Dear Friend,

In this last lesson of the course it is appropriate to deal with last things, tofinish as best we can the things that were begun, and to say goodbye. This we will do.And though no doubt we will do it imperfectly, we are hopeful you will experience ameasure of satisfaction as the last page is turned and read, and the course is put away.

The last things of the world, and of tarot, in fact are things, separate things,bodies. From the perspective of tarot, bodies are embodiments, and that is all they are.They are incarnations, literally spirit become flesh.

Bodies are the final product of the creative act. The universe that we know, thephysical universe, is the aggregate of bodies and the forces that affect them.

The pentagram, the five-pointed star, is the body as the symbol of magic; ahead, two arms, two legs and a torso. Surrounded by the double circles of limitationand self-absorption, the human form as an image caught in a mirror, the pentagramundergoes a subtle transformation and becomes our familiar pentacle.

It could be said, without much fear of being wrong, that as a pentacle thepentagram is a star in its own drama. It is the body that registers pleasure and pain.It is the face that laughs and cries. It is the costume and mask worn by the Absolutein the Divine Comedy, the face and form of Everyone, played to endless perfection.

The pentagram, the star itself, is the Actor and the circles around it form thestage of this drama of the Four Worlds. The drama is completely convincing, as howcould it not be, since the pain and pleasure are utterly real and the tears and laughterare totally genuine. It is all so real, in fact, that the Actor Himself is lost in the partsHe plays. And She plays all the parts in the drama, and the parts are us.

© 1998, 2004 The Tarot SchoolNo part of this material may be reproduced without prior written permission.

Lesson Twelve

It is the function of Pentacles to be real; to be the real bodies not only of peoplebut of pencils and stars, of violins and cows, of lightning and viruses. It is the functionof Pentacles to be undeniable.

Race, culture, gender, age; condition, destiny, situation, circumstance; all theseare mutable. One can believe or not believe in their importance, their factual relevanceto each of our experiences of life. But no matter who we are or where we findourselves in the scheme of things, the bedrock of our self-awareness is our bodies.

Whatever can be said of mind, heart, and spirit, of elevated perception andrefined understanding, it is as bodies that we are certain we exist. The very samecertainty that in an earlier lesson we ascribed to the Absolute alone, the Absolutegives back to us as the unshakable conviction that we are our bodies.

It is in the body that the experience of the Absolute emerges. It is only in thebody that this can happen.

By itself, the body is aware but experiences nothing. Without the body, themind and heart and spirit experience, but without fruition. All of experience, allthe creative energy of the Absolute, bears fruit in the body. The body is the fruit.

But the body is the rampart of the kingdom of the Ego, and it is the task ofthe Ego to prevent at all costs the emergence of the Absolute. It is the function of theEgo to divide the indivisible Absolute by casting a circle in the Infinite, identifyingwith what is within that circle, and withdrawing from the rest. And when the circlehas been cast, a second circle is drawn around the first, creating an impassable barrierof ignorance, a fog of illusion, what in yoga is described as the ocean of maya.

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The greatest violin, the physical instrument, without the hand of the musicianis silent. The most talented hand without an instrument is silent. The greatest musicwithout an ear to hear it is silent. And all these—the instrument, the hand, and theear—by themselves are deaf and dumb. Music is only the way, and it is the only way,in which the hidden musician may be known.

But the musician is buried so deeply within the instrument, the hand and theear, that each experiences music as their own invention. The sound, and the silence,the music of the Absolute, are transmuted through all the stages we have described inprevious lessons into the musical intervals of sensation and of appetite.

These are the province of the last of the Four Worlds. Together they form thefilter for the experiences of mind, heart and spirit. Sensation and appetite are the rootsof alternating attraction and aversion, pleasure and pain, satiation and hunger. Thesepairs turn on themselves, revolving in the endless predictable cycles of the body, andin their turning they create the restlessness that fuels the processes of daily life. It isthis perpetual restlessness that puts everyone to sleep and gets them up again anddrives them through their days and nights. This is as true of worms and tigers as it isof people. The spinning two-sided coin of sensation and appetite is the engine thatproduces everything from anthills to skyscrapers, from killing to copulation.

