Tableau 17

The Tarot tableau for this lesson is

| --- | --- | --- | --- | | 10 | 8 | 7 | 13 | | 6 | 12 | 11 | 9 | | 17 | 3 | 4 | 14 |

Its constant summation is 38. Thus the meaning of the twenty possible ways of reading the rows of cards is always represented by Key 11, Justice, considered as the working of the power represented by Key 8 through the agency symbolized by Key 3. This square also corresponds to the third stage of spiritual unfoldment, represented by Key 17.

Thus, we know that the constant significance of this square has to do with the manifestation of the Faithful Intelligence, represented by the letter Lamed and by Key 11. But we also know that the meaning of this square is limited to those aspects of the Faithful Intelligence which are the outcome of the operation of the Intelligence of the Secret of All Spiritual Activities (Key 8), through the agency of the Luminous Intelligence (Key 3). We know, too, that the whole tableau must relate to the unveiling of truth in the practice of meditation (Key 17).

Here we may also make a further application of the principle behind the hint given in the preceding lesson. Since the summation of every row of Keys in this square is 38, and may be represented by placing Keys 3 and 8 side by side, it is evident also that Key 5 has to be taken into consideration in studying this tableau, because Key 5 is the link between Keys 3 and 8.

Meditation unveils truth, and thus establishes faith. But meditation is also a practice which utilizes the law that all the sub-human forms of universal energy are under control of the human sub-consciousness. This law, consciously recognized, and utilized to develop creative imagination, is what enables us to establish the true magical faith – the faith that moves mountains, overcomes disease, banishes poverty, and establishes happiness. Not blind faith, however; the woman seated on the throne of Justice in Tarot wears no blindfold. The faith of the occultist is based on tried and tested knowledge. His faith is the imaginative extension into the future of that which he actually knows now. In other words, the true magical faith is confident expectation that what really is will continue to be what it is. It is just the opposite of the blind faith which puts up petitions to a God who is supposed to be susceptible to flattery. To ask God to ward off calamity, or to plead with Him for special favors, is invariably to pray amiss. For such prayer assumes that He is the author of calamity, or that He is capricious.

To be sure, the occult doctrine agrees with Isaiah in declaring the One Life-Power to be the source of all conditions, including those we call “evil.” Certain it is, too, that the prayer of faith is answered, even though the God to whom it is addressed be wrongly conceived. No one who has given thoughtful attention to this subject can fail to be impressed by the incidents in the life of such a man as George Mueller, who conducted several orphanages in England upon the assumption that God answers prayer. Yet the occultist finds himself unable to accept Mueller’s theology, for he knows there is no such God as Mueller so implicitly believed in.

What is the explanation? Simply, that Mueller's faith, blind though it was, had in it this element of truth. Nothing could shake his conviction that God is an unfailing source of supply for any good work. His faith, in short, was better than his theology. Here it is to be noted that his faith never wavered, no matter how adverse appearances seemed to be. Thus, he never really prayed that calamity might be averted. On the contrary, all his prayers were affirmative. He never lost the vision of the Life-Power as an unfailing source of supply.

The true magical faith has the same steadfast quality, because the practical occultist accumulates so many evidences that the Life-Power is dependable, that he never doubts that the mental patterns he conceives will be fully realized as objective conditions manifest on the physical plane.

The beginning of that faith is in recollection. By careful examination of the memory record of his own personal experience, the practical occultist learns to discern the operation of law in the events of his life. This careful examination of his own personal past is a regular part of his mediation practice. Every day he reviews the events of that day, in order to see how the law has been manifested in those events; and he also devotes much time to the examination of the events of his earlier years. Carrying himself back, he overcomes many of his earlier delusions. He has now the perspective of a wider experience and a higher type of knowledge. Thus, he is able to see how erroneous were many of the suppositions he once mistook for truths (Key 16). He recalls instances of seeming, adversity, and sees that often the very obstacles and limitations that distressed him were the actual causes of his real advance (Key 15). And when, in addition to the practice of recollection, he adds the practice of listening to the Inner Voice, he soon begins to understand how true it is that he has been under guidance, even in those periods of his life when he has seemed to be walking in utter darkness (Key 5).

