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[Tree Hugger]

Hello Seekers
Hidden within the first seven cards of the Tarot is a roadmap to ascension left by Hermes Trismegitis. This was part of the initiation process, as an initiate is one who is a novice and beginner. The following images have not changed in nearly eight thousand years, because these characters are archetypes, which are universally recognized and grasped by the mind and when understood display great spiritual truths. Initiates seeking higher wisdom would stand meditating on these images until the meaning filtered down into the roots of the mind and to the heart. We cannot show the symbols here only a description but all seekers will find these same truth displaying themselves because all human minds are designed according to the same pattern of thinking.
The concept of initiation was to prove one worthy of finding the secrets for only those with pure intent would find the true meaning. This process of gaining higher wisdom is a natural process but requires many lifetimes of birth and rebirth to gain this experience on a soul level.

Hermes Trismegitis designed the pyramid as a tank or chamber of initiation to speed up this natural process, along with Ra-ta who was a priest and early incarnation of Edgar Cayce.
The initiate would lie in the sarcophagus with the lid put in place. There alone with this own thoughts in silence the initiate would go through the dark night of the soul. He would face his shadow person, his own ego and his own fear and experience what death is, and overcome all of these obstacles. He would delve into the hidden recesses of his own consciousness and emerge with a new awareness of his position in the universe. The shape of the pyramid was supremely important and because of the shape, it became a torsion generator of spiritual energy.
In the days of ancient Egypt it was just the beginning of the cycle that has now come nearly eight thousand years and nears it completion. The pyramid which was needed them to assist this process by drawing in the spiritual energy to assist in this process.
Today the pyramid is not needed because the whole earth has become one large initiation chamber, and what the pyramid accomplished with its special properties and geometry is now offered to all humans as in-streaming spiritual energy floods into the solar system. The best example of this is an overview of the Tarot itself. The whole deck shows the journey of the Fool on his way to becoming the Magician who knows he is part of the Divine Mind. The quotes below are from a site which displays the deepest of insights that are so profound I would be doing a diservice to readers not to post them. I have only added a few comments after each one.

The Cards are These:
The Fool
The Hermit
The Devil
The Chariot
The Lovers
The Hanged Man
The Magician

The Fool Card

This is all seekers at first, stumbling around, not knowing exactly what to look for or even where to look. We look many places on our quest. The fool is us starting out without a clue in life, not having any understanding or spiritual wisdom, not understanding the symbols carried right within us in our mind and heart. The fool does not know his power, he walks in ignorance dangling on cliffs. He does not know he is a potential magician. This is the human soul before any earth experience.


The Hermit Card

Here is the fool now becoming the seeker, who has been wandering in a the world of ignorance looking for wisdom. In his hand is the lantern of Hermes as he seeks higher wisdom and inner knowledge which illuminates thoughts in a new way even that which you think is already known, takes on added meaning.
The Hermit carries the wisdom of Hermes who taught by asking questions that make you think in a new way. This is the wisdom, which open the most intimate recesses of the heart. The Hermit dresses in the cloak wherein he hides his wisdom under the mundane and simple. The staff is his authority. Anyone accepting the cloak, the staff and the lantern, become the initiate seeking the temple gate. He is on the path to finding the winding spiral staircase. Those who become the Hermit archetype, then lead others past the illusory fires by the roadside, so they might go straight to the higher awareness and by doing this they display the joy of sharing. The giving virtue is the basis for the life of the initiate and that is to share freely and to serve the greater need. His mind is united with the Higher Mind by a chain of analogies. The Hermit continues his quest.


The Devil Card

Here is the what every seeker faces.

“Black, awful night enveloped the earth. An ominous, red flame burned in the distance. I was approaching a fantastic figure which outlined itself before me as I came nearer to it. High above the earth appeared the repulsive red face of the Devil, with large, hairy ears, pointed beard and curved goats' horns. A pentagram, pointing downwards, shone in phosphoric light between the horns on his forehead. Two large, grey, bat-like wings were spread behind him. He held up one arm, spreading out his bare, fat hand. In the palm I saw the sign of black magic. A burning torch held down-end in his other hand emitted black, stifling smoke. He sat on a large, black cube, gripping it with the claws of his beast-like, shaggy legs.
A man and woman were chained to the cube -- the same Man and Woman I saw in the garden, but now they had horns and tails tipped with flame. And they were evidently dissatisfied in spirit, and were filled with protest and repulsion.
"This is a picture of weakness," said the voice, "a picture of falsehood and evil. They are the same man and woman you saw in the garden, but their love ceasing to be a sacrifice, became an illusion. This man and woman forgot that their love is a link in the chain that unites them with eternity, that their love is a symbol of equilibrium and a road to Infinity.
"They forgot that It is a key to the gate of the magic world, the torch which Lights the higher Path. They forgot that Love is real and immortal and they subjugated it to the unreal and temporary. And they each made love a tool for submitting the other to himself.
"Then love became dissension and fettered them with iron chains to the black cube of matter, on which sits deceit."
And I heard the voice of the Devil: "I am Evil," he said, "at least so far as Evil can exist in this best of worlds. In order to see me, one must be able to see unfairly, incorrectly and narrowly. I close the triangle, the other two sides of which are Death and Time. In order to quit this triangle it is necessary to see that it does not exist.
"But how to do this is not for me to tell. For I am the Evil which men say is the cause of all evil and which they invented as an excuse for all the evil that they do.
"They call me the Prince of Falsehood, and truly l am the prince of lies, because I am the most monstrous production of human lies.”