But the engine of the living process becomes the drama of life only with theadvent of Ego. When the body, with its desires and fears, becomes the star encircledby its own stage, life becomes a story and acquires meaning. The “I” of the Absolutebecomes the “Me” of the individual as soon as the body is infused with identity. TheEgo draws its double circle around the body and lays claim to it. “This is me.”Thenceforth identity is personal, hermetically sealed within the pentacle. Thepersonality is born, and with it property, propriety and privacy, the hallmarks of theawareness of a separate existence. Me and You are seen as distinct. Our interests arenot the same. Me and You become Mine and Yours, and this distinction becomes analmost holy boundary that is defended to the death by humans everywhere and by allsorts of other creatures as well.

Because the Ego is made of the stuff of identity, and identity by its nature isAbsolute, it tends to expand in an attempt to encompass everything. It takespossession even of what it rejects. Phrases like “my” fear, “my” pain, “my” enemy,“my” unhappiness, are universal.

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But if one body, filled with one ego, were alone in the universe, it would bethe universe. It would be absolute. If there were two or a thousand or any number ofbodies in the universe, but there was only one ego among them, identity would stillbe absolute.

Only though the magic of separation, duplication and replication (through themagic of sex, in fact), does the Ego also become two, a thousand, or any number ofseparate egos, enough to go with all the bodies and create all the separate songs andstories. And thus is the musician hidden, over and over, in the splinteredmagnificence of a creation whose perfect melody he alone can hear.

We know this takes the study of Pentacles far from the usual key concepts ofmoney, health and practicality. But practical Pentacles, like all the suits, indeed likeall the symbols of tarot, is the mouth of a cave that leads to very deep places.

One method for reaching deep places of meaning within ourselves is calledContemplation. Through contemplation, words and images become guides to thosedepths and put us in contact with the voices of our deepest personal truth. Thetechnique is not a difficult one, and is useful beyond the scope of tarot.

Contemplation is listening. If one listens, one may find oneself suddenly andunexpectedly in the presence of one’s own truth. Any object or being of the realworld, any action or force of that world, may be the voice of truth and carry itsteaching. Truth, by its nature, can manifest through any force or form at any time.

The mind, by its nature, is contractive; it sets limits and boundaries. It tendsto pay attention, to focus, to concentrate, to define. The mind regards definition asknowledge. It knows what something is by what it is not.

Truth is in all forms and forces at all times, and so it cannot be defined. Thereis no container that can hold it. Yet every force and form expresses it.

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�

To experience truth one must be open. Whatever part of us is closed will beunable to have this experience. To be able to have even a small experience of truth, somepart of us must be open. If even a small part of us is open, we may open even morethrough practice and our experience of truth may grow. There are and always have beenhuman beings, great beings, who are completely open and experience truth completely.It is possible for anyone to open completely, and to become one of these beings.

Tarot can be a practice of opening.

It is the standard first question of tarot to ask, “What do the cards mean?” Themind is brought to bear to answer this question through definition. The more refinedand subtle the definition, the greater the knowledge seems to be. But the originalquestioner in us is frustrated because the more we attempt to know in this way, themore the subject dissolves in our grasp. Knowledge can become pulverized, sifted intoa fine powder, dissolved into a fluid, and finally, like a fluid, it eventually evaporatesuntil we are left with — what? The evaporation of knowledge can resemble truth.

But this is the hard way.

The images of tarot, like everything else, emanate truth. But it is their specifictask to do this. Their mysteriousness begs us to know them, it draws us deep withinthem, until we realize we are being drawn deep within ourselves. The knowledge oftarot becomes self-knowledge automatically.

