Tarot - Psychology of Spiritual Illumination

My talk for this morning is entitled Tarot, Psychology of Spiritual Illumination.

Good title. I can say anything. That's what I like, freedom. Because I'm sure most of you know, if not all of you, that Tarot being in a sense an infinite science in terms of psychology and philosophy if we get a good enough general title like that we can cover any aspect that the spirit brings up and of course as I hope most of you know I hope all of you will know it before this morning is over the spirit when we get together happens to be us not you just just you or not me, just me or any one of the others. But when we get together we form a sort of spiritual vehicle, just like a complex body can express something far more amazing and impossible as well as improbable. In the same manner when we get together and we get together in a special manner that is truly and sincerely aspiring together which we do or we wouldn't be here we form a vortex, a vortex of force which brings in something far more potent than it would otherwise actually this happens in just about any group where you have true aspirants I do grant this but you have different degrees of force don't you you have the kind of force that works in a combustion engine when you're using gasoline you have the kind of force that works far more potently when you're using larger types of motors more complex motors even and you certainly have far more intense force when you go up the scale and start using that which we call the atomic energy. So there are different scales of force. And when we recall that Jesus said, where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I amongst them. We should realize that this was merely a Qabalistic statement. I shouldn't say merely, actually. Nevertheless, it was a the Qabalistic statement that refers to the fact that where we join together consciously with deliberate intent to cooperate as a unity, we certainly have something that can come in that cannot come in under other conditions.

Some of us during certain periods of our lives have been what we may have called lone aspirants. I was one of those, you know. I had too much contempt for groups being very, very young indeed. And when we're young, we know everything, we have contempt, we can look down on all sorts of things with such intense self-righteousness. And it's a very comfortable feeling, of course.

Nevertheless, as we get older, we sort of degenerate. And by the time we're 30, we degenerate quite a bit very often that we start realizing there's more to knowledge and wisdom than we were so sure of in the younger periods of a particular incarnation and so keeping this idea in mind I know that though many of us have gone through certain periods of our lives as more or less lone wolves in spiritual aspiration picking up books working at least in a vague sort of way on some of the suggestions the books have given or going to certain meetings and deciding to try one idea that the speaker or the head of the group may have suggested. We have at the same time certainly not been willing to tie ourselves up, many of us, with any particular group and in a way this has been good, although incidentally it's not good if you if you refer the idea here but it is good for you if you still feel that way if you haven't come to realize that when you are ready for the higher teachings for the higher training you cannot do it alone no matter what anyone tells you god is one and everything that lives is a unity and we need each other those of us who approximate certain vibratory spiritual level we need each other for strength we need each other for help we need each other to form a special vortex so that inspiration can come pretty much like we need a special type of electrical gadgets I always call all these things gadgets being a woman you understand in order to bring in an extra load of electricity into a house or or a factory or a plant you try bringing more electrical energy into a certain area or system than you have wiring for and you know what happens.

You have an explosion or at the worst with a fire. You certainly have a blowout of the fuses where you can't do a thing.

And of course you're lucky if just a fuse blows out because you can replace it. But when you have a fire, it's pretty bad with the explosion and we have these different degrees. So we all come to a point in our spiritual growth where we have to understand and realize that even though every human being has to attain a his or her own understanding and illumination at the same time when we get beyond a certain point in our growth we cannot do it alone and then we start on a really dangerous path because here we realize, or perhaps some of us don't realize it, but the divine soul does, guides us towards it. We fight it tooth and nail. I certainly did.

I believe in fighting until God gets you down.

Then you give up and say to God, okay, you win.

Now we're ready for the next step. I think that we incorporate the things we learn a little more completely. It isn't as surface at last. At any rate, we do get to a point where we realize that even though it is true each and every one of us have to work for ourselves and attain for ourselves, we still cannot do it without each other, or at least without each other, in reference to those who approximate our own level. Just like we cannot bring in an extra load of electricity without having extra fuses or the whatever it takes to bring in this extra load of power.

