Key 5 - The Hierophant

Revealer of the Mysteries. That's our title for this morning. And as you can see, we're going to talk about Tarot Key Number 5. Now then, Tarot Key Number 5, called the Hierophant, is here assigned to intuition, but we'll have to analyze this a little. Remember, the Tarot key number O, the fool, is actually everywhere.

And every single other Tarot key is a development of Tarot key zero, the fool, which is superconsciousness. And please do remember that those who are very materialistically oriented have always called the mystic, the spiritually oriented person, a fool.

And today we still have the same thing rampant. Those who feel that all values are material values, physical values, look upon those who see other values as being very stupid indeed, and they call them fools in no uncertain words. But of course the true mystic smiles kindly benevolently knowing that here speaks a poor deluded brother or sister and sooner or later they will awaken to reality although the awakening has a certain series of principles involved Remember, this is one of the primary differences between most Eastern schools of occultism and Qabalah, the Western system of spiritual development. In the West in Qabalah we keep reiterating over and over again that it is the responsibility of humanity and humanity thought of as being the truly begotten of God which humanity is though still very young we will grant you but that it is the responsibility of humanity to bring about the perfection of the manifestation of the Most High into the kingdom.

The kingdom has to do with our own physical bodies. This is one aspect of the kingdom. It has to do with our own environment. This is another manifestation of the kingdom. It has to do with the entire world of the senses. And it has to do with that which goes beyond it, which we're not aware of as yet. Because the kingdom, in essence, when we finally and truly experience intuition at its fullest, is shown to be something far more than our senses told us. Still, we have to start with the senses. We cannot turn our backs on them. And yet, at the same time, we have to understand what to accept, what not to accept from the senses, or how to interpret them. So from Tarot Key No. 0, remember, the fool, which is assigned to the principle of superconsciousness, comes No. 1, the magician. And that No. 1, the magician, assigned to attention, remember, that's considered the first or primary law of consciousness.

We have to be able to pay attention in order to develop all else that comes after. Without paying attention, we are not taking in information.

Therefore, we are not truly utilizing the livingness that we've got. And, of course, we have covered that in the lessons that you receive through the mail. You are given very detailed instruction regarding each of these tarot keys. So from the number one comes the impressions that are brought about in the mind stuff. And we therefore have Tarot Key number two, which receives the impression of that which has been given attention to and is therefore the principle of memory, along with other things. Tarot Key number two, the High Priestess. Then that which has been registered as a memory that's on the scroll of the high priestess remember is that which flows as an influence because everything we pay attention to and give life to becomes a memory which consciousness is consistently attracted to then from that remember tarot key number three is actually another phase of tarot key number two the high priestess because Tarot Key number three the Empress is a development from the memory form it is a it is a multiplication of the memories therefore it becomes much more associated with the depth of the feeling nature or the desire nature because when we have gathered groupings of memories all of them together. It is out of these memory groupings that we start using our creative faculty or our imagination.

So you start combining various memories, fashioning them into other creative possibilities, which therefore gives one of the reasons for the creative aspect of subconsciousness to be as being assigned to this particular key this is one of the elements and at any rate we have here remember the pregnant Empress from Tarot key number three remember then where we have this development out of the memory and the use of memory for larger creative workings we We then have tarot kinam before the emperor, which is assigned to the reasoning faculty, amongst other things, and to order, that is the emperor, the ability to be orderly in our thinking, the ability and capacity to reason accurately. Now, only when we have utilized all the previous principles as represented symbolically, only as we have utilized these accurately and fully, do we find that we have a good reasoning faculty or develop good reasoning ability. And one of the great problems that exists in the world of mysticism and occultism is that too many spiritual aspirants want to jump away.

They want to skip reasoning faculties. They figure, well, I don't need to use the reasoning faculty. That's just, you know, for the material plane. What I want is intuition. I want to be guided by the larger and the deeper. But the truth of the matter is, in the Western training system, in Qabalah, we say to you, and we say it very unequivocally, no true intuition is remotely possible unless we work with our other God-given faculties. So that true intuition can't remotely come, nor can we become aware of what it really is. If we try to skip any of the previous steps, and the lazy mind is forever trying to skip the proper orderly reasoning processes, processes we find ourselves in trouble for example which we do quite regularly since we're still unfinished product on the tree of life so we find ourselves with problems and if we're spiritual aspirants we start calling to god we start calling to the higher self we start calling to the holy guardian angel whatever name we want to give it we start calling to the Lord of the universe we start calling to the Archangels and angels and principalities and we start calling to any and all there the masters and their disciples and adepts and we call and call proving to ourselves certainly that we are such spiritual beings that we are calling and calling that all we want is the answer we want the answer so we call and we call and we call but the truth of the matter is we couldn't hear the answer if it was being screamed at us because he who has ears to hear let him hear it is said and has been said over and over again and none so blind as those who will not see also none so deaf as those who will not hear and so all the calling in the world all the praying we can weep oceans of tears my beloved ones and we will remain in trouble and in fact we'll even by dream by weeping oceans of tears will have even deeper oceans of sorrow to swim in because this is what we give attention to you see we feed it with our life processes and anything we give attention to becomes memory which we which is fed by our own emotional being, you might say the gasoline of the psyche, the emotional feeling levels.

