages are not closed.
Anchor
(-) Unable to venture out. Fear of what’s new.
Childhood Insecurity due to excessive change, lack of stability.
a) Relationship that helps the person venture out.
Relationships
b) Compulsion for what’s new hinders deep and lasting relationships.
Inner Voice & Method Working on internal difficulties that hinder adventure is suggested.
Path of Growth Start daring to go toward the new.
Internal Result Disable the difficulties to venture out. The unknown becomes known.
External Result Face the world by expanding your horizons.

ENTHUSIASM
General
Integration of the animal and the rational side.
Meanings
Present Desire to welcome what comes from the animal side (instincts and emotions),
Moment expressing it elaborately with the mind.
(+) Compulsive seducer.
Anchor
(-) Repression of the animal side. Exacerbated rationalism.
Repression of the animal side. Family environment full of taboos, especially
Childhood
sexual ones. Lack of appreciation for creativity.
a) Relationship that helps the person live and integrate the animal side.
Relationships
b) Seducing obsessively.
Inner Voice & The suggestion is to work on internal difficulties that prevent integration of the
Method animal and rational sides. Opt for creative activities.
Path of Growth Start integrating reason and animality, improving self-esteem and enthusiasm for
 life.
Disable the difficulties to integrating animal and rational sides. Overflowing with
Internal Result
energy, pleasure, enthusiasm, self-confidence, creativity and self-esteem.
Face the world by integrating your animal and rational sides and choose
External Result
activities that allow you to express your creativity.

THE
HANGED MAN
General
Surrender to one’s own nature.
Meanings
Present Urge for self-acceptance. Perceiving the effects of not accepting yourself just the
Moment way you are.
(+) Compulsively striving for acceptance, doing anything for others.
Anchor
(-) Unable to accept yourself, trying to be what you are not.
Childhood Acceptance contingent upon self-denial and subjecting oneself to family demands.
a) Relationship that helps with self-acceptance.
Relationships b) Manipulation with a mask of submission, of one who self-sacrifices for the
partner.
Inner Voice The suggestion is to understand that the only thing imprisoning us is our own
& Method nature. The internal difficulties that hinder self-acceptance need to be worked on.
Path of
Start identifying the causes for not accepting yourself and minimize them.
Growth
Internal Disable the difficulties to surrendering to your own nature, and as a result, be able
Result to surrender to life, to your ideals and to the world.
External Full self-acceptance leads to choosing activities in which you can surrender
Result yourself to your ideals.

DEATH
General
Internal Transformation.
Meanings
Present
Crisis: Urge/fear of disabling old patterns of behavior that bring suffering.
Moment
(+) Addicted to psychotherapy
Anchor
(-) “Change? I’d rather die!”
Childhood Traumatizing loss. Experience with death.
a) Relationship that helps disable neurotic patterns of behavior.
Relationships
b) Psychotherapist to the partner.
The suggestion is to disable patterns of behavior that, necessary for acceptance in
Inner Voice
childhood, today prevent you from acting based on your essence. Body psychotherapy
& Method
to break defensive shells.
Path of
Start by eliminating old patterns. Reconnection to your essence.
Growth
Internal Disable the internal difficulties to fully eliminate old patterns. Make choices based
Result on your essence.
External By disabling patterns of behavior, work to transform your life and world.
 Result

ART
General
Integration of opposites.
Meanings
Present
Desire to make what you enjoy your work.
Moment
(+) Mask of a dedicated professional. Perfectionist
Anchor
(-) Unable to make what you enjoy your work.
Childhood Acceptance contingent upon absorbing and being perfect in activities.
a) Relationship that helps the person choose activities that give pleasure.
Relationships
b) Facade of an excellent professional who likes what he/she does.
Inner Voice The suggestion is to make what you enjoy your work. Work in what you would do
& Method if you didn’t have to work to live. Integrate your male and female polarities.
Path of Start by choosing activities in which you have talent, which give you pleasure and
Growth energy.
Internal Disable internal difficulties to have fun working. Integrate polarities: Internal
Result Androgyny
External Face the world doing what you like, which makes it easier to earn money and relate
Result as a giver of pleasure and not as a vampire/beggar.

THE DEVIL
General
The instincts: The forces that keep us alive as individuals and as a species.
Meanings
Present Urge to accept and live your instincts: defense, sexual, preservation and herd
Moment instincts.
(+) Sexual compulsion
(-) Repressed instincts, perhaps directed toward power, work, philanthropic or
Anchor
“spiritualistic” activities,
consumerism or perversions.
Acceptance contingent upon repressing the instincts. Rejection of the body and its
Childhood
functions. Disgust, shame.
a) Relationship that helps accept and live the instincts.
Relationships
b) Unable to experience anything beyond the instincts in relationships.
The suggestion is to identify and disable internal difficulties to accept and live the
Inner Voice
instincts: for defense, defending oneself; sexual, releasing the libido; for preservation,
& Method
taking care of the body. Exercises that release pelvic tension.
Path of
Start by allowing yourself to express your instincts.
Growth
Internal Disable internal difficulties to accept and fully live the instincts. Restoring vitality
Result and joy.
External
Face the world through activities in which you can express your instincts.
Result

