1. How Tarot Perfects the Intellect

This morning we're going to talk about the intellect. The title is actually how Tarot perfects the intellect as one of a series for this month which continues an explanation of preparing the personality for initiation and showing how Tarot is utilized for this purpose in the different parts of our personality. Now Now, of course, one of the things which usually confuses us so much is trying to determine what is the intellect as against, for example, the higher mind or the subconscious mind or even the emotions. Most of us get very confused about what parts of our personality represent what aspect, and this is very natural. Because really in essence none of the personality powers stand alone that is none of them can function without the aid of all of the others the intellect there would be a meaningless thing if it didn't have the senses in order to receive perceptions from its environment if it didn't have the subconscious area of memory to draw from for analysis if it didn't have the ability to abstract and project its thinking so that you see to just say intellect in and of itself would be quite meaningless and we rather dislike to take different parts of the personality and say now the intellect must be thus and thus or so-and-so, and then your emotions must do so-and-so, or usually, I'm afraid we say they must not do it. Nevertheless, whatever we say, the mind or the emotions should or should not do.

The one thing we want to keep in mind very clearly is that we mustn't really separate the rest of our personality from whatever faculty we're discussing, because in essence, we'll be highlighting that particular faculty and showing more of its relationship to the rest of our personality and its expressions rather than taking it as a thing in itself which doesn't exist at all. That is, intellect is a thing in itself or any other part of the expression of consciousness. Let's then try to understand for example what we mean by consciousness first. Now in essence consciousness could be thought of as simple awareness. It could be complex, it could be simple, but in other words awareness in itself we can call consciousness. Now there are many kinds of awareness remember. All of this though though, would have to be included in consciousness. And consciousness as such must always be remembered as being the quality of the life power, or that is, of the creative God. Because if there were no such thing as consciousness in the processes of the creator of the universe, it would be impossible for consciousness to develop.

In other words, you cannot develop something that doesn't develop from the same thing, like, for instance, the seed of the oak tree grows another oak.

And therefore, where you see the seed of the universe growing consciousness and more consciousness, you have to be able to say that it is consciousness that built the universe, or to be more accurate, is building the universe, or to be more accurate yet, is living and experiencing its universe.

Consciousness in itself, and of course consciousness is exactly what everything has from what seems to be the unconsciousness of the plant, or even of the mineral, incidentally, latent though it be, to the consciousness of the human. Many, many people experience the consciousness in other creatures, you know, not regularly of course. I mean, if we did that regularly, we'd be so busily snooping into other consciousnesses, you might say, we wouldn't really be living our own, would we, and expanding our own as we are supposed to do. In other words, we wouldn't be tending to our own garden. But it's quite agreed amongst those who have developed supersensory perception at times or more or less often that there are very specific types of consciousness existing in these specific types of form and creations of the universe, and that That plant life has one kind of consciousness. Our insect life has another kind or quality of consciousness. Our animals have another kind or quality of consciousness.

And then, of course, we come to the human being.

There also is the consciousness that goes beyond what we usually think of as human, and that's when we get into what we call the superconscious awarenesses. But remember these are all different degrees of the one consciousness of the Lord of the universe in essence and if we come to think of it that way we will understand a little better just what to do about our own consciousness and particularly how to see the importance of developing the various factors or faculties which our consciousness has as a total expression so this morning we are talking particularly or not really as particularly as it would seem after all is it of the intellect in terms of consciousness let's try to understand the intellect as compared to for instance other kinds of knowing first to see if we might understand how to do a little more with this magnificent instrument and indeed how to recognize it for what it is now in the human being you know in man we have a development of the brain that is the vehicle in the body which has what is called the fore part of the brain and this fore part of the brain is far more highly evolved, of course, than in any other creature that exists. That is, any other creature that exists on this planet. And it is usually indicated by the fact, the shape of the head, you know. So that, as we can see, though we have been compared, say, to little monkeys and little gorillas, and a lot of people feel the monkeys and gorillas should be most insulted, the point is that if you compare the details you will find that one of the primary differences though there's such a similarity in shape of body on the whole one of the primary differences is the shape of the head itself particularly from the eyes up and of course it's in that part the fore part of the brain that our intellect has been evolved our other types of consciousness have become more or less shall we say subconscious and reside in the different parts of the brain now this doesn't mean that consciousness resides in the brain itself we want to understand it but consciousness does have to have an instrument through which to experience a particular kind of awareness it needs that instrument therefore it makes or grows these instruments and remember what we have told you many a time the fact that we seem to die doesn't mean that we have lost our instrument we've merely lost the outer covering or we we've retired mentally from the vibrational level which makes our vehicle something we experience on what we call the physical plane but in the inner plane consciousness experiences its form just as definitely or shall we say its forms just as definitely as it does on the physical plane though there are differences and variations but we can't give you any talk on that at this time maybe we'll give another series on just what the kinds of forms are in the different levels after death going from the hysteric right on up to the highest abstract spiritual or so-called spiritual levels. It's not always exactly that. But right now let's understand this, that we have an instrument just like we have an organ or we have a piano or we have a harmonica. We have an instrument and this instrument is for a very special kind of usage, just like any special instrument for an orchestra can be used only in that way. You can't use a flute as a trombone, can you? Nor can you use a harmonica as a violin. Each instrument has its own very, very variegated method of expressing in terms of the instrument. And we have been evolving an instrument which we call the human body and in the forebrain which incidentally is the latest physical evolutionary development I suppose you're aware of this this is the most recent mainly because it takes time you grow a plant and first comes one leaf then the next leaf and the third then it branches out and finally you get you get your bud and your flower so when we say the most recent evolution we can say our higher self has been growing its instrument and the most recent flowering that has evolved is the actual intellect which the full part of our brain is the instrument for. In other words, that is the place where the awarenesses and the ability to use the objective kind of consciousness exist. It is from that area that we have the connections like a magnetic connection to the higher self. And in essence, of course, we could say it's the higher self that thinks through the intellect for the special purpose of experiencing the kind of situations and conditions that we have in terms of human intellect or human mind.

