Key 15 - The Devil

The spiritual power of laughter. This morning we are taking up Tarot Key Number 15, The Devil. Now what's funny about this? As a matter of fact, the most important secret that exists in occult training is shown in this Tarot Key Number 15, called The Devil. Those of you who have been exposed to certain kinds of exoteric religion of course have heard stories about good and evil some of you have been raised to believe that the devil and the satan are just around you have to watch out just coming out after you from under every bed head, behind every chair. What is the basic idea? Or what is this real secret involved with this Tarot key? Well, first let's take up a few of the attributions, because remember, the shorthand of consciousness is really placed within the attributions of these Tarot keys, the Hebrew letter that's assigned to it, the number, the title, as well as all the symbols.

And when we become accustomed to the shorthand, we can more readily utilize the entire key for developing those states of mind and heart, which we are all aspiring towards. Well, now, to begin with, the Hebrew letter called Ayin. That means literally I.

Whereas I'd like to remind you Tarot Key Number 4, the Emperor, is assigned to the actual function of sight, the actual function therefore of vision. Here what we're being shown is the organ, or we're being told that here we have a symbolic representation of the kind of consciousness that results from the eye as the organ of of vision, or at least the kind of consciousness that results in those who interpret what they see in terms only of the eye as the organ of vision. The point is, we cannot fall into the trap of denials just because we become aware of of certain principles, because in this manner we're not really coping with the so-called appearance or with the reality that's behind it. So we have people falling into these various categories. Some deliberately build illusions because they cannot bear whatever it is that they think they're seeing, not realizing that what they think they're seeing is an image in their own mind and not the thing that's out there.

In other words, it's an interpretation.

So that you can see, as Voltaire said, when man believes in absurdities, he commits atrocities.

And certainly we can say Capricorn, which is the sign of the zodiac that's attributed to Key 15, the devil, that Capricorn levels, which apply to 10th house astrologically, we'll talk about that in the class, that portion of it, but in the 10th house astrologically, you have a point which is said to be the highest point that you attain to career-wise on the physical plane.

And it is this emphasis on attaining or giving values to the physical plane, which has to do with the eye that takes in impressions from the physical plane when we judge by this outer organ only we get into trouble we have to learn how to interpret now we learn how to interpret when we come to understand more than one factor that relates to this very Tarot key because for example For example, not only does this letter have attributed to it the idea of the eye as the organ of sight, but it also has attributed to it the word bondage.

Now, you'll notice the two figures there, which are supposed to be human, but they obviously are animalized humans. You notice these two figures are in bondage they have a chain around their necks and this chain is attached to the devil or Satan so that obviously they are in bondage bondage is one of the attributions and what we'll have to do is discover what it is that we're in bondage to to when life is hell. Whenever life is hell, it's the first thing we have to look to. What is it that I'm in bondage to that's giving me this hell? Now then, along with the attribution of bondage, though, we have another very important attribution, and that is the fountain. Fountain, like, you know, the water fountain. A gushing fountain, and And also the renewing intelligence.

In other words, it's the fountain, Satan here, or the devil apparently then. And the eye is the organ of vision, or appearance if you will then, is apparently also, if we know how to see it, also fountain, the fountain, the rushing fountain. And it is also that which renews us. The movement of consciousness that renews the person the being the life the incarnation now how could this be renewing as fresh as a fountain then we go to the other attribution mirth because when we think of the idea of mirth or laughter we think of something that is the laughter itself is like a fountain isn't it of course some people don't sound much like a phone anyway they're supposed to so that you have this this renewing fountain of bubbling beingness involved with with something that obviously is a very horrible looking creature.

Well, we have here an indication that is again related to the eye as the organ of vision in this manner, just like when we look at the train, as I pointed out, and it's in movement. Say we are on the train in movement, the tracks are gathering themselves together, moving moving into one line behind us. Or when two trains are moving side by side and one is going faster, we might decide it's the other one that's going backwards, whereas it isn't. Both may be going forward at a different speed. In other words, when we're interpreting a thing just because of what we see with the eye, we're falling into these various traps. Now here, in this figure of the devil, we're being shown something that Dr. Case calls completely incongruous, and that's one of the best words I can imagine being used, because you have a creature that simply doesn't exist, just like what you think you see doesn't exist.

It's the way our consciousness interprets what we see that makes us think a thing exists this in the way we see it. Consciousness does the real seeing, not the eye. However, we are consistently, even though we know it with our intellect, we are consistently taken in by this impact of sight, of things that seem to be out there. And so we continuously react to the out there-ness. Now in Qabalah, remember the fact that iron is attributed to the eye as the organ of vision, we're being told something more than that which relates to the eye alone. We're being told that any of the vibrations coming in from what appears to be the outside are being interpreted by consciousness. Consciousness. And so the basic thing that has to be understood is that when we decide a thing out there is as consciousness has interpreted it, in other words, in accordance with the illusion, whatever that illusion is that has been presented, if consciousness is not able to correct the illusion, then consciousness is going to make decisions that's that's based on the interpretation of the image that it has registered as a result of the vibrations. In other words, the way we decide we are going to act or not act, our decisions about tomorrow, about other people, become more and more, without our realizing They become more and more dependent on outer circumstances or things that we have come to call the physical or the material world.