THE TOWER
 General Destruction of prisons: that which suffocates and binds us.
Meanings
Present
Urge to tear down external and internal prisons.
Moment
(+) Self-destruction
Anchor
(-) Unable to destroy one’s prisons.
Accidents, wars, natural disasters, domestic violence and the like that destroyed
Childhood
the child’s internal security.
a) Relationship that helps break prisons.
Relationships
b) Unable to form bonds. The slightest commitment is an unbearable prison.
Inner Voice & The suggestion is to blow up external prisons (professional, family or financial
Method demands) and internal prisons (the ego).
Path of Start perceiving the consequences of remaining a prisoner and start destroying
Growth your prisons.
Internal
Disable difficulties to totally destroy prisons.
Result
External After eliminating your prisons, face the world feeling free and perhaps confronting
Result oppressive structures.

THE STAR
General
Restoring perception by eliminating beliefs.
Meanings
Present Moment Urge to eliminate old beliefs instilled in childhood.
(+) Always right, with the most modern idea. Compulsive complainant.
Anchor
(-) Chronic difficulty letting go of beliefs.
Conflict of beliefs within the family, or between the family and the school, and
Childhood
the child in fear.
a) Relationship that helps eliminate old beliefs.
Relationships
b) Mask of an innovative and original thinker.
Inner Voice & The suggestion is to identify and eliminate beliefs supporting decisions that
Method lead to suffering.
Path of Growth Start questioning and eliminating old beliefs and reviving your perception.
Disable difficulties to eliminate beliefs that lead to suffering and revive your
Internal Result
perception.
External Result After reviving perception, question and unmask obsolete beliefs.

THE MOON
General
The shadow of the Subconscious. The fear of showing what is hidden.
Meanings
Circumstances impact aspects that are denied and hidden in the shadows so that,
Present
despite the fear felt by the conscious mind, the person has to admit that they exist and
Moment
feels the urge to integrate them.
(+) Manipulated by everything that is hidden. Paralyzed by fear, especially the fear
Anchor of showing your true self. “Iceberg” personality.
(-) Counterphobic personality.
 Childhood Fear-based programming. Everything was dangerous.
a) Relationship that helps identify and work on fears and accept and integrate the
Relationships shadows.
b) Fear of relationships.
Inner Voice The suggestion is to revisit the past in order to realize that what was dangerous in
& Method childhood no longer is today.
Path of
Start working on your fears and expressing your shadow.
Growth
Internal
Disable fears and integrate your shadow.
Result
Attracting an external situation that at other times would have paralyzed you with
External
fear, but which now allows you to better understand your shadow side by facilitating its
Result
integration.

THE SUN
General
Consciousness (individual and spiritual)
Meanings
Present
The urge to be more oneself.
Moment
Deficient notion of individuality. “Who am I?”
Anchor (+) Compulsive pursuit of attention from others, showing that you are special.
(-) Hiding yourself.
Excessive spoiling or lack of attention that hindered the development of
Childhood
individuality.
a) Relationship that helps develop individuality.
Relationships
b) “I am the sun and you are my satellite that boosts my ego.”
Inner Voice The suggestion is to work on internal difficulties in order to strengthen identity, to
& Method live according to your true self, to show authenticity, to opt for creative activities.
Path of
Start by developing individuality.
Growth
Disable difficulties in order to be the protagonist in your life, develop your talents,
Internal
express yourself authentically and creatively, strengthening awareness of your
Result
individuality.
External Face the world feeling like the center of your own universe, radiating energy and
Result light, dedicated to creative activities.

THE AEON
General
Maturing.
Meanings
Present Perception of the manipulations of the hurt, insecure and needy child. Urge to heal
Moment that child.
Adult side chronically manipulated by the need for acceptance and fear of suffering
Anchor
in the hurt child.
Childhood Acceptance contingent upon not growing autonomously and independently.
Relationships a) Relationship that helps identify the manipulations of the hurt child.
b) Conveying an image of helplessness and using it to manipulate.
 Inner Voice The suggestion is to give the needy and insecure child attention, affection and
& Method support so that the child grows and becomes integrated with the adult.
Path of
Identify manipulations and start nurturing the hurt child.
Growth
Internal Disable difficulties in order to care for and help your hurt child grow and become
Result integrated.
External Face the world after having healed and integrated your injured child and, free from
Result manipulations, you can put your consciousness into practice.

