UNITY AND DUALITY 

Through its long history the Major Arcana has attracted a greatmany interpretations. Today, we tend to look upon the trumps as apsychological process, one that shows us passing through differentstages of existence to reach a state of full development; we candescribe this state, for the moment, as unity with the world aroundus, or perhaps liberation from weakness, confusion, and fear. Thefull Arcana describes this process in detail, but to get an understanding of it as a whole we need look at only four cards; four basicarchetypes arranged in a graphic pattern of evolution and spiritualawareness.

If you have your own deck of Rider Pack Tarot cards* removethe Fool, the Magician, the High Priestess, and the World, andplace them in the diamond pattern shown overleaf. Look atthem for a while. Notice that while both the Fool and the Worldshow dancing, joyful figures, the Magician and the High Priestessare stationary and unmoving in their positions. If you glancethrough the rest of the Major Arcana you will notice that all thetrumps but 0 and 21 are drawn as if staged for a still photograph, rather than say, a motion picture. They present themselves as fixedstates of existence. 

* In other decks, particularly those older than Waite's, the Fool appears very different fromthe one shown here. The chapter on the symbolism of the Fool (page 24) will deal with thisalternative tradition. 

  But there is a difference between the two dancers. The Foolrushes forward richly clothed; the figure in the World is naked. TheFool looks about to leap into the lower world from some high distant country; the World paradoxically appears outside the materialuniverse, the Dancer suspended in a magical wreath of victory. 

But there is a difference between the two dancers. The Foolrushes forward richly clothed; the figure in the World is naked. TheFool looks about to leap into the lower world from some high distant country; the World paradoxically appears outside the materialuniverse, the Dancer suspended in a magical wreath of victory. 

Note also the numbers of the four cards. 0 is not strictly a number at all, rather it represents the absence of any specific number,and therefore we can say that it contains all numbers within itself.It symbolizes infinite potentiality. All things remain possible because no definite form has been taken. 1 and 2 are the first genuine numbers, the first reality; again, a fixed state. They form the archetypes'odd' and 'even', and therefore represent all opposites, male andfemale, light and dark, passive and active, etc. But 21 combinesthese two numbers in one figure. 

Look at their postures. The Magician raises a magic wand toheaven. Besides the ideas of spirit and unity, the phallic wand symbolizes maleness. The High Priestess sits between two pillars, avaginal symbol as well as a symbol of duality. These two pillarsappear again and again in the Major Arcana, in such obvious placesas the temple in the Hierophant, and in more subtle ways, likethe two lovers on card 6, or the two sphinxes harnessed to theChariot. But now look at the World. The dancer, a female figure(though some decks represent her as a hermaphrodite) carries twomagic wands, one in each hand. The male and female are unified,and more, their separate qualities are subordinated to the higherfreedom and joy shone in the light way the dancer holds thesepowerful symbols. 

Clearly, then, while the horizontal line, the Magician and theHigh Priestess, shows a duality of opposites, the vertical line, 0 and21, shows a unity, the Fool being some sort of perfect state beforeduality, and the World giving us a glimpse of the exhilarating senseof freedom possible if only we can reconcile the opposites buried inour psyches. 

The Tarot, like many systems of thought, indeed like manymythologies, symbolizes duality as the separation of male andfemale. The Kabbalists believed that Adam was originally hermaphroditic, and that Eve only became separate from him so that theymight regard each other as independent beings. In most cultures, toa greater or lesser degree, men and women see each other as verydistinct, almost separate societies. Today, many people think ofeach person as having both masculine and feminine qualities, butpreviously such an idea was found only in esoteric doctrines ofunification. 

If we picture duality dramatically as male and female, or blackand white, we also experience more subtle splits in our ordinarylives, especially between our hopes, what we imagine as possible,and the reality of what we achieve. Very often the actions we take turn out not to fulfil our hopes for them. The marriage gives lessthan the total happiness expected , the job or career brings morefrustration than fulfilment. Many artists have said that the paintingson the canvases are never the paintings they envisioned; they nevercan express what they really wanted to say. Somehow the reality oflife is always less than the potential. Acutely aware of this, manypeople agonize over every decision, no matter how small or great,because they cannot accept that once they take an action in onedirection they have lost the chance to go in all the other directionspreviously open to them. They cannot accept the limitations ofacting in the real world. 