Now when we come to understand this of course we develop a yearning for group work that is a little different from the more primitive yearning the more primitive yearnings we are all social creatures which we should be because the intuition knows that we are one whether we include both the highest and lowest levels or not the most savage human being as well as the most saintly and attained and spiritualized human being are not separated we are one just like a string would be one even though you might have two ends to it just like the earth is one even though you have to go around to prove it, to prove that it isn't separate one part from the other, it's actually one. And we do have to come to recognize this, of course.

Nevertheless, in tarot, we have something that I think is the most staggering method to help us attain these realizations that has yet been devised by man. Now when I say devised by man, I am not separating God from man. You see, some people, in fact, unfortunately most people, think of God and spirit as one thing and man as well as physical matter as another. There's dualism. They separate this. But in Qabalah, and certainly in the whole training of the Tarot which has been incorporated into Qabalah which is what you might call the psychological spiritual aspect of Qabalistic training in the Western mysteries in Qabalah we make it very clear indeed very clear that every single human being is an aspect of one thing and you can call it divine life god the universal cosmic self the higher self any word you like as long as it gives the idea cosmic principle doesn't matter what you want to call a thing a thing is what it is when we think of reality and so the idea of being separate one from the other is of course the greatest fallacy of all however the recognition that we We are all unique and therefore in different areas, different levels, as well as having a different quality of awareness.

This too must be understood so that the ability to start working in unison with those who are of like mind, like heart, like spirit. It. This is a vital part of growth, once we reach the point where we have assimilated, absorbed everything we can alone. You know, the single cell, some people I understand complain when I bring in science which would be a great mistake really because modern science or material science is after all one side of a coin when we think of the other side as the spiritual and the universal awareness they are not a separate thing thing. They have to be brought together and seen as one thing. And we are the centers of God who have to do it. So I hope that we haven't still got so much escapism in our makeup that we want to think of God and attainment and spiritual illumination as taking us away from this cruel, cold world, this terrible illusion or delusion. I hope we've reached the point where we love god and ourselves and each other so much that we realize that what we want to do is experience illumination real illumination and be able to let it illumine these dark recesses of our being and the beings of others so that we can see them the way they are instead of the shadows we've cast. And in this manner we can start doing something about what's wrong with our own makeup. And it isn't that it's wrong, it's just it isn't developed yet, at least our own makeup and the makeup of others, of life. Therefore this unity of activity, the ability to decide I have to work with a group. This actually is a step beyond the need to work alone and of course it's usually confused with an even more immature step because when we're very young we must work with others. We don't dare work alone when we're very young. Then we get to a point where we become individualized and that's when we sort of really raise a little you know what let's call it cane but you can use an h if you like and when we get to that point that raising a little cane we decide that the differences between us the loneliness the aloneness this is the only thing that we can can really count on, actually. We decide that everybody is alone and only people alone can attain anything. And usually we dramatize this and we go through quite a few incarnations where we fulfill our aloneness very beautifully until we practically die of loneliness, incidentally, which is required and then we start appreciating humanity life from another level that is we start putting quality into the appreciation we stop dramatizing this marvelousness of being alone which we usually do during a stage where we are actually attempting to individualize ourselves a little more fully because remember the primitive is quite psychic quite telepathically attuned with others the usual member of a primitive society is not at all bad in for example forecasting the future telling you what is occurring from telepathic awareness at a distance and that you going to call the spiritual it is neither spiritual nor unspiritual it is a power that everyone has everyone only some are aware and some are not and usually we are aware when we are primitive just like little creatures or animals are aware of this in another way but certainly not with the intellectual analysis that comes later and then we become aware of the same principle from a higher arc because evolution is a spiral circle and tarot is what helps to teach us to understand the difference between the psychic awarenesses that are part of our need to be together then of this rebellion where we decide we have to be lone wolves because everybody else is a something or other or they can't understand us even maybe they're not a something or other so we will sometimes will dramatize a spirituality and decide they're probably marvelous only they don't understand that and so we walk through sadness I remember so well the woman who came to me having read a book by a very well-known writer in occultism where the expression the path of the lonely ones was used and she came to me and she sat on the couch and she went into the most glorious ecstasy of grief you ever heard as she rocked back back and forth and said I know I know now and the tears were pouring down her face I am destined to travel the path of the lonely ones the lonely ones that is what's for me that's the only way to attain I have to travel the path of the lonely ones I never saw anyone having a more marvelous time she was so caught caught up in the glorious dramatization. She did it well, too, and she knew it.