As a result of this practice, he begins to understand the working of the law of transformation. He learns the futility of the ignorant desire to keep conditions as they are. He learns that the law of eternal progress demands that old forms must give place the new ones. Thus, he comes eventually to discover the mystery of life behind the veil of death, for one certain result of meditation is the recovery of definite memories of past incarnations; and once the student has seen for himself that his present life is but one of a series, all fear of death leaves him (Key 13). From that time forward, he understands that the ephemeral personality is a vehicle for the eternal Self (Key 7). As he continues in his practice of recollection and mediation, it becomes increasingly evident to him that the outward conditions of his personal experience have been always the objectifications of his mental attitudes (Key 8). Furthermore, he discovers that even those mental attitudes which were pain-bearing were beneficent, in that they brought him corrective experience. It then becomes evident to him that even his mental unfoldment is a cosmic, as well as a personal, process. He traces his upward progress from earlier states of comparative ignorance to his present stage of better understanding, and sees that every step was inevitable. Thenceforward, he has no doubt of the perfect completion of the process (Key 10).

In the early stages of spiritual development there is usually a strong sense of personal effort, even of struggle. For in those early stages the delusion of separateness is yet strong within us. But all the sages testify with one voice that this sense of effort is itself delusive. It is not we who do the work. It is the power of the One Self that carries us upward, and we are always under its beneficent supervision (Key 9). The practical occultist learns this truth by carefully examining the record of his own past life, and by careful observation of the lives of his contemporaries. Thus, he learns that every human personality is a direct expression of the law which maintains the perfect equilibrium of the cosmic order (Key 11). The direct consequence of this knowledge is the mental attitude of complete acquiescence. The true Initiate knows that the law is at work because he has seen it in various phases of his own life, and observed it in the lives of others. Thus, he surrenders himself to it without any reservation whatever (Key 12). This, of course, does not come all at once. There must be steady practice. The records of memory must be carefully scanned. They must be stripped of all disguise. The outcome of this occult practice, which is not unlike the catharsis employed in modern psycho-analysis, is to establish a harmonious reciprocal relation between the conscious and subconscious elements of the personal mental life. The perfected condition thus attained is represented in the symbolism of Key 6.

It will not escape the attention of the alert student that right meditation is really the work which leads to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. More, whenever right meditation is established, one perceives that the personal life is, and has been always, an alchemical operation directed by that Angela That is to say, it is not we who make progress, but rather that our improved state of consciousness, with its accompanying increase in our ability to control circumstance, is the outcome of the operation of the true Self upon its vehicle, our personality. There is a direct hint of this in the words of Jesus, 'I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.' For these words imply the presence of a power superior to the personal man Jesus, and that power (which Jesus calls 'Father') is truly the Divine Operator, who tempers our personal chemistry so that we become more suitable vehicles for expressing what It really is (key 14). No part of our personal equipment is separate from the universal Being. Do we see things as they really are? Then we are but sharing the Divine Vision. Our personal command of circumstance is none other than the Universal Dominion, expressed in the conditions of time and space that constitute our personal environment (Key 4). Even the subconscious gestation of mental images, in consequence of which new ideas come into being within our field of personal awareness, is really a universal process. For there is no plan of being where the Universal Life-Power is not present, nor is there any phase of activity in which it is not the real Actor (Key 3). Truth itself is identical with the One Spirit, and although it may seem to us, at first, that we uncover truth by meditation, the time will come when we understand that we are disposed by the One Self to adopt the practice of meditation. Thus, we begin to realize that any man in meditation is simply a specific example of the method whereby the real nature of the One Life unveils itself to human consciousness. God in us unveils Himself to Himself (Key 17).

