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Thoth-ATu 21-The Universe
Is the 2nd to the last of the Major Arcana and is the Feminine Compliment to the 0-The Fool, who is also 0 and Atu-22: Atu being the name given the Major Arcana by Aleister Crowley. The Universe is attributed to the Hebrew letter Tau or Tav [meaning: equal armed cross/the "T" cross] and since this card is compliment to the Fool, letter Aleph [meaning: Ox] the two together spell the word Ath, which means Essence. The Fool is the beginning and the Universe is the completed end, that will go back to 0. The consensus is that since everything came from no-thing, the end of everything is the return to no-thing.
The letter Tau refers to the planet Saturn, the outermost and slowest of the 7 sacred planets (the Qabalah was written long before the other planets were discovered); because of its heavy slow qualities the earth was "thrust upon the symbol" . As Crowley explained, "The original three elements, Fire, Air and Water, sufficed for primitive thought; Earth and Spirit represent a latter accretion".
Neither is to be found in the original twenty-two Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah. However, the Hebrew Bible, Genesis explains The Path of Tau (T) and/or Earth, with a creation story.
Tau [Tav]; Tau Cross, Equal Armed Cross or "T" cross.
In the beginning God (dess)created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a vast nothingness with darkness upon the surface of the deep, and the Divine Presence hovered upon the surface of the waters,. And God said," Let their be light." and there was light.
Genesis 1:1-3
As creation stories goes, this is one of the best known in the Western civilizations. It also points out that Light was a creation of Divine Presence and that is why Light is seen as he first form of the Divine. What should also be understood is that form began in Darkness[ Dark energy-Dark matter] The Ain (No-Thing), as Physicists are telling us today. The "Vast Nothingness on the Surface of the Deep"----The Deep Thick Darkness of Binah (Dark Energy) and where the conception of Movement (Divine hovering Presence or Logos) began the process of form made of light. All this is known to Qabalists but is what often not known, is that Tau is the Alpha (Beginning) and the Omega ( the End) of all form and that this card is totally about the Feminine power of "Will to Form". Hence, there is no Androgyny depicted as activity here, for She created the masculine form, which is depicted as a twisting or spiraling python. To the Ancients, Zeus was often depicted as a Python, and in this phase would come to a woman in her dreams as a Great Snake and impregnate her. All eroticism aside, She is and birth action of Dark Energy and He the Motion within Dark matter which is a vast nothingness, i.e. formless; However, all form comes from this vastness ( The Abyss). Divine Masculine Presence, besides being waves of light, is Self-Awareness on a Microcosmic scale that we call consciousness and is difficult to understand---so often it is called waves of Light or Serpent force. Self-Awareness on the Divine Scale (...." From Her did she build Herself", this statement was often attributed to the Greek Goddess Hera) is The Universe, the One Self-Aware Energy that all selves come from which we call the Universal Collective Unconscious and/or the Unconscious or Great Sea of Binah in which He swims as a serpent. This card is not easy "to get your head around", but then to expand perspective, we must force our resistant self-conscious personality to take a deep and thoughtful look into the Dark Depths of the unconscious, the Original "All Seeing I", from which the 1st movement of Thought becomes form.
This Lovely Tarot Card- key 21- The Universe is what I have called the "Womb- with- a -View" , it is called She because it is the action of the Feminine Magnetic aspect of the one Electromagnetic energy.. God is both Feminine and Masculine, but is neither sex, so the masculine of the Divine is called light/electric and the Feminine of the Divine Creative is called the Dark/Magnetic . In this context Masculine force is Movement and Feminine Force is Form. The most difficult task for our personal perspective is to understand that the Dark Unconscious Energy, even exists and that from darkness we have all come and to darkness we all return ( alpha and omega)! But as if that understanding wasn't enough----we can come from and go back to that blazing darkness of Kether----consciously!