And if I didn't have a little perception on the inner planes, I'd have gotten caught up with it and went with her, I can assure you. It was that good. I mean, I like people who do things well, of course.

And yet this was the same woman who had come to me, oh, about two months previously, and had decided what she needs as a husband and then complained that every husband in the neighborhood had started to chase her, you see. So you see she went from one extreme to the other. Why? Because of an emotional instability. Now in tarot emotional instability, if you really continue to work with it, doesn't remain very long. Of course this particular woman didn't remain very long either. She was very disposed towards seeking anything, everything that would bring things easily. And so she kept rushing from from place to place, dramatizing her complete sincerity.

And after a few meetings, and managing to get the attention of whoever the head might be, you see, I got caught up in the trap, with promises of all kinds of help and aid, off she went ecstatically, grieving, weeping, sobbing, yearning, to the next place, promising all.

Reaching for all. Now in tarot we learn very quickly, really, that you have to remain stabilized and use your own powers. And you have to learn also, and tarot teaches it to you when you are willing to work with the psychological principles of the ancients, you learn that even though you have to do work on yourself you still need to join with others of your brethren to bring in enough power to change these damnable patterns and I'm not cussing at least that's what I'll claim because that's what they are damnable patterns of old thinking old feeling that keeps us tied to the unhappiness and the nonsense, and keeping us tied, we keep repeating and repeating, we're caught in a trap, like a needle caught in the groove of a record, you know, that's gotten old. It cannot get out of it. And what will help it get out of the groove when it's caught?

Only the energy of something else. When your needle is caught in any record player because the record's gotten too old and the that pattern has gotten too deep in that spot you have to give it a little push don't you and if you don't I mean you push it and push it of course if you'd let it sort of dig a little deep grooves in the others if you were really good enough you might get the record back into some kind of shape on the whole usually you have to give the record up don't you and get another one. Now in the Mystery Training we help you to discover these grooves where you can do something about changing the grooves by either bringing the other qualities of your nature into harmony with that groove. This is just an analogy remember, so don't take it too far. Or doing something to fill in this groove in some way or other so that it all works harmoniously again and as I pointed out to you getting out of certain grooves we cannot do it alone nor can we do it if we go to the wrong place or work with the wrong kind of thinking and feeling because we have to do it in a very specialized manner in other words what we have to do is become aware of what we are uh manufacturing with the creative mind of divinity which is our mind what we are many manufacturing we have to become aware of it and we have to learn how to change the quality of what we're manufacturing A little change here, a little change there.

Not the basic drive, incidentally, not even the aspiration.

It's the quality that's really involved here. And so the actual psychology of Qabalah, which utilizes the tarot for its transmutational processes, has to do with helping us to create different kinds of images and how to align ourselves or identify ourselves with these different images, because only so do we change anything. For instance, some of you may have been married half a dozen times for all I know. If you have, I say, well, God bless you, at least you keep trying.

And this is good you're still in life you still have enough courage to make mistakes all right now if this is a wrong idea and if this shocks you more moral point of view it's sad but isn't that better than one who is afraid to marry at all afraid to be hurt at all afraid to love at all and how many people are afraid to love now how much growing are they going to do I can assure you the one who's married half a dozen times is going to do a great deal more growing not that I recommend it I believe in monogamy when we evolve to it but that's why let's evolve to it the point is the one who at least is willing to grow is going to bring about the experiences of pain tears the lack of discrimination will show up and they will grow but the human being who is so afraid of being hurt but he will protect himself or she will protect herself from from experiences that might bring pain, these people are not as alive. They're pretty dead.

