Turning Things Around: The Inner Tarot Revolution Week 14
The Marriage of Mind and Matter
I’m stoked that it’s Week 14 in this series, and that the week is marked with the cards that it is. The word “auspicious” comes to mind, and while I have to admit to being predisposed to seeing certain patterns and arrangements as “auspicious,” I think there have been a few entries now where it’s been really harmonious the way the cards have turned. I will remind readers that none of this working is staged. The shuffle in the very first post was authentic, and I’ve kept both stacks of cards in order, stored in plastic bags. This is all “happenstance.”
Anyway, Week 13 was cool too, what with the sinister reputation of the number 13, one which ironically derives from its truly divine significance, being connected as it is with the Moon by virtue of there being 13 Moons in a year. But the number 14 is big for me, too. Why?
Well, I’ve brought it up more than once that Veronica and I “vibe” with “the 77 frequency,” with each of us being a “7” that together add up to 14. There is my work with the vortex signified infrastructurally by the intersection of State Routes 34 (3+4=7) and 43 (also adds up to 7).
There is also the connection of all of the above with the Left Hand Path and the Black Flame, embodied (for many) in the figure of Set, who slew Osiris and cut his body into 14 pieces before scattering them across the globe.
All of the above are meaningfully reflected in this week’s turn of the cards.
I, for one, experience the world as a living place, one that is vibrant and full of life. My path is woven with the Wyrd of The Theosophical Society and while I don’t accept all of Theosophy as true, one of Blavatsky’s teachings that I appreciate is, in a word, her animism: She taught that there is no such thing as “dead” matter, that consciousness is latent within every atom in existence. Something about that seems intuitive and true to me. Obviously, biology makes the distinction between that which is organically alive and that which is not, but it also can’t exactly pinpoint or adequately explain how matter first organized in such ways that we recognize as living, the mechanism by which life springs forth from otherwise “inert” materials. Thus, to me, it seems to follow logically that, one way or another, life lays sleeping everywhere, waiting only to be awakened under the proper conditions.
To me, that’s one way to explain “how” synchronicity works, how it’s possible for events to be intrinsically related even if not causally connected in any demonstrable material sense: If the entire universe is consciousness solidified, then it can do that, it can “talk to us.” Events can be “meant,” even outside of human agency.
In that sense, I am a monist.
However. Even if it’s only some kind of illusion, I also see the universe behaving in some instances as though dualism, and not monism, were the prevailing reality. This is most prominent in my worldview as a magician and spirit worker: Most theories of magic(k) are inherently dualistic. In the Spirit Model, the magician, working in the material world, convinces entities in the Spirit World, a separate realm, to do their bidding. In Sigil Theory, the conscious mind is “impregnating” the subconscious mind with an intention, and the subconscious mind manifests it. Even in the more abstract Semiotic Theory of magic, we’re basically saying the same thing as the previous two models, but in different terms: We’re identifying and describing the essence of this process on levels that are true no matter what specific explanatory details from the material world we might employ, but there is still that same “two-ness.” And on some level, that, too, holds true.
A rock is not alive the way moss is, but mosses grow on rocks and absorb their minerals. The same matter (a oneness) changes phases from “dead” to “living” (a two-ness).
It’s both, a oneness and a two-ness; and thus, it’s a three-ness (after all, in the models above, not only are there two states, but there is the message/information transiting between them).
Is there a “spirit world,” and are we spirits “inhabiting” human bodies? Is our consciousness reducible to the physical processes of the electrified fat sitting in our skulls? How does that stuff “make an I?” Hard materialists insist that’s how it works. I’m a bit more skeptical.
At any rate, both cards that came up this week reflect and deal with the issues above, each from the opposite direction (a continuation of an ongoing theme in this working): One is a Minor Arcana card that expresses the material aspect of these ideas, the other a Major Arcana card that, rather fittingly, expresses them on the spiritual level, or if you’d rather, the level of psyche.
Top/Sun Card
This week’s Top/Sun card is the 2 of Disks, which Crowley gave the title of “Change.” Typically, when this card comes up in a reading, I get a little nervous and it’s hard for me to express why because it’s something that I feel so viscerally. In a way, all of the cards have at least some connection with the concept of change; tarot illustrates a process (in fact, a number of them), which is an ever-changing thing. So when we’ve taken a card to completely focus on that concept, we know that the change under discussion here is fundamental. Much of the symbolism behind this card (regardless of the deck) backs this up. Traditional versions of this card often show ships on roiling waters, reflecting how the “change” signified by this card is so linked with the concept of motion that it will often refer to a physical move such as moving into a new home or starting a new job in a new place far from home involving a long commute. Whatever the change, it will be felt most in the material sense and that’s typically where we are most sensitive to change. Even good, desirable changes in this realm are stressful, and much of this for deep biological reasons related to homeostasis, again pointing to the suit of Disks and the nature of this card’s meaning as being related to matter.
