the inner zodiac

8/14/2019 The Inner Zodiac

1/18by Michael Tsarion


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Tarot, Astrology, Kabala and Nu-merology are sister disciplines.They are notmeant to be considered, studied, taught, or prac-ticed separately, as is all too common today. Thosewho would practice esoterically must combine anduse the four Arts together. However, the exact man-ner in which this is to be done has not been of cen-

tral concern to the vast majority of exoteric practi-tioners, New-Age dabblers, or so-called expertsof the ancient Hermetic and Gnostic canon. Theglue, so to speak, that holds the four great Artstogether has been ignored and forgotten. It has,fortunately, been re-discovered and advanced inthe Taroscopic System , which synthesizes them all,as the Tarots Major Arcana, through its imageryand numerology, instructs us to do. In this regard,the Taroscopic System signals a major revision ofwhat we presently know about the Hermetic Arts

of Divination. Of the many differences between Ta-roscopic and conventional Astrology, that of greatestimport concerns the Inner Zodiac.

Contrary to what is believed by exotericpractitioners of this ancient art, the zodiac is notan external phenomenon but is, rather, an innerpsychic apparatus. It is an inherent attribute of theindividual and collective psyche, an encodation inthe genes, an eidetic image within our Race Memo-ry, and an archetype projected by consciousness. Itis, therefore, utter folly to presume the zodiac to be

purely external in origin. Thinking of the zodiac inthis way is comparable to thinking that trees standwithout roots or that skyscrapers tower withoutsubterranean foundations. It is this egregious errorthat handicaps practitioners, believers, and inter-ested students, and which prevents the true andfascinating story of astrology from being told.

A mans destiny, they say, is written in the stars.All hell ever do, all hell ever love, all hell ever be Ifthis be true, as I now suppose it must, only one ques-tion remains: who does the writing? - (Introduction:The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, CurtisSignature Collection)

The story of astrology is truly magical sinceit contains the secrets pertaining to the mind/bodysplit and the I versus Thou dichotomy. Itreveals the secrets concerning the umbilical con-nection between psychic and physical energy andbetween microcosm and macrocosm.

...astrology represents the summation of all thepsychological knowledge of antiquity - Carl GustavJung

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Whether the origin of the zodiac is Aryan or Egyptian, it is stillof immense antiquity. Simplicius (sixth century AD) writes that hehad always heard that the Egyptians had kept astronomical observa-tions and records for at least 630,000 years...Diogenes Laertius carriedback the astronomical calculations of the Egyptians to 48,863 years beforeAlexander the Great. Maritanus Capella corroborates the same by tellingposterity that the Egyptians had secretly studied astronomy for over 40,000years before they imparted their knowledge to the world - J. Lewis (Astron-omy of the Ancients)

The Celtic Druids, Egyptian Magi, Native American Shaman, andmembers of the Lunar and Stellar Cults of the world understood the subtlerelationships between noetic processes and physical events. They knew ofthe implicate order and that consciousness is capable of causing matterto alter its nature. As the supplanting Solar and Saturnian Cults rose topower two changes occurred which had very negative consequences.

Firstly, the sun replaced the stars as the dominant principle of astrol-ogy; and secondly the ego became the center, or prime executor, ofhuman waking consciousness. Consequently, as a result of theseshifts in conception and psychology, the pristine precepts ofastrological divination were ignored. The knowledge of theInner Zodiac was lost and replaced by the preposteroustheory which deems rocks oating in space to affect hu-man consciousness and destiny.

This magic-rays nonsense contin-ues to be deemed accurate today. The

prevalence of the false idea en-


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sures that sane scientically minded men of the world remain contemptu-ously dismissive of the sacred arts. Such men turn away from the arcanesciences which might otherwise receive their positive attention andcuriosity.

The word zodiac (from the Greek zoon) means livingcreatures or living beings emphasizing the fact that the truezodiac is within. If the signs of the zodiac are discovered tobe out-there in the heavens, then they get there by wayof human consciousness, by the psyches strange butscientically acknowledged capacities for projectionand ination. In short, the round of the zodiac, thefamous horoscope of twelve signs, exist above usas a omni-directional, cinema-like projection ofthe inherent twelve-fold plastic matrix thatsub-divides the Collective Unconscious.As the twelve disciples of Jesus representaspects of his own consciousness, so dothe twelve celestial signs of the zodiacrepresent the twelve archetypal

facets of our own being.Know that the philosopherhas power over the stars, and notthe stars over him - ParacelsusIt is an erroneous interpreta-tion of astrology to opinethat special forces emanatefrom the planets and thestars - R. A. Schwallerde Lubicz (SacredScience)