The study of tarot can be the beginning of self-inquiry. Self-inquiry in timeopens us to our own truth, first the truth of who we are, then the truth of whateverything is. When that point is reached, we see our own truth in every force andform. Everything is our teacher; everything is us.

This can be accomplished by practice. tarot can become a series of practices.One such practice is Contemplation.

In contemplation, an idea or an image is presented to the awareness; it literallystands in the presence of the awareness. The mind does not focus, it does not try todefine. In fact, it goes the other way. It opens, giving up control and letting wisdombubble up from within. Words are then given to the mind like a gift, and these wordsevoke the wisdom, the teaching, of the object of contemplation.

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Contemplation opens a tunnel through the substance of the mind and the egoto the pool of wisdom in the heart.

Contemplation is listening, not thinking. It is open, not focused.

Let’s say we are contemplating the symbol of the Pentacle.

Do this:

Close your eyes and visualize a Pentacle. Don’t think about it, butbecome completely aware of it. Hold the Pentacle steadily in yourawareness. Don’t let your mind wander. Hold it until it begins to dissolveinto a thought or a message. Be aware of this thought or messagewithout chasing it.

This, too, will eventually dissolve and another thought or message willarise from a deeper place. Be aware as one level deepens into another.Remember the words and ideas that bubble up from within, so that whenyou open your eyes you are completely conscious of them.

Write down the messages that arise from your contemplation.

Through this practice, the solid real world dissolves into an experience of thetruth that created it, which is your truth also.

�The Pentacle in tarot is the symbol for the fourth of the four qabalistic worlds,

the world called Assiyah. Assiyah means “making” and is often translated as “action”and interpreted as “manifestation.” It is the world where, at long last, after the longdescent from pure spirit, something real finally happens. The world of Pentacles is theworld of doing—and this leads to a secret.

It is appropriate that at the very end of the course a secret should be revealed,since Pentacles in its final form is nothing less than a revelation. And here is oursecret, pretty but unsettling:

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From the first page of the course to this one, you have been led step by step into adense forest of meanings, viewpoints, interpretations, information and procedures,enough to overload the sturdiest mind with details and perspectives. All the waythrough this process, even as you were enjoying and struggling with it, you rested inthe faith that having led you into these woods we would lead you safely out again,the guided tour complete, everything in its place, your expectations satisfied.

Nay, not so, but far otherwise.

In this very last lesson there will be a bit less to read but much more to do,some of which will be very demanding. This will be one of the shorter lessons butalso, by far, the longest and hardest. We have led you, not through the forest but toits center. We will give you some last instructions and then let go of your hand andtemporarily vanish, leaving you for a time to find your way alone. If you are willing,this can be done. If you are lucky, you will never want to leave the forest again.

But whenever you wish, if you wish, you may simply wake up as from a dream,open your eyes, stretch, and watch the forest disappear. Then the entire course willbecome only words, as Wonderland finally became for Alice only a pack of cards.

The choice will be yours, and you will know when to make it.

Do this:

Extract from your deck the Court of Pentacles. Do a Close Examination,an Intuitive Interpretation, and, as you have learned how to do in thislesson, a Contemplation of each of these four cards.

When you have finished these three steps, do the research to find theattributions, traditional meanings, and the meanings of the visualimagery of each card.

You will probably need to do some additional reading, some thinking andquite a bit of writing to accomplish this. To give you a place to start, here are someuseful tips and pointers:

• The Astrological Attribution of the King is Taurus.• The Queen is Earth of Earth (Force = Earth, Form = Earth)

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• The black of the Knight’s horse is one of the colors attributed to the Elementof Earth and also refers to occult work as a force for change.

• The meadow and the plowed field in the landscape of the Page show theproductiveness of the Earth in both its natural and its cultivated states.

• Two aspects of the meaning of the King are ownership and completion.

• Two aspects of the meaning of the Queen are care and convention.

