2. Tarot for Strengthening Emotional Control

The title of our talk this morning is Tarot for Strengthening Emotional Control.

Now, if you will recall, last Sunday morning we spoke about the perfecting of the intellect. We tried to help you to understand just what the intellect is, at least to understand a little better than you've understood heretofore, just what the intellect actually is in terms of the evolution of the personality and if you will remember we showed you that the intellect in the evolution of the personality is the latest development as far as our vehicles are concerned and it takes the vehicle to develop and express and perfect the various types of faculties so our intellect we want to keep in mind is really that extraordinary something we have which gives us a capacity for abstract thinking and analysis something that we do not share with other creatures because other creatures have not yet evolved the capacity for abstract thought they haven't got the vehicle there shall we say the group soul uh that lives them has not yet developed the kinds of vehicles for this particular group of creatures which express what we call intellect however the thing we must always bear in mind is that there is no such thing as intellect without emotion lots of people try to think so they couldn't be more deleted intellect it is true we can say is the latest evolutionary development in expressing certain powers certain awarenesses certain expressions through the vehicle nevertheless let's consider what is it that allowed this intellect from where did it come what is it a part of if we look at our organisms if we look at our brain we will see that the brain has various extensions or developments from one portion to another we have what's called the very inner brain and we have the posterior part of the brain and the different loads that have to do with the uh what we are often called the automatic and the subconscious processes of thinking or of awareness then we have another development you might say another growth within the one skull the fore brain and this forebrain remember is the seat of the intellect also recall it is the seat of the pineal gland that which in the western occult mystery trainings has been called the mercury center that's why you've often heard or read of or read in books about the need of using mercury for alchemical processes is uh the importance of mercury then is most important but these same alchemists who really were cabalists talked a lot about our copper and our copper really copper is the symbol of not only in its astrological aspect but in a tarot aspect copper is the symbol for venus and venus is applied to tarot key number three the empress and the empress though she signifies the power to grow to form uh to use imagination remember this power basically is a power that comes from the feeling nature and the feeling nature again we repeat cannot be divorced from the intellectual nature as we would like to think we are taking them up in parts to help you understand more the definite working as we express them in our consciousness and as we run into these workings with other people nevertheless the fact remains that the interrelated balancing and the interrelated functions of the emotions and the intellect are really what make for a total person in terms of awareness that is our awareness the awareness of the human being and so next Sunday Sunday morning we're going to talk more about the balancing of this part of our awareness or consciousness or expression which we call the emotions and that part of our awareness or the expression which we call the intellect and we will show you how only in the balancing of these two powers which are really not two powers at all there are two ways that a certain power acts and expresses and works in us. We're going to show you how these need to be perfected and balanced and just how tarot helps us to do this to such an extraordinary degree. But let's then this morning consider the emotions, keeping in mind at all times that we don't separate these emotions thoroughly from the intellect and think of the emotions as being something completely of of it. Let's try to think of the intellect as perhaps having been given birth to in some strange way by the higher form of our emotions. Let's try to think for a moment about what's implied by the word emotions. We have a wonderful member and student who, during one of our esoteric astrology classes when I glanced at her tarot tableau that was in harmony with her own particular chart I said oh you have uh you have very deep emotions and she didn't agree at all she argued with me very vociferously right in the class but very delightfully a very wonderful person incidentally a wonderful aspirant a profoundly persevering aspirant nevertheless this hit her all wrong she said she did not have a deeply emotional nature she was not emotional by nature and because we had so many other things to do we let it go but later it certainly did come out that she had a semantic response or definition to the word emotion to her as to most people unfortunately the word emotion means something hysterical something uncontrolled something therefore unevolved something we must get over in some strange way and of course we know in some aspects of the anglo-saxon cultural development the emotions were stepped upon trampled upon and made to seem as being the animal evil a demoniacal part of the human being something we must definitely get rid of or at least keep down well you have a development in a certain part of our culture which holds up as something to be admired the lack of emotionalism and therefore when anyone hears about somebody say being an emotional type they instantly think of it in terms of somebody being unpleasant he said historical not easily handled and all these various ideas that go with it yet consider this for a minute being an emotional type doesn't mean that one expresses emotions a haphazardly or in an uncontrolled manner now does it being an emotional type means that one is strong in their emotions a person can be an emotional type incidentally and also be an intellectual type suppose they're strong in both parts of the nature what would be wrong with that as a matter of fact not only would nothing be wrong with this this is what we have to work for we have to get over our ideas in relation to emotions as such and start seeing that emotions are other than what we have thought for example what is it you think you use to aspire with what do you what is it in you that reaches up and longs to know god what except your emotions is there anything else and you could do that of course it's your mind your intellect which is helping you but it's the longing itself isn't it an emotion and how often have you heard it said that the intensity or degree of your aspiration is what determines your capacity for perseverance and attainment so what you see in order to aspire to God in order to aspire towards liberation in order to aspire towards anything you can do this only with what emotion now again what is it you think you're using when you love are you going to separate the experience of love from your emotion if you didn't have emotions could you experience love when you feel a sudden flow of love towards another individual or what is it in you that's feeling this flow of love is it not your emotion what else when you are feeling a flow of hate what is it in you that's feeling is it not your emotion which is feeling the flow of love or hate when you are feeling a sense of injustice and indignation what in you is it that is actually feeling it we're not saying what are the thought processes in relation to it that's part of the intellect although as we said we don't separate them completely but we're trying to show you a more clear picture of what emotions really are and perhaps are not so that we can stop having the brainwashing responses the brainwashed responses that we have from the culture we've been in so that we can stop feeling ashamed of a display say of feelings uh you know in certain cultures it's considered quite acceptable for a man to weep just as it's acceptable for a woman to weep but in our culture something pretty dreadful has occurred do you know that if a man weeps he's told he's unmanly in other words the man is told if he has feelings and expresses them that he's not her a man that he's not masculine and seems to me there I never heard of more utter Balderdash and maybe it sounds reasonable to you maybe you are still inculcated with the ideas given us by by this particular society that woman is an emotional creature hysterical and all that you know but man is a thinking creature and he uses his intellects and controls uh so that um man just sort of indulges or gets disgusted with hysterical emotional women and of course the women on their side get pretty disgusted with the men's worship of a one-sided picture and a lack of appreciation or ability to express that part of them which is really the heart of the soul.