Truth is, movement is best seen as light even though Chokma ( 1st formless Manifestation of Masculine Force) is called the "Dark Fire" because it is not Light as we know it but rather the motion within Dark Energy! Light is a creation, that has an end! Stars go Nova, and end, what we know as "The Universe" will go back to "nothingness"...albeit 20 billion years from now. But for all those who enjoy "Being" there is a future for as the Hindu's believe, there is also renewal and regeneration, where the Universe of Form starts all over again; changed by all the knowledge gain from the Past. This Great Will-To- Form that is Mother Binah (Goddess with many names) is always building "Her Children of Form" and is resurrection and regeneration as show by the "serpent force" which is the Serpentine Energy of the Kundalini (Primal Life
Force) which is coiled at the Root Chakra of all humans and coiled in the Earth and flowing as Spiral upon Spiral, collapsing upon themselves to form "dimensions of Being".
The Path of Tau, The Universe or The traditional World Tarot Card :
* Path color is Indigo
* Musical Note: A
*Planet; Saturn
* Meaning: The Tau Cross---Equal armed Cross
* Double letter: Power-Servitude
* Esoteric title: The Great One of the Night of Time.
Obviously, because our Souls manifest a body made of time-space, it is a competent builder of "self-image" on the Plane of Malkuth (Material Plane) and as I said, this self is mostly space (99%) and only 1% time. I dare to say, that we are mostly "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" with a "clothing of time". The Dark Mother gave birth to Our Self-Awareness before the Soul was born of the Spiral energy that is Light! To go into this dark Self is the journey of this Path of Tau....it is where the individual personality gets it's first glimpse of the Personality that has been Forged out of the Higher Self that is shown as Tiphareth (Beauty) on the Tree of Life. The Original Observer (Psyche and/or Real Person) becomes the observed individual "I" personality of the physical presence and we begin viewing our lives in a different way. The light of "me" is limited, while the Darkness of I Am reabsorbs the lessons of Light and continues on to build expanded "me" and/or Self-concepts. The Alpha and Omega is also a spiral and returns upon itself!
We are Spiral Entity---Spirits and we turn on and off the light of person, shut down and re-boot, so that we may expand and liberate our Personal expression! Past limits are expanded into Present Limits -----because of the very nature of observation----you must have an up and down--an in and out-- and a space all around in order to Observe your Great Work! The Universe Card shows that Space all Around as an Oval shape reminiscent of the Vesica Pisces, that surrounds the Dancing Goddess (The Dark Motion in the Light Motion) {those who know of my teachings hear me often speak of the "Dancing Goddess and God"]. I could show pages of examples of this Alpha and Omega symbolism but space is limited here---So know this, If we realize that in the end, we all come from the same source and focus on the light of creation--knowing that we are all formed from this Light, we can find peace and eternal bliss within ourselves knowing that our existence ends only to redefine existence again. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed only Transformed and this Transformation is the Alpha and the Omega and the Alpha and the Omega and the....you get the point!
As I previously stated: In the old original Qabalistic Text- The Sephir Yestzirah,The World of Assiah, the Material World, does not appear except as a "pendant to the Tree of Life." The moderns have updated the Qabalah accordingly which has only complimented the original.
Earth and Saturn, share certain qualities, such as, heaviness, dullness, coldness, dryness, immobility and the like. Yet, we also find Saturn in Binah, in respect to the Dark Energy and Material of the Womb of all things, on the Queens scale of Observed Nature. Again pointing out that as soon as an end to a process is reached, it always returns to the beginning. This knowledge is often illustrated in the form of a serpent eating its own tail, (Ouroboros) which is a stylized circle of serpentine force. This is a universe of serpents, strings of energy spiraling inside of sub-atomic particles (quantum string theory), may seem to be small and insignificant but the whole of the Universe exists because of them. Yet, the whole of the Universe shall return to strings, assimilating data learned, for the next excursion into Self-Awareness. What may be interesting to note, is that electricity is also visible as "serpentine" light. It seems that linking Father and Idea (Male electric force) and Mother and Understanding (female Magnetic Force), which gives form to idea as formed waves of energy that "go back on themselves", shows some cohesive link from ancient to modern insight into the Universal make-up! This "going back" on one's self is also shown as the serpentine figure eight, laying on its side.
