Category: Major arcana

The High Priestess and the Magician

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot

I found this marvelous watercolor on Mary K. Greer’s blog and had to share it because it says so much about both the tarot keys and the two magicians who created the Rider-Waite–Smith taro deck. Pamela Colman Smith and Arthur Edward Waite were both members of the Golden Dawn and were more mystics than hard core ceremonial magicians. They both lived at that pivotal time after Queen Victoria’s death when a breath of fresh air was blowing through England bringing with it new ideas and possibilities and magic. But here all similarity ended. AEW was a scholar and a prolific writer. Some critics feel he was too prolific, but I digress. He was married twice and had one daughter by his first wife. He was The Magician of the pair because the idea, or inspiration of a tarot deck was his, and he is the one who found the artist, outlined the general ideas of the designs, and found a publisher. The basic meaning of… Read More »

Yup, It Really Is All Connected

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Synchronicity, Tarot

While I was researching and writing my posts on The Tower two catastrophic events happened in our household:  My husband developed water on his lungs from a previous fall–he’d landed on his left side. The symptoms mimicked a heart attack and we went through a harrowing emergency room ordeal. They drained 1.3 liters of fluid from between the plural linings around his lung that looked exactly like Killians Red ale. It even had a nice head of froth. I don’t think either one of us will be able to drink that beer again.  Leo, our cat, fell out of a tree trying to escape the 4th of July neighborhood fireworks. Who’d a thunk the heavy artillery would start at three in the afternoon? He suffered some severe internal damage and emotional shock. A friend of ours is a shaman that is very good with animals. She did some work with him and said his soul had shattered into many pieces and eight entities… Read More »

The Tower, Part II: The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

Continued from previous post…. Peh or pey, the Hebrew letter attributed to The Tower, means mouth and by extension speech or communication. Our ability (or inability) to communicate is what precipitates many of the Tower moments of our lives. We are experts at talking our way into all kinds of trouble. Tower moments are also the way the Universe communicates with us, telling us that what we are doing no longer feeds our souls and it’s time to do something different. The Tower’s planet is Mars, god of assertiveness and force. There is nothing subtle about this card. This card is what happens when we listen to The Devil (previous key). When we become obsessed with the physical world, or as the Taoists say, The 10,000 Things, we lose sight of what truly matters in our lives. Since we are creatures of solid, stable earth, we avoid change like the plague and will fight desperately to keep things as they are, even when they no… Read More »

The Tower, Part I: The Hero’s Journey and the Major Arcana

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot

This is the card that none of us wants to see in our reading. Death and The Devil are disturbing, but this card is terrifying. Its meaning is obvious, since the symbolism is so blatant and in your face. Towers are symbols of ascent, of rising above the common level. We build them out of pride, ambition, or idealism. We also build them for protection. Because it stands tall and often has eye-like windows at its top and a crown-like roof, the tower is analogous to a human. So when we look at the card our heart sees all our cherished hopes, dreams, ideas, ideals, and safety nets getting blasted to smithereens. The tarot Tower is all the illusions of the material realm: * The more money and stuff you have the happier and safer you are * The more power you have the happier and safer you are * This reality is the only reality * When you’re dead you cease to exist It… Read More »

He Who Sups with the Devil Should Have a Long Spoon

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana

We all sup with the Devil daily. He is Lord of the Material Realm and we are partially material beings. We require food, water, air and shelter from his kingdom to remain alive. And he is constantly tempting us to take more. We buy the most expensive homes and cars we possibly can and shop for the best furniture, food and clothing. “Go ahead,” he says, “Enjoy your life. The more you have the happier you will be.” And yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Father of Lies is telling you the truth. A 2008 Princeton University study by Angus Deaton says so. And here’s the graph: It looks confusing, but once you get the hang of reading it, it’s quite fascinating. The vertical axis is a life satisfaction scale—the higher the number, the more satisfaction with life. The horizontal axis is the average household income (GDP, gross domestic product) of each country adjusted for buying power. Each country is represented by a circle, the bigger… Read More »

Have We Finally Gone to the Devil?