And this sounds rather strong also, doesn't it? To tell you that your emotions are the heart of your soul. But what else could it be as we just pointed out to you what do you love with your feelings do you not and your feelings these are an emotion therefore emotions are something to be revered and to be understood and not to be trampled upon uh if weeping was so unmanly I certainly think that we should all get together and decide that jesus was an utterly erroneous figure for the expression of the christ consciousness because more than once we read in the bible that jesus wept and so let's not have anything so unmasculine as our ideal if we are going to stick with this foolishness of weeping being feminine the ability not to weep but to be rational whatever that means because it's your emotions that will really make you truly rational as you were free when we explain to you how the interrelation of the the mind and the emotions makes for a total true mentality, a human mentality that is a magic beyond comprehension.

So you see, what we seem to be doing at the moment is pointing out to you that our emotions are really something to be loved, accepted, and even developed. Now you might think I'm inviting you to weep, and if it seems like that, I'm sorry, but I'll tell you something. I am inviting you to weep when you feel sorrowful enough to feel the need to weep.

Sorrow exists on this plane of life.

Compassion is here on a higher emotional expression and there are times when we even weep because we are so full of gratitude and joy in other words the emotions are so full and they're so deep and there's such a need to express that there's an overflow so that weeping is not even necessarily just sorrowful is it it is again an expression of depth of emotion now naturally we do not recommend that the tears come down like rivulets at every turn of the circumstance this is uncontrolled what we are going to try to talk about at least a little bit this morning is the the impact of tarot on helping us to control our emotions.

But what we're trying to do first is to show you that we are very heartily in favor of emotions.

Very heartily in favor of them. And when we start speaking to you more and more about controlling your emotions, we're not talking about eliminating your emotions. We're talking about the fact that we must learn to direct this feeling nature in chosen ways, to direct this power in particular paths, in order to use it for expressing whatever we need to express for attaining whatever we need to attain. For instance, no amount of the use of imagery in order to bring about what is called in elementary metaphysics demonstrations, no amount of imagery even remotely works unless there's a rich flow of emotion to give power and force to the image. This is true in every level. What makes an artist? An artist is one who is rich in emotion, and he expresses this emotion through his music, or his painting, or his poetry, or his sculpturing, or what have you.