You may know that Tetragrammaton, The All,(it is recommended that the student read-The Book of Thoth, by Master Theron) is a formula of ,"The Union of the Father and Mother produces Twins, the son going forward to the daughter, the daughter returning the energy to the father; by this cycle of change the stability and eternity of the universe is assured."( From, The Book of Thoth) Please note, these are cycles of force and form and not a statement of human family life.
THE UNIVERSE and/or THE WORLD key 21, of Tarot.
As stated: This Qabalistic Tarot Card is The Path of Tau, meaning equal armed cross and/or the Tau cross (T-cross). Tau is a Hebrew Double-letter (Soul letter), a combination of opposites and is called power-servitude. As the motion of Conscious (Solar Logos) energy crystallized into form, and whose movement is downward on the Tree of Life, it becomes obvious that the first path upward is the Last Key of the Major Arcana:
The meaning of the word Power, is the ability to do work and the ability to weave esoteric/Psychic work into physical material is why we-Spirits from the "Spooky Universe"-have a physical body! We now must work from a material perspective (the "Below") to the Realms of Pure Spirit (the "Above") doing the Serious Work of the Divine [THE GREAT WORK], as long as our Divine Consciousness is functioning through a physical body. Think of the magic we are, for we are from Solar Conscious (Solar Logos of Galactic center), born of a Photon Sun ("Sons of God"), who as an Spiral intelligence (Spirit or microwave strings of woven intelligence), have learned to not fear the death of stars, but instead, take the dead star material (physical matter) and make it Live again; Alive, but in a more empathetic, sensual, and personal way and therefore extending the life of Stars as Real Persons (Souls)who created individual personalities out of microwave frequencies! Real Persons (Greater Ego) are often refereed to as Souls, personalities are a form of artificial conscious, we call self-consciousness (small ego), just as bodies are a artificial planet, with a Quantum Sun residing inside!
The Path of the Key 21, joins Earth (Malkuth) with the Foundation (Yesod) and is the first path out of the material condition for the personality, leading towards an understanding of the Persona forged by the Higher Self of Tiphareth (our Soul),for EACH incarnation. The Universe Card is the mandala for the "Administrative Intelligence", as Dr. Paul Foster Case described it in his text "The Thirty Two Paths of Wisdom". The Path of Tau is the "Thirty Second Path"and
Dr. Case says," it directs and associates in all their operations the seven planets."
In our discussions of the Universe or World-Tarot Card, we are discussing the Material of Malkuth. I have often heard people refer to themselves as "mind and body" and when they meditate or dream, they consider that the images that come to them are somehow separate from the body-physical as if the Divine marriage of Spirit and Matter has somehow became a Divine Divorce. Somehow the body is not of Mind; a type of doppelganger that exploded out of the mud of lost dreams. Before, we take a long tour on the fears of being alive, just remember; THE DIVINE CREATIVE BUILDS WHAT IT WANTS TO BE! Therefore, Mind and body are inseparable lovers.
The Gnostic, Tao and Qabalistic Mysteries have for generations state that ALL IS MIND. The Above- Macrocosm ( Quantum-Universal Collective Unconscious) and the Below-Microcosm (Atomic-Self-conscious), are a hermetic marriage that forms Cosmic Self Awareness---MIND! Therefore, the distinction between mind and body is perspective, not of actuality. Once again the perspective of the small ego's "Divide and Conquer", created by the enforced identity culture of ruled indoctrination does us mental and physical harm. For by fearing the sensuality of the body we become as slaves who fear the lash of our master's (fear of pain/discomfort) disapproval. Hence, we act as a idiot driver of a car, who fears the sensors that give information of the cars health as gauges. This stress driven- driver, would ignore the "engine warning light", because he fears it would mean discomfort, such as bills, or time in repair (hospital time) and if he "ignores it", it must go away. Finally, when broken down on the highway, the ignorant person will inevitably blame the car. The same thing happens with the "nervous breakdowns" of those who insist the stress they are sensing, is because of "everything else", rather than their own errant perspectives. The body is a psycho-sensing device, i.e., psychosomatic vehicle. Anyone who impeccably "drives" a vehicle, especially a "Power Tool" of such vast ability as the human body, needs Sensors and the fearless knowledge of how to read them!