• Two aspects of the meaning of the Knight are evolutionary change andslow progress.

• Two aspects of the meaning of the Page are steady growth and themystery in ordinary things.

Extend each of these hints and pointers by finding their equivalents for eachof the cards.

Many books on tarot contain the astrological attributions, some contain theElemental Counterchanges, and nearly all of them give several meanings for eachcard. Use the books you already have, and if necessary, add a couple to your library.Three books you will find helpful are:

Qabalistic Tarot by Robert WangSeventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel PollackThe Western Mysteries by Alan Hulse

To this list, add at least one book on general symbolism. And re-read the course forhints on format, style, and types of content.

Remember as you read that different authors have different interpretations anduse different systems of attribution and correspondence. Sometimes you can regardthese differences as cumulative, each adding another piece to the complex puzzle ofmeaning. You can use many of them together, combining the partial views of eachauthor into a comprehensive view of your own. Where contradictions andirreconcilable differences do exist, feel free to use the ones you like and discard therest. The only requirement in making these choices is that whatever you finally comeup with be internally consistent.

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Perhaps you are an advanced student, already familiar with what is in therecommended books or ones like them. Feel free to do no reading at all if you cancomplete this exercise without references.

But however you do it, do it. Be careful and thorough, and enjoy the doingimmensely!

�Lesson Twelve is the end of the first part of a long journey. It brings you to the

first place on that journey, where, for a short distance, you are asked to find yourown way. This is a small but necessary test, because if you can’t do what is requiredhere, you can go no further on this path. That would be a shame, since the path getsmore interesting from this point forward.

Do this:

Prepare yourself, your space and your deck. Make this preparation athorough one, using the most complete version you have learned ofeach step in the process.

Then extract the Ace through 10 of Pentacles.

Make an Ordered Stack of these cards beginning with the Ace, as youlearned to do on page 5 of Lesson One. Beginning with the Ace and the2, do a Two-Step Journey through the ten numbered cards of Pentacles(Ace–2, 2–3, 3–4, etc.). See Lesson Five, pages 11–12 for this technique.

Do each Contemplation for the Two-Step Journey as you learned to doit in this lesson. Write down the message of each Contemplation as youcomplete it.

When you have finished the entire Journey, record your thoughts onhow it felt to perform this process, how your feelings changed fromstage to stage, any resistances or breakthroughs you experienced, andany other relevant comments. This record may be written or taped.

After you complete this assignment, take a few days off and forget tarot for awhile.

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Then do this:

Extract from your deck Key XXI – The World. Do the Four Steps, anddo them better than you have ever done before. Let your increasingknowledge and experience shine. Begin right now to become a star!

XXI - THE WORLDKarmic Interpretation:

Dance, act, make it happen. A propitious moment for bringing things to a happyconclusion. A good choice, of partner, school, job or career. The right time to makedecisions. Good times are just ahead. Fortune smiles.

Archetypal Interpretation:

The Anima, feminine creative energy. Maya the manifester. The image in the mirror,reflection of all that exists. Completion — all that was, is and will be. The magic dancerwhose steps and gestures are the proper description of all forms and proportions.

Believe in yourself. This is the right time. This is the right path. This is the right choice.Whatever you do will turn out well. Whatever you touch will turn to gold. The godsare with you. A state of grace.

Magickal Interpretation:

Attributions:

Name: The World – the last stage of the long road from the divine intention to itsmanifestation, the final journey into reality. The first steps of The Fool, which broughtsomething out of nothing, are transmuted into the last steps of the dancer, whosemovements become the visible universe.

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Key Number: 21 (Major #22)

Hebrew Letter: Tav (u)) – means Cross. This is the T-cross of suspension, of dangling,of surrender, of immersion. It is the same as the cross from which The Hanged Man ishung.

Astrological Attribution: Saturn – the name of the energy that draws a ring aroundcreation, and brings everything to its proper conclusion. Saturn is the energy of boththe womb, the birth of things, and the tomb, the end of things.

