03-20-2012, 04:16 PM
Many thanks to Ankh for posting all those quotations. I appreciate the work that Tobey put into lawofone.info, but I always knew that the category "Tarot" was missing many useful quotes, especially quotes concerning the Choice. Ankh, you have remedied one of the greatest omissions of that website. How pleasing that we are able to balance each other so well.
In many Tarot circles, this is considered to be the case. The Fool is both the beginning and the end. We begin knowing nothing, and when we are finally possessed of wisdom, we discover that wisdom is only knowing that you know nothing. Since it is a unifying Archetype, I would say that the Choice's true location in the order of the cards is everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.
83.18
83.19
Though the word "veil" can be understood in many ways, I think a very useful way to interpret it is in reference to one of the three complexes. There is a different veiling in mind than in body, likewise for spirit.
It seems to me that the veiling of the mind veils the movements of body and spirit from the mind. The consequence of this is that the mind's projections concerning body and spirit are reflected in these very complexes. In other words, the body reflects the mind's veiled complexity back to it, and the spirit is blocked off from intelligent infinity based on the mind's unreadiness to reach out to it. It would stand to reason that if the blockages of the mind are addressed, the blockages of body and spirit will largely fall away. What else, for example, is a feeling of unworthiness (which is an indigo-ray blockage and thus of the spirit), but a belief that the self is of a poor quality as compared to the Creator? Changing the belief, changes the feeling.
How could there be any such thing as faith if all parameters are known? Only a Fool is capable of having faith.
The First Distortion is free-will. The Second Distortion is Logos. This entails that free-will actually precedes the existence of the Logoic mind. My interpretation of Session 13 is that the Primal Distortions of the Law of One do not change from Octave to Octave. They are the very basis of Creation.
Ra says that the springboard for 3D experience is not the first distortion, but the Law of Confusion (can't find the quote). My interpretation of this statement is that in our 3D microcosm, the Law of Confusion (i.e. the veils) is the reflection of the first distortion.
Julie, your consideration of contrast between light and dark following this quotation, "[The Choice is] helpful in sharpening the basic view of the Significator of Mind, Body, and Spirit and, further, throws into starker relief the Transformation and Great Way of Mind, Body, and Spirit complexes," inspired an idea in my mind.
The first four Archetypes of any given cycle operate and function without any great necessity for making the Choice. In other words, you will have mental, bodily and spiritual experiences, even if you continually flip-flop in the polarity of your approach. Perhaps you try to control someone one day, and then give out of the goodness of your heart the next. All of this is experience. However, until the Choice is made, no great progress occurs. In any cycle, the Transformation represents great progress. Therefore, the stark relief that the Choice provides to the Transformation and Great Way Archetypes is that new doors open to evolutionary motion once polarization takes a direction.
Let us remember that polarity is a potential. In electrical terms, the potential in a circuit is the amount of separation between negative and positive charges. If I am 50/50, it is as if I have no potential, because the charges in me are balanced. If I am 95/5, though, I have extreme potential and can yield great energy. Thus, without some degree of polarity, some build up of potential, it stands to reason that there is very little experience of the Transformation or Great Way.
Thank you for this reminder. I think I will put it in the Intro/ToC thread.
Ankh, your analysis is very good! I am deeply indebted to you for it, because this by far is the card I have spent the least amount of time with. Nevertheless, I shall take your invitation and provide my own.
The Sun is partially eclipsed by the Moon, which forms a Vesica Piscis or Sacred Mandorle (as Shin'Ar called it). This shape represents the place of intersection between two spheres of activity. It is only in 3D that there exists a deep admixture of both STO and STS biases, so this card is very much unique to 3D. As Ankh points out, the seeker will eventually choose whether to explore the eclipse or the Sun, thereby progressively shrinking the Mandorle created by the Sun and Moon. If I were to draw this card, I would switch the location of the Sun and Moon, so that as the Seeker walks toward his right-hand side, the Sun pulls further and further from the Moon.
I agree that the two bags signify polarity, as I think all sets of two things in the Archetypes do, no matter what those two things are. I also agree that the two bags represent the meager experiences of the self so-far. These experiences are meager because everything the Fool has can be placed in a couple of small bags thrown over the shoulder. We have so very little to based the Choice on.
The stick that holds the two bags is parallel to the fallen column, both of which are angled in favor of the left-hand path. This signifies to me that the experiences the seeker is likely to have and the terrain the seeker walks make the left-hand path the more tempting of the paths. This truth is evident by the statement "power corrupts".
The fact that the pillar is fallen tells me that there is no great monument of knowledge to which the seeker can turn for guidance. Guidance must be internal. Again, we have a symbol of faith.
