Realization

Key 20 shows the sixth stage of spiritual unfoldment, in which personal consciousness is on the verge of blending with the universal. At this stage the adept realizes that his personal existence is nothing but the manifestation of the relation between self-consciousness and sub-consciousness. He sees, too, that self-consciousness and sub-consciousness are not themselves personal, but modes of universal consciousness. Thus he knows that in reality his personality has no separate existence. At this stage his intellectual conviction is confirmed by fourth dimensional experience which finally blots out the delusion of separateness forever.

The number 20 has already gained special significance for you as the number of the letter Kaph, to which the 10th Key, The Wheel of Fortune, is assigned. Thus 20 is for you a mental signal of the idea of grasp, or comprehension. This idea is basic in connection with the Key we are studying in this lesson, because it is in Key 20 that we see the result of completing the cycle of realization represented by the Wheel. In the lesson on Key 10 it was pointed out that humanity at large is yet in the position of Hermanubis, and that the completion of the Great Work consists in the extension of the light of Intelligence through that segment of the Wheel which is marked with the letter Yod. In other words, when man comprehends his true nature, he sees that that nature is identical with the One Reality, the One Will of which the universe is but manifestation. Thus he says, 'I have no will but to do the will of him that sent me.' On the other hand, he knows that will. He knows it as a will to freedom, as a will to joy, as a will to health, as a will to opulence. He knows that it is a will to good, to the impartation of every good and perfect gift. He comprehends it as the will that finds expression in all activity. Here and now, he sees that will expresses no lack, no disease, no failure, no poverty. He grasps the truth that whenever appearances of evil surround us it is because we are not seeing the true relations.

For such a one, daily experience is a succession of miracles. When we begin to see the light, it is like the lightning-flash in Key 16. While it lasts, it breaks down the structures of error, and shows all existence as it really is. But then the darkness of ignorance closes in again, and we have to wait for the next flash.

In the Key numbered 20, however, there is a perpetual recognition of the limitless power of Spirit. Thus 20, read from units to 10s, does express the operation of the Nothing through Memory, or the working of the Fool's vision through the Law of the High Priestess. Here there is a freedom from all those lapses of memory which assail us earlier in the work. Moment by moment, without cessation, we see the Truth and live it. And with this recognition there comes a new kind of consciousness. WE DO NOT SLEEP ANY MORE. Our bodies are put to rest, but we remain awake, able to function consciously in the fourth dimension, so that we literally do 'serve God day and night.'

This is one of the meanings of conscious immortality. I testify to my knowledge that it is a legitimate experience of normal men and women. There is no more need for being apparently unconscious eight hours out the twenty-four than there is for wearing a gas-mask in ordinary air. WE ARE IMMORTAL and whether we know it or not, we function consciously during the sleep of the body.

The greater numbers of persons, however, do not remember their nightly experiences, because they have not developed, on the physical side, the means of recording it. Once this power of remembering that experience is developed, it is possible to plan for the night’s work and the recollection of it will be part of the day’s activity. Until one has experienced this, it is impossible to convey in any human language the alteration it makes in all one’s activities.

The Hebrew letter Shin (pronounced “sheen”) means a “tooth” or “fang.” In its form the letter Shin resembles three tongues of flame, rising from a fiery base. The sound of the letter, “Sh!” is an admonition to silence, understood by all men. So, but more imperative, is the sharper hiss of which this letter is also the sign in Hebrew. Thus the letter Shin corresponds by sound to the final admonition of the Masters – BE SILENT.

Serpents, everywhere recognized as symbols of wisdom, are silent, subtle creatures. Jesus told his disciples to be wise as serpents, thus emphasizing, for those who had ears to hear, the ancient doctrine of silence. Evidently, then, in beginning our study of the letter Shin, we are approaching a great wisdom, which has always been reserved, something about which silence must be kept.