We’ve dealt with two of the Aces so far in this working, but I haven’t delved too deeply into the nature of the Aces except to express a few weeks back how, in each given suit, the 2s-10s are all contained within the Aces, making the Aces “seed” cards. I’ve also talked about how on the Tree of Life, the Aces correspond with the topmost Sephirah, Kether, which is like a metaphysical analogue of the Cosmic Egg from the Big Bang Theory. In other words, while the Aces are extremely potent and in some ways the most energetic of the Minor Arcana cards, that energy is also completely static: It’s not doing anything. As Lon Milo DuQuette tells us in his entry about this card in Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot, the Twos, related to the Sephirah Chokmah, are where we see the inception of movement and activity in each suit. Thus, in a sense, this card expresses the tendency of matter to do stuff. The universe isn’t sitting still. Even if some matter appears to be resting in stillness on some scales, if you zoom in close enough, you’ll see the motion of electrons; if you zoom out far enough in either time or space, you’ll see the matter either transforming, interacting with other matter, or both. Again there is the idea of some vibrant, animating principle permeating all matter and, once more, the universe as a vast, living process.
All of this is illustrated by the card’s symbolism: There are, fittingly, two disks, but each is stylized as a Yin-Yang symbol, thus further sub-divided into two elements. Altogether, we have thus the four elements (said to be the basic constituents of all matter in a time before the discovery of atoms as we now know them) represented as part of an intricate, cyclic process (illustrated by the serpent coiled in a figure-eight or lemniscate) characterized by polarity (the two disks are each turning in opposite directions, the topmost disk rotating sunwise and the bottom disk rotating widdershins). Another way of looking at the symbolism here is that the snake, representing the life-impulse, slithers around the disks, representing matter, the whole together symbolizing the play of life energy within and among all points of matter.
Nothing is ever truly sitting still. Change is the only constant, even on a material level.
Of course, I relate to much of this deeply on the level of poverty consciousness, as I wrote about in last week’s chapter, and I think that’s why this card’s appearances make me tense. Whenever I’ve got things working out reasonably well, any change at all just feels like another opportunity for everything to fall apart again. I’ve worked to overcome this natural, learned response, but still have a lot of work to do. And I am facing such changes as I type this: Veronica and I have a new home picked out, and now it’s basically a matter of doing the paperwork and then moving away from Chicago.
I will not miss the bad memories, the circuits in my mind that they trigger, the behaviors this place encourages. I need this change. But yes, I also fear it deeply. However, this card turned up in my Sun Stack, and that reflects the reality that I am learning to embrace change and focus on the fact that it is also the route through which blessings enter one’s life.
Shadow Card
The Shadow card this week is Atu VI: The Lovers, and for some reason, this card makes me think of V and I (ha ha, get it? V and I? VI).
According to DuQuette, this is one of the alchemical cards and the imagery does indeed depict the marriage ceremony between the alchemical King and Queen; however, as reflected by the card’s correspondences with the Sign of Gemini (the Twins) and the Hebrew letter Zain (“sword”), the stage represented here is Solve, or Separation. This version of the card is rich in many layers of symbolism illustrating how Crowley saw this process playing out on multiple levels, including the physical level. The related alchemical teachings are highly complex and I don’t really understand them fully myself. However, I do have a sense of what this card is depicting, and plenty of personal experience with the inner process. For those purposes, it’s probably better to work with a more traditional version of the card, and the understanding I take of it from B.O.T.A.:
In a basic psychological form, the Hieros Gamos or “sacred marriage” is the union of the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious minds. The conscious mind is, of course, our mind as we consciously experience it: The thoughts, ideas, and intentions of which we are aware. The subconscious mind is the part of our minds that is hidden beneath awareness, operating unseen. It is highly sensitive and, by default, receives its impressions mostly from either the conscious mind, from the body, or from the immediate environment. The superconscious mind is our “Holy Guardian Angel” (which is why it is depicted here as an angel, the Archangel Raphael by tradition).