THE
UNIVERSE
General
Final synthesis.
Meanings
Present
Desire to close one chapter in your life and open another by finishing things.
Moment
Difficulty closing cycles
Anchor (+) Perfectionist.
(-) Difficulty materializing.
Acceptance contingent upon doing things perfectly and completing pending tasks.
Childhood
“Duty before devotion.”
a) Relationship that helps finish things and open a new cycle of life.
b) The couple achieves goals (making their children independent) and opens a new
Relationships stage in which they can do more from within.
c) Seeing a relationship like a company that has to deliver results, materialize
objectives to, perhaps, enjoy later on.
Inner Voice The suggestion is to eliminate obsolete matters and invest in current ones to
& Method complete them and open a new phase of life.
Path of
Perceive the need to close a life cycle, finishing things in order to start a new phase.
Growth
Internal Disable difficulties in order to close one cycle and open another, characterized by
Result being more attentive to what comes from within.
External Face the world harvesting the fruits of your work, enabling you to begin a new
Result stage free of external and internal conditioning in order to do what you want.
 APPENDIX 3

INTRODUCTION TO THE TREE OF LIFE

“Everything existing on the surface of the Earth has its spiritual duplicate on high, and there is
nothing in this world that is not associated with something and which does not depend on something.” So,
write the doctors of the Kabbalah.
They also believe that the Creator Principle cannot be perceived, thought, imagined or described by
human beings. It was probably Isaac the Blind, the French Kabbalist considered the father of Kabbalah,
who taught in Provence from 1160 to 1180, who named this infinite and unthinkable dimension Ain Soph.
It is the uncreated origin of the Universe.

Ain Soph (The Limitless Void, The Limitless Nothing)

It is an undifferentiated state that, because it has no limits and nothing exists outside it, hides the
root of polarity. It is the Creator Principle, which, before manifestation, permeates the manifestation. Ain
Soph is neither this nor that. It is not a being, but rather a non-being. This does not imply an absence of
infinite unmanifest existence.
Three levels or veils form the intrinsic degrees of Ain Soph:
Ain Soph Aur, the Empty and Limitless Light. It is a luminous, immobile, odorless and silent void.
Ain Soph itself is imagined as a circle without circumference, whose center is everywhere.
Ain, the Nothing, “The nameless horror” before which the human mind collapses.
Ain, withdrawing “from itself into itself”, generated a space for the Universe in its bosom. Space
which, from the absolute point of view, is infinite, but which, from the creation standpoint, represents all
cosmic space. In this withdrawal, Ain Soph is generated.
At the far limit of the uncreated, Ain Soph Aur, the Empty and Limitless Light, it took the form of
a ray which, crossing through cosmic space, gave rise to ten emanations of itself, called sephiroth
(spheres), one after the other, and as a result, our Universe. Thus, the path travelled by the ray represents
the very process of manifestation that initially appears through one point or the 1st sphere: Keter (the
Crown), the place of condensation that allows the light of Ain Soph to take root and guarantees the laying
of foundations from which the as yet unmanifest world will develop. From Keter (the Crown), the other
spheres emanate in an alternating movement of the ray, from right to left, from left to right, revealing how
the process of creation is marked by polarity. We find this polarity at all levels of our Universe.
For the Kabbalists, there are two divine worlds. The first, unintelligible, can only be imagined
through a word: Ain Soph; and the second is the world of the sephiroth with which it is possible to come
closer to understanding the Creator Principle. In reality, the two worlds are one, united like coal and flame.
For the Hebrew tradition, the limit to which human beings can conceive of the Creator Principle is Elohim
(God in plural), he who revealed himself to Moses at Sinai and gave the law to the people of Israel.
See the concordance in Chapter I of the Tao Te Ching:
“The Tao is an impenetrable void in incessant movement that is never exhausted; The Tao that can
be told is not the eternal Tao; The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao; The nameless is the beginning
of the universe; The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth; The named is the mother of all things. The
two taos are the same, differing only in name; In unity, they represent the Mystery of Mysteries; Life is an
emanation of the Tao; The Tao in its origin is a void; A confusion inaccessible to human thought; In the
void is the germ of all things; And this germ is the supreme truth.”

TREE OF LIFE
 Although they are different, the sephiroth are closely linked. Each of them is an aspect of Keter
(the Crown), and they develop by degrees.
They are organized into a structure called the Tree of Life. This Tree represents, from top to
bottom, the process of manifestation of the Universe, and from bottom to top, the paths of spiritualization
of the human being. The study of the Tree is a way to come closer to the Creator Principle present in the
manifestation. The movement of the ray shows that a sephirah belonging to one side of the Tree can only
transmit its qualities to the lower sephirah on the same side, passing through the opposite and
complementary sephirah on the other side of the Tree.