Function: Power/Servitude – Every force and every form in creation converge here togive their full power to the process of being. This power is infinitely creative anddestructive, so vast and complete that it cannot be opposed or denied. It must be servedfaithfully to the end. The dream of life must be experienced to the full, in all itspossibilities, before release from the service to reality can begin.

Path #: 32 – Yesod (#9) to Malkuth (#10), Foundation to Sovereignty. The experienceof the journey from the shadows of the astral plane into the darkest night. At thefarthest end of this path the dream of reality, the divine drama, begins. When the playis finished, this is the path of the first awakening into mystery.

Intelligence: Administrative – this is the very center of the Cube of Space, the pointwhere the three dimensions cross, where the three elements of Fire, Water and Air meetto create the Earth with their mingling. It is at this point that the seven planets, all thepowers and possibilities of consciousness, are equidistant, and from which they can allbe entered and experienced to the full.

Direction on the Cube of Space: Center – the intersection of the three dimensions ofAbove and Below, East and West, South and North. This is the exact center ofconsciousness.

Esoteric Title: The Great One of the Night of Time

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Imagery:

The figures in the four corners are:

Angel (upper left) – Aquarius, Fixed AirEagle (upper right) – Scorpio, Fixed WaterLion (lower right) – Leo, Fixed FireBull (lower left) – Taurus, Fixed Earth

The elements, the worlds, the letters of the Tetragrammaton, and the four suits.

TheWoman in the center is Spirit, the alchemical Anima Mundi, the uppermost pointof the pentagram. She guides, organizes and animates the energies of the four corners,which are the fixed signs, or anchors, of the zodiac, the four directions and the fourelements. Hence the quality of Administrative Intelligence. She is the final expressionof the Great Mother, Binah. She is Saturn, symbol of Time. She is the doorwaythrough which Spirit enters at birth to become Matter and through which it passesagain at death on the journey of return. She is the doorway to and from Malkuth. Herpurple sash is the color of Yesod, the lower astral world which is the first step on thepath of spiritual awakening.

The Wreath is the symbol of the womb of the female through which the child mustpass at birth, and the tomb through which the soul must pass at death. The redlemniscates at the bottom and top of the wreath symbolize the eternity from which weemerge and to which we return. The green oval between them is the world of time andevents. It is woven of 72 lemniscates, symbol of the 72 names of God.

The TwoWands direct the currents of Mercy and Severity that flow through the rightand left pillars on the Tree of Life, between and below which the drama of creationassumes its final form.

The Crossed Legs symbolize the four letters of the Tetragrammaton and all thatdescends from them.

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Transcendent Interpretation:

It is said that in the beginning God was alone. But then He had a thought: “Let Mebecome many.” Because God could not act out His drama by Himself, for His ownpleasure He became many, assuming all the strange and unique forms in the universe.

This creation is God’s ceaseless play, Her unique drama, which She performs for Herown amusement. It is an enchanting piece of magic, and it is real.

It is the final function of Pentacles to anchor identity in the body and tolimit identity to the awareness and experiences of individual bodies. In this way, theawareness of an individual body becomes the awareness of a personal self, and theexperiences of that body form a personal history and a personal drama. It is possiblethat “individuality” and “personality” in some form can be found in all the separateparts of the physical universe if one only knows how to look. But we have more thanenough to do to explore human personality in the context of tarot.

The single most elaborate technique developed in these lessons has been theCourt Card Array. In Lesson Nine, we describe the vision of the personality seenthrough the array as a unicorn, so complex and elusive that we could give onlyglimpses of it. Here is yet another glimpse of that fabulous beast, a vision that willrequire more of you than anything else you have done in this course.

Do this:

• Review Lesson Three, pages 19–20.

• Then review Lesson Six, pages 26–28.