Silence is not kept because the Knowers of the Secret are niggardly with their spiritual possessions. It is not kept because any higher order of beings than man imposes a prohibition forbidding speech. It is not kept because there is anything dangerous about the Secret which might lead to misuse. The one reason for the admonition to silence is thus phrased by Lao-Tze:

'The Tao which is the subject of discussion is not the true Tao.' This is identical with the statement of the alchemists, which is negative, though it seems to be positive in form: 'Our Matter has as many names as there are things in this world; that is why the foolish know it not.'

The Great Secret simply cannot be told. Therefore it is folly to endeavor to tell it. The wise wastes no time, invite no misconception, expend no energy in an effort to put it into words. When they use words, it is not to tell the Secret, but to assist the seeker for illumination to become sufficiently ripe, or receptive.

On the other hand, those who know the Secret are forever telling it, not only by their words, but by their lives. Thus my correspondent says, 'How strange that though I had read the same statement hundreds of times... it is only now that I perceive it.' It is as when we are learning a foreign language. At first the words are just meaningless noises. After a time, we apprehend some of the meanings. If we persist in our study of the language, the day arrives when not only the dictionary definitions of the words, but all the subtle connotations and implications that never can be captured by the lexicographer, are conveyed to us in the very same words which meant nothing in the beginning.

So it is with these Tarot studies, where not only the written word, but the infinitely more expressive language of pictorial symbol, is used to communicate the mysteries. I must again and again remind you that through these lessons you are given the keys which will open the doors of the prison-house of ignorance, and admit you to the freedom of the True World. The language of symbol is the common speech of inhabitants of that True World. All the languages of mankind are but poor translations of it. If you ask me, as some have done: 'Why not put this into plain English?' I answer that wherever plain English will convey the meaning, it is my constant endeavor to use it. But no translation from the mystery language can be adequate. You must learn that silent speech of symbols for yourself. Then you will find that you are in communication with others who know it and use it.

In the old versions of Tarot, as in ours, this Key is invariably called THE JUDGMENT. On the surface, of course, this refers to that day which theologians regard as being afar off – the day when all souls shall be judged.

This, however, is but a veil for the real meaning. Judgment is the consequence of the weighing of evidence. Hence the symbolism Justice is always represented by the scales, and in the ancient Egyptian representations of the judgment of the soul, the candidate's heart was put in the balance with the feather of truth.

Again we have the idea of estimation or measurement. One might say that the Great Secret is the answer to the question: 'How much do you weigh?' That is to say, we have to see that since all that is real of us is identical with what the Emerald Tablet calls the ONE THING, our true weight must be identical with its true weight. The consciousness of totality comes in here, and it has never been better expressed than by George Burnell: 'Truth is that which is; there cannot be that which is not. Therefore that which is, or Truth, must be all there is.' When the weight of the heart or the central consciousness in man, corresponds to the weight of the feather of truth, then the scales of judgment are balanced.

A judgment, again, is a reasoned conclusion. The doctrine of Ageless Wisdom is a reasonable one. The sages are forever saying: 'Come now, let us reason together.' St. Paul, writing of the giving up of the false sense of personality, calls it a reasonable sacrifice. The Chaldean Oracles bid us 'join works to sacred reason.' Thus we shall find, in the symbols of Key 20, innumerable references to the number 4, which is the Tarot number particularly associated with reason.

Yet it must be observed that judgment is a conclusion. Thus, although reasoning is the process which leads to that conclusion, it is also the end of that process. In this Judgment, reasoning ceases and a new order of knowing is manifested. Old things have passed away, through the operation of the law typified in the Tarot by Key 13, which is the agency of the principle of right discrimination pictured by Key 6. There is to be no more weighing of evidence, no more discussion of pros and cons, and no more argument for and against. That is all done with, and we shall see in the picture abundant evidence that this is so.

Finally, a judgment is a decision. It has direct consequences in action. Note that word decision, and its derivation from a Latin root meaning 'to cut.' In this you have the same hint that is conveyed by the correspondence of the letter Shin to a Hebrew word meaning 'separation.'

