Chapter XVI (part 5)

For instance, the 2nd NORTH א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ W 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 E E Juggler The High Priestess Empress Emperor Pope Lovers Chariot Justice Hermit The Wheel of Fortune Strength A S ש ת ר ק צ פ ע ס נ מ ל S T 0 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 T Foolish Man Universe Judgement Sun Moon Stars The Lightning-Struck Tower Devil Temperance Death The Hanged Man SOUTH arcanum (ב), the High Priestess, should not only be compared with the 1st arcanum (א), the Juggler, the 3rd, and 4th (ד), the Empress; but also with the 5th arcanum (ה), the Pope, with the 21st (ת), the Universe, and even with the 18th (צ), the Moon. By studying each of the twenty-two arcana in this way, we shall discover that the whole are closely linked together, and we shall acquire unexpected light upon the most ancient of all the sacred books which we possess. It should be noticed that the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th arcana represent a quaternary, to which a last group corresponds, formed of the 16th, 15th, 14th, and 13th arcana. We therefore have sixteen pentacles divided into four quaternaries, which give a definite general meaning. Six other pentacles are placed in pairs at the commencement, the centre, and the end of the double series of the arcana of the Tarot. These six arcana appear to frame the others, and this fact gives them great importance. Their signification is easily discovered by their mutual comparison, and the judicious application of the laws of analogy supplied by the keys of the Book of Thoth, as well as by those of the Eternal Book that Nature, symbolized under the form of Isis, holds half-opened in the 2nd arcanum (ב), the High-Priestess. But it is necessary to proceed methodically in these researches, by means of a progressive analysis starting from the whole, before we can grasp each arcanum separately, for each one must be carefully examined under the numerous aspects which it presents. When this work of dissection is once accomplished, the student must retrace his steps, and synthetically recompose the whole by a reverse operation. In applying these principles here, we must first repeat that the Tarot considered as a whole is pre-eminently the Sacred Book of occult initiation. Now we attain this initiation by two different paths, by one of which we develop the powers which we innately possess to their utmost extent; by the other we subdue ourselves, and thus attain a state of being which renders us susceptible to the action of the cosmic forces which surround us. Although these two methods differ completely, we can accomplish this great work by following either of them. This is the meaning of the Hermetic precept, "that the philosopher's stone can be prepared by the dry path or by the moist, by the red dye or by the white." Initiation, androgynous as a whole, is therefore subdivided into male and female. It is masculine from the 1st (א) to the 11th (כ) arcana, and becomes feminine in the arcana 21 (ת) to 12 (ל).