And so we become immersed in interpretations, in evaluations that are strictly material. Not that there's anything wrong with the material world, you understand. We're talking about our evaluation, our use of it. The value we put upon it as against other values. We become immersed in this, and without realizing it, we act more materialistic than some people who announce themselves as being atheistic and materialistic. And there again, we're taken in, without realizing that we're being taken in by this illusion. Illusion. The result is we're not utilizing this energy in the proper way, because by being taken in, by thinking of all of the outside as reality, or what seems to be occurring, as the reality as interpreted by our own consciousness, what we do is find ourselves in conditions and situations continuously let's start having a few examples that I hope will delight you I hope fingers crossed anyway for one thing all of us have a need to be loved all of us have a need to be appreciated now there's nothing wrong with that absolutely nothing we should have this need or we wouldn't do anything to try to improve our image or to develop an ability to project a more beautiful and lovable image to others whichever way you want to put it whether it's image of ourselves to ourselves or to others or both so I'm not I'm not criticizing the need to be loved or the need to be appreciated however in this need to be loved and this need to be appreciated we have become so so conditioned by apparent things, by appearances, because of the ability of consciousness, particularly the analytical consciousness, which on the tree of life you see, this Tarot key combines the analytical consciousness of hod, splendor, to beauty, which is the central self, also also incidentally the son of god the real basic uh individuality it is the key of the devil iron that connects those two spheres of activity and that in itself is a fantastic occult message just the areas that are being that are shown to combine via the energy of that function function. Because you see, it is in the analytical abilities of the intellect that we fall into our traps. And what we don't realize is that the analytical abilities of the intellect, of the mind, in themselves or in itself, whichever way you want to put it, is something that that doesn't exist as a total thing. It is a function. It isn't a whole thing in itself.

Now, to understand this as being a function, that is our analytical processes, that's where we make so many of our mistakes. Let's go back to Genesis for just a moment. Not very long just for a little bit of a moment and if you will recall when eve was being tempted and incidentally the devil here is the tempter remember the spirit even led the jesus up to the mountaintop to be tempted of satan so we have something here that seems to be very much tied up with the temptation well you remember the tempter which in this in genesis is the serpent and that's tied up with this key in many ways after getting Eve to listen sort of insinuatingly pointing things out to her agreed once it was pointed out by the tempter that that tree of the knowledge of good and evil was good to look upon do you remember that in Genesis it was good to look upon now look at this fantastic depth that's involved here perception because what is it basically the fruit of the tree of the tree itself the whole tree of the knowledge of good and evil being good to look upon you might say after all who put the tree there who God or Satan or and here's a a nice little shock is there any difference is it not perhaps what we call something we don't understand since we don't have any realization of what god is yet and therefore not we have no realization of what satan is and is not because who puts the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of eden so that if it's good to look upon then who is the tempter why would God put something in the Garden of Eden and make it good to look upon if God didn't intend to tempt Adam and Eve I ask you obviously God wanted Adam and Eve to fall into temptation now that pentagram that you see there tells us the biggest secret of all because if you will notice that pentagram is upside down and that is incidentally considered the most evil symbol in all occultism there is no symbol that can compare to the sim this symbol in evil that is an upside down pentagram at subconsciousness remember knows the language of symbol subconsciousness doesn't have to learn it when we're studying the meaning of symbols We're studying it because we're working at making this knowledge conscious so that we can gain more of the conscious controls, which it is our destiny to have.

So that when we are led by the spirit up to the mountaintop or behind a house or anywhere else to be tempted, so that we will know how to respond and to recognize the temptations. And there'll certainly be more than one. Whoever heard of only one temptation, life would become very boring after a while. And, you know, we would go out and we'd deliberately get ourselves into trouble. That's that temptation. In order to have a little excitement. Is there anything more lethal than waking up and having absolutely nothing to do, no one to see, nothing to worry about, nothing to hope for, you know, just nothing. That's lethal. We have to, if there's nothing happening, we have to go out and make it happen, even if it means getting into trouble. Trouble. So something in us figures better fight with the devil or even have hell to pay than be an empty nothing, no experience, no growth, no interest. Well, of course, that's not a mature way to do it you understand it's very immature but I'm just pointing out that when the soul when the consciousness has not come to a point where it recognizes the true principles of the pair of opposites the true principles that exist in the idea of good and evil the true true principles that are involved in the ability to differentiate, to analyze, when the person has not come to see this or to at least want to see this, to work at seeing and learning these things, then it cannot remain static.