They're fastened in some old pattern, some hurt that they keep repeating, and so we get caught in the records, you see. We keep repeating our mistakes. I'll bet that at least three-fourths of you have repeated the same mistake over and over again, more than once.

And I'll bet that of that three-fourths another three-fourths of thought they got over that terrible pattern and said ah now I see it and I freed myself and then you got into more trouble than ever after you decided you'd overcome something I mean I know this is so I can see and I even if I didn't see within a perception I'd know it just by knowing human nature and what it's like, although I see it in both ways.

So, you see, the getting out of old patterns, and this is what keeps us miserable, it's not simple, and yet it's doable and can be made a very happy experience, provided we have reached the stage in our own evolution where we are capable of joining ourselves with others in humor and acceptance. That tarot insists on this. You know, Tarot Key 15, the devil?

Well, we insist on being able to look into ourselves and say, oh, this is devilish of me, and chuckle at the same time yearning to become an angel, which we are, really, but to become it consciously and actively.

With the tarot keys then we have a method where we can start getting at the root of an image and unless the root of the image is changed your conditions will not change you will go in for incarnation after incarnation of choosing the wrong women the wrong men of having the wrong children not that any children can really be wrong of making the wrong friends of making the right enemies to keep us miserable and so on we will repeat the pattern continuously because whatever image we hold this is what automatically is created and where we get caught up you see is a not realizing this because we look them too short an area we look within a month or a year or several years of a life and we think justice doesn't rule the universe but this isn't true you look at a whole lifetime and you'll see it if you know how to look it doesn't even need looking at several lifetimes actually you really just need one knowing how to look and you'll see that the habitual images held even if somebody says oh I I am such a marvelous aspirant.

Nobody understands me because I'm so very shy.

And the reason I'm all alone is mainly because I'm so sensitive.

Now that sounds like a nice picture that one has of oneself. And lots of people have that.

But suppose you tried to analyze that down. What would you discover?

That I am so shy now don't get me wrong it really means that you're so self-conscious that you can't forget yourself in order to think and love another and want to make them comfortable and happy isn't that right if you were more concerned with keeping them happy and comfortable and relaxed what time would you have to be self-conscious your consciousness wouldn't turn because when you're being so shy you know what you're really doing?

Gee I wonder how many I'm going to lose next Sunday now what we all do people hate the truth they say I don't believe it not true asparments anyway true asparments don't but anyway when we're being shy what we're really indicating in all ways is that we are in a sort of exalted self-meditation of gee what effect am I making I wonder if they see that my nose is in the right shape maybe they see I have one and three-quarter gray hairs now and ye gods maybe they see that the muscles in my tummy aren't as strong as they ought to be used to be and maybe they see that I have I've lost ten years last since last week and you see what Now what kind of an image making is this?

We're so concerned with people seeing things that we think are so massively awful so that they're not going to be able to love us or like us or accept us or admire us that we don't do a thing. All we do is keep intensifying an image that is going to inevitably bring more unhappy experiences. And then we moan and we say, why did this happen to me?

After all, I've been kind. I've never wanted to injure anybody. Well, I felt like murdering a time or two when I got angry, but that's a little minor thing.

I told a few people to drop dead.

Only part of me meant that. And if I didn't tell them, I wanted to.