• Finally, review Lesson Nine, pages 19-23. Then review your noteson your own four Individual Court Arrays, written while you werestudying Lesson Nine.

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• Extract all 16 Court Cards from your deck and separate them intocourts, exactly as you previously did in Lesson Nine. Make arrays ofeach of the courts and then turn them face-down with the most likedcard of each court on top.

• Extract the 4 Aces from your deck. Using the technique you learnedin Lesson Three, pages 19–20, create an array with the four Aces. Becareful to follow the directions for creating an array exactly as they aregiven. Record this array at the top of a blank piece of paper. The arrayof the four Aces is called the Elemental Array.

• When you have done this, take just the top (most liked) card fromeach of the face-down courts; keep these four cards face-down, shufflethem, and then create an array with them, following the proper procedure.These four cards are called the Preferred Persons.

• Arrange the Preferred Persons in a vertical rather than a horizontalline, with the most-liked card at the top and the least-liked at thebottom. Separate any disliked cards from the rest by a small gap in thevertical line. Here are three examples of a Preferred Persons Array:

1 2 3

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• Record this array just below, and in line with, the most-liked card ofyour Elemental Array. Example:

• Now, from each Preferred Person, extend the remaining cards of thatcourt in order of preference as you previously chose it, i.e., all theWands Court Cards, in order of preference, from the preferred Wandsperson; all the Pentacles Court Cards, in order, from the preferredPentacles person, etc. What will result is an arrangement of your fourIndividual Court Arrays, in order of preference, directly below theElemental Array. Example:

Together, these 20 cards form a complete Personality Array.

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Elemental Array �(The Four Aces)

Four Courts Array �(The 16 Court Cards)

Elemental Array �(The Four Aces)

Preferred Persons Array �

This is the body of the Unicorn, made of dancing patterns of preference,patterns made of elusive symbols, symbols expressing shades and colors of meaning, andtogether presenting a picture whose apparent angularity conceals a large portion of allthe nuances and richness of human personality.

But to see something is not the same thing as knowing what you see. Let’slook at this small rectangle made of patterns and symbols and begin to get a feel forits mysteries.

Do this:

Review Lesson Nine, pages 1–2 and 19. Then re-read Lesson Six, pages5 and 26–28.

When you have done this, write an analysis of your own ElementalArray, using everything you have learned about the four suitsthroughout the course.

This array is very subtle and can be interpreted in several ways. But at thisstage, it is best to treat it very much the same way as you would anIndividual Court Array, by combining the meanings of the cards with thesignificance of the four positions, as you learned to do in Lesson Nine.

When you have analyzed the Elemental Array by itself, consider all thedifferent parts of your complete Personality Array together. Each separatearray (Elemental, Preferred Persons, Individual Courts and Four-Courts)is a separate level of personality.

When changes occur in the order of preference of the elements from levelto level, proportional changes in personality development are indicated.

For an example of a Personality Array containing such changes, see thediagram on the next page.

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LEGEND

Suits: c = cups p = pentacles w = wands s = swords

Ranks: P = Page N = Knight Q = Queen K = King

Example Combinations: Qc = Queen of Cups Nw = Knight of Wands

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p c w s

Pc Qc Kc Nc

Qp Kp Pp Np

Qs Ks Ps Ns

Qw Pw Kw Nw

Sample Personality Array

In the example, there are significant changes from level to level:

• In the Elemental Array the most liked suit is Pentacles. The Page, which isthe rank associated with the Element of Water and the Suit of Cups, is the mostPreferred Person. This changes the emphasis from Pentacles in the Elemental Array toCups on the level of the Preferred Persons Array.

Note: You will remember that each rank has two attributions, one for the practicaljourney of emergence and one for the spiritual journey of return. In analyzing thePersonality Array, we use the emergent attributions, since the array tracks theemergence of a personality from level to level.

• The Queen is the second most Preferred Person, and as the rank associatedwith Pentacles, establishes the switch between Pentacles and Cups from the level ofthe Elemental Array to the Preferred Persons Array.

