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
With light step, as if earth and its trammels had little power to
restrain him, a young man in gorgeous vestments pauses at the
brink of a precipice among the great heights of the world; he
surveys the blue distance before him—its expanse of sky rather
than the prospect below. His act of eager walking is still indicated,
though he is stationary at the given moment; his dog is still
bounding. The edge which opens on the depth has no terror; it
is as if angels were waiting to uphold him, if it came about that
he leaped from the height. His countenance is full of intelligence
and expectant dream. He has a rose in one hand and in
the other a costly wand, from which depends over his right shoulder
a wallet curiously embroidered. He is a prince of the other
world on his travels through this one—all amidst the morning
glory, in the keen air. The sun, which shines behind him, knows
whence he came, whither he is going, and how he will return by
another path after many days. He is the spirit in search of
experience. Many symbols of the Instituted Mysteries are
summarized in this card, which reverses, under high warrants, all the
confusions that have preceded it.
In his Manual Of Cartomancy, Grand Orient has a curious suggestion
of the office of Mystic Fool, as a part of his process in
higher divination; but it might call for more than ordinary gifts
to put it into operation. We shall see how the card fares according
to the common arts of fortune-telling, and it will be an
example, to those who can discern, of the fact, otherwise so evident,
that the Trumps Major had no place originally in the arts of
psychic gambling, when cards are used as the counters and pretexts.
Of the circumstances under which this art arose we know,
however, very little. The conventional explanations say that the
Fool signifies the flesh, the sensitive life, and by a peculiar satire
its subsidiary name was at one time the alchemist, as depicting
folly at the most insensate stage.
TWENTY-ONE. THE WORLD
As this final message of the Major Trumps is unchanged—and
indeed unchangeable—in respect of its design, it has been partly
described already regarding its deeper sense. It represents also
the perfection and end of the Cosmos, the secret which is within
it, the rapture of the universe when it understands itself in God
(Nature). It is further the state of the soul in the consciousness
of Divine Vision, reflected from the self-knowing spirit. But
these meanings are without prejudice to that which I have said
concerning it on the material side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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