We could say that and that would be exactly correct, but because we're so focused here, we're not aware of it yet. That's what we're working for, is to become aware of who and what it is that has builded us this house, this stately mansion, and what it is that it is preparing for at all times. This we will all experience if we keep with the work at hand. Now then, Tarot. Remember, we're going to try to show you how it is that Tarot helps to develop these various faculties in terms of our aspirations. As a matter of fact, it develops them even if we're not aspirants because tarot happens to hold a principle of stimulus to the whole mental nature in a very interesting manner I'm sure most of you have heard for example of the Rorschach test haven't you where people are told to look at just plain inkblots and the pictures they see in these inkblots tell the doctors, the psychologists, a very important story. It tells the psychologist whether a person is sane or insane, balanced or unbalanced, imaginative or dull, and so on. Most of which, incidentally, happen to be a correlated use of the intellect with the imaginative faculty attached to it as part of it so that the pictures we see by using our intellect or attention can give us a way that is if we happen to be a little unbalanced and we might say those of you who feel you're unbalanced never let anyone give you a rush at that keep it a secret and you'll get along better with your fellow man. We have enough troubles without exposing our weaknesses, since certainly we expect to outgrow them sooner or later. Now then, in the Jungian psychology, Carl Jung, he also did a great deal of research in terms of consciousness and its different expressions. And he discovered that all of humanity has the tendency to think in very particularized kinds of images, which he called archetypal images, meaning mainly that all humanity, no matter where you find them, whether it's an aborigine from Australia, or whether it's the most highly civilized person from one of the western countries, whether it's a Polynesian from the island or whether it's a an oriental doesn't matter where whether they've been away from contact with the rest of humanity and have remained by themselves for hundreds of thousands or innumerable thousands of years that everyone dreams and this is important Everyone dreams in typical symbols, and they have the same symbols, and the symbols mean pretty much the same things to them, showing again that the mind manipulates symbols, that is pictorial symbols, for its thinking, for its knowing, for its developing, for its perception of all things.

So that knowledge of pictorial images knowledge of symbols knowledge of what they do these symbols do or do not do and knowledge of how to use them really in essence gives us an advantage over all other types of evolving humanity and I mean really all types of evolving humanity. Because if we use the principle that consciousness itself uses, if we use the principle as the principle of the intellect in itself for its thinking processes and work with it directly, that is directly using archetypal images in order to stir and stimulate the awarenesses and the development of the ability to think, and to think specially and particularly in, shall we say, a rather disciplined manner instead of the way most of us usually think. If we can do that, you see, what we are doing is taking that which has been the latest development in our vehicle, and we are increasing its convolutions. You know, our scientists have also found that in the brain, it isn't the size of the brain, though size is important because man is said to have just about the largest brain that exists.

Bill Whale has a larger brain yet, as I think so does the elephant.