The Judgment cuts off, forever, our connection with the false knowledge of the world. It puts an end to our limitation to three-dimensional consciousness. It terminates our sense of mortality. Thus, in the Bible promise already quoted, which is directly related to this doctrine of Judgment, observe the repetition of the words: 'no more.' They shall hunger NO MORE, neither thirst NO MORE, ... and death shall be NO MORE; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, ANY MORE.

To have done with all this misery. Nothing less is the promise, and to have done with it FOREVER. Not a makeshift cure or tinkering. A devouring up of the whole unhappy brood of lies. And thus we shall see in Key 20 nothing but evidences of ecstatic happiness.

The Angel is obviously the angel Gabriel, for he carries the trumpet which summons the dead from their coffins. Gabriel is the archangel of the element Water, and he is also the archangel of the Moon. This should be remembered in connection with the number of that Key in Tarot which is assigned to the Moon.

The idea here is that the presiding power in this scene is the power of reflection, or the power of recollection. The Spirit of Life in us never forgets itself, and when the day of judgment comes, we hear its trumpet-call, proclaiming our real nature, and calling us from the death-like sleep of belief in material existence.

In the composition of our version of this Key, care has been taken to enclose the angel in a geometrical design consisting of two equal circles, exactly filling a larger circle. The angel's head is in the upper small circle, and his body is in the lower small circle. This geometrical figure is an ancient symbol of the fourth dimension.

The clouds surround the angel because the true nature of the Self is veiled by appearances, and the substance of these appearances is really the same as the stream of consciousness typified by the robe of the High Priestess. That is to say, it is the flowing of the stream of consciousness which gives rise to our ideas of time, and these ideas are what partly veil from us the true nature of the One Identity.

Twelve rays of light pierce the veil. These have technical Qabalistic meaning, for in Hebrew Wisdom the number 12 refers particularly to the name HVA, Hua, 'HE,' attributed to Kether, the Crown of Primal Will. The intimation here is that the light piercing the veil is the light of the true Self, called 'HE,' by Qabalists. Gabriel is but a personification of one aspect of that Light.

The trumpet has seven rays descending from it. It is made of gold, to signify illumination. Because it is an instrument for amplifying sound-vibration, it refers to the fact that the awakening of higher consciousness here shown is actually accomplished by certain definite sounds. These are represented by the seven little rays, which correspond to the particular sound-vibrations of the seven centers in the human organism which are also known as Chakras, as interior stars, and as alchemical metals.

The icebergs in the background refer to a certain alchemical admonition, which tells us that in order to perform the Great Work we must fix the volatile. The volatile is the stream of conscious energy, always typified as water. Its flow is what creates our delusions. If we can fix it, or make it solid by arresting the flow, we shall be released from our bondage. Thus Key 12 shows us the Hanged Man, or Suspended Mind, in connection with the element of water. The state of Samadhi, or perfect abstraction, there pictured, culminates in the Perpetual Intelligence shown in Key 20. For it arrests the flow of the stream of consciousness, and because it does this by means of abstractions having their basis in mathematics, the arrested flow of consciousness is represented as ice – as it is also in Keys 0 and 9.

The sea supports the three stone coffins, in order to intimate that the real support or basis of the appearances of physical form is really the vibration of mental energy. The sea is the great sea of the racial sub-consciousness. This is the actual substance of all things in human environment, as I have explained elsewhere. There is no difference whatever between the substance of an electron and the substance of a thought. Such is the teaching of Ageless Wisdom, and in these days it is receiving abundant confirmation from modern scientists.

The coffins are rectangular, to suggest the apparent solidity and impenetrability of three-dimensional existence. In them the figures stand at right angles to the bottoms of the coffins, to intimate, even if it is not possible actually to represent, the mathematical definition of the Fourth Dimension as that which is at right angles to all other dimensions.

The three figures represent human self-consciousness, the Man; sub-consciousness, the Woman’ and their product, personality, the Child.