The collectiveunconsciousappears toconsist of


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mythological motifs orprimordial images, forwhich reason the mythsof all nations are itsreal exponents. In factthe whole of mythologycould be taken as a sortof projection of the col-ective unconscious. We

can see this most clearlyf we look at the heavenly

constellations, whoseoriginally chaotic formsare organized throughthe projection of im-ages. This explains thenuence of the stars as

asserted by astrologers.These inuences arenothing but unconscious

ntrospective perceptionsof the collective uncon-scious- Carl Jung

As we all knowscience began with thestars, and mankinddiscovered in them thedominants of the uncon-scious, the gods, aswell as the curious psy-chological qualities of theZodiac: a complete projectedtheory of human character Carl Jung

The idea is to demonstratethat the zodiac is an archetype, notonly within the collective unconscious,but within the fabric of reality itself...as a ground planof creation. This archetype has not been invented. It ex-sts, and knowledge of it has been developed in step with

evolving human consciousness - Denis ElwellIt is beyond question that the great ancient

design of the zodiac is a wondrously conceived graphaimed to depict the structure of the Logos, the patternor creative evolution, the essential constitution of theuniverse and the course of the current of life in thecosmos, and by analogy in man the microcosmic replicaof the macrocosm...Man...was to fashion his new bodyof spiritual glory after the pattern of the heavens, theframe of the heavenly or zodiacal man, the primal Adam Alvin Boyd Kuhn

Of the four great Divination Arts, the Tarot isthe most important and dynamic. It alone makesuse of a rich palate of archetypal images, whichresonate strongly with the deeper layers anddimensions of consciousness, and which, likemandalas or sacred yantras, serve as iconic guideson the road to self-realization and personal em-powerment. The Tarot is, however, one of the most

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misunderstood and misapplied of the ancient Arts, andhas suffered much desecration under the hands of exo-tericists and New-Age charlatans.

...the Alphabet of Thoth can be dimly traced in themodern Tarot which can be had at almost every bookseller inParis. As for it being understood or utilized, the many fortune-tellers in Paris, who make a professional living by it, are sad

specimens of failures of attempts at reading, let alone correctlyinterpreting the symbolism of the Tarot without a preliminaryphilosophical study of the Science - Madame Helena Petro-vna Blavatsky

The medieval packs are hopelessly corrupt or otherwisefar from presenting the Ancient Truth of the Book in a coher-ent system or shape of lucid beauty - Aleister Crowley (TheBook of Thoth)

The Gnostics know and teach that we are eachour own priests and priestesses. When two plus twoequal one, said the Pythagoreans, it is then that the true


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Christ will be born within you. Now, interest-ingly, the rst card in the Major Arcana of theTarot - the Magician, happens to depict a HermeticMagi (Initiator) who is in the very process of unit-ing fourness into oneness. The Four are represent-ed by a Wand, a Cup, a Sword and a Disk, whichsit upon his strange three-legged table. These ob-jects represent the four elements (Fire, Water, Airand Earth), the four suits of the Tarot, and the fourmodalities of consciousness (Intellect, Emotion,Sensation, and Intuition). And they also representthe four sister Divination disciplines which also re-quire unication. In fact, one may argue that if thetools are not rst unied how can consciousness,which depends upon them for its individuation,actualze that rare state.

When thou hast made the quadrangle round,

Then is all the secret found - George Ripley (Alchemist, 1490)

the Kabalists hold that these four principlespenetrate and create everything. Therefore, when theman nds these four principles in things and phenomena of quite different categories (where before he had seen similarity), he begins to see analogy between thephenomena. And, gradually, he becomes convinced ththe whole world is built according to one and the samlaw, on one and the same plan. The richness and growof his intellect consists in the widening of his faculty fnding analogies. Therefore the study of the law of thfour letters, or the name of Jehovah presents a powerfmeans for widening consciousness - P. D. Ouspensk

The Tarot encapsulates many magical secrets.The rich imagery of the Major Arcana has esotercorrespondences to the Egyptian, Hebrew, Celticand English magical alphabets, to the KabalisticTree of Life, the Chakra System, the Alchemical pcess, the so-called Emerald Tablets of Hermes,to sacred Numerology (Pythagorean and other),the physical orbit and movement of the luminaries and planets, the astrological phenomenonknown as the Precession of the Equinoxes, tothe process of Human Individuation, the yearlymaturation of the human-being, the PersonalityTypes, the zodiac, the sequential movement ofthe historical centuries (1st - 21st), the PeriodicTable of Elements, and several other esoteric andexoteric phenomena. It without good reason tha

the sages of old referred to the Tarot as the Book Life. In fact, when students of Alchemy are ponticating about the mysterious Emerald Tablets ofHermes, they fail to recognize that these are agthe actual Tarot.

