The Enchanted Tarot

Astrology

Enchantments

Alchemy

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The Spiritual Journey of the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana, or 'Greater Secrets', of The Enchanted Tarot can be viewed as an allegory for the great quest for self-knowledge and growth taken by each soul as it plays its part in the drama that is life on earth. It is a story told by the meanings of the symbolic images of the Major Arcana as well as by the numerical position assigned to each of them.

The first person we meet on our journey is The Fool. His number is zero because he represents the unborn soul before it takes its first step into the physical world. Aware of his eternal unity with the divine in all things, he has no fear as he takes a giant step into a new life and all it will bring.

Next we meet The Magician, whose understanding of and mastery over the four elements of reality, Fire (action), Air (ideas), Water (emotion), and Earth (matter) symbolized by the Wands, Swords, Hearts and Pentacles suits of the Minor Arcana, will enable him to work his will on his world. His number is one because he symbolizes the individual's first awareness of their own power and place in a world that is theirs to use.

Encountering The High Priestess in her moon-lit grotto we are reminded that there is a power beyond that of the visible world. The High Priestess has no need of thoughts, words or actions. She knows all because she is aware of the connected-ness of all things. Her number, two, is a sign that there are two different types of skills necessary to really make 'magic'. The active, physical and verbal skills of The Magician must be developed and blended with the passive, emotional and intuitive ways of The High Priestess in order that we can best prepare ourselves for the encounters ahead.

The number of our next host on the Spiritual journey, the pregnant Empress, is three. The Empress, like her child, is symbolic of the new life resulting from the harmonious blending of purely male energies of The Magician and the purely female energies of The High Priestess. The Empress gives birth to the natural world that surrounds and nourishes us.

Her husband, The Emperor, whose number is 4, commands the four corners of the world brought into being by his Empress. He represents our desire to dominate not only the four elements of our own life but those of the lives of others as well.

When we meet The Hierophant, we meet a man who has gone beyond trying to control the world of the four elements through physical means. He has established order in the world through moral authority, representing the One Spirit that pervades all, the fifth 'element' of life's mixture. But his number, five, is also a reminder that, like the five-pointed star — the universal symbol for a human being taken from the outline of our head, arms and legs — this holy man is nothing more or less than a man.

The problem of being either just a man or a just man is encountered when we go beyond the rules of The Hierophant and enter the realm of The Lovers which is ruled by the heart. Here we have the eternal dilemma of having to make choices based on the dictates of our free will and not on mores and guidelines handed down to us from the ages. The number of The Lovers, six, is a reference to the two choices available to each of the three participants in this scene. It is also symbolic of the six directions — forward, backward, left, right, up and down — available to each of us at all times.

When we ride along with The Chariot we learn that we have no choice but to take only the actions that will be in our best interest. To win a race we must sometimes even ride alone. Seven, the number of The Chariot, corresponds to the seven 'chakras', the energy centers running from the base of our spine up to the top of our head. They are the intake and outflow points of the astral ('of the stars') energy which feeds and nourishes the various levels of our being and make all our actions on the physical, mental and emotional levels possible.

When we arrive at the dramatic scene depicted in Strength we are confronted with the fact that to really succeed in life we are going to have to harmonize our desires with those of the natural world we are part of. Unless we are gently but precisely balanced between the world of spirit and the here and now, knowing without a shadow of doubt that we are one with all, we will be symbolically 'torn to pieces', in this case by the lioness, trapped by our handiwork, whose natural instincts can sense our hesitancy and fear. Eight, the Number of Strength, is seen here as the universal symbol for 'infinity' floating above the spiritual energy center at the top of the head of the beautiful young princess. It tells us that she has passed her test and is indeed connected to the infinite source of all creation.

We meet The Hermit walking the path of knowledge he has followed for many years since he passed his own test of strength. This master has withdrawn from the world so that those who seek to share his wisdom will have to prove their sincerity by making the effort to find him. His number is nine because nine, when added to any other number, will give as a resulting sum a number whose component numbers, added together as individual numbers, will add up to the number that was originally added to nine, i.e. 1+9=10=1+0=1, 2+9=11=1+1=2, 3+9=12=1+2=3, etc. (If you have the time and the knowledge-seeking inclination of The Hermit, you may try it with any number — it always works.) When we journey with The Hermit for a while on the path to enlightenment and incorporate his wisdom into our life, we come to realize that it is our true self that he has enabled us to be more in contact with. The purpose of our walk with The Hermit and the entire Spiritual Journey is to bring us home to our Higher Self, the observer and true participant in all our diverse lifetimes.