The split between potentiality and reality is sometimes seen asthe separation between mind and body. We sense that our thoughtsand emotions are something distinct from our physical presence inthe world. The mind is unlimited, able to go anywhere in the universe, backwards or forwards in time. The body is weak, subject tohunger, tiredness, sickness. Attempting to resolve this separationpeople have gone to philosophical extremes. Behaviourists haveclaimed that 'mind' does not exist; only the body and the habitsit develops are real. At the other end, many mystics have experienced the body as an illusion created by our limited understanding.Christian tradition defines the 'soul' as the immortal 'true' self,existing before and after the body that contains it. And many religions and sects, such as the Gnostics and some Kabbalists, haveconsidered the body a prison, created by the sins or mistakes of ourfallen ancestors. 

At the source of all these dualities we feel we do not know ourselves. We sense that deep down our true nature is somethingstronger, freer, with great wisdom and power; or else a thing ofviolent passions and furious animal desire. Either way, we know thatthis true self hides, or perhaps lies buried deep inside our normal,socially restricted personalities. But how do we reach it? Assumingthe essential self to be a thing of beauty and power, how do weliberate it? 

The disciplines we call the 'occult sciences' begin with a strongawareness of all these splits and limitations. They then go on, however, to another idea, that there exists a key, or a plan, to bringeverything together, to unifY our lives with our hopes as we release our latent strength and wisdom. People often confuse the purposesof spiritual disciplines. Many think the Tarot is for fortune-telling,that alchemists want to become rich by changing lead to gold, thatKabbalists work spells by saying secret words, and so on. In reality,these disciplines aim at a psychological unification. The 'base metal'that the alchemist wishes to change to gold is himself. Acceptingthe doctrine that we have fallen from a perfect state to a limited onethe occultist does not believe we must simply wait passively forsome future redemption by an outside agent. On the contrary, heor she believes it our responsibility to bring about that redemptionby finding the key to unity.

The Tarot depicts a version of that 'key'. It is not the key, just asit is not really a secret doctrine. It represents a process, and one ofthe things it teaches us is that we make a mistake when we assumethat unification comes through any simple key or formula. Rather,it comes through growth and increased awareness as we travel stepby step through the twenty-one stages of the Major Arcana. 

The Fool represents true innocence, a kind of perfect state of joyand freedom, a feeling of being one with the spirit of life at alltimes; in other words, the 'immortal' self we feel became entrappedin the confusions and compromises of the ordinary world. Perhapssuch a radiant self never really existed. Somehow we experienceour intuition of it as something lost. Virtually every culture hasdeveloped a myth of a Fall from a primeval paradise. 

'Innocence' is a word often misunderstood. It does not mean'without guilt' but rather a freedom and a total openness to life, acomplete lack of fear that comes through a total faith in living andin your own instinctive self. Innocence does not mean 'asexual' assome people think. It is sexuality expressed without fear, withoutguilt, without connivance and dishonesty. It is sexuality expressedspontaneously and freely, as the expression of love and the ecstasyof life. 

The Fool bears the number 0 because all things are possible tothe person who is always ready to go in any direction. He does notbelong in any specific place; he is not fixed like the other cards. Hisinnocence makes him a person with no past, and therefore an infinite future. Every moment is a new starting point. In Arabicnumerals the number 0 bears the shape of an egg, to indicate thatall things emerge from it. Originally the zero was written as a dot;in Hermetic and Kabbalistic tradition the universe emerged from asingle point of light. And God in the Kabbalah is often described as'nothingness' because to describe God as any thing would be tolimit Him to some finite fixed state. Those Tarot commentatorswho argue whether the Fool belongs before, after, or somewherebetween the other cards seem to be missing the point. The Fool ismovement, change, the constant leap through life. 

For the Fool no difference exists between possibility and reality.0 means a total emptiness of hopes and fears, and the Fool expectsnothing, plans nothing. He responds instantly to the immediatesituation. 

Other people will receive his complete spontaneity. Nothing calculated, nothing held back. He does not do this deliberately, likesomeone consciously deciding to be wholly honest with a friend ora lover. The Fool gives his honesty and love naturally, to everyone,without ever thinking about it. 

We speak of the Fool as 'he' and the World Dancer as 'she'because of their appearance in the pictures, but both can be awoman or a man with really no change. Just as the Fool does notexperience a separateness from the physical world so he or she doesnot experience any isolation from the 'opposite sex'. The Fool andthe Dancer are psychic hermaphrodites, expressing their completehumanity at all times, by their very natures. 