Yet the crocodile guards the left-hand path. In ancient Egyptian mythology, a soul must undergo the test of Ma'at before entering into the after-life. In this test, the heart is weighed against the feather upon the head of Ma'at. If the heart is found to be heavier than a feather, it is fed to a crocodile and the soul is condemned. This gives the crocodile on the fallen pillar a two-fold interpretation: 1. The crocodile depicts the myriad dangers which lie along the path of the seeker (remember that the path is straight and narrow -- to deviate is dangerous in the sense that one may get lost), especially the seeker on the left-hand path; 2. The crocodile also depicts the commitment of the left-hand seeker to shutting off the heart energy.
I had no concept of the meaning of the walking stick prior to reading Ankh's post. I embrace this interpretation fully, though I'd also point out that it looks like a flower atop a stem to me.
The Fool steps forward into an ocean. On one level, this represents the dark depths of the left-hand path, as opposed to the brightness of the right-hand path. On another level, this represents that the next step is always a step into the unknown.
Finally, I do think that there is significance in the contents of the right and left hands. This significance may not relate to STO vs. STS polarization. The right hand is the hand of positive polarity and the left negative. This means that the right is always projecting and the left is always absorbing. Therefore, the seeker takes in his meager experiences, and based on the biases chosen with those experiences, navigates through the great unknown with only the tool of his own fashioning: his will and faith.
The Fool does not seem to see the crocodile. Indeed the crocodile seems to be hiding. This signifies the Law of Confusion to me.
The garments of the Fool seem to be skins. I am not sure what this means, but I do know that the garment is the protection afforded the Archetype. What is the significance of protection which is made of the skins of other beings?
The two crocs at the bottom seem to me to represent the sacrifice which must be made on the two paths. Something must be thrown to the croc, regardless of the direction you move. The right-hand path must throw the attachments of the ego to the croc, while the left-hand path must throw the weakness known as "love" to the croc.
plenum Wrote:Is the Fool Card in position 0 as well as 22?
In many Tarot circles, this is considered to be the case. The Fool is both the beginning and the end. We begin knowing nothing, and when we are finally possessed of wisdom, we discover that wisdom is only knowing that you know nothing. Since it is a unifying Archetype, I would say that the Choice's true location in the order of the cards is everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.
Conifer16 Wrote:Note Ra says veils. As in plural more then one. I thought that was interesting. Maybe there is a veil for the mind and for the body and spirit? What comes to mind when you read that?
83.18
Ra Wrote:The mechanism of the veiling between the conscious and unconscious portions of the mind was a declaration that the mind was complex. This, in turn, caused the body and the spirit to become complex.
83.19
Quote:Questioner: Would you give me an example of a complex activity of the body that we have now and how it was not complex prior to the veil?
Ra: I am Ra. Prior to the great experiment a mind/body/spirit was capable of controlling the pressure of blood in the veins, the beating of the organ you call the heart, the intensity of the sensation known to you as pain, and all the functions now understood to be involuntary or unconscious.
Though the word "veil" can be understood in many ways, I think a very useful way to interpret it is in reference to one of the three complexes. There is a different veiling in mind than in body, likewise for spirit.
It seems to me that the veiling of the mind veils the movements of body and spirit from the mind. The consequence of this is that the mind's projections concerning body and spirit are reflected in these very complexes. In other words, the body reflects the mind's veiled complexity back to it, and the spirit is blocked off from intelligent infinity based on the mind's unreadiness to reach out to it. It would stand to reason that if the blockages of the mind are addressed, the blockages of body and spirit will largely fall away. What else, for example, is a feeling of unworthiness (which is an indigo-ray blockage and thus of the spirit), but a belief that the self is of a poor quality as compared to the Creator? Changing the belief, changes the feeling.
kycahi Wrote:Just occurring to me are all of the fictional scenarios in which a poor fool must make a choice of importance without knowing enough parameters. Maybe that is unconscious(?) reference to the big 3D conundrum.
How could there be any such thing as faith if all parameters are known? Only a Fool is capable of having faith.
abstrktion Wrote:Our Logos, its own unique system, chose free will as the first distortion, as well as the veiling process.
The First Distortion is free-will. The Second Distortion is Logos. This entails that free-will actually precedes the existence of the Logoic mind. My interpretation of Session 13 is that the Primal Distortions of the Law of One do not change from Octave to Octave. They are the very basis of Creation.
Ra says that the springboard for 3D experience is not the first distortion, but the Law of Confusion (can't find the quote). My interpretation of this statement is that in our 3D microcosm, the Law of Confusion (i.e. the veils) is the reflection of the first distortion.