Columns
The sephiroth in the Tree of Life are arranged in three columns or pillars:
The central column is formed by four sephiroth: Keter (Crown) joining Chokhmah (Wisdom) and
Binah (Understanding), Tiphareth (Beauty) joining Chesed (Mercy) and Gevurah (Severity), Yesod
(Foundation) joining Netzach (Victory) and Hod (Glory), and finally, Malkuth (Kingdom) receiving all the
sephirotic emanations.
Under the rule of Keter, this column balances, harmonizes and reconciles all oppositions existing
within the manifestation. It is considered a symbol of the Creator Principle itself, animating and structuring
the Universe constantly.
The column on the right, formed by Chokhmah, Chesed and Netzach, governed by Chokhmah,
embodies the masculine and active pole of the manifestation. Called the “Column of Mercy”, because it
holds life and clemency within it, I prefer to call it the “Column of Strength”. It corresponds to Jachin -
pillar of the Temple on the porch of the Sanctuary, red and solar.
The left column, formed by the spheres Binah, Gevurah and Hod, represents the feminine and
passive pole of creation. It is sometimes called the “Pillar of Severity” because it embodies all forms of
judgment and rigor. It corresponds to Boaz – pillar of the Temple, white and lunar. I prefer to call it the
“Column of Form”, in which impulses are restricted and take shape.

The Shadow Sephiroth

For each sephirotic emanation, we have a darkness that comes from excessive or insufficient
radiation of the corresponding sephirah. Kabbalists assert that the shadow sephiroth are not principles that
belong to the cosmic order, but unbalanced aspects of those principles. Thus, there are not two sephirotic
trees, but one that has both a light and a dark form.

The 32 Paths of Wisdom

The 10 Sephiroth and the 22 Cineroth (paths that join and balance the Sephiroth, corresponding to
the 22 Hebrew letters and the 22 Major Arcana) form the 32 paths of Wisdom.
Let’s analyze 32. Each Hebrew letter is associated with a number. Three in the tens place (30)
corresponds to the letter Lamed, and Two in the unit’s place corresponds to Beth.
 Lamed and Beth form the word Leb, which means heart. We can thus affirm that the 32 paths lead
the human being toward the mysteries of the unmanifest by way of the heart. It is interesting to note that
most religious traditions consider the heart to be the seat of the Divine, from which She is expressed. The
32 paths lead human beings to awaken their hearts by coming closer to the Creator Principle present in
their core.
Associated with the 10 sephiroth, we have the first 10 paths, corresponding to spiritual experiences
that lead the human being toward divine energy. In this sense, we can say that each sephiroth embodies
both a state of manifestation (as a sephiroth) and a process of spiritual growth (as a path).
Although the 22 paths corresponding to the Cineroth – paths connecting the sephiroth to each other
– are the most active paths, a sephirah on its own is also a privileged place of integration and inner
development.

THE SEPHIROT
Keter (Crown)
Also called “The Cause of Causes” and “The Root of Roots”, it is the first emanation of the
Limitless Nothing, the primary source of all manifestation, life and organization. From it emerge all the
other sephiroth and the 22 letters corresponding to the paths. It is the supreme point from which all
intelligible realities emanate. In it, polarities have not yet become dissociated. There is not yet any actual
manifestation in Keter, but merely the first breaths of manifestation (the named Tao). It is attributed to the
Primum Mobile (First Mover) or Neptune, although some attribute it to Pluto.

Chokhmah (Wisdom)
It is the first splitting sphere of duality, where the radiating and emerging power of the Creator
Principle appears under its dynamic aspect. If Keter was the “Cause of Causes”, Chokhmah is the “Acting
Cause” from which all realities originate; it is the Motivating Principle of Evolution. Attributed to the
entire Zodiac or to Uranus, it represents the masculine principle par excellence and is known as “The Great
Father”. It can also be attributed to Neptune.

Binah (Understanding)
Opposite Chokhmah, Binah is the sphere of constriction, of form, at the top of the female column
or Pillar of Severity. It is the “Great Mother”, the feminine Power of the Universe, the archetypal womb
that gives the first form, still very subtle, to the impulse of Chokhmah. Binah, attributed to Saturn,
discerns, in the luminous impulse of Chokhmah, all the potentialities of manifestation. In this sense, it is
considered the essence of matter whose full expression will only be achieved in Malkuth.

Chesed (Mercy)
Here the abstract begins to become concrete, formulating the first archetypal ideas. Chesed, at a
denser lower level, organizes and looks after everything that Chokhmah propelled. It organizes, builds and
erects. Here, the love of the Creator Principle is manifested as benevolence, kindness and mercy. That
sphere enlivens and brightens the manifestation to its fullest extent.
In the middle of the Pillar of Strength or Mercy, Chesed is opposite Gevurah, the sphere of strength
and severity, both balanced by Tiphareth. Attributed to Jupiter, here lie the attributes of construction,
forgiveness and philosophical sovereignty. This is where protection, luck and mirth meet. It is the sphere of
expansion, ruling over mass movements and philosophies.