Cabinet making, this is artistic also, whatever the expression. But artistry is really using the drive, the emotional drive creatively. Whereas most of us have become accustomed to thinking of emotions only in terms of the negative expressions. And surely we must realize that until we've attained a complete understanding and perception of the significance of all the parts of our being we will have times until we've matured ourselves when our emotions will express negatively and the very repercussions from the negative expressions teach us of the importance of directing the emotions into other channels into other expressions but not eliminating these emotions let's see whether emotions have to do with other parts of life for example I wonder how many of us have considered the wonderful natural emotionalism of creatures that below man for instance the little dogs and little cats at play now what would make them play wouldn't you say that it's an emotion or a group of emotions that gives a certain exuberance is it wouldn't you say that an exuberance of spirits is an emotion all right then you see whatever area you were starting to look at with being the emotion or emotions as being a very special expression now again when we think of will willpower what is willpower consider it if you suddenly decide I will do so and so what have I just expressed an emotion didn't I an emotion pointed towards a goal a decision but without the emotion if I had didn't have the depth of emotions I'd have said I will do that and believe you me it wouldn't have gotten done because there would have been no emotion behind it to give it fire and force and decision. For emotions are something to be treasured, something to be worked for, not something to try to wipe out of the heart in the true Qabalistic teachings. And we're told this over and over again through all the tarot series in every way that's possible. In the very first Tarot Key, Taro Kiyo, the fool.

What do we see there? We see a very specific emotion being expressed. And what is this emotion? The spirit of adventure, isn't it? Now, wouldn't you call that an emotion? The spirit of adventure. If you didn't have a feeling of wanting to go someplace, which is an emotion, you wouldn't go there. And this fool is very apparently bent. We won't say hell-bent.

But he certainly bids towards activity motion toward the he is emotionally driven to go on another journey you can see he's been but that hasn't satisfied him if he isn't satisfied what is that emotion right because what can be satisfied or dissatisfied when you even solve of an intellectual problem what do you when you have a sense of well-being satisfaction what is it in you that has it your emotions you see your emotions really in a sense are the truer part of the you your intellect is that which individuates you your intellect is that which objectively analyzes and learns to point and direct and give attention and it is the magic of the ability for the emotions to experience detail remember we told you last time about the intellect being the instrument through which God can see the shape of a flower and know it directly by direct experience whereas three miles up you see beauty but nothing in detail but the sea is so the intellect of course is that which can narrow and point the attention the magician the concentration the magic of compressing into the small so as to bring into the field of consciousness something that is infinitely small in comparison to the largeness of things but it is the emotion that does the experiencing of it, isn't it? Not the intellect. The intellect points, but the emotion is what experiences. The intellect isn't what experiences love, the intellect isn't what experiences the results of creativity. The emotions experience it. Therefore, emotions have to be seen as being we repeat the heart of the soul you know on the tree of life the saphira that's assigned to desire the desire nature the sphere of activity of the desire nature is painted green and it is assigned to the sphere of Venus and we know that Venus designates love as well as desire and creativity and also when we think of desire we certainly will must realize desire can come from nothing but a certain aspect of emotional need in fact all of evolution in a sense might be called the emotional requirement of the eternal soul. Emotional requirement.

So that perhaps the intellect is merely a sort of subsidiary development. I'm not really downing the intellect. I worship it. I own it too much, in fact, if you want to know the truth. So I'm not underwriting the intellect at all. Without it we'd be nothing we would not be human beings we would not be humanly conscious so don't feel that I'm underwriting the intellect nevertheless we do have to realize that it is in and through the emotional nature that everything that we are expresses itself. The intellect in a sense you might say is almost a rationalizer of emotional requirements.

You know one of the most wonderful examples of this which I've mentioned from time to time elsewhere in my talk is when a person is under hypnosis and is given a post-hypnotic suggestion suggestion Which this person does not remember the proposed to traffic suggestion and in the suggestion this person is said now It's such a time after you have awakened you will feel so thirsty You you will feel you just absolutely cannot quench your thirst unless you drink from a particular tumbler and And fill the water from that tumbler fill it in a bowl instead of the glass you will be unable to quench your thirst unless you do it that way and your thirst is going to be utterly, unspeakably profound.

Well, I mean, I'm giving you just one example. The person then under, who's been under hypnosis, who's had this post-hypnotic suggestion, having no memory of what has occurred in terms of the suggestion, when the time comes, that whatever hour has been set or from a snap of a finger or some motion from the hypnotist or something else in the environment this person will start having this tremendous thirst this first will have to be satisfied but this first will not be able to be satisfied from a water process and a glass because this suggestion has been given only through this tumbler full of water in this bowl so the person though they may be in front of a thousand others will go to that will be go to the tumbler and they'll pour it into the bowl and they'll start drinking from the bowl and do you know what will usually happen they will they will give a rationalization as it is called and someone will say why did you drink the water from the bowl and they will say with thinking that it's absolutely true oh it's because I have a sore tooth and or a sore something and the glass hurts it and with a ball I can open my mouth wider or something they will find something that sounds logical and will believe it and they will believe that that's the reason now think then what power we have in the emotions and in the drive. And of course our problem, so much of our problem, resides in the fact that we also are full of suggestions and we can call them hypnotic suggestions. The hypnosis of the mass mind, the hypnosis of the books, of what we've been taught, because that's all suggestion isn't it and hypnosis is merely a more intense state of suggestibility I don't know how much many of you realize this but the only thing hypnosis is is an extreme degree of suggestibility and the degree of it is what determines how much you remember or how much you forget in terms of these suggestions. So we are full of the suggestions that we have taken into ourselves that have been put into us from previous incarnations, from within this incarnation, from the ideas and the attitudes and thoughts. We're full of these.