Julie, your consideration of contrast between light and dark following this quotation, "[The Choice is] helpful in sharpening the basic view of the Significator of Mind, Body, and Spirit and, further, throws into starker relief the Transformation and Great Way of Mind, Body, and Spirit complexes," inspired an idea in my mind.
The first four Archetypes of any given cycle operate and function without any great necessity for making the Choice. In other words, you will have mental, bodily and spiritual experiences, even if you continually flip-flop in the polarity of your approach. Perhaps you try to control someone one day, and then give out of the goodness of your heart the next. All of this is experience. However, until the Choice is made, no great progress occurs. In any cycle, the Transformation represents great progress. Therefore, the stark relief that the Choice provides to the Transformation and Great Way Archetypes is that new doors open to evolutionary motion once polarization takes a direction.
Let us remember that polarity is a potential. In electrical terms, the potential in a circuit is the amount of separation between negative and positive charges. If I am 50/50, it is as if I have no potential, because the charges in me are balanced. If I am 95/5, though, I have extreme potential and can yield great energy. Thus, without some degree of polarity, some build up of potential, it stands to reason that there is very little experience of the Transformation or Great Way.
abstrktion Wrote:Ra further asserts that they do not wish “to place before the consideration of any mind/body/spirit complex which seeks its evolution the palest tint of the idea that these images are anything but a resource for working in the area of the development of the faith and the will.”
Thank you for this reminder. I think I will put it in the Intro/ToC thread.
Ankh, your analysis is very good! I am deeply indebted to you for it, because this by far is the card I have spent the least amount of time with. Nevertheless, I shall take your invitation and provide my own.
The Sun is partially eclipsed by the Moon, which forms a Vesica Piscis or Sacred Mandorle (as Shin'Ar called it). This shape represents the place of intersection between two spheres of activity. It is only in 3D that there exists a deep admixture of both STO and STS biases, so this card is very much unique to 3D. As Ankh points out, the seeker will eventually choose whether to explore the eclipse or the Sun, thereby progressively shrinking the Mandorle created by the Sun and Moon. If I were to draw this card, I would switch the location of the Sun and Moon, so that as the Seeker walks toward his right-hand side, the Sun pulls further and further from the Moon.
I agree that the two bags signify polarity, as I think all sets of two things in the Archetypes do, no matter what those two things are. I also agree that the two bags represent the meager experiences of the self so-far. These experiences are meager because everything the Fool has can be placed in a couple of small bags thrown over the shoulder. We have so very little to based the Choice on.
The stick that holds the two bags is parallel to the fallen column, both of which are angled in favor of the left-hand path. This signifies to me that the experiences the seeker is likely to have and the terrain the seeker walks make the left-hand path the more tempting of the paths. This truth is evident by the statement "power corrupts".
The fact that the pillar is fallen tells me that there is no great monument of knowledge to which the seeker can turn for guidance. Guidance must be internal. Again, we have a symbol of faith.
Yet the crocodile guards the left-hand path. In ancient Egyptian mythology, a soul must undergo the test of Ma'at before entering into the after-life. In this test, the heart is weighed against the feather upon the head of Ma'at. If the heart is found to be heavier than a feather, it is fed to a crocodile and the soul is condemned. This gives the crocodile on the fallen pillar a two-fold interpretation: 1. The crocodile depicts the myriad dangers which lie along the path of the seeker (remember that the path is straight and narrow -- to deviate is dangerous in the sense that one may get lost), especially the seeker on the left-hand path; 2. The crocodile also depicts the commitment of the left-hand seeker to shutting off the heart energy.
I had no concept of the meaning of the walking stick prior to reading Ankh's post. I embrace this interpretation fully, though I'd also point out that it looks like a flower atop a stem to me.
The Fool steps forward into an ocean. On one level, this represents the dark depths of the left-hand path, as opposed to the brightness of the right-hand path. On another level, this represents that the next step is always a step into the unknown.
Finally, I do think that there is significance in the contents of the right and left hands. This significance may not relate to STO vs. STS polarization. The right hand is the hand of positive polarity and the left negative. This means that the right is always projecting and the left is always absorbing. Therefore, the seeker takes in his meager experiences, and based on the biases chosen with those experiences, navigates through the great unknown with only the tool of his own fashioning: his will and faith.
The Fool does not seem to see the crocodile. Indeed the crocodile seems to be hiding. This signifies the Law of Confusion to me.
The garments of the Fool seem to be skins. I am not sure what this means, but I do know that the garment is the protection afforded the Archetype. What is the significance of protection which is made of the skins of other beings?
The two crocs at the bottom seem to me to represent the sacrifice which must be made on the two paths. Something must be thrown to the croc, regardless of the direction you move. The right-hand path must throw the attachments of the ego to the croc, while the left-hand path must throw the weakness known as "love" to the croc.
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