These three also correspond to the Egyptian triad, Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Their postures are intended to convey to the initiated, hints that each figure represents one of the three Latin letters. The woman represents, by her extended arms, the letter L. The child, by the posture of his arms, stands for the letter V. The man, in the traditional posture of Osiris risen, crosses his arms to form an X. Thus these three figures typify L.V.X, the Latin for LIGHT.

Observe that the man is in an attitude of perfectly passive adoration. In the fourth-dimensional consciousness, or Perpetual Intelligence, the self-conscious mind realizes that it does nothing whatever of itself. It is but the channel through which the higher life descends into lower levels. Its one virtue consists in what is intimated by the name of the mode of consciousness typified by the Magician. The more transparent it becomes, the less interference it makes to the free passage of the One thing. 'Of myself I can do nothing' is the meaning of this posture. The 'X' crosses out personal action.

The woman receives the influx of power from above. Her posture, since it suggests the letter 'L' is also related to Lamed in the Hebrew alphabet, thus the Key 11, which represents Faithful Intelligence. Subconsciousness, under the governance of right reason, expresses perfect faith. An unreasonable faith is impossible, however stoutly men may affirm that their dogmas and creeds deserve the name of faith. Thus the woman represents the purification following right reasoning, the subconscious response to correct statements of reality.

The child faces toward the interior of the picture, and thus he represents insight, or the turning of the mind away from the false reports of sensation. He therefore represents by his posture the letter V, or Vau, and is thus a type of Intuition, or the Triumphant and Eternal Intelligence.

The three figures are nude, to suggest a state of perfect innocence, a state of perfect freedom from shame, that false emotion which is born of our incorrect interpretation of the real nature and function of human life. Their nudity also intimates perfect familiarity and intimacy with each other, and this is of course one of the conditions of the Perpetual Intelligence, in which the true relations between the conscious and subconscious minds, and their offspring, personality, is clearly understood.

The flesh of the figures is gray, to intimate that they have overcome all the pairs of opposites, since gray is the tint resulting from the blending of any two complements, such as white and black, red and green, blue and orange, and so on. Since the Tarot Keys that correspond to the seven centers correspond also to the pairs of opposites, here is also an intimation that in the Perpetual Intelligence there is a perfect blending of the powers, or pairs of opposites, represented by Keys 1, 2, 3, 10, 16, 19, and 21. In other words, the gray flesh of the figures indicates that the seven centers of the organism have been perfectly coordinated, even as the seven rays issuing from the trumpet hint at the same thought.

The banner on the trumpet is a perfect square, measuring 5 x 5, so that it is a magic square of 25 cells, the square of Mars. Thus it evidently refers to the activity associated in Tarot with Mars. Hence you will observe that in this Key, fire, the quality of Mars predominates. Again Key 20 is placed in the tableau beneath Key 13, representing the sign Scorpio, ruled by Mars.

Finally, the banner is a square, and the cross is, like the square, a symbol of the number 4. There are four figures in the Key: the angel, the man, the woman, and the child. There are also four principal elements in the design; the ice-bergs, the sea, the group of human figures, and the angel.

The number 4 for you represents Key 4, or the Emperor. The Emperor represents the sign Aries, ruled by Mars. He is also the symbol in Tarot of the sovereign reason, which leads to the decision or right judgment. The number of Key 20 is four times five, and this brings me to the concluding point: The Perpetual Intelligence is the product of the interaction of Reason (Key 4) and Intuition (Key 5). We must reason rightly before we receive the inner teaching of intuition. Lazy minds will never hear the trumpet-call.

This week try to practice SILENCE. Speak as little as you can, keep your emotions under control, and, above all, try to steady your thoughts. Notice how much more energy you are going to conserve for the useful tasks. Continue this practice of self-control.

THE WORLD

Blue-Violet / A

Figure 7. The center of the universe.

Astrological Chart

Section FIRST