The World

As this final message of the Major Trumps is unchanged—and indeed unchangeable—in respect of its design, it has been partly described already regarding its deeper sense. It represents also the perfection and end of the Cosmos, the secret which is within it, the rapture of the universe when it understands itself in God. It is further the state of the soul in the consciousness of Divine Vision, reflected from the self-knowing spirit. But these meanings are without prejudice to that which I have said concerning it on the material side. It has more than one message on the macrocosmic side and is, for example, the state of the restored world when the law of manifestation shall have been carried to the highest degree of natural perfection. But it is perhaps more especially a story of the past, referring to that day when all was declared to be good, when the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy. One of the worst explanations concerning it is that the figure symbolizes the Magus when he has reached the highest degree of initiation; another account says that it represents the absolute, which is ridiculous. The figure has been said to stand for Truth, which is, however, more properly allocated to the seventeenth card. Lastly, it has been called the Crown of the Magi. § 3 Conclusion as to the Greater Keys There has been no attempt in the previous tabulation to present the symbolism in what is called the three worlds—that of Divinity, of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm. A large volume would be required for developments of this kind. I have taken the cards on the high plane of their more direct significance to man, who—in material life—is on the quest of eternal things. The compiler of the <i>Manual of Cartomancy</i> has treated them under three headings: the World of Human Prudence, which does not differ from divination on its more serious side; the World of Conformity, being the life of religious devotion; and the World of Attainment, which is that of "the soul's progress towards the term of its research." He gives also a triple process of consultation, according to these divisions, to which the reader is referred. I have no such process to offer, as I think that more may be gained by individual reflection on each of the Trumps Major. I have also not adopted the prevailing attribution of the cards to the Hebrew alphabet—firstly, because it would serve no purpose in an elementary handbook; secondly, because nearly every attribution is wrong. Finally, I have not attempted to rectify the position of the cards in their relation to one another; the Zero therefore appears after No. 20, but I have taken care not to number the World or Universe otherwise than as 21. Wherever it ought to be put, the Zero is an unnumbered card. In conclusion as to this part, I will give these further indications regarding the Fool, which is the most speaking of all the symbols. He signifies the journey outward, the state of the first emanation, the graces and passivity of the spirit. His wallet is inscribed with dim signs, to shew that many sub-conscious memories are stored up in the soul. ↑ See the <i>Occult Review</i>, vol. viii, 1908. <!-- NewPP limit report Parsed by mw‐web.eqiad.main‐6d66d55d66‐hrrsd Cached time: 20260419161743 Cache expiry: 2592000 Cache expiry source: Module:Header (os.date(%Y)) Reduced expiry: false Complications: [vary‐page‐id, vary‐revision‐sha1] CPU time usage: 0.288 seconds Real time usage: 0.481 seconds Preprocessor visited node count: 5172/1000000 Revision size: 587/2097152 bytes Post‐expand include size: 121029/2097152 bytes Template argument size: 27456/2097152 bytes Highest expansion depth: 11/100 Expensive parser function count: 3/500 Unstrip recursion depth: 1/20 Unstrip post‐expand size: 115399/5000000 bytes Lua time usage: 0.059/10.000 seconds Lua memory usage: 2089519/52428800 bytes Number of Wikibase entities loaded: 0/500 --> <!-- Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 464.498 1 -total 13.58% 63.071 1 Template:Header 9.08% 42.192 76 Template:Optional_style 7.81% 36.269 15 Template:Center 6.26% 29.061 26 Template:Center/s 4.80% 22.308 11 Template:C 4.24% 19.681 82 MediaWiki:Proofreadpage_pagenum_template 4.16% 19.309 22 Template:Large_image 3.43% 15.934 27 Template:Font-size-base 3.19% 14.796 1 Page:The_Pictorial_Key_to_the_Tarot.pdf/70 --> <!-- Render ID 4b403010-3c0b-11f1-ab0f-5df496e2e19f --> <!-- Saved in parser cache with key enwikisource:pcache:4897392:|#|:idhash:canonical and timestamp 20260419161743 and revision id 15274517. 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