And though they're very bright indeed, certainly we will not say they're brighter than we are because their brains are larger. It it takes more than just the large brain though that is a part of it if there's the depth of the convolutions in your brain that has to do with your ability to think deeply and tarot is designed to do just that for you in other words to take these convolutions the whole story you see every time you have any experience these convolutions in your brain you've seen them haven't you they're you know these dug in like little channels going all through uh the areas and they get there the deeper these channels the deeper the thinker this uh follows just like the night and day the more complex the convolution that is the more there are the more complex the thinker you can combine then complexity with the depth of convolution and you have somebody with far more of a capacity that is a far better instrument you have somebody with a real grand piano instead of one of those tinkling child piano you know the difference in riches and depths of what you play on so what happens happens then you get better music out of it don't you and in essence then when we are working on our consciousness directly say with images with the tarot we're really also profoundly affecting our bodies now always keep in mind when we tell you that we are affecting our bodies that we are not teaching any nonsense like materialism.

We are trying to show you and have been trying to show you and have been projecting to you from our higher inner school levels and will continue projecting to you so you will experience it more and more often the awarenesses that have to do with the fact that your body is really, as we pointed out last week your body is really condensed spirit it is it is not an unholy thing it is a holy and glorious and miraculous thing and so when we talk about the changes that we want to make in the body remember when we get these changes made in the physical body the reason they can affect the physical body is because first they are being worked out in our more subtle body, and then the physical body is its end result, or it's, shall we say, the fruit of the tree, as the Qabalists like to call the physical universe, and all kinds of manifestations.

So the fruit of the tree is what is always being worked on, and that's why it becomes very important to continuously work on those things which make the vehicle, that is, which make the physical vehicle, the kind of instrument that becomes more and more of a hi-fi instrument. That assures a development and a control and an experience which the intellect then can assimilate, which gives us more and more expanded consciousness for when, say, we drop the physical vehicle. The instrument then has served for a particular cycle or purpose. And of course, as you know, the masters of wisdom are said to have so perfected their consciousness in terms of what they can do with their physical bodies that they don't have to die at all in the way we do at this point. They can just take their bodies up, reassemble them, and put them down by the act of consciousness. And this act of consciousness comes about by learning how to use this power of the mind, which includes, remember, the other powers, but we'll discuss these other powers through this monthly series and its relation to tarot. This morning we want to highlight more the aspect of the intellect. Well, it's because they can concentrate so tremendously. It's because they can hold their awareness so much more completely and fully on an area that they have developed an ability to keep their physical vehicles in a continuous balance of, you know, the throwing off of old cells and the growing of new cells so that the toxins do not take over and the frozen parts of the intellect do not develop.

You see, what we don't realize is that from the emotions and the intellect, where we get frozen, that's where we usually immediately, you might say, sign...

In a sense you might call it a death warrant sounds gruesome doesn't it and yet it isn't gruesome it isn't gruesome, it's glorious because when we get stuck in the old ruts of things that aren't so when we get imprisoned which we do with our minds and our emotions when we get imprisoned in these records these grooves of the records that we play to ourselves we stop being as completely effective in our whole growth process for ourselves or for others. And so the end result is that we get sort of frozen, you know, zombie-like also. And the greatest blessing that can happen then is for the soul to withdraw from that body that has all the convolutions and the fixations in the cell structure and in the brain and assimilate its experiences then go out and start building another body after it's had its vacation and if it is going to have one you know I've been played a dirty trick they tell me I chose it but I don't believe it I'll have to show me the book with my signature on it I haven't had my vacations lately but they the consciousness then can build a new body and so that while it is growing you see this infant body is always more open and of course it will continue being subject to patterns but always as the soul gets older that becomes less and less until we get a point where where we sit together, a place like here, we're really getting ready to do startling things, you know.