Thus, when Patanjali says that meditation is unbroken flow of knowledge in a particular object, reflection will make it evident that true meditation is participation in the One Spirit’s consciousness of that particular object. For the One Spirit must necessarily enjoy such an unbroken flow of knowledge in all things. Really to meditate, then, is to be identified, during meditation, with the Divine Consciousness of some aspect of reality. This, indeed, is the reason why, in all genuine occult literature, so much stress is laid upon the importance of meditation (Key 17). In meditation, too, the personal mentation, always intermittent and spasmodic, is wholly suspended. Thus a sage in Samadhi is in a state of trance, and in the deepest stages, the trance is so complete that it counterfeits death (Key 12). Yet his suspension of personal activity is accompanied by a tremendous enhancement of real consciousness. The personal vehicle is at rest. The senses are completely quiescent. But the Self is wide awake, and there is no cessation of self-consciousness. He who emerges from the trance of true meditation does not ask, “Where am I?” Neither does he make any inquiries as to what he has said or done, for he has never lost consciousness for a moment. What has happened has been that his consciousness has been functioning, at a higher level. From that level, he invariably brings back with him definite knowledge, and equally definite ability to exercise power beyond the limits of ordinary personal consciousness (Key 7). For such a one has, in Samadhi, remembered What he really is, and the glory and power of that recollection manifest themselves plainly in his personal existence (Key 2).

Recall, then, what was said early in this lesson. The beginning of meditation is careful examination of the memory record of your own personal existence. Combined with this must be the attitude of listening for the comment of the Inner Voice, as it explains the significance of that record. This must be a daily practice (Key 5). The result will be that you will gain a knowledge of the Great Secret. This knowledge can never be adequately imparted by any human words. Only its bare outline has been given in any occult writing. But it is symbolized in Tarot by Key 8. It is from this inner revelation of the Great Secret that the practical occultist derives his open-eyed, unwavering, magical faith (Key 11). The immediate outcome of that faith is what the medieval writers on magic called the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. To know that Guiding Presence, to share in its perception, to receive through it the Wisdom and Power of the Pure Spirit – this is the consequence of meditation (Key 14).

Meditations

FIRST DAY: Keys 2, 16, 15, 5. I remember today What I really am. This recollection enables me to destroy erroneous mental constructions. I face my problems with gladness, for they are my opportunities for the demonstration of power. MY LIFE THIS DAY IS A LESSON IN THE MYSTERIES OF THE HIGHER LAW.

SECOND DAY: Keys 13, 7, 8, 10. All transformation of circumstance are for my good. My body and my environment are the plastic vehicles of expression for the limitless power and wisdom of Eternal Spirit. They are the out-picturing of my vision of the Self. THE LIFE OF THIS DAY IS A CYCLE OF THE ETERNAL EXISTENCE.

THIRD DAY: Keys 9, 11, 12, 6. It is not I who do this day's work, not I who enjoy this day's pleasures, not I who experience this day's difficulties. All these events are part of the balancing of Heaven's accounts. I am but the witness of the operation. LET ME QUIETLY OBSERVE THE PERFECT WORK.

FOURTH DAY: Keys 14, 4, 3, 17. I submit joyfully to the tests that this day brings. Through me the Universal Dominion expresses its perfect command of circumstance. It works below the surface of my consciousness to develop more beautiful forms of expression. GOD IN ME UNVEILS HIMSELF TO HIMSELF.

FIFTH DAY: Keys 17, 12, 7, 2. Truth itself is the basis of my personal existence. Nothing can separate me from its unfailing support. No slightest detail of my personal life but is the manifestation of Universal Spirit. I REMEMBER MY CREATOR.

SIXTH DAY: Keys 5, 8, 11, 14. Be Thou my guide, O Teacher of all teachers! Let me be strong in Thy strength. Let me be faithful in act, in thought, in word. I AM OVERSHADOWED BY THE PROTECTING PRESENCE OF THE ALMIGHTY.

Organization - Jupiter Magic Square