The antiquity of this book is lost in the night oftime...And goes back to an epoch long before Moseswas written upon detached leaves, which at the rstwere of ne gold and precious metalsIt is symboli-cal, and its combinations adapt themselves to all the

wonders of the Spirit. Altered by its passage across th


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Ages, it is neverthelesspreserved - thanks to theignorance of the curious- Eliphas Levi

As an erudite Kaba-listic book, all combina-tions of which reveal theharmonies preexisting

between signs, lettersand numbers, the practi-cal value of the Tarot is

truly and above all marvelous. A prisoner devoid ofbooks, had he only a Tarot of which he knew how tomake use, could in a few years acquire a universalscience, and converse with an unequalled doctrineand inexhaustible eloquence - Eliphas Levi

The Tarot embodies symbolical presentations ofuniversal ideas, behind which lie all the implicitsof the human mind, and it is in this sense that they

contain secret doctrine, which is the realization bythe few of truths embedded in the consciousness ofall - A. E. Waite (The Key to the Tarot, part II)

The Tarot can be considered to be one chapter,so to speak, of the greater Book of Symbolism.Its 78 pages of composite images, togetherwith their geometrical, numerological, sabean,and Astro-Theological motifs, open direct ac-cess to the inner wisdom body, to the LivingOracle housed within the right-hemisphere

of the brain. The means of entering into dia-logue with this Oracle involves the correctusage of, and meditation upon, iconic images,like those of the esoteric Tarot. The imageson the Major Arcana cards, in particular, aregurative representations of numinous arche-typal concepts which provide the active linkbetween man and world, consciousness andmatter, and microcosmic and macrocosmicdimensions of reality.

As the atom is to external matter the arche-

types are to mans consciousness. And arche-types, as the Alchemists of old understood,prefer to express themselves in images, colors,numbers, geometric shapes, and in musicalharmonics and arrangements. This fact wasmore recently re-discovered and conrmed bySigmund Freud, and Carl Gustav Jung, and

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has been reiterated, more recently, by scholarssuch as Joseph Campbell and Leonard Schlain.

True symbolism depends on the fact that things,which may differ from one another in time, space,material nature, and many other limitative charac-

teristics, can possess and exhibit the same essentialquality - Titus Burckhardt (Alchemy)

It is the so-called right-hemisphere of thebrain that possesses the ancestral program, so tospeak, to decode and conduct these archetypalciphers and transmit the subsequent gnosis,with its mysterious qualities, to the rest ofconsciousness for psychic and practical applica-tion. Unlike pedantic tutoring and instruction,the archetypes are personalized. They do not

relate to, or communicate with, two people inthe same way. Each stereotype (individual) isformed and shaped differently and is a uniqueexpression of the archetypal matrix. It is thisuniqueness that our modern, sterilized, techno-manic world seeks to erase. For all the erasureof ritual, in our present anti-culture the factremains that we each have a different relation-ship with the color green than we do with thecolor red. We have a different relationship withourselves than we do with other people. We

have a different relationship to the air than wedo with the re.

Contrary to what is commonly believed,however, wisdom is not knowledge. And weare not automatically distinguished by it afterour life experience. Experience merely affordsus the ability to nally realize the profundityof our folly, which is a great step for most of


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us. True wisdom, however, is not merely therealization of our habitual error. It is a qualitythat comes when our lives are in synch withthe ever-owing, nameless, ambient force

which is without beginning or end, center orcircumference, limit or boundary, and whichis rooted in our innermost core, as the roots ofgreat oaks are rooted in the external earth. Therst step toward a relationship with wisdomis, as the Oracle said: Gnothi Seauthon, that is,to Know Oneself. And the rst stage towardthis state involves work with the High Arts ofDivination. If these Arts were good enoughfor the builders of pyramids, the masters ofthe High Renaissance, then they are certainly

good enough for the common man.