But on the whole, I'm a very lovely person. Why do these things happen to me? Look at this horrible so-and-so. Look at the wonderful life that person has we'll say and you know what the wonderful life is they may have two cars or three cars instead of one car or or no car and they might uh they might be have a half a dozen or a dozen suits instead of just a worn out couple of suits for one suit and so we look at a surface picture that shows us nothing and we say and look what they've got and we don't even know how to look at what we've got let alone what someone else has now the use of tarot if it is really used and it is so simple this is one of the things that's strange about true growth is that the actual method is simple though it takes perseverance and it takes perseverance this is true along with a capacity to understand levels that are a little higher than we've been accustomed to but if we're ready for these next levels it'll come the point is that with the Tarot symbolism we accomplish two things this is the psychology of illumination what is it to illumine a room the room is dark you put light into it right then that which you didn't see you have seen the term illumination is really is exactly what it indicates you throw light on a subject and you see so illumination spiritually speaking as having light thrown on a larger area than we've seen before but the point is we have to throw the light and no one else can do it for us and we can only throw the light if we get busy with the images and start recognizing we have to throw the light into our own being and see what's doing there then once we see instead of getting down and moaning and groaning uh as I pointed out in an example or two I hope I did uh we have to say to ourselves aha so this is the way I've been doing it well how very clever of the immature me but let's start doing it the more mature, satisfying and fulfilling way who needs fulfillment by having to go off into this dramatization of tears and thinking of myself as being so spiritual because I'm the path of the lonely ones to you know where with the lonely ones let's be full of the richness of unity of love a friendship of goodwill because I need what everyone else has they need what I've got let's do this and together really reach to something worthwhile the images then if they are to be changed have to be changed deliberately they don't change automatically we get to a point in our evolution where we must switch these images in order to get out of the groove that's the whole secret and when we have each other reaching together working together when we're using methods like our cabalistic chant for instance you have no idea the things that this is aimed at doing and does when you work regularly those who've come regularly know that your friends haven't recognized you, the ones you had say a year or two years ago. In fact you've lost most of them haven't you, poor darling?

The point is you've got new ones. You suddenly discovered you needed them like you need a hole in the head and you've been forming new ones, more in harmony with your growth pattern so we we grow uh towards our own capacity then we keep going with those who approach us and then we each feed the other and we each need the other to do it together this is the reason for group work as I've explained to you before and will in other ways and then as we use the tarot imagery, these changes take place in our own mental and emotional reactions, so that then our lives change. Then we start experiencing really the riches and fulfillment.

The sunrise and the sunset become something fantastically mystical, mysterious, real, and yet beyond conception. The taste of anything that we eat becomes a participation with God, a mystic participation in the interrelationship and the nourishment of the love of God. The odors that we inhale becomes an inhaling of divinity and life so that we inhale each other back and forth with with glory and with beauty, our senses become enhanced.

Not because we are becoming materialistic, but because we are spiritualizing that which is meant to be. Because we are transmuting our basic image patterns and our reactions to life and to matter and to images. And our touch, it becomes so sensitized, we start feeling the warmth, we start feeling the beauty, we start feeling the emanations of another individual or a creature or sun or breeze. And everything takes on more and more magic. Why? Because in changing our imagery, we have opened ourselves up to an enlarged, and illumined the idea of illumination an illumined point of view we have actually illumined our own inner being our ability to see think feel taste touch and by so doing we have heightened and enriched the world's soul we have we are participating in the divine intention we are helping to evolve this world in the universe by evolving ourselves and we stop being miserable therefore remember illumination does not mean you have to be unhappy or miserable it means you illumine the dark recesses of your soul and mind and heart and bring it awareness of the riches that it is and has the capacity for.

And in the imagery of the tarot, you tune yourself to the others who are working with you and who have attained beyond your present age. We're all different ages.

And therefore, you receive their help. And while you're working this way, you're giving the help to those who are reaching on the vibratory level that will be below you.

We are a being walking towards the light of god and you are participating in it let's walk together then with extra love let's hold our hearts in extra receptivity let's reach out our fingertips to touch each other with an extra awareness that we are touching of part of divinity and let our hearts wash with gratitude that our consciousness is becoming so much more enriched and tomorrow will surely take care of itself indeed when we let the past bury its dead not a good idea god bless you let's make today glorious Thank you.