Now look again at the four card pattern. See how the Fool splitsinto the Magician and the High Priestess, who must be broughtback together again to form the World. The two cards represent thesplitting up of the Fool's innocence into the illusion of opposites.The World shows us a restored unity, but a higher and deeper unityachieved through the growth outlined in the other eighteen cards.The fool is innocence, but the World is wisdom. 

INNOCENCE AND FREEDOM                   

  The Fool teaches us that life is simply a continuous dance of experience. But most of us cannot maintain even brief moments of suchspontaneity and freedom. Due to fears, conditioning, and simply the very real problems of daily life, we necessarily allow our egos toisolate us from experience. Yet within us we can sense, dimly, thepossibility of freedom, and therefore we call this vague feeling of aloss, a 'fall' from innocence. Once we lose that innocence, however,we cannot simply climb back to the level of the Fool. Instead, wemust struggle and learn, through maturity, self-discovery, and spiritual awareness, until we reach the greater freedom of the World. 

The Magician represents action, the High Priestess passivity, theMagician maleness, the High Priestess femaleness, the Magicianconsciousness, the High Priestess unconsciousness. 

  By 'consciousness' we do not mean the high awareness of theWorld, but rather the powerful yet limited consciousness of ego asit creates an outer universe of boundaries and forms. This description does not mean to denigrate or belittle the Magician's creativeforce. What greater creativity is there than giving shape to the chaosof experience? It is the Magician who gives life its meaning andpurpose. Healers, artists, and occultists have all focused on theMagician as their patron card. Nevertheless, his power representsan isolation from the freedom of the Fool or the understanding ofthe World. 

In the same way, the High Priestess indicates, in her unconsciousness, a very deep state of intuitive awareness. And yet, herinner knowledge does not belong to that radiant centre of nothingness that enables the Fool to act so freely. 

The High Priestess represents the archetype of inner truth, butbecause this truth is unconscious, inexpressible, she can maintain itonly through total passivity. This situation shows itself in life innumerous ways. We all carry within us a dim sense of who we are,of a genuine self never seen by other people and impossible toexplain. But the women and men who throw themselves into competition, careers, responsibilities, without working at the same timeto increase self-knowledge, often discover at some point that theyhave lost the sense of who they are, and what they once wanted inlife. Now, directly opposite to these people, the Buddhist monk ornun withdraws from the world because the slightest involvementwill distract them from the centre of their meditations. 

Both the Magician and the High Priestess bear an archetypalpurity. In a way, they have not lost the Fool's radiance, they have simply split it up into light and darkness. In the traditional split ofWestern and Eastern religion the Magician represents the West,with its emphasis on action and historical salvation, the HighPriestess the East, the way of separation from the world and time.Yet those who have gone deepest in both traditions will combinethese elements. 

The High Priestess sits between the pillars of light and dark.Though she herself symbolizes the dark passive side, her intuitioncan find a balance between the two. This is less paradoxical than itsounds. If we sense our lives as filled with opposites which we cannot resolve, we can react in either of two ways. We can rush backand forth, going from one extreme to the other, or we can doabsolutely nothing. Sit in the middle, not seduced in either direction, but passive, allowing the opposites to go on around you.Except, of course, that this too is a choice, and eventually we losethat balance and that inner knowledge simply because life continues on around us. 

In Kabbalist imagery the High Priestess represents the Pillar ofHarmony, a force which reconciles the opposing Pillars of Mercyand Judgement. Therefore she sits between the two pillars of thetemple. But without the ability to blend in the active force of theMagician, the High Priestess's sense of harmony becomes sweptaway. 

As archetypes, the Magician and the High Priestess cannot existin our lives any more than the Fool can. Inevitably, we mix upthese elements (rather than blend them) and thereby experiencetheir lesser forms, as confused action, or else insecure and guilt ridden passivity. In other words, the purity of the two poles becomeslost because life muddles them together. 

The purpose of the Major Arcana is twofold. First of all, byisolating the elements of our lives into archetypes it enables us tosee them in their pure forms, as aspects of psychological truth.Secondly, it helps us to truly resolve these different elements, totake us step by step through the different stages of life until it bringsus to unity. In reality, perhaps the innocence symbolized by theFool never existed. Somehow we experience as something lost.The Major Arcana tells us how to get it back.