Each card is, in a sense, a living being and itsrelation with its neighbors are what one might calldiplomatic. It is for the student to build these liv-ing stones into his living temple - Aleister Crow-ley (The Book of Thoth)

Unfortunately, due to generations of indoctri-nation and persecution, the inhabitants of the

western world have been long suffering fromsymbol illiteracy. Communication in words,

we have to understand,cannot lead us anywherespiritually. Words are,phylogenetically, a veryrecent form of commu-nication. Moreover, it is

only the minutest part ofconsciousness that choosesto expresses itself throughlanguage. It has been re-cently discovered that thehuman brain contains over240,000 neural threads.That is enough to stretchfrom Earth to the Moon.On each micro-meter of

these threads the data is stored as pictograms,

composite images, and not as words. With theadvent of verbal and written communication,humankind experienced a cognitive shift fromthe polyphrenic, holarchic mind to the mono-phrenic and hierarchic state known today.The mythographers behind the Judeo-Chris-tian paradigm saw to it that the word of Godreplaced the more antique image of god. Theydid this by placing the prohibition againstgraven images in the Mosaic Command-ments, even putting it before Thou shalt

not kill. What are graven images? They arepictures of deity. They are iconic expressionsof the gods (Archetypes). Ireland, Egypt, andIndia were covered in them and all ancientcultures understood that the mother-tongue,so to speak, of the spirit, was symbolism.They understood that the night sky was thetablet upon which the gods communicated tothose below, to those initiated into the meansof interpreting what was being transmitted.

And God said, Let there be lights in the rma-ment of the heaven to divide the day from thenight; and let them be for signs, and for seasons,and for days, and years -(Genesis 1:14)

In order for the Solar Cults to supersedethe ecocentric, matrifocal Stellar and LunarCults there had to be an all-out prohibitionagainst iconic images and the modality ofcognition they gave rise to. Although the


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overt agenda was suppression, the covert ideawas to appropriate the symbolic language of theprevious Cults. The Churchmen wished to co-opttheir Gnosis and weave it into their own naturedenying religion. Without this deliberate theft ofknowledge from previous theocracies it is doubt-ful whether the modern religions would have

been accepted or endured.

The Christian church is an encyclopedia of prehistoriccults- Fredrick Nietzsche

The Judeo-Christian OldTestament, the tome of thephallocratic Saturnian andSolar Cults, is acceptedto be based on the Torah.

What is not commonlyknown or readily admitted,however, is that the Torah isitself based on the Tarot. Infact, these words are fromthe same root. They bothmean way or law. Theyare also the names of thefeminine goddess principle.Long before Isis, Hathor orMary came on the scene, the

original mother goddess ofthe Egyptians was calledTaurt. Her main symbolwas the hippopotamus of the Nile. All the mascu-line gods were her ambassadors and even Pha-raoh was her nominated emissary on earth. Later,as the cults and dynasties changed, the goddessTaurt became known by a plethora of other titlesand names. She soon became known as Maat,Isis, Hathor, Sophia and nally as Mary the Ma-donna. However, the original Madonna, shown

with her babe in her arms, was Taurt. The Tarotis named after her. It was considered her Bookof Life written not in words but in images. It wasthis kind of hieratic, ideographic communicationwhich the orthodox religions (the institutions ofIslam, Judaism, and Christianity) were commit-ted to eradicate. The modern power-religions arefounded upon the ruins and desecration of theancient canon which once served as the greatestpossible gospel, the holiest possible testament tothe spiritual bond between man and nature.

You shalt not make for yourself a graven image, orany likeness of anything that is in heaven above, orthat is in the earth beneath, or that is under the waterof the earth - (Exodus 20:4)

The second Commandment forbade theIsraelites from conveying any iconic information:

no illustrations, no colorful drawings, and no art.So far as we know there had never before existeda culture that forbade representative art. Why

should a prohibition againstmaking images be the secondmost important rule for righ-teous living?

According to the Ten Com-mandments, art, therefore, ismore dangerous than murder-

Leonard Schlain (The AlphabetVersus the Goddess)

By the invincible power of tradi-tional subservience, the inertiaof the general mind, enhancedby the gullibility of ignorance,the masses have slipped un-der the force of a victimiza-tion that is both pitiable andtragicReligious thought has

detached itself from nature andsearches in the illimitable areasof feeling, thought, and won-

der for what understanding these mayyield it...Religion is not therealm of knowledge, or even ofthought, but purely of belief, asfor the massesAll this chaos inthe religious area was attended,accentuated, if not largely in-spired by, one of the most stag-

gering phenomena in the historyof the race. This was - and is- the presence, power, and inu-ence of a book! - Alvin BoydKuhn (The Ultimate Canonof Knowledge)

