The Heightened Meanings have been written not with a view to making any definitive statement on the meanings of each card, but rather to get you as a trainee thinking along new lines. So some of the meanings you will agree with more than others. But I don’t want you to get stuck at agreement or disagreement. I want you to continue to develop your own associations, using the Heightened Meanings as a guide for your own continued work.
As you go through this chapter, why not keep a notebook beside you, so that you can write up your own Heightened Meanings, card by card.
You will notice that I have only given you these meanings after you have gone through the Worksheets and other exercises. The meanings you have derived for yourself do not have to match up exactly with the Heightened Meanings. To some extent there should be a basic consensus, because the Tarot is based around a pattern, but within that very wide pattern is the potential for an infinite number of personalizations.
So there is no sense of ‘getting it wrong’, really; only of weaving the symbolism which the Tarot has to offer into the context of your own life.
THE MAJOR ARCANA
0 THE FOOL
Encounters with other people will become very lively indeed! The kind of people you are meeting are outside the realm of what has gone on before. You will be experiencing them as interesting, exciting, enlivening! You will be having the same effect on them, by the way, just in case you thought it was a one-way street!
New relationships may take place which will be totally different from anything you have experienced before! Don’t go into this new world with all your old knowledge – leave your shoes and your mind by the door! It is only by removing the barrier of existing knowledge that you will be able to receive fresh inflows of teaching, which will pave the way for you to go on to the next level of spiritual development.
It may well be that under this influence you are attracting people who are very different from your normal circle of friends and associates. These new associations may tend to have an unusual quality which makes your existing friends wonder about the direction in life which you are taking. Let them sit and wonder – maybe one day they may even find out!
The whole emphasis is upon freedom, spontaneity, the unusual and that which has the capacity to interest.
If it is essential for you to make any important decisions, especially those which might require long-term commitments, then this isn’t the best set of influences. It is far better to postpone these decisions until a time in the future when the correct balance – or at the very least a new balance of the mind’s faculties – can be achieved. In particular, steer clear of business decisions, matters involving finances, property, the drawing up of leases or any legal agreements which would be binding or have long-term effects.
This card would certainly point the way towards the development of new skills, new techniques, new abilities. The only problem here is that under this card’s influence, it might be difficult to focus the mind or to concentrate on one thing at a time sufficiently to achieve anything concrete. But this would probably be the crux of the whole matter.
It symbolizes a brilliant time for pushing ahead with new plans and projects, although there is in this card a far greater degree of the element of ‘experiment’ than is to be found anywhere else. Let’s not get too disillusioned or upset if some of these experiments don’t necessarily work out or at least yield the kind of tangible results which we had originally anticipated!
The Fool is all about the experimental, the original, the eccentric, the different. He is all about not following any pattern at all, just doing his own thing! He is no respecter of outward appearances, but is able to see right to the heart of the other person – or situation – and judge truly. He is a great idealist and by his refusal to compromise himself with the material world he inhabits a rather different dimension. Time, place: neither of these have much effect on him; he is only just in his own body. If he went any higher, he’d slip out of his physical form and go back to the realm of pure spirit. He is a great teacher, but wouldn’t want you around for too long, hanging on his every word. He’s not here to let you slip out of your self-imposed responsibilities and start projecting onto him. He’s not a guru, just his own true self. In the past, he was associated with the element Air, as that was the lightest of all the elements, like the wind, blowing wherever it wanted to blow. More recently, he has been seen in the company of the planet Uranus, which alone out of all the planets in the Solar System rotates horizontally on its axis, going around the Zodiac. So, he is equally eccentric, rotating around the universe in his own original way as well!
He is a breath of fresh air, in a world where orthodoxy has gone mad. Others inevitably copy him, which is where the merchandizing comes in, and the fashion designers, starved of fresh ideas, start seeing new possibilities.
His is the flash of genius which comes like a bolt of lightning: the invention of the paper clip; the rubber band; the milk carton; these are some of his ideas! To hell with 9-5! Who needs all that slavery when you can have a ball?
What could you be doing instead of reading this book? How could you get to meet the Fool? What would you say to him?
1 THE MAGICIAN
In this card you are shown possessing great power, as if a great force were flowing through you, coming in from some higher plane of inspiration and manifesting more fully in your everyday life as energy, action and power. Quite possibly you haven’t got yourself fully connected to this great force – as yet. The Magician is here to show you how to!
This card looks at the role of communication, especially to a much wider audience than that to which you are used. You are being described in this card as an intermediary, as if you are in some way the representative of a message which is flowing in from outside and beyond yourself, into action.
This card talks of learning, teaching and intellectual knowledge. It is in these areas, this card is saying, that your next stage of growth is likely. You may well find yourself in the role of teaching, or of learning from others, or both!
The Magician is saying that in the coming period you will be using your knowledge to influence the minds of others. There may even be very specific points of contact between you and those in the advertising industry, media or other branches of the communication industry.
The Magician represents the principle of reason; of thinking things through; of talking with others and consulting them on their viewpoints. He likes libraries, which to him are symbols of tremendous work done by mighty minds. He is able to look at a book and know just how much work has gone into it, how many years of collecting data, collating it, digesting it and then displaying it so that someone else can share in that knowledge. He likes to visit laboratories, where he can give hints as to how new life-saving discoveries can be made, which will help humanity wipe out diseases such as typhoid, smallpox, syphilis and leprosy. He is helpful to those who wish to roll back the borders of human knowledge. All explorers know something of him. All discoverers, too. He is master of communication and can speak all languages. He rules over all education, by which means alone we are rendered fit members of society. Negative aspects of him are shown in mythology when he appears a Loki, the trickster, or as a deceiver or beguiler in some way. Negative aspects of him in life are the confidence trickster, the card sharp, the loan shark. Even more negative would be when he invents something like a new disease or drugs with horrendous side-effects.
The Magician is also master of travel. The Greeks and Romans venerated him as Hermes and Mercury respectively. One of his most important attributes was that of ruling over trade, travel and commerce. His assistance was always invoked at the beginning of any major journey or transaction.
What could you be doing in