The Devil is of human invention so that humans may blame this symbol for all the ignorance they practice. Because humanity lost sight of their Divine connection they also lost the connection to each other and pure love has become an illusion. They forgot they were spirits in matter. There is no Devil, there is no death and there is no time. Three illusions to dispel for the Hermit, who now sees the Devil for what this symbol really means.

The Chariot Card

I saw a chariot drawn by two sphinxes, one white, the other black. Four pillars supported a blue canopy, on which were scattered five-pointed stars. The Conqueror, clad in steel armor, stood under this canopy guiding the sphinxes. He held a sceptre, on the end of which were a globe, a triangle and a square. A golden pentagram sparkled in his crown. On the front of the chariot there was represented a winged sphere and beneath that the symbol of the mystical lingam, signifying the union of two principles.
"Everything in this picture has a significance. Look and try to understand," said the voice.
"This is Will armed with Knowledge. We see here, however, the wish to achieve, rather than achievement itself. The man in the chariot thought himself a conqueror before he had really conquered, and he believes that victory must come to the conqueror. There are true possibilities in this beautiful conception, but also many false ones. Illusory fires and numerous dangers are hidden here.
"He controls the sphinxes by the power of a magic word, but the tension of his Will may fail and then the magic word will lose its power and he may be devoured by the sphinxes.
"This is indeed the Conqueror, but only for the moment; he has not yet conquered Time, and the succeeding moment is unknown to him.
"This is the Conqueror, not by love, but by fire and the sword, -- a conqueror against whom the conquered may arise. Do you see behind him the towers of the conquered city? Perhaps the flame of uprising burns already there.
"And he is unaware that the city vanquished by means of fire and the sword is the city within his own consciousness, that the magic chariot is in himself and that the blood-thirsty sphinxes, also a state of consciousness within, watch his every movement. He has externalized all these phases of his mind and sees them only outside himself. This is his fundamental error. He entered the outer court of the Temple of knowledge, but thinks he has been in the Temple itself. He regarded the rituals of the first tests as initiation, and he mistook for the goddess, the priestess who guarded the threshold. Because of this misconception great perils await him.
"Nevertheless it may be that even in his errors and perils the Great Conception lies concealed. He seeks to know and, perhaps, in order to attain, mistakes, dangers and even failures are necessary.
"Understand that this is the same man whom you saw uniting Heaven and Earth, and again walking across a hot desert to a precipice."

The Chariot stands for self- deception. Here is a warrior who thinks he is the conqueror, but this is just an illusion. The Hermit must not be fooled by this illusion of physical power and the reliance of the outer world. The Hermit must delve into the inner world of his own consciousness for this is the goal of the seeker.

The Lovers Card

“THE LOVERS.
I saw a blooming garden in a green valley, surrounded by soft blue hills.
In the garden I saw a Man and a Woman naked and beautiful. They loved each other and their Love was their service to the Great Conception, a prayer and a sacrifice; through It they communed with God, through It they received the highest revelations; in Its light the deepest truths came to them; the magic world opened its gate; elves, undines, sylphs and gnomes came openly to them; the three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, plant and animal, and the four elements -- fire, water, air and earth -- served them.
Through their Love they saw the mystery of the world's equilibrium, and that they themselves were a symbol and expression of this balance. Two triangles united in them into a six-pointed star. Two magnets melted into an ellipsis. They were two. The third was the Unknown Future. The three made One.
I saw the woman looking out upon the world as though enraptured with its beauty. And from the tree on which ripened golden fruit I saw a serpent creep. It whispered in the woman's ear, and I saw her listening, smiling at first suspiciously, then with curiosity which merged into joy. Then I saw her speak to the man. I noticed that he seemed to admire only her and smiled with an expression of joy and sympathy at all she told him.
"This picture you see, is a picture of temptation and falls," said the voice. "What constitutes the Fall? Do you understand its nature?"
"Life is so good," I said, "and the world so beautiful, and this man and woman wanted to believe in the reality of the world and of themselves. They wanted to forget service and take from the world what it can give. So they made a distinction between themselves and the world. They said, 'We are here, the world is there.' And the world separated from them and became hostile."
"Yes," said the Voice, "this is true. The everlasting mistake with men is that they see the fall in love. But Love is not a fall, it is a soaring above an abyss. And the higher the flight, the more beautiful and alluring appears the earth. But that wisdom, which crawls on earth, advises belief in the earth and in the present. This is the Temptation. And the man and woman yielded to it. They dropped from the eternal realms and submitted to time and death. The balance was disturbed. The fairyland was closed upon them. The elves, undines, sylphs and gnomes became invisible. The Face of God ceased to reveal itself to them, and all things appeared upside down.
"This Fall, this first 'sin of man,' repeats itself perpetually, because man continues to believe in his separateness and in the Present. And only by means of great suffering can he liberate himself from the control of time and return to Eternity -- leave darkness and return to Light."