It is more than sug-gestive that the prohibi-tion, in the Decalogue,against making graven


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images comes before the prohibitionagainst killing, implying that the creation ofimages is deemed by Jehovah to be worsethan murder. The suppression of symbolicliteracy was, to the Judeo-Christian Cults,an essential precursor to their monopoli-zation of thought and belief. It was at thispoint that mankind not only lost connec-

tion with the ora and fauna, but with theinner Wisdom Body.The Bible and Torah com-municate through words,the Tarot through images.The former have causedhumankind 2,ooo years ofbloodshed and persecutionfor just that reason. Wordsare always open to mis-interpretation. Language

and verbal expressionvaries enormously andconspicuously from oneculture to another andare further constrained byboth intrinsic and imposedcontext and structure. Thegreatest words, those writ-ten by the poets, are greatbecause of their capacity toconvey images. Images, on the

other hand, are not so connedand, therefore, do not normallyfoster gross misinterpretation

or zealotry. They are synthetic,mutable, anomalous, and crypt-aesthetic. They welcome multiple

interpretations and lead beyondthe subject versus object di-chotomy to the state of kata-phatic knowledge wherethe knower and the knownare not polarized. When amantic image or geometricshape is deeply contem-plated it has the ability totransmute consciousnessfrom the hylic (base)

level to the phosphoric(spiritual) level. It opensthe consciousness to an-

cestral Gnosis. This explains theEgyptian reliance on hierograms, theVedic preference for mandalas andyantras, the Druidical oral tradition,

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and the Hermetic Tarot.

The man who understandsa symbol not only opens himselfto the objective world but at thesame time succeeds in emergingfrom his personal situation andreaching a comprehension of the

universal...thanks to the sym-bol, the individual experience isawoken and transmuted into aspiritual act - Mircea Eliade

Being symbol illiter-ate, as we are today, we areconned to mentation of thehyper-differentiated neo-cor-tex and left brain. Moreover,because we lack the empower-

ment that would be ours if ourunconscious minds were beingaccessed we are wide open to the many perni-cious subliminal messages which subvert the rea-son and which excite the primitive instincts. Thisinux eventually assaults our emotional well-

being and causespsychic damage. Aman under this kindof psychic assaultis less likely to be

guided toward histrue life purpose.He is condemnedto a life of reactionand addiction. Inhis malaise he is

wont to react against his pitiful existential condi-tion in dysfunctional ways. He may blame god orhe may subconsciously blame himself. He maystrike out at the system or at others, or alterna-tively he may make the decision, subconsciously,to commit slow suicide through addictive behav-ior and lack of concern for his own spiritual andemotional welfare.

The force we refer to as God commu-nicates to each of us every minute of every day.Our failure to attune to the guiding Voice withinus ensures that we live banal inauthentic livesfull of competitiveness, sorrow, and waste. Cling-ing to the socially-vetted roles and to the plethora

of ready-made escapes from them, we fall victimof what critic Alexis de Tocqueville called thetyranny of the masses. Image-starved, we seekto alleviate our systemic impoverishment in acompulsive manner via addiction to television,video games, sports, pornography, advertise-ments, drugs, and virtual realities, etc. However,these bromides and panaceas provide only tem-porary relief. They may satisfy the wish-fulll-

ments of the lower man but can never whollyfulll the void. They certainly cannot empoweror lead to wisdom. The symbolically illiterateperson remains emotionally and psychologi-cally arrested and is easily indoctrinated andcontrolled by the elites who own power dependsupon the ignorance, support and complicity ofthe masses.

Fortunately, there are remedies for ourexistential condition. Through the practice of theDivination Arts we open dialogue with the inner

Wisdom Body, the Living Oracle. The Divina-tion Arts are our Western Magical Tradition. Theybring back the Magic into our lives once wegive them the energy they deserve. They inspire,unveil, and empower. But the esoteric secretsof each remained concealed until they are usedtogether. There are many wrong ways and onlyone right way to do this.