When we close our eyes and see pictures, we are seeing the foundation of Matter, the most refined form of matter-Thoughts- which are the energy forms closest to the physical condition. The Physical is a Crystallization of these subtle forms brought about by the Power and mutual Servitude of I AM ME----Force (I) and Form (AM) whom both are Power to generate offspring-Me, and who all serve each other as a Divine Psyche and power tool. We are the Figure Eight (infinity-symbol) of Force and Form. A twisting of Serpentine Force and Form flow, i.e The Image Maker. Hence, perspectives, base on how we identify ourselves, creates the dimension of "Me", often called "reality".
As have stated before, we are 99.6% invisible, which means that most of our identity and the Physical World is Unseen (human Aura)! How many of us would go to a bank to change a "Twenty", and accept only .4% back as change? Why then would you, as a Soul, accept only .4% of the Electromagnetic Spectrum of Energy, as all that is Real and/or Reality? Also, 85% of all thought, is unconscious, and therefore, automatic. Hence, our conscious body is being operated by only 17% of our observation! I sure hope you don't drive a car that way!
As you can see by looking at the illustration of the Four Worlds, Assiah is Malkuth, alone, and it is described as our sphere of sensation and/or action. Yet Malkuth is symbolized by the Seven Pointed Star which is representative of the Seven Palaces of Assiah (planets) By experiencing the Path of Tau--The Universe, we are taken to the Gateway of these Seven Palaces.
On the Path of Tau, the Universal Plan (The Great Work) becomes apparent without necessarily being understood. You can enter the "Holy of Holies" (Worlds) and encounter them in such away that you are "in them but not of them", a product of the Divine perspective--which is where most "new ager's" are not at. They must progress further up the Tree of Life to become above " them", as only through hind sight can we really see! The physical self-conscious can only realize "reflections in light", and not see the Transmitter of that reflected image! Now this doesn't mean you "ascend" out of Form, but that you Ascend "within" Form, for we are building the As above, So below, not to leave it, but to expand its light spectrum/electromagnetic flow to focus our Psychic Power of "Will to Be", of which we have inherited from the Divine Creative who began as Kether who is Eheieh-"I Will BE"- into this crystallized-light dimension of Bio-protons. Hence, in Qabalah, inside is up the tree, and outside is down the |Tree of Life.
What is important here is that all the Force and Form of The One Energy is present and self- balanced on this Path. The Above has condensed as the Below! This self-balance is also stated in the Oriental Tao, as "What is here is there, and what is there is here. If it is not here, it is not there and if it is not there, it is not here." In Qabalah, it is stated as, "All the power that ever was or will be is here now." So get it....and say, "I AM all the power that ever was or will be and I AM here now as Me!" The Asian philosophy of All is "here" is easily shown as The Hindu "All Mother Goddess" Kali, multi-armed because of her many aspects. Just as the Unconscious, reincarnates the consciousness. On the Thoth Universe card, The Vesica Pisces, or the Universal Womb, is shown as an oval of woven vines and the four elements are shown both their alchemical and tarot symbols.
Therefore, we are both "here and there", which implies that we are all "wholly spirit", hence, this Path of Tau, is a Path of Gnostic Initiation, where the personality is encountering itself and becoming aware of the fact that what we encounter on this Path is of our own making. This is where the physical personality, realizes it is not really "in charge of the Macrocosmic Universe" (Qabalistic-Macroprosopos) of the Original I AM but rather of all that is inside our heads which is a Microcosmic universe (Microprosopos) of "Me".
However, we also encounter symbols and ideas which are of a greater consciousness than our own, and begin to see how our being relates to a Universal picture. It is easy to know when one is "on this path and becomes of it", we become dreamy, as the ego loves the fantasy of --- but not the work. In other words, "just lay back and the dreams will deliver you"--kind of thinking that doesn't understand or denies the Psychosomatic Power that drives our Creative Power tools. This type of denial really is apparent when someone suggests that to think is not enough for you must "do the Deed" as well, and you feel rebellious anger. The self-conscious sees an enemy to its blissful denial and will often use "name calling" to disabuse them while expounding on the belief system of fantasy. Utopia is such a belief for it is based on fear of pain. Without the Shadow side of Pleasure, one could not see "the Light"side of Pleasure. Stated more mundanely: Without pain, one could'nt see what needs to be corrected.