Gevurah (Severity)
Gevurah is the power of rectification. Here the potentialities that were made fully effective in
Chesed are purified, assessed and adjusted to the original impulse. It is destruction, found in the middle of
the Pillar of Severity. Balancing with Chesed, they form the driving force of manifest reality. Attributed to
Mars, here we have everything related to what the term “martial” can invoke: violent energy, determination
and rigid discipline. Sexual force is also an attribute of Gevurah.
 Tiphareth (Beauty)
The sixth sephirah of the Tree corresponds to the power of unification. After the creative
potentialities are assessed, rectified and adjusted in Gevurah, they appear in Tiphareth as fully manifest
archetypes. Each of them is joined with the others in perfect harmony, always preserving their specificities.
In this sense, Tiphareth is the mediating sephirah par excellence in which all other sephirotic emanations
converge and are grouped. Attributed to the Sun, its potentialities are: development of beauty, harmony,
balance, centered consciousness, devotion, health, freedom, meditation, fulfillment, rebirth, spiritual
ecstasy, transcendence, totality.

Netzach (Victory)
The seventh sphere of the Tree, Netzach corresponds to the expression of all aesthetic realities. It is
through this sphere that the transcendent beauty of the Creator Principle unfurls throughout creation. Thus,
everything touched by the radiation of Netzach progressively becomes a living reflection of the divine
splendor. It is in this sense that the Kabbalah considers Netzach the sphere of balance between essence and
form. Its nature is that of love and the force of attraction; the power of cohesion in the Universe, joining
one thing to another and acting as the instinctive intelligence between living creatures. It is also considered
the sphere of emotion, love and communication with the elemental and the astral. It is related to the senses
and passions, to the emotion of living, to the enjoyment of instinctive passions. Netzach, attributed to
Venus, is all that is spontaneous and instinctive in the personality. It is at the base of the Pillar of Strength,
balancing with Hod (Mercury, the intellect) in the Pillar of Form.

Hod (Glory)
The eighth sphere corresponds to the power of conceptualization. Here the Creator Principle is
revealed to the human being in the form of mental images. It is also a sephirah of mediation and
communication with the subtle planes.
Attributed to Mercury, it is the sphere of reason and intellect. It is considered the ruler of magic, of
speech, of trade and dissimulation, of thieves and scoundrels. Connected to the rational mind, it is
incapable of expressing emotions, as cold and cunning intellect is its main attribute. It lies at the base of
the Pillar of Severity, balancing with Netzach through the next sphere, Yesod, attributed to the Moon.

Yesod (Foundation)
The ninth sphere corresponds to the power of coagulation and materialization, assuring the descent
of light into the bosom of material substance. This sphere contains the pre-material images of the entire
concrete manifestation, and through it all of reality comes to fruition. As such, it is directly responsible for
the embodiment of spiritual principles in the concrete world of matter. Just as the tremendous speed of
electronic particles ensures the stability of an atom, the fleeting forms and movement of Yesod represent
the permanence and security of the physical world. Yesod is the foundation of subtle electromagnetic
substance on which all higher forces are focused, constituting the basis or final model upon which the
physical world is established.
Attributed to the moon, it is related to the subconscious mind, which is the cement, the foundation
of personality, and also the etheric substance that is the foundation of life. Located between Tiphareth and
Malkuth in the middle pillar, it represents the world of fantasy and imagination, as well as the anima
mundi, or group soul. It is astral light, impressionable and malleable.

Malkuth (Kingdom)
The tenth and final sephirah corresponds to the power of expression on the earthly plane. All other
spheres are ultimately expressed through Malkuth, which ensures the material revelation of all sephirotic
emanations. Attributed to the element Earth, it represents all the qualities of the preceding planes in
concrete form, in a complete crystallization visible and tangible to the senses.

We can understand the sephiroth better with this excerpt from the Tree of Life, by Shimon Halevi:
“An example of the Ray of Light passing through the Tree can be seen in the process of writing a book.
Keter (the Crown) is the creative principle. The idea is conceived in Chokhmah. As a vision, it may be
very powerful, the seed of a great novel, but in Chokhmah it is nothing more than a vague idea, powerful
but formless, which after some time will begin to take shape in Binah. Maybe it would be better as a play?
Or perhaps as a film script? Or a short story? Time and Binah (the beginning of the upper receptive
sephirah) will give it the form of, let’s say, a medium-length book focused on a particular situation in
which certain characters will have to participate. At this point, it might remain for years in the writer’s
mind. But one day, a new process may begin that some writers call “cooking”. This incubation is followed
by the gestational action of Chesed, characterized by great growth and expansion. Situations accumulate,
fragments of conversations intrude into the writer’s consciousness, characters develop on their own, and
the story comes to fill the glass and overflow. Here, in Chesed, is where the writer must be careful not to
lose all the ideas that dwell within through mental dissipation. Let’s say you start by writing a draft,
writing down the creative forces present therein. However, you must repeatedly analyze and amend
(function of Gevurah) what Chesed gave you, as it is often more than what you need, and the material
needs to be constantly edited.
The book gradually takes shape. The essence, Tiphareth, starts to appear. It may be a masterpiece,
or a distillation of experiences collected over a lifetime, or it might just be a schoolbook, but it will have its
own unique style, its own distinctive characteristics. That’s how we can tell a Tolstoy from a Hemingway.
In Tiphareth, the synthesis of form and energy is centered, which is why this sephirah is known as Beauty.
So far, however, the book is just an outline, which exists mainly in the writer’s head. The body’s vital
forces, controlled by Hod, along with voluntary processes, make it glide on paper. Netzach knows its work
instinctively, while Hod, thanks to mental training and physical reflexes, structures knowledge and
language into coherent sentences.
Yesod, the Foundation, amalgamates everything that has happened, organizes the operation into a
personal style and reflects it in writing, thus retaining an image in the memory that serves as a reference.
Malkuth is the body, and the book itself is the physical manifestation in the world. Heaven touched the
Earth.
All creative processes in the universe follow the same pattern, each in terms of its own level.