The Tarot contains indeed the mystery of all suchtransmutations of personages into sidereal bodies and


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vice versa. Thewheel of Enochis and archaicinvention, themost ancient ofall, for it is foundin China. EliphasLevi says there

was not a nationbut had it, its realmeaning beingpreserved in thegreatest secrecy.It is a universalheirloom - Ma-dame HelenaBlavatsky

In a modern

context, we canuse the cardsof the Tarot (oran Astrologychart) to helpus demarcatethe stages ofthe great Ritesof Passage that occur throughout our lives.There are many such Rites and they cannot beavoided. They can be attended by periods of in-

tense euphoria and considered peak-experiences.However, they can also be times of enormousemotional and spiritual challenge, when we areconfronted by the resistance of authority guresor strange inner compulsions that disturb ourequipoise and confuse our domestic and socialinteractions. The obvious Rites of Passage havebeen recognized by the mainstream psychologistsand philosophers for some time now. They mayinclude: birth, entrance to school, puberty, leav-ing school, the rst sexual experience, the rst

job, marriage, giving birth, loss of a parent (orsimilar signicant trauma), the astrological Sat-urn Return, divorce, menopause, retirement,and death. There are many others, such as themoments of betrayal, or punishment for mis-deeds, etc, not to mention the various euphoricexperiences of a creative, religious, or mysticalnature. Philosophically speaking, the Rites ofPassage exist as unavoidable phases or stagesof maturation of, and for, the ego. They are pe-

riods when the horizontal axis of our ego-life(inauthentic existence) crosses the vertical axisof Self-hood (authentic existence). Each personsego-life has its own particular rhythm, move-ment, and duration. Therefore, no two peopleexperience the Rites in the same way. The natureof a persons ego and the form the Rites will takein ones life are revealed within ones Divina-tion Chart. Through the arts of Tarot and Astrol-ogy we receive invaluable instruction as to the

kinds of experiences we will have when passingthrough these transformative phases. The insightthat we glean from our Chart enable us to makethe best of what we experience. We get a clearerunderstanding of what to expect and what thelessons will be. We get to understand why theRites exist and what will be expected of us as weundergo these maturation periods. The indiffer-ent man who cares nothing for such empower-ment does not pass successfully through theRites of Passage. He does not mature or evolve

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and may even give way to fear and addiction inorder to avoid purifying his psyche and emo-tional constitution. The indifferent man remainsxed on the hylic (base) level. The magic of lifepasses him by. The personality of a person is

connected to the fate experienced. As the Greekphilosophers wrote:A mans character is his fate.It follows, then, that the more unique a personscharacter the more unique their IndividuationProcess will be and the more distinctive the Ritesof Passage leading to it.

The process of Individuation was known,under other names, to the Alchemists and mys-tics of old. They described the process, gura-tively, as the Quartering or as Quaternity.It is the Squaring of the Circle of the SacredGeometrists, the Four Fold-Vision of God tothe Sophics, and the Crucixion on Golgotha(Skull Hill) to Gnostic Christians and Druids. Itwas cryptically referenced in by Shamans, Brah-mins, and Hopis, and every enlightened civiliza-

tion on the earth whomaintained a strictreverence to the ritesand rituals associ-ated with biologicaland psychologicalmaturation. Thosewho have seen t toignore, marginalize,denigrate, and misin-terpret the ShamanicWay, and who havereplaced it with anti-human ideologies,

are responsible for undermining the inner con-

stitution of mankind and for the ecocide whichinwardly dirempt men frequently commit. Theman whose inner nature is in tatters and whoseemotions are mutilated is unlikely to act as thereverently toward the natural world he physi-cally sees around him. To such a man the natural

world is perceived as a threat. The virtuelessand psychopathic man is convinced that nature,which nature works against his best interests, isto be overcome and if necessary destroyed.

Through circumrotation, or a circular philo-sophical revolving of the quaternity, it is brought backto the highest and purest simplicity of the monad. Outof the gross and impure One there cometh an exceed-ing pure and subtile Monad - Heinrich Khunrath(Alchemist, 1597)

The suppression and negation of mans instinctu-al nature and the lack of acknowledgement of theRites of Passage have thrust mankind toward theprecipice of psychosis and oblivion. As a resultof the subtle artice of those who prefer to haveman exist as an narcissistic, addicted, dilemmaridden servant, we now have no problem ndingmillions of fear-ridden people prostrating theirdignity and sanity before the sterile religionswhich, like dead suns in the cold wastes of space,


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offer neither light nor warmth. The warnings ofthe true servants of the Holy Spirit (Higher Self)have largely gone unheeded:

Though Christ a thousand times in Bethle-hem be born, But not within thyself, thy soul will beforlorn; The cross on Golgotha thou lookest to in vain,Unless within thyself it be set up again - Angelus

Silesius

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees,you hypocrites!You close theKingdom of Heavenin mens faces.You yourselves donot enter, nor willyou let those enterwho are trying to