• In the Elemental Array the most liked suit is Pentacles, with Cups beingsecond. In the Four-Courts Array, Cups and Pentacles switch places. This bears outand confirms that same switch on the level of the Preferred Persons, and firmlyestablishes the change in preference and orientation as the personality develops.

• In the Elemental Array, all the suits are liked. But in the Preferred PersonsArray, the last person is disliked.

• In the Elemental Array, Swords is the least liked suit. In the Four-CourtsArray, Swords is still least liked, although it now occupies the third position, butWands has dropped below it into fourth position and become actively disliked. It isinteresting to note that the Knight, which is associated with the Suit of Wands, iseither least liked or disliked in all the courts. Also note that the intensity of dislike inthe Court of Wands extends to include the King.

Note any changes in the order of preference from level to level of yourown Personality Array. The benchmark is the order of the four suits. YourElemental Array will be close to the pure predilection you were born with thatexisted prior to any influence from the objective world. It is either your original, ora variation of your original, style of perception. This is the way you would see andrespond to the world were there no modifying influences from teachers or experience.

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Next, look at your Preferred Persons. How closely do they correspond toyour preferences of suit? Remember that each rank corresponds to a suit —Knightto Wands, Queen to Pentacles, King to Swords, and Page to Cups.

Your order of Preferred Persons shows the first steps your personality has takentowards a separation of self from world. The greater the difference between yourElemental and Preferred Persons Arrays, the greater and more intense your separationfrom the world, the more distinct your burgeoning sense of self, and the more that selfis imbued with a sense of uncertainty. The more similar the order of the two arrays,the less distinct self is from world, the more your inner and outer worlds correspondand the more your opinions and responses feel to you like intuitive truth.

Then look at your Four-Court Array and note how similar or different thatorder is from the order of your Preferred Persons and Four Suits.

The order of preference of the four courts shows the consistency or lack of itin the development of personality to a more concrete level. On this level, you’llbegin for the first time to be conscious of your general tendencies, of your patternsof attraction and aversion, reaction and response. Awareness, at this level, begins toreplace the instinct and reflex of your earlier levels. You begin to know who you are.

The more closely the order of preference of the Four-Courts Array followsthe order of the previous levels, the easier and smoother the transition is from a pre-conscious, instinctual being to a conscious presence. Personal confidence, the abilityto trust, and to generate trust in others, is partly due to consistency of developmentfrom level to level. A lack of such consistency breeds general uncertainty and aninability to accurately judge situations and people.

The greater the consistency from level to level, the more the personality isgenerated from within, the more automatically comfortable it is with itself and theworld, and the more it marches to its own drummer.

The less there is of this consistency, the more the personality is formed byexternal influences. When these influences are painful ones, the less comfortable thepersonality is with itself and the world, and the more importance it gives to thedemands of that world. If these influences are experienced as positive, they move thepersonality to grow and expand, and its comfort with itself and the world increases.

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As you can see, a full understanding of the complete Personality Arraybecomes a complex and delicate task, and we know it is difficult to grasp even inconcept, let alone in its applications. You will not be surprised when we tell you thatwe can’t explain all of it now. But we can take an interesting step in the rightdirection.

We’ll begin with a premise, viz., that some broad aspects of personality arrivewith us when we are born, and change very slowly and gradually over a lifetime, ifthey change at all.

This level of personality is revealed in the symbolism of the Elemental Array,which describes our most basic predilections, the tendency each of us has to preferand choose one style of response over all others in typical situations. Because it issteady and long-lasting, we call this level durable.

A second premise is that the broad, durable qualities of the Elemental Arraybecome more detailed, specific and volatile as we look at them more closely. Eachseparate element in the array evolves into an array of its own, made of smaller andsmaller bits of itself. As you know, the elements are associated with the suits and arerepresented by the Aces of the suits. But each element wears four different faces, andthose faces are the Court Cards of its suit.