The wise Hermit can give us the impression that our world is completely knowable. But when we come to the place of The Wheel of Fortune we learn that sometimes wisdom and strength will not enable us to either understand or change our luck. The Wheel is the ancient symbol of the idea that everything comes to pass in its appointed time and season. The number of The Wheel of Fortune is ten (10=1+0=1), a reference to the fact that the number ten begins the cycle of numbers again. Reducing the number ten to its component numbers gives us the number one, symbolic of our encounter with the vaguely human face of a sphinx who silently reminds us that we each must confront the up-and-down cycles of our lives alone.

The welcome face of the angel of Justice meets us at our next stop on the Spiritual journey. Her perfectly balanced scales are a message that although we have assigned the apparently random occurrences in our lives to dumb luck, they are actually physical manifestations of Justice working in our own lives. Eleven (11=1+1=2), the number of Justice, is symbolic of the two pans of the scale she holds. The balancing of the scales, one plus one, yields two, the number of relationships. Without Justice neither relationships nor society are possible.

When we come upon The Hanged Man it seems we have met a victim of Justice. But the role of Justice is not to inflict pain but to bring to us the experiences we need in order to balance out the excesses of personality that are blocking our spiritual development. The Hanged Man is suspended in order that he may reconsider his actions from a new perspective. His number, twelve (12=1+2=3), is the number of the months of the year and the Signs of the astrological Zodiac. These divisions of time are used to bring order to the people of the world symbolized by The Magician (#1) and The High Priestess (#2) as well as to the other growing things of the world symbolized by The Empress (#3). Do not worry about The Hanged Man, the wait will do him some good.

Our encounter with Death can symbolize that we have learned our lessons so well that we are no longer the same person. Thirteen, which has gotten a bad reputation from its long association with the card of Death, is the age when a child becomes an adult, sexually speaking. Most religions have ceremonies marking this time of the 'death' of the child. If we fear Death we can never grow beyond the fears of childhood or go further on our Spiritual Journey because to fear Death is to fear life. The component numbers of thirteen (13=1+3=4) tell us that Death can come to our energetic manipulation of the physical elements represented by The Magician (#1), to all growing things on earth given birth to by The Empress (#3), as well as to all rulers of world who are under the authority of The Emperor (#4), but never to our non-physical, emotional and intuitive being symbolized by The High Priestess (#2), the number missing from Death's equation.

The addition of our symbolic encounter with Death to our list of places we have visited is not to be taken lightly. While an essential part of our journey, this experience can be so overwhelmingly that we must immediately be reminded that it is only one stop on a long voyage. Our visit with the angelic teacher and serene student of the card Temperance is a time for healing. Here we can learn that we have ample time to mix all the knowledge we can accumulate of the physical world with faith in our divine nature to give us a rich and rewarding life. Fourteen (14=1+4=5), the number of Temperance, is a reminder that our bodies are made of the elements that The Magician (#1) and The Emperor (#4) use and command, but our essential nature is that of the fifth element of the One Soul whose representative on earth we have met in the form of The Hierophant (#5). Like Temperance, he also wanted to comfort us as best as he knew how in the face of both Death and the host of our next stop on the Spiritual journey, The Devil.

The Devil can twist the words of all the lessons we have learned and trick us into believing that they are as much lies as what he is telling us. He can convince us that the quickest way to gain all that we desire is through deceit and trickery. But he can harm us only if we are blind to the fact that it is only we who have the power to choose order over chaos and a life spent making our world better over trying to take as much as we can to our grave. The number of The Devil, fifteen (15=1+5=6), is a reminder of our meeting with The Lovers (#6). It was there where The Magician's individuality (#1) was confronted by the morality of the Hierophant (#5) and we first encountered the bittersweet aspects of choice, a part of the Free Will that is our birthright.

Let's pass quickly by The Tower lest we be struck by lightening or by the debris falling from this once-proud edifice. The number of The Tower, Sixteen (16=1+6=7), is a clue that what we are witnessing is the downfall of The Magician (#1) who thought his handiwork could last forever; The Lovers (#6) who gave up on the journey and tried to build their world based only on physical love and not spiritual development; and the proud, confident and self-absorbed heroine of The Chariot (#7) who built a monument to her glory but failed to learn that pride comes before a fall. This lesson can be painful even if it is not a physical pain that must be endured.

