Merrick wrote: ↑25 Mar 2020, 05:23
For my reading I asked the cards is it worthwhile for me to continue working on spirit contact? And I’ll say my reading on this is feeling shaky, I would love some input
You did a reading in your Daily Pip Practise thread on April 24 that asked for some input about a 3 card spread, using the Flornoy Noblet, about whether or not you should work on "spirit contact", and I had a couple of ideas.
The picture above is on a shoulder bag I bought from Baba Studios, who have made some of the loveliest decks in the world in the esoteric Golden Dawn/RWS tradition. I forget who drew the illustration and exactly when, but it is often included in books about the history of alchemy. It presents in a nutshell the medieval/astrological view of the universe. The man in the picture, who is meant to represent the successful alchemist, is poking his head out of the material universe into the strange dimensions beyond, the realm of pure spirit.
According to medieval cosmology, when a soul is about to take incarnation in an earthly body, it begins its journey in the realm of pure spirit, first penetrating the glittering shell of the fixed stars, then entering the material universe at its farthest outpost, Saturn, the gateway to the dimension of measurable time and space, and then making its way down the "ladder of the planets" to planet Earth. In the following order, according to Pythagoras: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon.
The 7 classical planets seem to roughly correspond to the 7 nodes of the Hindu chakra system. The same idea is expressed in the qabalistic Tree of Life, where life begins in the topmost sephiroth, Kether, and then takes a zigzag path down along the other branches of the tree, passing through each sephiroth in turn, before achieving material manifestation in the 10th and final sephiroth of Malkuth, which corresponds to the planet Earth, or the world of matter.
The incarnating soul, "trailing clouds of glory" as Wordsworth says in his "Ode on Intimations of Immortality", picks up a little more of its future earthly personality at each planetary stop along the way. The last stop before Earth is the Moon. Each step down the ladder of the planets brings it closer to its final destination, that fleshy sheath known as the human body, at the moment of its birth to a human mother.
This is when our astrological chart can be created, expressing the components of personality that are unique to our individual soul. In a sense an astrological chart is a little like DNA analysis, and records what qualities we picked up from each planet on our journey from the realm of pure spirit to Earth. We arrive on Earth pre-programmed, as it were. In palmistry we learn that the unique pattern of lines on the hand of every individual is established after only 3 months in the womb.
When we die and our soul leaves the body, the process is reversed, and we travel back up the ladder of the planets, leaving at each planetary stopping place along the way those parts of our self that have been transformed by our most recent earthly incarnation, before dissolving once again into the realm of pure spirit.
The first stop on the way is our nearest neighbour the Moon, and when the earliest tarot decks like the Noblet were created, this pagan belief about the ladder of the planets coexisted in peoples' minds with the symbolic vocabulary of Catholic Christianity. It is no surprise that the Three Wise Men who were present at Christ's birth were astrologers. They were there to hand over the keys of the kingdom to the Christ child, who they recognised as having superseded their own wisdom.
The Moon, it's dark side, was considered the home of the dead, the domain of ghosts, where dearly departed souls in their most nearly-material form took shelter before continuing their journey back up the ladder to the source. So, FINALLY, to get to my reason for writing this, that spirit you may be trying to contact is currently existing within the consciousness-sphere of the Moon.
Instead of using the Flornoy Noblet, which I actually much prefer, I thought I would lay out the cards you drew for your reading using a photographic reproduction of the only surviving copy of the original deck which is kept in a museum in Paris. This version was produced by Joseph H. Peterson in 2016 and sold out of his occult bookstore called The Hermit's Lamp in Toronto, Canada.
The Major card haunting this reading is the World (XXI). The central card, the 4 of Coins, shows a shield in the centre of 4 Coins in the same way that the central figure on the World card, enclosed within an oval womb, or wreath of victory, has Taurus/Leo/Scorpio/Aquarius, represented by 4 animals, Bull/Lion/Eagle/Angel, in the four corners of the card. These 4 "fixed" signs of the zodiac stand for the entire zodiac and so symbolically represent the notion of completeness, or of the whole material universe. The edges of the card correspond to the glittering shell of the fixed stars.