And that is one of the many reasons then that this Tarot key, number five, intuition, is assigned to the faculty of hearing.

But remember, this is assigned to intuition, So the hearing element here isn't referring to physical hearing as such, and yet it is not excluding it. We'll go into that.

In what way?

You know, when people meet, for example, what do we usually find? On the whole if they want to make an impression what we find is that these people don't want to listen to what the other one has to say or what the other one thinks or the other one feels we want to just talk talk talk talk talk ye gods if the voice had itself on a loudspeaker and amplify it up by the voice with a capital V of the Higher Self and put up on a top amplifier. We couldn't hear it no more than we can hear ultrasonics.

It's going on all around us because if the voice of the Higher Self screamed that way, which incidentally it doesn't, as we'll point out. But even if it should, we wouldn't have the ears to hear because he who's talking isn't listening.

This is very much for sure. And the listening has to be a very special kind of listening because it cannot exclude the previous keys or principles. And remember, the previous key, Tarot key number 4, the Emperor, is assigned to sight.

Remember we spoke then about the ability to have true seeing. The inner vision is dependent amongst other things on our having the ability and capacity to look at what's there. The willingness, the ability to see reality.

And if we're not willing to see objective reality, we are not putting our consciousness in order the emperor rules the images puts them in order in other words reasons with all of the and through all of the inner experiences which have to do with both what one has seen in the world without everywhere as well as what one has seen from the inside in regard to one's own nature so the ability to hear spiritually incidentally actually is not separated from the ability to hear physically and the ability to see spiritually which means comprehension by the way not clairvoyance the ability to see spiritually has to do with the capacity to see what is there on the objective plane of consciousness so that those who aren't looking aren't going to be gathering in accurate information that's the emperor and those who aren't listening aren't going to be aware they're not going to be gathering in information about all sorts of other situations which prepare us for true intuition in other words not until we have gone through all the various processes of research reasoning placing our entire situation or condition in a position to ourselves where we have have it in order not until then are we able to receive true intuition or true intuitional awareness although we sometimes think we have because of the fact that some of us in fact most of us are rather receptive to the surface levels of consciousness on which we we could say the personal portion of the universal subconscious memory exists.

We, for example, sometimes get hunches that turn out to be fairly accurate and we get very elated.

But having accurate hunches is not intuition intuition because many people can have the faculty and they're not they're not always right with their hunches by the way because uh when one is good at that receiving from the surface level of the personal subconsciousness uh one also usually is pretty good at receiving the telepathic impacts of other people's surface uh subconsciousness so that in a sense you might say we are pushed around telepathically on surface levels and we don't realize that we think they are deep that these are levels of deep awareness and they're not it isn't that they are bad levels all we're saying is they are surface levels and we have to learn to understand surface levels You see, only minds that dig deeply are developed enough, have enough, shall we say, have their inner hearing tuned up enough to be able to get the deeper portions of, shall we say, the guidance or the teaching, the instruction, the revealing of the mysteries.

Reason and this this deeper aspect is truly in harmony with knowing how to go in for proper research and this intuitional guidance incidentally is not what most of us think it is that's another thing I think we should have very clear in our minds before I try to help you to see what we could do about it perhaps at least in part because unfailing guidance is there when we unfailingly and automatically no matter what is there or being presented to us when first of all we know exactly what we want second of all we have had enough experience to ask knowing what we want to analyze what the conditions situations are in our lives in other words we use that series of tarot keys the images we use the wisdom of past experience to be able to reason what's possible and not possible so that we're not misusing our creative image you know and in fantasies which so many of us do and then out of that still when our reason doesn't give us the answer which most of the time it doesn't when it's a deep problem if the re our reasoning faculty gives us the answer you know I'm going to tell you something that's going that is going to seem strange to you it's still our intuition even when it's our reasoning faculty it's just that the intuition comes so softly that it becomes part of the reasoning faculty and we don't even recognize it because it comes softly and rapidly.

It's like a bloop, you know, and there it is. And so we, within our reasoning faculties, we'll often have the intuitional guidance.