THE FOUR WORLDS

The Kabbalistic tradition asserts that creation and, consequently, the Tree of Life, is made up of
four worlds (or planes of manifestation), of increasing density:
Atziluth
Briyah (or Beri'ah)
Yetzirah
Assiah
These four vibratory levels, although fundamentally different, are closely interconnected. They can
be faced from two different points of analysis, where the first one places a Tree in each of the four worlds,
offering us 40 sephiroth in total, as shown in Fig.Ap4.02
The second employs a single tree, the four planes being placed over it.
Kether, Chokmah and Binah occupy the Archetypal World.
Chesed, Gevurah and Tipharet constitute the Creative World.
The third plane, or Formative World, is delimited by the sephiroth Netzah, Hod and Yesod and
finally Malkuth, corresponds with the Physical World.
Starting with the highest triad, these horizontal divisions correspond approximately to the four
worlds. We say approximately because the nature of these worlds is also to inter-penetrate; not only within
the Tree, but also literally, like heat to air, air to water and water to earth.
 The World of Emanation (Olam ha’Atziluth)
This is the highest plane, closest to the critical source. Atzil, from which Atziluth is derived, means
extremity or limit, indicating that beyond it the created universe is non-existent, and only Ain Soph exists
(negative existence). All of the Sephiroth in Olam Atziluth, also called the archetypal world, fill the
highest plane of spiritual consciousness, the first emergence of consciousness from Ain Soph. Kabbalists
have always associated this plane formed of pure energy with the element Fire. Considered the closest to
the divine, it is the only element that rises spontaneously and that never gets corrupted.
Atziluth corresponds to the abstract and universal idea that precedes any concrete reality. An idea
in the plane of Atz is at the origin of an infinity of concrete objects on the material plane.

The World of Creation (Olam ha’Beriah)

As the processes of evolution continue, the abstract and universal idea of Atziluth gets apparently
fragmented, reflected in many facets, forming the creative world. In this world, the plane within the
creative imagination of the Creator Principle is even more elaborate, the sparks or ideas separated and
clothed in that condition of subtle substance appropriate to each sphere. The idea present on the Briyah
plane belongs to the world of the multiple, retaining a high level of abstraction, and is no longer universal.
A particular idea with specific characteristics is born from the general idea. Here, as well, a complete Tree
of Life is developed through reflection.
On this vibratory plane, the thought-forms of creation are established. Briyah comes from the verb
“Bara”, which means to create. This plane thus corresponds to the stage in which the primordial forces are
densified to guarantee their materialization on subsequent denser planes. Kabbalists consider this world is
to be the foundation or foundations of creation.
The world of Briyah is traditionally associated with the element Air, regarded as a subtle substance
that acts between Heaven (the divine) and Earth (the material) as an element of mediation and communion
between the higher planes and the lower worlds. It has been considered the first externalized and
perceivable expression of divine energy. It is a traditional symbol of the presence of the Creator Principle
in creation: air as the breath that animates all things. The Briyah plane ensures the enlivening of the world.

The World of Formation (Olam ha’Yetzirah)

From the creative world, the Tree is projected to a third plane, the formative plane, Olam Yetzirah,
in which imaginative ideas, the spiritual monadic sparks already clothed in the subtle mental substance of
the creative world, are shaped into defined and consistent entities: the astral patterns that give rise to or
serve as stable foundations for the physical world.
In the world of formation, forms are imbued with a desire for fulfillment. In this sense, Yetzirah is a
dimension of generation and movement. The potentialities present in Atziluth, which took shape in Briyah,
are dynamized for subsequent materialization in Assiah. The word Yetzirah comes from the root Yatser,
which gives rise to words like instincts, passions, pulsations that establish a dynamic. Yetzirah is thus the
world of desires that contribute to the achievement of anything, or as Hegel said: “Nothing great in the
world has ever been accomplished without passion.” Kabbalists associate this world with the element
Water, which has always been related to emotions and passions.