The 4 of Coins is perhaps the earthiest card in the deck. Coins are the suit of Earth and the number 4 represents solidity, materiality, and the human body. The shield is the soul housed in its body.
The 7 of Coins represents the moment after death, when the soul, like a bubble, floats free of its protective sheath, the four coins in the lower half of the card. By attempting to contact this spirit you are reaching up with your arms, the living tendrils of vegetation, and trying to restrain it and perhaps draw it back down to Earth.
The greatest gift that a spirit can receive is the freedom to return to its source, so I have never felt quite right about spiritualism and conversing with newly departed spirits. Are we not holding them here, when they should be allowed to continue on their journey back to their home in the realm of pure spirit? In Shakespeare's "The Tempest" the wizard Prospero, as punishment, imprisons the spirit of the evil witch Sycorax in a tree. At the end of that play, in a scene traditionally thought be Shakespeare's final farewell to the stage, where he sets aside his inspiration and his pen for the last time, Prospero releases his personal spirit-slave Ariel from service and gives him his freedom.
Ariel's freedom is celebrated here on the World card of Chris Leech's astonishing Shakespeare Tarot. Around the edge of the card is written, "All the world's a stage/And all men and women merely players/They have their exits and their entrances/And one man in his time plays many parts." Behind Ariel is a drawing of the famous Globe Theatre, where many of Shakespeare's plays were originally performed, and in the corners of the card are symbols representing the elemental qualities of the four suits, matching the RWS pattern.
I don't know if this will mean anything to you, but the Hebrew letter associated with this card is "shin" meaning "tooth" or "fork". Shin's shape is that of a crown or trident. Perhaps that will be useful to you in devising a magical ritual of some sort invoking the memory of this spirit you wish to contact. Maybe he/she is reluctant to leave Earth, or the metaphysical territory of the dark Moon, until it has shared a last word with you. Or perhaps the spirit is held here by memories of regrets or lost joys.
Ghosts are the most "earthly" form of spirit life, which explains why all the cards in this reading are from the suit of Coins. Ghosts are not necessarily the lowest form of spiritual life, but perhaps the heaviest, still weighed down by the gravity of their earthly existence. Spirits who have begun their journey back to the source get progressively lighter.
My poetry teacher at university was a wonderful man named Robin Skelton, the author of dozens of books about poetry and magic. He had a part-time job after hours as an exorcist, and wrote a book about some of his experiences called "A Gathering of Ghosts". He impressed on me that ghosts are often lost and confused after leaving the physical body and only need to have it explained to them where they are and what they should do next for the hauntings to cease.
In the final card the Ace of Coins, luxuriant tendrils of vegetation expand out from the central coin toward the corners of the card, recalling again the design of the World card. Here we see the individual soul set free, but continuing to live and thrive. Your reading compares this card to a mandala, which Wikipedia defines as "a cosmic diagram that shows the relation to the infinite and the world that extends beyond and within minds and bodies".
So I don't think you should be fearful about contacting this spirit, or worrying too much about potential moral or ethical or traditionally religious objections. If inspired by a properly compassionate regard for the education and independence of the soul you are trying to contact, perhaps this new discipline will expand your awareness, releasing it from its earthly bonds, and speed you along the way in your own journey toward spiritual liberation, right here and now in your current incarnation on Earth in the domain of Coins.
Prospero. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art.
Ariel. I drink the air before me, and return
Or ere your pulse twice beat.
Prospero. My Ariel, chick,
That is thy charge: then to the elements
Be free, and fare thou well!
I like the way EE jettisons even the automatic association of the suit symbols with the 4 elements Earth/Air/Fire/Water. That's the main way I find my bearings in interpreting pip cards, but because those elemental associations don't always make much sense to the person I am reading for, I would love to do away with them altogether. After all, the EE approach is meant to be very visual, literal, and concrete. We shouldn't expect clients to know anything about the Four Elements or the occult in general. Though I'm sure the general public who originally saw these cards when they were made would have immediately recognised the elemental associations of the suits. Psychological profiles of the figures on the court cards tell us as much.
