Step by Step Tarot. Terry Donaldson
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Название: Step by Step Tarot
Автор: Terry Donaldson
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Эзотерика
isbn: 9780007498260
isbn:
We live in a society in which the Empress is heavily repressed. Our culture is now so TV-based, we all of us, like robots, switch on these machines when we come in – and many of us remain thus transfixed all night. Before the advent of TV and radio, people would learn how to play musical instruments, to sing, to dance together. They would hold plays in the village hall just to entertain themselves. These are all Empress activities.
How would you like to learn how to play an instrument, to dance, to express yourself more fluidly? What about that book you’ve always wanted to write? Those poems, that play? What about that baby you keep thinking of having? Well, when are you going to switch off the TV and radio and make a start?
Make this the year in which you concentrate on cultivating your own creativity!
4 THE EMPEROR
The Tarot is showing you a card which is the epitome of independence, of resisting external influences and of moving in your own totally self-determined direction. Up until now, although you haven’t been happy about accepting orders from others, you have done so, feeling that one day you would be able to branch out in a totally independent direction, free from the external constraining influence of other people.
This may have ramifications on your work area, for example. You may have felt, over the last two years or so, that you could have done a lot better for yourself by starting up your own independent line of business than by continuing to serve those who were employing you.
On a relationship level, you may have felt limited, held back by the person that you are with, unable to get your life moving in the way that you felt it should have been.
Now is the time in which you can feel free to begin to tell these forces of limitation where to get off, so that you can live your life the way you feel it ought to be lived. This card is telling you to strike out!
The Emperor is about your own potential to say no to whatever you are unhappy with. It is he who breaks agreements in society about how things ought to be and challenges oppression. It is he who leads the revolutionary forces and suffers personally through his belief in the principles of equality, liberty and justice. But it is also he who, through his own excessive zeal for the cause in which he believes, can set in place of the preceding government a far worse dictatorship! In a society which has become so excessively centralized, with people feeling increasingly that they are unable to influence their destinies in any way whatsoever, it is the Emperor type who tends to emerge, first as rebel, then as opposition, then as alternative, and finally as the new establishment. Many who in life start off wanting to change the political system end up as members of an establishment which may well have a different symbol on its headed notepaper, but which pursues the same policies as its predecessors.
But the Emperor is also about your own assertiveness; about not looking for others to take the place of your own potential for leadership. Because whenever we do this we are copping out of precisely those issues which we most need to take responsibility for.
What can you do to take more control over your own life?
5 THE HIEROPHANT
Around you there are many influences at work, only some of which may be apparent from your present perspective.
Now is the time for you to make whatever compromises are necessary in order to be able to continue in your present direction. In ancient times, the Hierophant was the master of ceremonies and thus was the original forerunner of the Masonic tradition, the spiritual tradition through which the ancient mysteries were handed down despite years of religious intolerance and persecution.
The basic meaning of this card is that now is a point in your life when you are ready to say to the world, ‘Here I am’ and the reply of the world will be, ‘And here is the effect of all the causes, good, bad and indifferent, which you have made in the period leading up to now.’
The presence of this card is suggesting that your life has been a rather eccentric one – and probably always will be. But at this point you will increasingly see that even those who you have assumed to be very orthodox or conventional have actually led similar lives, beneath the surface level of immediately visible reality.
You are about to receive an initiation into the way in which the world works – remember, even in some of the trying experiences that lie ahead, that you are surrounded by friends and allies who, for reasons of their own, prefer to remain in the background ready to be of help if needed, rather than be so openly identified with your position.
The Hierophant was the ‘Chairman’ as it were of the Magical Order of the Golden Dawn, a semi-Masonic order set up around the end of the last century to enact symbolic journeys of its members through the doorways and pathways of the Tree of Life. The Hierophant would have to learn long speeches by heart which would then be recited in front of the new members; set-piece speeches in which he would go on about the significance of the cube, or Star of David, or the journey of the soul into the astral plane. He would pass on to the new member ‘keys’ of magical value – sometimes they would be angelic names, or things they could do to enhance their own magical powers in one way or another. Some of these spells would have to do with invisibility, or knowledge, or protection. So it was really a school that he was responsible for running. This school attracted many members of the intelligentsia, including a number of writers, historians and professors, as well as members of ‘high’ society, even as far up as the House of Lords. So, you can see that this card really has a lot to do with hierarchy, structure, traditions and so on. These days mystical knowledge is a lot more freely available than it was in the age when the church and its own form of orthodoxy had a much stronger grip over what got published and what was freely discussed in polite society. So, these days, the appeal of small esoteric societies has waned, as people are now able to get insight into their lives from a much wider range of spiritual practices than ever before.
Another aspect of the Hierophant is the relevance of initiation. In some societies around the world, the male members of the tribe have to go through some kind of initiation in which they are led out into the forest or desert for a certain period and left to face their own fears. The Hierophant is he who leads through the pathway of initiations such as these. They would always be regarded as symbolic turning-points for those concerned, and after being taken, there was no going back to the more juvenile states which preceded them. They always marked the divide between man and boy, woman and girl. In a sense, the ritual of marriage is an initiation in itself, in its original form, as it would originally mark the development of the married couple from childhood innocence to adulthood. In every religion, there are rituals to mark the symbolic passing of the soul through each of its major lifetime landmarks. The rite of a funeral is, in a sense, another example of this.
The Hierophant card touches upon all of these other areas as well.