Random Archetype Insights

[Unbound]

The symbolic nature of archetypes makes it so there will always be many interpretations and I think that is normal and good for the gestalts of reality.

All I can think is: When the moon hits the sky, like a big ol' pizza pie, that's amore...

[Adonai One]

I just wish more people would come up with clear single word interpretations. Especially ones that contradict mine.

We need it to get more people into this stuff.

[Jade]

Moon:
Polarity
Duality
Veiled

I admire your desire to delve into the archetypes, Adonai. I've been interested in the Tarot long before Ra, but he makes serious study of it sound so... heavy and tedious. Very few ways of learning that he offers sound so daunting to me.

I do tend to agree that "Love" is a fairly broad term to give to one card. I think it's good to find Love in every archetype, however to define it as love I think is nonspecific. However, I do not deny your right to resonate your own definition of Love most strongly with arcanum 18.

[Adonai One]

How do you think The Emperor and The Enchantress link up to just polarity in such a way?

Hows does The Star create The Moon in such a way?

The cards link to each other. But I see where everyone is coming from.

[Unbound]

If I were to give the moon a single word it would be Reflection.

[Adonai One]

[Unbound]

My tablet doesn't view embedded videos.

[Spaced]

Ooh I like reflection.

[Adonai One]

My tablet doesn't view embedded videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...6P4G55GUsg

There you go.

---

I feel your love, reflection
In your eyes as they gaze back into mine
Writing a distant, neverending story

[ChickenInSpace]

Reflection better describes what I tried to argue for at first =D. I'll use that too, thanks ^^.

[Adonai One]

I agree with it but I still find it to be an abstraction of the core experience. However, it's correct despite how abstract it is.

Just consider The Choice.

[Unbound]

Well my other choice of a name would be the Mirror.

[michael430]

[deleted]

[Adonai One]

The STO "path" would be a sense of freedom and leisure in its Significator.


When does Ra pair The Significator with The Choice?

[michael430]

[deleted]

[Adonai One]

All of the mind is within The Matrix but its concept is far more, shall I say, macrocosmic in my perception. The Matrix goes far deeper in its concept and includes The Significator itself.

Indeed, it seems The Significator makes the concept of The Choice very clear. I now see.

I agree The Significator is what makes complexity possible within any given understanding.

[michael430]

[deleted]

[Adonai One]

Sometimes our totality likes to take careful notes.

[Unbound]

Moderator Note: This post and the 9 that follow it were originally part of a conversation that began with Adonai One's suggestion that the Choice, the Fool, ought to carry a sword.

What gives you that impression?

Something tells me you should read The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler.

[Adonai One]

What would a sword be used against in this card?

[Unbound]

I've never understood a fool to need a sword, it is counter to the very innocence represented by the fool. You would perhaps give a sword if there was the intention of the negative philosophy of control of the experience through power, but I understand the fool to first be purely accepting of what experience comes, with the other cards denoting "what to do with it".

[Adonai One]

You understand the nature of The Fool without polarity and, shall I say, this theoretical sword does not necessarily connote polarity either. Is a sword with an intent for peace and surivival necessarily controlling?

Another potential secret: This card (Transformation of the Spirit), in my belief, was originally in a different configuration: The trumpet on the left and the casket on the right. Somebody had chosen to flip it horizontally.

[Unbound]

Yes, it is still for control even if for peace and survival because it would not be through faith that peace and survival are ascertained, with faith being the real trademark of the fool.

It appears to me that you are merely reconfiguring these cards to suit your own attachment to the Left. You appear to do this with a lot of things that are first shown as according to the Right.

[Adonai One]

While faith is humble does it not, at times, include the will, a hope for finality? Would a sword serve use here without polarity?

Perhaps I am. However, I believe even if these potential constructs are fiction, they may serve some use towards learning.

[Unbound]

Why does will denote finality? The will is a dynamic force, so I cannot conceive finality as being part of its nature. Finality is connected to decision, the making of the choice. However, I do not believe the fool is actually capable of making that choice, the decision, but rather represents the actual state of having choices, whereas the other archetypes are called upon when the actual decisions are made. This is also why the fool is often depicted as one who is on a journey or wandering, imo. The fool could carry a sword, perhaps, to denote willingness to grasp the will, but as such would not have much skill in wielding it, it would need to be in a passive mode. The fool is a fool, and likely such apparently wise insight as to future possibilities would be overshadowed by complete faith, so it remains in my thoughts as unnecessary or controlling as it denotes a preset response to catalyst which would bias the pure nature of choice which the fool represents.

Sure, by all means you could do the same with all the cards and you may learn something, but that depends what you are trying to learn.

[Adonai One]

You are perceptive.

The following has come to me: When does the will connote a larger expression for the respect and faith it has in the present experience? When does it begin to serve the fool in its foolishness?

[Unbound]

The placement of the will can be seen by the carrying of the pack. The will is being used by the fool to carry the burden of its experiences which is all that it owns and carries with it as it travels endlessly towards new choice and experience. This represents the collective form of experiences which are available as tools to be used by the fool when it becomes the other archetypes, but in the form of the pure fool itself the will is occupied with the carrying of every part of the self towards the next experience of choice. Thus, the fool represents not just faith, but as I said the willingness to grasp the will. It is not that the will does not serve the fool, it is that the will is held in potential to be kept for use when it is needed through the other archetypes.

There is an added lesson here that if a fool carries with him a pack that is too large it will become an inconvenient hindrance, once again stressing the place of faith in the symbolism of the fool.

---

Also, I would mention that in this card, like multiple others, the figure is depicted with front facing us. Thus, when the left side of the card is referred to it is actually referencing the right hand of the figure. There is, I believe, a profound Kabbalic secret lying therein in that the hands of man and god are reversed. The Right Hand of God is the Left Hand of Man, while the Left Hand of God is the Right Hand of Man. This is also reflected in biology by the hemispheres of the brain controlling opposing halves of the body.

[Adonai One]

My teachers have just informed me that the archetypal mind can be understood in either fashion: The left-hand as the right-hand and the right-hand as the left-hand.

With this said, there are many interesting things to be found in reversing the relationships that I will now consider.

[Unbound]

To begin to master the concept of mental discipline it is necessary to examine the self. The polarity of your dimension must be internalized. Where you find patience within your mind you must consciously find the corresponding impatience and vice versa. Each thought that a being has, has in its turn an antithesis. The disciplines of the mind involve, first of all, identifying both those things of which you approve and those things of which you disapprove within yourself, and then balancing each and every positive and negative charge with its equal. The mind contains all things. Therefore, you must discover this completeness within yourself.

[JustLikeYou]

(Moved here from a different thread.)

Although numbered 1-22 and given linear positions in cycles of 7, the archetypes are not to be thought of as a sequence. They have interlocking parts which fit together in a complex, multi-dimensional way. Suggesting that the potentiator comes last or the significator first is analogous to suggesting that the steering wheel belongs in front of the engine. It fails to appreciate that the system is not linear. The delivery of the system in a linear fashion is a matter of convenience. While one may trace, flow-chart style, paths of energy flow in a car, it is not accurate to say that any one part comes "first" without explaining what you mean by "first". First from the persepective of the driver as a cause? First in the car's electrical circuit? First in the flow of gasoline? First in order of importance?