The Court Card ranks divide among them the qualities of each suit andelement. These qualities are not only more numerous, but they also move and changemore quickly than the elements from which they derive. Because of this, the CourtCard Array is called mutable, or changeable.

After the suits have been arranged into an Elemental Array, the court of eachsuit is arranged in an array of its own. The order of preference of the most likedpersons of each court becomes the Preferred Persons Array, and then the fourindividual courts are organized into an array of courts. The final form of thisevolution is called the Complete Personality Array. In essence, it is the expandedversion and completed implication of the Elemental Array from which it all springs.It describes activity on several levels of personality, and the relationship betweenthose levels as well.

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So we have arrived at the Complete Personality Array by moving step by stepfrom the elements to the courts to the persons and back to the courts again. Eachstep in this process can be interpreted in its own right. Each level tells a subtle andinteresting tale. And together, they paint the portrait of an entire personality inglowing symbolic colors. But to get the full sense and texture of this masterfulportrait, the spaces between the various arrays need their own interpretation.

And that brings us to our third premise, the final one we need to do the workof this lesson. As the portrait of a personality descends level by level from the broadstrokes of the Elemental Array to the refined detail of the Court Card Array, it tendsto remain inwardly consistent unless an external energy intervenes to change it. Theoriginal order of preference of the elements tends to repeat itself on each succeedinglevel.

When it does not, we can be sure that something important and unexpectedhas happened. The greater the difference in the elemental order from array to array,the more of an impact outside events have had on the development of the completepersonality.

This portion only of the entire process must be the limit of our discussion atthis point, since there is neither time nor space here for any more. But this little bit,we think, is thought-provoking and challenging enough.

In Lesson Nine, you wrote a description of the meaning of the IndividualCourt Arrays you created at that time. Now describe in writing at leastsome of the implications of the differences in order of preference fromlevel to level in your own Complete Personality Array, the body of theunicorn that is you.

When you have done this, create a Complete Personality Array foranother person, preferably someone you know well and can talk tocomfortably. Slowly, over time, write down your observations of whatthis array tells you about your subject. Be thorough. Ask your subjectto validate or correct your observations as a reality check. When youhave done all you can to understand this array, write up your notes infinished form as a Personality Study. Include any questions or confusionsthat arise in the process.

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Next, imagine that someone else had chosen your Personality Arrayexactly as you did in all respects, but had made one different choice inthe order of Preferred Persons, thus changing the order of the FourCourts. Describe the difference this would make in the personality ofthe subject.

Be aware that any change in the order of any array at any level creates aproportional change in the personality being described. This leads to a dizzyingvariety of individuals and types, and is still by no means all there is to consider.But we have done all we can for now. We have done enough and more than enough.

Let’s conclude the lesson and the course by taking a last, different, look atPentacles.

Do this:

Sit in a room—any room—with pen and paper. Begin to list everythingyou observe; every object and every part of every object; every energy andevery variation in those energies. Use all your senses. Do not leave theroom until you have done your best to make an exhaustive list ofeverything it contains. Include yourself in the list, with all yourobservable parts and energies.

At another time, sit outside with your notebook and pen, somewhereyou won’t be disturbed. List every object and part of an object, everyenergy and variation of energy, all around you, above you and belowyou, without moving from that spot. Be as thorough as you can.

This exercise may begin to give you an added respect for the wealth of the worldof Pentacles. If you did it right, you could spend the rest of your life in one placewithout being able to complete the list. We don’t expect you to do that, but we doexpect an actual written list. See how thorough you can be, and note how long it takes.

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When you have done this, you will have partially described only one spotamong an infinite number of spots from which you could have observed the world.And this world is only one among several.

The study of tarot is a study of all these worlds. The course is a study of tarot,which has now come to an end in its present form and awaits its true beginning.

Bright blessings,

Ruth Ann & Wald

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