The World of Action (Olam ha’Assiah)

It corresponds to our material plane in which the potentialities of Atziluth, which were molded in
Briyah and dynamized in Yetzirah, are now fully materialized on the concrete plane. The physical world,
Olam ha’Assiah, is the fourth and final plane, and as a crystallized projection of the formative world, it is
the synthesis and concrete representation of all higher worlds.
The term Assiah is associated with “asah”, which means to make. This is therefore the plane of
action as material execution. This world is associated with the element Earth, which symbolically
represents the raw material that allows the form to take shape, to incarnate.

Kabbalists assert that the material object is a symbol that allows us to find the primordial essence
from which a process of densification arose. Thus, any material object is a place of return that leads the
consciousness to the highest spheres of the spirit.
Spirit is matter at its most subtle level of fulfillment, and matter is spirit at its densest level of
expression.
Following are the correspondences of the Minor Arcana with the Sephiroth and the 4 planes of
manifestation:

Wands Cups Swords Discs

Ace Keter in Atziluth Keter in Yetzirah Keter in Briyah Keter in Assiah
Chokhmah in Chokhmah in Chokhmah in Chokhmah in
Two
Atziluth Yetzirah Briyah Assiah
Three Binah in Atziluth Binah in Yetzirah Binah in Briyah Binah in Assiah
Four Chesed in Atziluth Chesed in Yetzirah Chesed in Briyah Chesed in Assiah
Five Gevurah in Atziluth Gevurah in Yetzirah Gevurah in Briyah Gevurah in Assiah
Tiphareth in Tiphareth in Tiphareth in Tiphareth in
Six
Atziluth Yetzirah Briyah Assiah
Seven Netzach in Atziluth Netzach in Yetzirah Netzach in Briyah Netzach in Assiah
Eight Hod in Atziluth Hod in Yetzirah Hod in Briyah Hod in Assiah
Nine Yesod in Atziluth Yesod in Yetzirah Yesod in Briyah Yesod in Assiah
Ten Malkuth in Atziluth Malkuth in Yetzirah Malkuth in Briyah Malkuth in Assiah
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Motta, Marcelo. O Equinócio dos Deuses. (Brazilian Edition)
Mouni, Sadhu. The Tarot.
Osho. Life, Love, Laughter. - Gold Nuggets.
Peradekordi, Amália. The Moon.
Ribeiro, Anna Maria. Conhecimento de Astrologia. (Brazilian Edition)
Rosabis, Camaysar. Numerologia. (Brazilian Edition)
Three Initiates. The Kybalion.
Vivarta, Veet. O Caminho do Mago. (Brazilian Edition)
Waite, A. E. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot.
Wang, Robert. The Qabalistic Tarot
What, William. Mistérios Revelados da Cabala. (Brazilian Edition)
Ziegler, Gerd. Tarot: Mirror of the Soul

[1] From World Military and Social Expenditures (1983) Washington D.C.: World Priorities
[2] See “Birth without Violence” (1976) Frederick Leboyer (1918-2017).
[3] See “El karma” at www.tarotterapeutico.info Spanish PUBLICATIONS ARTICLES
[4] In return-to-the-womb experiments with both male and female homosexuals, 90% encountered their mother’s intense desire for
them to be the gender that they originally were not.
[5] Law of the Henhouse: the hen on top poops on the hen below.
[6] Child sexuality is not genital sexuality, but rather something that encompasses the whole body.
[7] See the 1st Key to Well-being: Full acceptance, at www.tarotterapeutico.info Spanish VIDEOS
[8] See “The Betrayal of the Body: Bioenergetic Analysis”, by Alexander Lowen. Ed. Errepar 1995 Buenos Aires
[9] Read The Sexual Revolution, by W. Reich
[10] See translations for Lust in Titles of Arcana XI, Enthusiasm.
[11] See the “4th Key to Well-being” at www.tarotterapeutico.info Spanish news
[12] I don’t want to say God, because this word has been used this way for centuries. So many crimes have been committed in God’s
name that it sounds false, ugly, vulgar, a caricature of what its original meaning at some point expressed.
[13] Saracens is the name that Christians in the Middle Ages and Renaissance period gave to Muslims.
 [14] The Rosetta stone is a dictionary of Greek, Aramaic and Egyptian hieroglyphics.
[15] There is also the Path of the Arrow, which we mention in the Art card.
[16] There are those who say that Crowley was bluffing.
[17] See the section on Titles of Arcana No. 11 in Chapter VI: The 2nd Septenary.
[18] Thus, between one consultation and another, we end up shuffling the cards 12 times, which is the total and complete number.
[19] For this, refer to Therapeutic Tarot Training. Volume 3. Tarot and Numerology. Challenges and Life Lessons.
[20] This is without switching Strength and Justice, as Waite did.
[21] This can also be called the “Book of Formation”.
[22]The original sound of the hard Resh has been lost, but we know that it existed because there are ten words in the Bible that have
Resh with Dagesh.
[23] The seven double letters are not to be confused with the five letters - ‫ כ‬Kaph, ‫ מ‬Mem, ‫ נ‬Nun, ‫ פ‬Peh and ‫ צ‬Tzaddi, which are
written and have a different numerical value depending on whether they are at the beginning, middle or end of the word.
[24] G as in goat
[25] Crowley switched the letters and paths of the Emperor with those of the Star. See the Hebrew Letter of the Star section in
chapter VIII
[26] J in Spanish
[27] Excerpted, though not literally, from Ute Erhardt’s “Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere”. Ed. Grijalbo, 1997.
[28] See the 1st Key to Well-being: Full self-acceptance at www.tarotterapeutico.info Spanish NEWS
[29] EPATIPIC (Acronym from the Spanish) meaning: Spontaneous – Present – Joyful – Total – Unpredictable – Perceptive –
Innocent – Capable of Wonder
 About The Author
Veet Pramad