Therefore, our own Survival thinking or self-conscious (animal mind), must be observed by the Real Person on this Path in order to expand self-conscious into the Higher Self/Real Person; which is a Psyche from the Collective Oneness and not of the divisionism and "comfort dreams" of the survival animal mind which worships "belief systems" (superstitions) but abhors "deed-systems", i.e. the diligent personal adventure of gathering the experience and/or Knowledge. The initiate knows that to travel the Path upward to Tiphareth (Christ light) is a "deed system". This is a Path that can only be successfully traveled by those who bring their Personalities into a balance with The Real Person and/or Lover "within"; a balancing of self-understanding and action, where we no longer look for blame or worship, as we experience the phantoms-of- emotional pain that we are creating and experiencing; or by entertaining ourselves with an extended comfortable denial fantasy where all is "Sunny", which many deluded people believe is this Path. Sorry folks, but "rain falls on the just and unjust alike". So get over it, and above it! In the Hermetic Qabalah, when one, looks within they "rise above" the "outside" world. For "within" is to ascend and to look outward is to descend from the Real Person to the personality.
Spirit is not a kind of Opiate that keeps us from seeing the self-surgery that must be done! The True Seeker, must keep in mind that the Universe is a Path of entry into the Astral (Yesod) and that the Astral "seeks to deceive", this is the fantasy place, were the many see or channel "ascended masters" from and the fallacy of worship has only changed colors. We came to make "As above, so below"; The Great Work, which simply states we came to "descend" Mastery. The Entire Tree of Life is your Real Person, often called "your spirit or Soul", and the common belief is to "seek Holy Spirit". How so? The Kether, the 1st Sephiroth, is Spirits first "I Will Be", and the last Sephiroth, Malkuth is "I AM Being" ....the two combined, combine the whole Divine Collective that is the "Tree of Life". Therefore, if you have a being "Here", you have one "There", therefore, YOU ALREADY ARE WHOLE SPIRIT! This doesn't take a lot of thought, because the Divine Creative obviously has devoted a lot of time (14 billion years) to creating a Physical Universe! Will to Form-the Divine Feminine and Will to Force, the Divine Masculine, have combined to build Us as "It's" Image, because The Divine Wishes "To Be!"...It was always "ascended" and has created self image in "higher and lower" frequency! As do we! I know this seems hard to get, for we came "down" the Tree of Life, and must reclaim our knowledge "left behind" because of psyche "down sizing". However, we, the Spiritual Adventures of "Here and There" Self, finally have the form we need, for the Hu (god in Mandarin)-Man (from Hindu Manas-Mind), has a brain that can store and sensually experience this information! Right now, according to medical experts, we are using only 7 to 10% of it at any moment and if we used it all at any time, it still is only 1% of our Intelligence! Remember, Malkuth is known as the 1% world. The Whole of your Intelligence is the Tree of Life.
In the Thoth Deck- Universe and on the traditional, World Tarot Card, we see the Four Alchemical Elements as different images of heads, or the tarot symbols, of cups, swords, wands, pentacles, surrounding the Oval-Womb (Will to Form) of the Great Mother which is both the entry point of Life and the exit of Death. Her fullest expression as Binah (Understanding) is represented as the female form "within" and is all principles that we perceive as matter and is shown in gematria (Qabalistic numerology) as 2+1+3, the number of the Sephira-Binah.
Creation in Time requires a beginning and an end to an event, otherwise form is not conceived. So the event of "Sun consciousness"-Tiphareth- Force down-pouring and uprising, must have a beginning a middle and an end. Therefore, Life processes run in waves, or spirals which come back upon themselves and this process is the nature of the Akashic Fluid of Yesod. This spiral force is directed by the passive and active energy flow, each of which is dual poled (male and female) and is shown on the Thoth card as "Lord Python", the vibrationary "first husband" which represents the Primary sexual forces of Nature that will be experienced on the Path of Tau.