And so our emotions are driven in terms of these suggestions and then we use our intellect to rationalize that the emotions are running the show the emotions are running the show and now let me tell you something else the emotions will always run the show but not the emotions as we think of them because we have levels and levels you know on the tree of life the desire nature assigned to venus is called victory this gives you your idea victory Now, it is because you desire that you are inevitably going to be victorious.

You see, so this is the real gasoline of your attainment. That's why we say this is what basically runs the show. Now, does that mean you may ask or be asking in your mind that there isn't some part of of our consciousness that is higher than the emotions?

Well, remember what we've tried so often to tell you. Higher, lower, inner, outer, these are words we're trying to use. There are levels and levels and levels. In essence, cosmic love is what runs the universe.

I'm sure that you will not argue with this, at least as a theory. And cosmic love on different levels expresses the thought the yearning to be to give to experience in all its various ways and we pick erroneous ways because we are immature and the very immaturity teaches us because what we're learning to do is to become cosmic lovers really what else all right now you say what about consciousness well you see you're trying to divide consciousness from cosmic love and that's why we get into trouble consciousness of cosmic love is something other than we think in actuality they are so interrelated that they are one when we experience a completely cosmic love say beginning with endless it isn't something outside like a something a consciousness saying I am feeling cosmic love when you experience real real cosmic love, the experience is this. I am cosmic love. Now what is it we've just said? I am an emotion. Didn't we? We've taken it out, we've made it big. We've shown it to you in its largest sense. I am an emotion. I am, I then become an expression of an emotion when we come down to the individualized awareness part of our being which includes what we call the mind and the emotions in an interrelated sense we'll take that up next Sunday morning but this Sunday morning I wanted you to get a new look at emotions I wanted you to develop a new perception in relation to desire I want you to see that only to the degree that you learn how to feel honestly and to bring your feelings out into the open to yourself naturally if you're going to hate somebody it would be very foolish of you to bring that out in the open towards another because you have to survive and they might not like it so discrimination is a very vital faculty without any question but you see in order to attain anything at all we have to use the power of the emotions even to get across the street we want to get there and what is a want it's an emotion so there isn't a thing that you do that isn't being done because the emotions drive you to do it then the mind the consciousness the intellect and so on takes and analyzes and evaluates and measures in order to get to understand the relationships that are involved but the longing you know in the book of tokens how it says the longing to come forth of the I am is the reason for all things for ourselves and all other things and you see you are that longing too because you are a part of the longing so every one of your emotions are what you might call evolutions of the longing of the cosmic life itself to experience and express itself in the fullness and depth of a self-being for complete fulfillment and the creativity into larger greater raster areas therefore revere your emotions and reveal the emotions you see wherever you see them controlling them really has to be more with you seeing that these emotions are the way God drives the being, this personality, into more and more experience and awareness for more and more capacity to love and to be.

And the tarot keys, when we work with them, help to do this. The tarot keys, you can see, as we work with them day by day, they melt down the old frozen parts of our being. The parts of our emotions that have been clamped down or that have been distorted and warped the tarot keys melt away the the walls and the ice the tarot keys clear out the warps gradually through the imaging and the stirring of the depth of your being which is love because your soul is one with the infinite and your soul is love even though it may not be expressing it in its fullness yet but it is love and as you revere your emotions and see your emotions as being that part of the divine which desires impressors with longing to fulfill and to be you uh your tarot keys with this realization, start bringing the emotions under control. You know this is one of the easiest things to develop, believe it or not. It's much harder to learn how to hold your attention still in order to focus and point the directions of your goal. It's harder to do that than it is to develop a realization in yourself of the magical the unspeakably reverential miraculous things that the emotions are the divine things that your emotions truly are even the so-called bad ones remember they're just sort of a little haywire they're warped they're being reshaped through experience so now keep in mind when you walk out when your heart lifts with joy because of the sky and stars remember it's the divinity of emotion experiencing it in you, through you, with you when your heart lifts at the sound of a song remember it's the divinity of emotion the love of God that's giving you the capacity to experience this promote it and you will promote the capacity not only to love and be loved in your personal life but to know what it really is to love God and be the cosmic love that you are and you're destined to become consciously instead of unconsciously.