The Illustrated Key to the Tarot: The Veil of DivinationDe Laurence, L. W. (Lauron William)
Religion
The Illustrated Key to the Tarot: The Veil of Divination
De Laurence, L. W. (Lauron William)
Fortune-telling by cards; Tarot
There should be no need to point out that the suggestion of
death which I have made in connection with the previous card
is, of course, to be understood mystically, but this is not the case
in the present instance. The natural transit of man to the next
stage of his being either is or may be one form of his progress,
but the exotic and almost unknown entrance, while still in this
life, into the state of mystical death is a change in the form of
consciousness and the passage into a state to which ordinary
death is neither the path nor gate. The existing occult explanations
of the 13th card are, on the whole, better than usual, rebirth,
creation, destination, renewal, and the rest.
FOURTEEN. TEMPERANCE
A winged angel, with the sign of the sun upon his forehead
and on his breast the square and triangle of the septenary. I
speak of him in the masculine sense, but the figure is neither
male nor female. It is held to be pouring the essences of life
from chalice to chalice. It has one foot upon the earth and one
upon waters, thus illustrating the nature of the essences. A
direct path goes up to certain heights on the verge of the horizon,
and above there is a great light, through which a crown is seen
vaguely. Hereof is some part of the Secret of Eternal Life, as
it is possible to man in his incarnation. All the conventional
emblems are renounced herein.
So also are the conventional meanings, which refer to changes
in the seasons, perpetual movement of life, and even the combination
of ideas. It is, moreover, untrue to say that the figure
symbolizes the genius of the sun, though it is the analogy of solar
light, realized in the third part of our human triplicity. It is
called Temperance, fantastically, because, when the rule of it
obtains in our consciousness, it tempers, combines and harmonizes
the psychic and material natures. Under that rule we know in
our rational part something of whence we came and whither
we are going.
FIFTEEN. THE DEVIL
The design is an accommodation, mean or harmony, between
several motives mentioned in the first part. The Horned Goat
of Mendes, with wings like those of a bat, is standing on an
altar. At the pit of the stomach there is the sign of Mercury.
The right hand is upraised and extended, being the reverse of
that benediction which is given by the Hierophant in the fifth
card. In the left hand there is a great flaming torch, inverted
towards the earth. A reversed pentagram is on the forehead.
There is a ring in front of the altar, from which two chains are
carried to the necks of two figures, male and female. These are
analogous with those of the fifth card, as if Adam and Eve after
the Fall. Hereof is the chain and fatality of the material life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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