It's simply there's no such thing. The lord of the universe doesn't permit uh non-movement in the universe the one thing you can be sure of is that everything is in movement laughter will melt the heart of a stone but there's one thing it will not melt and that is an individual who's all caught up with a sense of their own importance in other words an individual identified with the importance of their personalities an individual who decides he is this role on the stage of life strutting around with all the egotism just strutting and ranting with the eyes the eyes always have a special smirk you think eyes can't smirk just Just take a look in the mirror sometimes when you please do yourself.

We all have eyes that smirk fabulously.

But when we're aware of it, it becomes a delight. This is the point. Awareness. And of course it is in eating of the knowledge of good and evil or in having the experiences of the pair of opposites that has developed this analytical discriminating power This is what develops in us, finally, the capacity to know the difference, to tell the difference between the persona, the personality and the true self. And when we don't or can't, we walk in bondage right here.

And yet through this bondage, we have to go through this bondage to get to the beauty of the true self, you notice? But we have to leave the analytical not to lose it but we have to leave it as far as identifying our selfhood then our analytical abilities become a tool that we use for God not only for God but with God the truth of the matter is every single human being every soul every center of the consciousness of God sooner or later is going to wake up to discover, I said remember sooner or later, to discover that every single human being I have ever injured, I've injured myself. In other words, the one you call your enemy or the one who hurt you or betrayed you. Suppose you start saying to yourself, if you can, or at least if you can't, try. Does it hurt to try? And And if you don't succeed, is it going to hurt to try again?

You know, this makes it the most practical thing in the world, to decide if God is the one, the only, blessed be he, and God is. And everything that is, is an appearance of the divine.

Within this framework of my senses, an appearance of the divine. Then whatever the evil appearance and it's evil we'll be able to truly fight it we'll be able to overcome it and this is what we're here for to overcome the appearances to overcome the immaturities to overcome the evils and we overcome them by getting over our delusions regarding the illusions, we get over it first of all. We stop thinking that our personalities are so fantastically important as against other personalities.

This is the point. You know, why should I have to be more beautiful than you?

Well, if I can manage it, I will. Why should I have to?

Why should I have to be smarter than you? Well, if I can work it out and get enough data going, I will. But why should I have to?

Why should I have to be more lovable than you? But I work at being lovable. Yeah, you'd think maybe I haven't been working at it so hard this morning. After all, shocking you like that? But you know, the people we love the most are the ones that make us laugh. My sister always really taught me something when I was very young. They make us laugh because they're helping us to laugh at something that we should be laughing at. And this is what we're learning to do, to correct the illusions so that we can stop being deluded and act from the deluded idea that anybody is separate from anybody else. To start walking around, you notice beauty, searching for the beauty of God everywhere. Now there is the thing. We have to fall in love with ourselves this is for sure but what part of ourselves this egotistical oh I'm an irresistible bit or this egotistical oh I'm I'm such a minus such a tragic or minus such a whatever no what we fall in love with is our capacity to search for to see to respond to beauty to make it our capacity to be concerned with the other portions of our true divine being that appears out there what a miracle what a miracle that God has given me the capacity to experience me in every one of you I tell you I'm a genius obviously look at the beauty I'm seeing I'm why am I a genius because God's in me experiencing beauty and every time you experience beauty you're expressing your divine genius which really in the final analysis belongs to all of us but each in that special unique way each in that fantastic glorious special unique individual way yours and mine getting that pentagram right side up then using our analytical abilities loving the mind and the intellect for what it can do but using it properly seeing the pairs of opposites but to stop responding from this nonsense level of being lost in the personality then you can really enjoy your personality your personality becomes fun fun. You are meant to walk in joy. How is God going to experience joy unless its centers are joyful? You see, you're betraying God when you don't love. How do you like that?

Now, I'm going to start giving you a guilt complex for new reasons. Okay? Let's throw away the guilt complexes for the previous ones. Now, I want us to start feeling guilty whenever we're cheating God of the laughter, of chuckling at the posturings of the personality. And I want us to start having a guilt complex whenever we start feeding into this, oh, my life has been so sad and weary and burdened.

I want us to start developing a good guilt complex whenever we find ourselves upside-downing the pentagram instead of letting the spirit guide the rest of the nature and be in charge.

Beauty is the central theme. God is growing centers to experience more and more rapturous, ecstatic beauty of the unity and love.

And believe me, darlings, God does not get her feelings hurt so easily that you can't afford a little argument or two with her or a little discussion with the power with him.

God is pretty big, mature. I'd say God's mature, so you can afford to have a little play and laughter between your personality and God and let that be the guide to true illumination.

Thank you.