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot

The Devil key is all about materialism. Humans are, first and foremost, materialistic beings. We can’t help it. The material world surrounds and permeates us. It overwhelms us with its beauty, sensuality, terrors, and brutality. But we used to try much harder to reach beyond the material realms and toward the divine. From ancient times up until about the end of the 1900s we lavished most of our money, time, and skills on our sacred spaces. We built them huge. We built them to last. We built them high, so that when we raised our eyes we would be reminded of the divine. Our finest architects, artists, and craftspeople spent their lives making them truly awe-inspiring. But nowadays when we lift our eyes from the pavement searching for inspiration we see: Banks… That sometimes look suspiciously like… Temples and Cathedrals.

The Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: The Devil, Part IV

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

Ayin, or eye, is the Hebrew letter attributed to The Devil. Our eyes flood our mind with images and color and we rely on them more than any of our other senses. For this reason the eye serves as a symbolic shorthand for all of our senses. The implication is that this key is about being limited to the physical realm, the world that we can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. The Talmud (Shabbat 104a) describes the letter Ayin as having two eyes. The good eye looks toward the preceding letter, Samech (support, Temperance) and manifests benevolence and charity. Remember that Hebrew is written right to left. The bad eye looks toward the next letter, Pey (mouth) and manifests greed and envy, which will eventually lead to destruction (The Tower). The Devil does everything he can to convince us to look toward The Tower, because this way limits us to physical reality and blinds us to the comfort and power of the divine that… Read More »

The Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: The Devil, Part III

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

The Devil squats in darkness on a half cube. Two chains lead from a ring in the half cube to loop around the necks of a man and a woman. This is the nightmare version of The Lovers. To make sure we don’t miss the connection, nearly all modern decks make The Lovers key 6 and The Devil key 15 (1+5=6). A quick review of The Lovers card reminds us that it is about how to make wise choices. The man, or conscious mind, opens himself to, or is in communion with, the woman, or subconscious mind, who is looking up and communicating with the Angel Raphael. In other words, we can make much better decisions if we are in touch with the universal consciousness, or higher beings, or the divine, or whatever we choose to call it. This is why, when faced with a problem, a wise person will not only look at it logically, but also “pray on it”, or “sleep on it”,… Read More »

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: The Devil, Part II, Sympathy for the Devil*

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

In the Middle Ages Satan falls yet again—from fallen angel to monster. He is usually red or black with fangs, bulging eyes, pointy tail, and claws, although he is occasionally pictured as a goat. The Catholic Church wanted to paint the most terrible portrait of the archfiend that they possibly could. But, according to Ronald Hutton,** the Devil wasn’t depicted as a man with goat horns and legs and cloven hooves until the late 1800s and early 1900s. This was a Christian reaction to the neoclassical movement, which occurred at this time and celebrated all things Greek. Wild and lusty Pan, spreader of unreasoning terror and more than a few thighs makes frequent appearances in the literature of that time. He, of course, fascinated the Victorians and Edwardians, and horrified most God-fearing Christians (or at least they said they were horrified). The goat imagery is very appropriate because the Devil is a scapegoat. He is a construct that monotheists use to explain the presence of… Read More »

The Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey, The Devil, Part I

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot

Who or what the devil is The Devil? He is a construct of the monotheistic religions. When all you’ve got is one god and he’s perfect, how do you account for all evil that “lurks in the heart of man?”** You blame it on The Devil, of course. You make him the source of all evil, whose sole purpose is to corrupt god’s perfect creation (that would be us) through lies and deception. Problem solved. The pagan religions that predate monotheism have lots of bad guys, but, unlike The Devil, they are not totally evil archenemies of the human race. They are often regarded as the black sheep of the family, but they are still a part of the family or pantheon of gods, They are tricksters, like Loki, Hermes, and Coyote—untrustworthy gods who delight in teaching humanity lessons through deception. Or wild ones, like Dionysus and Pan, who give the gift of divine ecstasy. Some, like Set, who killed his brother, Osiris, chopped him… Read More »