Or we wouldn't be having the kind of teaching and training that we're receiving. The tarot, the tree of life, the Qabalah, the Qabalistic chant, the color and sound work, the pranayama, the chapter. All these things are there as we work and develop ourselves towards it. And because we have these aids, we know that we are far more along long than average Homo sapiens. Surely we realize, most of us can't help seeing, that the average mind of man is very frozen and very lacking in its openness, in its ability to receive, to assimilate, to grow. Very lacking indeed. People are frozen in patterns of fundamental mental thinking both in their in their religions in their politics in their way of life uh this is a consistent thing and they also are frozen in terms of being open to uh new philosophical ideas they therefore are frozen in terms of being able to develop spiritual awareness and spiritual powers because you cannot develop these things when you are frozen into the narrowness of the previous pattern don't you see now a person then who works with the tarot regularly starts embedding into the brain structure as well as incidentally into every single cell of the body images of a very special and positive kind that help to change to change over from the old patterns into the new and they sometimes do it so softly so simply so easily that we look back say a year to a year before two years before and we're shocked I mean pleasantly shocked to discover what startling changes have occurred in our outlook in our personality and the way we think and the way we feel I know many of you have had that experience uh many times more than once already and this is a continuing thing using then the actual principles of consciousness itself which is the impact of mental images gives that intensification and helps to accelerate the growth process in that particular area or that particular level now remember what we said about the Rorschach test well all consciousness never forget all awareness really takes place inside of ourselves Whatever is out there we are assimilating, our intellect is what focuses its attention on a group of vibrations. And that group of vibrations then the consciousness makes an interpretation of. And it will say, oh this group of vibrations, that's Anne. And that group of vibrations, oh that is a cat my cat was very naughty last night that's what my picture told me inside my consciousness but he doesn't believe it he never realized it so he thought the night was made for making mad love by insisting on being petted and and adored and then purring and kneading his little paws and he was quite determined that that sleep was the most unnecessary thing when he was requiring and even demanding love so we fought and fought of course you know who won if he did now back then to a better understanding of our intellect It is our intellect which has the ability to hold the attention focused on whatever is happening out there.

Now what is really happening out there?

No one knows. The scientists themselves admit that now, you know. But we share an interpretation in our consciousness from the focus of our intellect, which is the instrument that's picking up these vibrations. For the soul, for the higher self. And we share it. Why? Because really we share a certain total consciousness. All together we are what you might call the divine atom.

Together we are generic humanity, which is the son of God. Generic humanity is in Qabalah called the son of God, you know, not the sons and daughters. Just to give you an idea of that togetherness that we have. I know amongst ourselves it's a very charming idea, but with some people we kind of get a little annoyed at this togetherness, when we say it's carrying it a little too far. And you know I feel the same way about it at times, unless I stop myself. Because what we need to learn to see more and more clearly with our intellect is that these other elements that we find uncharming are merely not in a specific kind of relationship vibrational wise with our consciousness which is harmonious at that time and of course therefore it's a good thing to stay away from them if you can because we have enough problems uh overcoming our own um patterns of intellectual focuses in the wrong areas without having to struggle too much with the impact of the images from other people's minds that are not in harmony with our own now then intellect as we said actually then is the focusing instrument for the soul or for the higher consciousness and the higher consciousness can have a higher consciousness only because it has an intellect that it is evolving. I wonder if you realize this. I wonder if you realize how important it is for you to see what a magnificent miracle this intellect is.

No matter how poor your intellect may be, no matter how undeveloped, it is a magnificent miracle because just as an infant is just as much a miracle as a grown person often we think more so but at least it's an analogy in the same way an undeveloped intellect is just as much a miracle as a developed one only of course we are working towards a better development at this point towards the higher development now then as we said the higher consciousness or higher self or the true soul of you wouldn't be an individualized selfhood within the total God if it had not learned how to manipulate the substance of God or the substance of life to form itself vehicle in and through which it could have an intellect in order to focus attention attention on a given smaller area. You have heard me say many times more than once that in a sense we are like God's microscope. We are the way God experiences the minute and the small.

All right, take the same idea now and try to see it in this way that it is your intellect which makes it possible for you to be an individuated center with a selfhood that is eternally individualized incidentally because once it's individualized it is that's it a lot of hard work ahead but you've already shall we say been conceived in the womb of God. And this itself is a miracle, don't you think? All right, now this intellect then, how does it give you your individualization? All right, let's consider. Suppose you look at something and I look at something, whatever it is, a color. You and I are not going to react the same way at all we may react similarly but not exactly the same we can't why because our intellects make us something unique our intellects extract out of the vibrations uh that which is meaningful to the total makeup of course this really includes the whole subconsciousness which incidentally is a part of the intellect I mean we must never divorce it from the intellect at all because the subconsciousness is really the intellect working on levels below the threshold of awareness at the moment still the fact that we have subconscious knowledge is because the intellect at some time focused or concentrated and therefore shall we say reached out and grabbed a little handful of this, a little pinch of that, and by grab, and what is it? It grabs experience or images into itself and interpretation. And all of this then we call the grouping of the images, the interpretations, we call this our subconsciousness. Nevertheless, it is all that that which the intellect itself has, you might say, in some ways almost grown for itself by the act of giving specific attention to specific things.

Now, for instance, when you give specific attention to me, you're looking at me, you're focused. At least I hope you are. I hope you're not somewhere off there.