The blue background of this card represents the Great Sea of The Divine Collective Un-Consciousness (Binah-Understanding & Chokmah-Sophia-Wisdom), as well as, the blue Kali, in its most dense and difficult expression.There are many currents here, and some lead to the Light and others to the darkness of self-delusion. We must really carry the perspective of, "Everyone I see is another way of being Me" on this path so that we don't form this Akashic Fluid into phantom "enemies" and "masters" that sink our "life" boat personality into an enslaved rower of "someone else's dream". This is the path of Self- Perspective-formed- images of Me, as done by the I AM.
Therefore, the proper study of the Paths (Major Arcana cards)in our Unconscious, is the ascending of Understanding up the Tree of Life, as we are "below" and need to remember the realms of Pure Spirit "above". The experiences on Earth, assist us in our goals of a more refined understanding of Universal patterns. Such as a microscope helps the biologist in a more refined understanding of cell- structure and bacterial earth manifestations, our physical body with its crystalline lenses of light,(the "I sight" of our senses), helps us see/reflect deeply into the microcosm, so that we better understand the macrocosm of the original "I".
As long as our Divine Consciousness is functioning though a physical vehicle, we can discern thought. This is where our serious esoteric work begins and ends.
Dr. Paul Foster Case, who wrote the text, The Thirty Two Paths to Wisdom (the number Thirty Two is the sum of the Paths and the Sephiroth) calls The Path of Tau (The Universe or The World card) the " Administrative Intelligence" because it "directs and associates in all seven planets." The "seven planets" he is referring to are the Microprosopus-Hexagram pattern of the seven planets on the Tree of Life that has Tiphareth as the Central Sun.
The Kingdom of Mind is all around you, but we don't see it. Jesus the Christ of Western mysteries, even stated this in the Gnostic Gospels of Didymos, Judas Thomas, paragraph 113, when he was quoted as saying, "... the Kingdom of the father is spread out upon the Earth , and men do not see it." What Hermetic Qabalist's know, is that the Father, Shin (Fire), lives within the Womb-with-a view and is her dancing partner, shown as Heru-Ra-Ha of Key 19-The Sun. "The Sun, Strength & Sight, Light : these are for the servants of the Star & the Snake." This is the final form of the image of the magical formula of God, combining and transforming so many symbols that description is difficult and migratory. Hence, long-continual meditation is recommended.
The Dancing Goddess of The Universe, or the Traditional-The World Tarot card, represents the Celebration of the Great Work accomplished; it is the "movement with in the Motion" of all energy. It is the "Aliveness" in all Living forms. It is the passionate dance rhythm of your intercourse with the Divine; your heart beat.
In the four corners, of oval or square, as mentioned before, are the Kerubim images, showing the established Universe. The Thoth Universe card shows about her is an ellipse composed of seventy-two circles for the quinaries of the Zodiac, know as the Shemhamphorasch. The skeletal plan (grid) of the building of the house of Matter, is shown at the lower center of the card. It shows the older 92 elemental table of known chemicals elements, arranged according to their rank in the hierarchy.
The central wheel of Light initiates the form of the Tree of Life as the ten principle bodies of the solar system: Visible only to the pure of heart. You'll find these principle bodies explained in the Book of Thoth, by Master Theron, on page 119. All the symbols on this card are shown dancing in complex swirls, whorls, loops, much like the atoms dance in the Stars. The back ground color of this card is the indigo of Saturn as the midnight sky, of which the Dancing Maiden is derived. From the Dark Womb of Energy, She is the issue of Living Light.
When The Universe or The World card is thrown during a reading:
- The querent is experiencing the matter itself.
- A synthesis of world and kingdom.
- The universe card usually denotes the actual subject of the question. This interpretation depends entirely on the accompanying cards, as they are the"stars in her heavens".
- This is a card of wholeness, where the querents whole world is balanced and the querent is building, in the next 21 weeks, new internal and external worlds----perspectives of wholeness.
- The querent may be experiencing a Universal principle of wholeness and is at one in consciousness,with all phenomena.
- There is exhibited within the querent an understanding of their "reason to be".
- The Universe Card usually denotes the actual subject of the question, therefore depending entirely on the surrounding cards.
Thank you for your interest, comments and supportive donations. May you live long and prosper!