- (Matt 23)

The ImitatioChristi will foreverhave this disadvan-tage: we worshipa man as a divinemodel, embodyingthe deepest mean-ing of life, andthen out of sheer imitation we forget to make real the

profound meaning present in ourselves - Carl GustavJung

According to Bishop Epiphanius, the Krist isthe spiritual self within each person - Tony Bushby(The Bible Fraud)

The Egyptians had no vicarious atonement, noimputed righteousness, no second-hand salvation. Noinitiate in the Osirian mysteries could possibly haverested his hope of reaching heaven on the Galilean line

of glory. His was the more crucial way of Amenta...totread with the guidance of the word, that step by stepand act by act he must himself make true - GeraldMassey (Ancient Egypt - Light of the World)

The Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks andRomans, had no word in their language for sin: theIsraelites introduced both the word and the conceptinto the stream of Western civilization and by doing sodiverted it - Leonard Schlain (The Alphabet Versus

the Goddess)

For the mundane and pragmatic Everyman thevarious Rites of Passage are experienced as un-comfortable and even alarming deviations fromthe clear sunny horizons which are the destina-tions of the amped up ego-drives. They are con-sidered obscene interruptions in the routine, or

as punctures in the bubble of normality whichis anything but. Due to these detours and timeswhen the wires become crossed and frazzled we

can nd ourselvesdoing very strangethings. The rules ofthe game evaporateor even appear gro-tesque during suchtraversals and ourexperiences from the

past, like the adviceof others, become asuseful as sign-posts ina ghost town.

The ultimateobjective of anyRite of Passage isto provide us withthe opportunity to

quantum-leap from the horizontal sphere of

existence to the vertical, that is, to change theroad we are on and get back into synch with ourhigher calling. In mystical terms, we get a chanceto make a proactive shift from our Karmic to ourDharmic life, from monophrenic to polyphrenicthinking, and from lower chakra to higher chakradrives. When we are ruled by Karma, ignoranceis king and both death and the devil are constantcompanions. It matters little whether we considerour adversary to be the projection of collectiveignorance or a red devil with two horns and

a pitchfork. In the dark of the karmic life suchmatters are hardly a major priority. In the karmiclife, as most can attest, there is scant protectionagainst the storms of fate and the only reason

why life carries on is that we learn trainourselves to sit quiet and accept therights and privileges that our fel-low inmates, like Olivers with bowl,

receive. When we are living our Dharma our livesare mutable, magical, and real. Bad things, so to


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speak, may still happen to us and we will stillknow adversity.

However, our attitude toward the vagariesof life is not that of the karmic man. Our per-spective and comprehension of what transpiresis radically more mature and insightful. We aremore than survivors; we are Creators. We oper-

ate in the world as our own priests or priestesses,reinventing ourselves daily. We become our ownteachers and are not dependent on the fragmen-tary knowledge provided by others. Our rapportwith life, with god, with nature, with others, andprimarily with ourselves, is radically deeper andmore meaningful than others can ever guess. Inorder to actualize our Dharmic Life we will rsthave to endure many personal sacrices. Majorareas of our lives will undergo signicant decon-struction and we will have to learn the difference

between egotism and egocentricity, liberty andfreedom, sanity and insanity, wisdom and folly.As Sophocles wrote: Nothing vast enters the lifeof mortals without a curse.

The average Everyman may experienceapproximately seven major Rites of Passageduring their lives. The awakened person canhave more, while the symbolically literate andself-realized persons life may be consideredone continuous Rite of Passage. The round of the

twenty-two cards of theMajor Arcana demarcateand illustrate the strangeand mythic journey ofthese particular types.To understand what itwould be like to live assuch a person would beto know and feel whatthe Van Goghs, Dalis,and Chopins of theworld knew and felt, and what the Zambezi riverfeels as it curves over the precipice of VictoriaFalls, plummeting and exploding into the deep,dark, churning basalt basins below. The menand women we tend to refer to by terms such asgenius or eccentric are those who know verylittle of the horizontal mode of life. In the wordsof master musician Andres Segovia, their livesare an ascending line along which none butthey can travel.

What lies behind us and what lies before us aretiny compared to what lies within us - Anonymous

No matter to what depths I plumb, I alwaysend with my wings beating steadily upwards towardthe sun - Aleister Crowley

Regardless of the nature or intensity ofthe Rites of Passage we are not condemned togo through them blindly and apprehensively.