Now, what is making you focus? Actually your higher soul your higher consciousness is using your intellect uh just like one uses a flashlight in the dark and sees within the radius of the flashlight does that does that give you a better image perhaps now then uh by seeing that way those little parts you see what happens the consciousness learns how to understand the relationships between the parts just like we pointed out to you if you're three miles up there we told I think last week we mentioned to you if you're three miles up there and you look down you'll see something very beautiful overall but you're not going to experience the miracle of a flower are you you're too far up you're seeing too big therefore you have to be seeing little to experience the miracle of a flower and your intellect is the individualized aspect of the one life or god which gives you the or gives god which is you you're not separate but you god why should we say no that isn't me that's god if it's you it's god because there is none else that's the point so god in and through a part of itself which he calls you whatever your name john joe james gene uh has a particular individualized experience because of that flashlight focus and that is the intellect the ability to concentrate and take in experience and along with that then as one takes in more and more experience notice what happens if you examine each little part say of the petal of a flower then you know everything the flower is made up out of all its little intricacies including the little veins that run through it for its nourishment and so you start seeing the miracle of the all in terms of the miracle of all the specialization that it grows and is and experiences and all of these things are done in terms of consciousness and our awareness of them can come only in terms of our intellect now where we get into trouble of course is that we we fall fall in love with our intellects. You know, all of us have suffered from it to some degree or others, some more than others. As you've heard me say, we are just utterly enchanted with our own mental capacities and wish that everyone else had as marvelous a mind as we have to see things so clearly. Well, this is natural. In a way, you're right. Because because all of us are a special way that God experiences life and sees particularly.

You see, the intuition is not really wrong. It's just giving credit to the wrong spot. It's crediting the instrument rather than that, which is growing and develop the instrument, and then it fails to see that the instrument is not a finished product. So, Tarot helps us to finish it by giving us positive archetypal images and giving us exercises which do what? Which help us to go out there and start seeing details that we missed before. And the more details we start seeing, the less mistakes we make. The more our intellect then develops the ability to weigh and to measure, and to not only to weigh and to measure but to forecast you know people think that it's a great magical gift you know to to forecast what it takes is a good intellect did you know that a good intellectual intellect has to be able to weigh and measure for instance how much goes into baking a cake or a special baking the special dish I was just given uh to put in my oven by one of our darlings today which I will taste but it takes intellect to know how much and what degree the amounts to bring together what to do what what to do with timing for instance all of this it learns through experience and then you get a finished product so when people keep making mistakes when people say well he means well or she means well you know you've often heard the saying the road to hell is paved with good intentions, boy, the best meaning person in the world is really, can wreck the planet and wreck the solar system if you let them have the power to do it, because you have to have, as you've heard me say, competence. Therefore, the development of the intellect is what gives the competence, through experience. Then we know, just as we had read to us from the Bible today, remember it said, if a person build a house are they going to just if they don't know exactly what materials they're going to need and so on and just leave it off before it's finished or what have they done what have they shown do we do this well naturally none of us I know but still let's be aware of that factor you see when we see that certain goals are not met that certain things that we aim for we have not been able to finish that we miscalculated our timing that we can't handle time and so on let's say to ourselves I guess I need a little bit more exercise in focusing weighing measuring and knowing just how much goes into what every machinist has to know just how much pressure to put on whatever it is he's doing what tools to use and when the thing is finished or not finished and when to turn the electricity on and off and so on no matter what we build and you see all experience though it may seem bitter at times and it seems bitter at times I know but the bitterness Remember is merely because intellect has not yet learned to weigh and measure and forecast and therefore is getting more data to expand the capacity of the higher consciousness to be able to use this miracle of the focus and the awareness on the detail.

We'll discuss that more as we go along with the rest of the series, showing it as it acts through the emotions showing it as it acts in the interaction between mind and emotion and will help you to see more about the positive factors involved in getting the intellect to become the perfect instrument that incidentally it can be for every one of us here and now because if we have developed enough consciousness to be able to study tarot to study qabalah we have also developed enough ability to perfect our intellects so that our intellects can become a more perfect tool for the higher self to use and therefore to bring us ultimately then the direct self-conscious cosmic awareness that can be the large and control and have power over the small through its miracle. Remember then about your intellect, won't you, that you're a miracle, that your ability to pay attention to anything is the most miraculous thing we have on this planet, because it is the way the divine is experiencing and knowing its details, and that you, your particular ability to concentrate, to be aware, to take in details of anything and measure them and use them, is the miracle of your eternal, very eternal, individuality.

Unique, loved, wonderful, and blessed.