But if we still find ourselves not knowing what to do or think, when we have taken this reasoning as far as we can and we've really followed these previous paths, we have the experience of what dr case calls the voice but which can be experienced in other ways it is a knowing but it is not a knowing that is surface or psychic and it always comes in one way a knowing of a universal principle which we then take and apply to the problem and incidentally after that throughout the rest of our lives should any similar problem arise we will have available immediately and right now that same principle where we will be able to apply it to any and every problem that relates to that particular area so in the western occult training system We have to arrive at a point, as you see with these figures, where the two kneeling figures, the ones with the lilies on the back, incidentally, the one with the lilies represents our intellect and our knowledge.

The one with the roses kneeling there represents our desires and our emotions and feelings. Now, we have to come to a point where we are very willing to place our desires, our feelings, our emotions, the things we think we knew, our intellect, the knowledge of yesterday. Today we have to have arrived at a condition of humility where we are truly kneeling but where we have used them mind you we have been utilizing them but we have to then coming to the point where we still cannot see what should be done or what is required by us we have to be able to to kneel in front of or to that principle in us, which we call the higher self, the true teacher with a capital T, because in the final analysis there is none else. This is the way it is with us so much of the time. We want people to give us solutions to our problems.

We run for advice. But the truth is there's no real advice and there's no real solution that is going to help you attain your aspiration, except you're learning how to receive it from the teacher within.

And although it is true, we receive guidance from others, from a true teacher, even a teacher in a body like myself, we receive teaching.

And in that teaching, we can find the guidance if we know or decide to try to apply that teaching to ourselves. But a true teacher will never force you.

A true teacher will never try to make you follow their advice. As a matter of fact, a true teacher will not really give advice in personal problems as such. And rarely will a true teacher even give hints, although at times they will. And one of the things a true teacher incidentally arrives at especially a teacher that is a channel for the higher forces a true teacher will not let you sit down and tell her or him all about the details of this problem you're in now I wonder if you realize why if not I hope so So remember, true intuition is tied to hearing. Hearing. And the inner hearing. A true teacher has already learned how to see what is from the previous tarot key, which is the emperor. And seeing what is, we have learned how not to take in what the words, you know, the chop-chop of the mouth. Remember key 16 if you look up head here the tower is assigned to the mouse the mouth as the organ of speech and you notice it's a pretty wild kind of a Tarot key in many ways it's the Tower of Babel it's the Tower of Babel and you see the integrity the need for spiritual integrity becomes involved here so we We have to come to recognize this.

The inner hearing then, the true teaching from the teacher, the hierophant, the seen here, comes about only as we are willing to place the things that we think and the thing and all of these immature feelings, to place them at the altar of God, basically, the higher self, to let them go, to be willing to be taught, to be willing to have the higher self show us in whatever way necessary how to go and we are shown we don't have to have any super magical experience and this triumphant and eternal and eternal intelligence gives us the triumphant answer and guides us triumphantly in any and all all problems provided we are willing to do all of the things that we've just been speaking about not only to kneel to give up but to be willing to be joined to truth you know vav is also called the nail and this tarot key also with its hebrew letter vav is assigned to one of the holy letters of the divine name and it is one of the holy letters that is specifically man the begotten so that we as the begotten, you as the begotten, are being trained to receive the spiritual guidance from on high.

You, the begotten, are being shown that all of the faculties you have are magical and part of the divine glory, miracle. Your ability to be attentive with the magician, your capacity to have memory with the high priestess your creative miracle of beingness to be able to make new images and fashion them for solution of problems or attaining the whatever is in harmony with god these are your powers and these these things abide in you now you don't really have to develop them as such you have to be practicing them so you become aware of them this is what is so essential and it is your ability the miracle in you to rule your thinking and feeling as the emperor to rule, to watch, to see what is and to reason properly this is the miracle of you you are that king and therefore you are that begotten who is able and will be able to receive the holy guardian angel as the teacher to know true guidance to walk in the kind of security that words cannot remotely describe and remember practicing the proper attitude for true intuition I ask you please keep looking at this key and keep saying I'm willing for everything I know to be proved not so if it is not so I'm willing for my desires whatever they are and my feelings, whatever they are, to be changed and transmuted into something higher if required.

I am really willing for this. I kneel before thee, God. Help me to see it. I am willing to do this and I am willing to utilize the gifts and faculties thou hast given me. I am willing to use all my reasons.

I am willing to do anything and everything and I do it so that I can have conscious union with thee and hear thy voice where'er I go in the brook in the river in the bird in the voice of a child's laughter and the sound of a beloved murmuring in our ear in anything and everything the voice of true intuition speaks when we learn to utilize this position and utilize it from the previous principles