The four great Arts ofDivination, when cor-rectly applied, provideus with the pertinentinformation we needto predict and com-prehend the variables,intensity, and impact

of what we will inevitably experience. Our ownresponses and reactions can be foretold and, as aresult of the insight afforded us, we can minimizethe chance for wrong decisions and choices. Byway of the Tarot, and its sister Arts, we can re-ceive clear information regarding the events, ex-periences, opportunities, relationships, obstacles,challenges, and warnings about to come our waybefore and during the Rites of Passage, These ma-jor turning points of life come and pass quicklyand, once gone, they never return again. Life is,

after all, like an invisible labyrinth in which it isvery easy to get lost. It is imperative, therefore,that like Theseus we too have an AriadnesThread to orient us during the darker momentsand to guide us to our destination.

When correctly constructed and interpret-ed, our Tarot Spread, or Astrology or Numerol-ogy Chart, becomes our needed compass leadingus safely through the shallows and depths of theomnidirectional ocean of life. After all, as alreadystated, the zodiac and the chart are actuallyextensions of our inner consciousness. The Chartis the record of the advice we are being given byour own higher Guides.

...perhaps there is a pattern set up inthe heavens for one who desires to see it, and havingseen it, to nd one in himself- Plato

The Divination Arts, of Astrology, Tarot,Kabala, and Numerology are the only diagnostic

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tools to provide coherentand invaluable insight intothe Rites of Passages that weeach will experience. Theywere in the world aeonsbefore high-priced psycholo-gists and counselors who aregood at the patch-up but

are not much involved in theprevention aspects. These ex-oteric approaches can neverreplace the holistic Divina-tion Arts. In fact, exotericscholars, in order to bolstertheir own artices, con-tinually avail themselves ofesoteric wisdom that comesfrom the arcane canon. It isan accepted fact, for instance, that psychologist

Carl Jung had a life-long interest in alchemy andastrology. And in truth, both he and his contem-poraries (Freud, Adler, and Reich, and others)merely rediscovered the principles and archetypesthat the Alchemists, diviners, and metaphysicianshad employed for millennia. Freud and Jungmerely utilized the language of science to eluci-date the timeless principles they were research-ing.

Psychology text books of future generations

will look back on the modern psychologists workingwithout the aid of astrology as being like the medievalastronomers working without the aid of the telescope- Richard Tarnas Ph.D

..astrology represents the summation of all thepsychological knowledge of antiquity - Carl Jung

Learning how to create and interpret ones ownTarot Spread, or ones astrological (Taroscopic)Chart, is both enjoyable and empowering. Read-ing for others is also one of the best ways to re-ally serve humanity. Chart reading requires logicbut also intuition and empathy. The Arts usedare merely instruments which reveal the inneranatomy of a clients psyche. They reveal whatmay lie hidden from their conscious minds. TheTarot, specically, can be thought of as a cathe-dral. The individual cards are like the cathedralsbeautiful stained-glass windows; and the spreadsare the light which passes, with varied intensi-

ties, into and through thesewindows. The adept readermerely interprets these nu-ances and relates to the clientwhat their own source is seek-ing to reveal. From the mostmundane domestic issues tothe great questions of destiny

the Divination Arts pro-vide our answers and

guidance.Simply put, ourlives can becompared to a

great and complexjig-saw puzzle. Weare each committed to

put the myriad piecestogeth- er and nish the picture.

However, with any real puzzle we get,if we choose, to rst see the picture on the lid ofthe box before we begin. Seeing the overall pic-ture is essential if we are to be uent and expertat what we are doing. It is this glimpse of the

cover of our life-puzzle that theTarot and the other three Divi-nation Arts provide. From theintelligence they avail us, weoperate more intelligently, andare masters rather than victims

in this vast and complex gameof life. If we are given even aseconds glimpse of the coverour hands will move faster and

we will progress with condence in the rightdirection. Every day we examine ourselves in amirror so that we are physically presentable anddignied to the world. The time has come for usto use the Arts of Divination in the same manner,as mirrors of the soul, so that it can be presentedto the world unfettered and resplendent, free,joyous, and wise; proving that the stars are notonly conned to the heavens above but are shin-ing within us with a luminosity that no amountof ignorance, deceit, or sorrow can blight orextinguish.

..Each grain of sand every stone on the land,each rock and each hill, each fountain and rill, eachherb and each tree, mountain, hill, earth and sea,cloud, meteor and star, are Men seen afar- WilliamBlake

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2006 Michael Tsarion

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