Hello, I am Veet Pramad (Enrique Amorós Azpeitia). I was born in Casablanca, Morocco to Spanish
parents. When I was 8 years old I went to live in Amorebieta (Euzkadi - Spain) with my grandparents. At
12, I met my parents in Madrid. I studied three years of Chemical Sciences at the Complutense University.
In 1977 I went to India in a homecar. In a fire in Afghanistan, all my belongings were burned, including
my money and my passport. I continued to travel hitchhiking through Pakistan, India and Nepal for a year,
living on public charity.
I returned to Madrid and left to Mexico. In the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental I met a Huichol
sorcerer who took me as his apprentice for a year, participating in the rituals of corn, deer, and peyote.
I went back to "civilization" making music and crafts. Then I started studying astrology and herbal
medicine. I entered Managua in the midst of the Sandinista revolution and toured Colombia gathering pre-
Columbian beads with which I set up a small collection that I sold in Italy and Switzerland.
It was in Locarno, Italian Switzerland, than I discovered the Tarot when I visited the grave of Herman
Hess. With a suitcase of books on the subject, I landed in Peru, I lived in the jungle of Pachiri (Upper
Amazon), Machu Pichu, Pisac and Cuzco where I opened the "Pachamama" natural restaurant, library, live
music and tarot and astrology office .
I formed a Latin music group with which I toured Peru and Bolivia and arrived in Brazil in 1982. After a
time in Chapada dos Guimarães (Mato Grosso), I built a bamboo raft in Pirapora (Minas Gerais) rowing
down the São Francisco river to Xique-xique (Bahía) for two months.
In 1983 I returned to India, living with the Tibetans of Mac Leod Ganj where my daughter Chaia Dechen
was born. I studied massage and together with Buddhism students I set up a tarot and astrology seminar.
I returned to Brazil in 1984, wrapping myself up with therapies - Osho, bioenergetics, the Fisher-Hoffmann
process, biodance, psychodrama, etc. - for two years.
In 1987 I created and developed the concept of THERAPEUTIC TAROT and a new reading system:
THERAPEUTIC READING. I opened a center in Brasilia - AFETO - where I started giving Therapeutic
Tarot courses, where my second daughter Nanaui was born.
In 1990 I launched a first independent edition of the “Tarot Course and its therapeutic use” and returned to
India, to meditate at the Osho Center in Poona.
I passed through Thailand, Hong Kong and Tokyo where I worked making Spanish, Caribbean and
Andean music.
In 1992, I returned to Brasilia and formed a flamenco music and dance group: La Banda Caló that
remained active for 10 years.
My son Radwan was born in 1993.
In 1996 I wrote and edited two children's stories "Journey to the planet of Great Love" illustrated by my
daughter Chaia and "The true story of Santa Claus".
From 2002 forwards, the circle of countries where I give courses expanded, founding the International
School of Therapeutic Tarot with students in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador,
Spain, USA, Mexico, Portugal and Venezuela.
Integrating Numerology and Therapeutic Tarot, I published “Tarot and Numerology. Challenges and Life
Lessons ”in Spanish and Portuguese.
In 2010 I moved to Bahia where my partner Deva Mani (Divannete Souza) and I created the Pachamama
center for therapies and meditations.
In 2014/2015 I launched the free video series: Five Keys to Wellbeing in Spanish and Portuguese.
I participated as a speaker in several Tarot congresses in São Paulo, Lisbon, Mexico City, Santa Fe and
Barcelona.
I am currently transforming into videos two of the four Therapeutic Tarot Training Modules available
through my website www.tarotterapeutico.info and in the translation of Therapeutic Tarot - Volume 2 - The
Minor Arcana and Volume 3 - Tarot and Numerology to English.
 Therapeutic Tarot Training
Major Arcana
English, Spanish and Portuguese editions

Arcanos Menores
Spanish and Portuguese editions

Tarot y Numerología
Spanish and Portuguese editions