The explosive destruction of The Tower has cleared the land and the air of the stagnation that power too long entrenched can bring. A new order must be built on a foundation of higher knowledge and not merely on stone. The number of The Star, seventeen (17=1+7=8), recalls the enduring Strength (#8) we can achieve by blending our desires with those of a higher, natural order. This is the proper use of the material talents of The Magician (#1) in combination with the heroism and the astral energy centers of The Chariot (#7). By making beautiful art out of every breath of our life through inspiration (literally the breathing in of the spirit), we can both make lasting structures and heal ourselves after the upheaval we have suffered at The Tower. But what The Star wants us to take with us when we leave her is the knowledge that strength of an even greater value can be ours if we will cleanse ourselves of all desires.

Traditionally, our sojourn in the land of The Moon was considered the most frightening. This may be because The Moon had been the symbol of The Goddess, the female deity who was worshipped as the Supreme Being for thousands of years until the male dominated religions of the last two thousand years challenged Her supremacy. Their typical male competitiveness compelled them to use every method, from the incorporation of Her customs and rituals at the beginning of the present era to the violence and persecutions of The Inquisition (1200's to the 1800's), to insure that patriarchal religions would succeed and overcome the matriarchal religions and some of their barbaric excesses. There is much evidence that the Tarot itself was a barely tolerated refuge for the higher concepts associated with worship of the Goddess, allowed to exist only because of its being considered merely an amusement. Little wonder then that The Moon, universal symbol of The Goddess, would be assigned the unpopular meaning of a terrifying journey. The Enchanted Tarot has tried to restore The Moon to her rightful meaning of trust in the protection afforded us by an energy watching over us. The Moon challenges us to have faith and go on even in the pitch black that comes just before the dawn. Like The Hermit (#9), The Moon, number eighteen (18=1+8=9), is a solitary being dwelling in darkness whose compassion, wisdom and light is there to lead us home to our Higher Self. Like all of us, our old friend The Magician (#1), representing the individual, must ally himself with true Strength (#8) in order to pass through this 'dark night of the soul' and attain the wisdom possessed by The Hermit (#9).

The formless shapes and nameless terrors of our dark side must be conquered before we can bask in the glorious life-giving rays of The Sun. The Sun's number, nineteen (19=1+9=10=1+0=1) is symbolic of his supreme creative ability. Taking the manipulative powers of The Magician (#1) and combining it with the natural wisdom of The Hermit (#9) but then adding the divinely guided luck and the capacity to bring forth things in their time of The Wheel of Fortune (#10) and the fearless trust and awareness of divine unity possessed by The Fool (#0) gives us a power that brings both life and light to the world. There is a strong temptation to linger in the land of The Sun but by this time on our journey we know that we must always keep moving forward.

Flying over the tall peaks we meet the angelic herald of Judgement whose horn announces a call to purify ourselves in preparation for the end of our Spiritual journey. We have come far and seen and learned much. But the number of Judgement, twenty (20=2+0=2), is a message that unless we apply, not only in our own lives but in our dealings with all, the order, peace and balance learned from Justice (#11=1+1=2) and the compassionate knowledge that is beyond language, symbolized by the all-knowing High Priestess (#2), we will never reach our full potential.

And so we finally are ready to come to The World. We are here to learn about our selves and The World that is a reflection of ourselves. But our higher purpose is to assist in the co-creation of The World by using our knowledge to help all. By uniting the feminine principles symbolized by The High Priestess (#2) and the masculine principles symbolized by The Magician (#1) — in that order — we finally gain The World (#21=2+1=3) and get to dance in the enjoyment of its fertile, abundant beauty which The Empress (#3), twin sister of The High Priestess, knew about all along.

The Spiritual journey, like The World, has no real beginning and no real end. It is a never ending cycle that spirals around and up and down but always leads us back to ourselves and the realization that life is movement, change, awareness and growth. There is always more of ourselves to learn from and learn about. That is why the story of the Spiritual Journey of The Enchanted Tarot has come to you in this new form.

Introduction to The Enchanted Tarot		Introduction to The Cards of the Enchated Tarot