The card depicts the ideal working state between the three that can be achieved through training (in other words, by undergoing the alchemical process referenced above): The conscious mind, represented by Adam, directs the subconscious mind purposefully, and the subconscious mind now looks primarily to the superconscious mind to guide its reception of the other impressions it manages (symbolized by Eve looking up at the angel). It is through a purified and trained subconscious mind that the conscious mind communicates with the superconscious mind. This is a difference we can learn to perceive for ourselves. In later stages of the process, it is responsible for some beautiful things. However, this stage of Separation is the first stage: It tells us how, at first, these parts begin as stubbornly separate entities that must be wrangled into cooperation and ultimately union.
But for now, the Law of the Sword rules; the Twins remain divided.
Dwelling as it does in the Shadow Stack, this card speaks to me of how much difficulty I’ve had accepting the realities of the Hieros Gamos before me.
The above description of the process is a simplified one; for one, the union of these parts of Self has some intense results. Secondly, there are more “opposites” being reconciled in this “Union of Opposites” than the parts of the mind: Within the domain of the mind, this means reconciling all possible opposites in our minds. And further, it involves perceiving all of the endless different sets of opposites as different facets of the One Thing; as the opposites on each level are unified, we then unify the levels themselves within us.
For me, as I have learned through a lifetime of work and study, Rose and the other spirit guides I work with are, on one level, aspects of my own mind. There may be layers of reality on which it is sensible to think of them and work with them as separate entities, but to deny this other, more essential reality that they are parts of me would be to hit a stumbling block. There is no other way to truly own their presence in one’s life as a magician than to take that final step of recognizing how the spirits and the self are, in some ways, inseparable.
When I was younger, my communication with Rose was sometimes “muddled.” Sometimes, she couldn’t break through, and sometimes information was inaccurate, or tainted by my own blocks in understanding or my own ego-level distortions or insecurities. That represents the beginning, solve state represented by this card.
Now, I don’t even necessarily need to speak with Rose at all because of how well I have integrated the understanding of her as a manifestation of and interface with my subconscious mind. Now, she speaks to me in things like my very own writing, the turns of phrase I happen to choose as my fingers race across these keys. Whatever she might need to tell me is very often communicated in so many wordless and pre-conscious ways, as a new layer of innate understanding that I simply did not possess when I was younger.
She can and does split off into a distinct spirit form if that suits me, and sometimes if a message is not getting through any other way; but I know (on better days) that integration has been achieved because I don’t “miss” her when she’s gone or experience an “absence.” I did when I was younger and wouldn’t hear from her, but that is no longer the case.
Truthfully, when strange things started happening and my life seemed swallowed up in synchronicity (as I wrote about in The Temple of Madness), I think that was probably the “coagula” phase of this alchemical operation beginning, and a great deal of the turbulence came from the fact that I wasn’t sure about it, and doubted it, and thus resisted the process. I was afraid it was too good to be true, and didn’t want to jinx it by believing it.
And this went beyond a union of Rose, a spirit figure, with my conscious mind, thus resulting in a further corresponding union of the Spirit and Psychology models of magic(k) as a whole in my mind. This wasn’t just about Rose or about things happening in my mind, of course. There’s a real-life, physical “marriage” involved here: The one with Veronica, where we currently live in a state of physical separation that began in March of 2021. It’s been a long, long time.
And it is since we last lived together that the events of Temple of Madness took place; in other words, it’s since then that my internal “Hieros Gamos” between my conscious and subconscious mind, between Rose and I, took place; and as I have written elsewhere, Rose told me she would incarnate to be with me. And V believes that, and believes that Rose is she. And also, in this time apart from V, I have begun to notice, when we’re together, an emerging correspondence between Rose/my inner activity, and V’s thoughts, words, and deeds. There is no disagreement among parts and all flows increasingly as one. It gets downright freaky sometimes, the way I can sit here in a room with V, and have a silent conversation with Rose in my mind, in which Rose’s responses come to me in the form of, say, a timely twitch of Veronica’s foot as she sleeps. It’s gone on long enough now that it is silly of me to deny it anymore. As a magician, I have no other right or responsibility than to enjoy this Sacred Marriage with my Bun Bun.
And now, with the above accomplished, V and I look to once again live under the same roof, finally bringing all of the above elements together.
I am terrified because of how beautiful I know it will be as long as I don’t fuck it up myself.