The Lovers is the archetype of the fall into ignorance. The Hermit must see this truth if he wishes to proceed. Humanity choose separation for each other. They decided to use the earth and others instead of serving the interests of all and the good of all. With this fall into ignorance nature became a hostile place and one in which they could not longer see the face of God. This is the way the symbolic man and symbolic man hid themselves from the face of God. They removed themselves from nature.



The Hanged Man Card

THE HANGED MAN.
“And then I saw a man in terrible suffering, hung by one leg, head downward, to a high tree. And I heard the voice: --
"Look! This is a man who saw Truth. Suffering awaits the man on earth, who finds the way to eternity and to the understanding of the Endless.
"He is still a man, but he already knows much of what is inaccessible even to Gods. And the incommensurableness of the small and the great in his soul constitutes his pain and his Golgotha.
"In his own soul appears the gallows on which he hangs in suffering, feeling that he is indeed inverted.
"He chose this way himself.
"For this he went over a long road from trial to trial, from initiation to initiation, through failures and falls.
"And now he has found Truth and knows himself.
"He knows that it is he who stands before an altar with magic symbols, and reaches from earth to heaven; that he also walks on a dusty road under a scorching sun to a precipice where a crocodile awaits him; that he dwells with his mate in paradise under the shadow of a blessing genius; that he is chained to a black cube under the shadow of deceit; that he stands as a victor for a moment in an illusionary chariot drawn by sphinxes; and that with a lantern in bright sunshine, he seeks for Truth in a desert.
"Now he has found Her."

As the Hermit nears his goal he notices the world looks different and he rubs his eyes because the light he sought outside is now shining from within him. He sees his history on earth as a blink, and now the once fool stands before the universe having gone past the stages and learned from the pitfalls and is ascending. As he begins his walk up the spiral staircase of his own consciousness to the place he could have found long ago, he sees himself and his potentials clearly for the first time. He is not the fool but the Magician performing spiritual alchemy by turning hate into love. He is part of God and his own love for everything surrounds him.

The Magician Card

The Magician is the higher consciousness. This is the human who while still in the human form, is beginning to comprehend the Divine nature in himself. He sees the face of God in everything, for everything is a form of God. The Magician is wearing the crown of light and knows he is an infinite being. He has found his magical abilities and knows that they should be used for the benefit of all. His white robe is the purity of intent he shows in offering himself. He sees his power in creating his own world and realizes he has been doing it all along. He knows that what is above is also below. He sees his relation to the cosmos and so touches heaven and earth making them unify.


“His face was luminous and serene, and, when his eyes met mine, I felt that he saw most intimate recesses of my soul. I saw myself reflected in him as in a mirror and in his eyes I seemed to look upon myself.
And I heard a voice saying: --
"Look, this is the Great Magician!
"With his hands he unites heaven and earth, and the four elements that form the world are controlled by him….
I trembled before the depth of the mysteries I touched . . . The words I heard seemed to be uttered by the Great Magician himself, and it was as though he spoke in me.
I was in deep trepidation and at moments I felt there was nothing before me except the blue sky; but within me a window opened through which I could see unearthly things and hear unearthly words.”

So, the fool goes through many lifetimes on the way to becoming the Hermetic Seeker. The archetypes of the Tarot were given to help humanity to ascend to a higher awareness. If taken to heart and understood, these become a roadmap leading to the temple of the mind where all wisdom is held.

Tree

http://www.tarot-decks.com/tarot-symbolism.htm

[Tex Arcana]

Thank you Tree; this lucid post has taken me to a deeper level of understanding of the Tarot.

[Tree Hugger]

Hello Tex
This is one of those posts who just wanted to be written. I have had several like that lately starting with the Orion. Some of these pieces are putting themselves together even I am waiting for the next find. Maybe you are having something like that happen speaking of finds. For me, these pearls of wisdom are like you finding an artifact with the word "Atlantis" on it........thanks Tex I am glad that you share my appreciation and saw what I saw.....light and love