Tarot Card Comparisons: The Thoth Tarot-Key 18- The Moon & The Wild Wood Tarot- Key 18-The Moon on Water

The Tarot Moon card, is called the Path of Qoph--meaning, back of head or ear.

Connecting the 7th- Sephiroth, Netzach (Victory) with the 10th-Sephiroth, Malkuth (Kingdom), the Path of Qoph is described as the "Victory of the Material World" and/or the "deceptive  effect of the apparent power of the Material World".  This path, is also known as the "Threshold to life", a spiritual birth that may be considered on two levels.

This probationary path of emotional phantoms, can be disturbing to those of weak moral fiber who lack discernment and can pose real dangers to one's emotional stability.  On the other hand, those of discerning minds who understand that we aren't "realistic" but rather "Will-istic", are strong enough to tread this Path and slay the monsters "within" our sleep-consciousness. By understand their Mental= mechanisms, one gains the capacity to manipulate those qualities in themselves and those of others.

The meaning of the Hebrew word-Qoph, is the back of the head, behind the head itself, is the Sun- or Resh in Hebrew. The Moon symbolizes the anterior to the bright intellect of the Sun.  The Moon, the Path of Qoph, only reflects the light of the Sun. Thus the central path of the Thoth Moon card goes from the  dark side of the Moon, towards the light side that reflects direct Sun-light.

This rising act of direct Sun-light is show as the Egyptian Scarab symbol  of the God Kephera (kheprera), pushing the Sun towards the Moon. Basically, the Moon -Key-18, symbolizes the rebirth of light out of hideous darkness; bright intellect overcoming the dark denizens of our sub-conscious, i.e. the illusions of emotional fears.

In Thoth Deck Tarot of the Hermetic Qabalah, THE  PRIESTESS, is a source of pure, crystal clear waters (consciousness) emerging from the God Head-The Father, to God the Son/Sun. The Same waters of consciousness are seen here on The Moon card, but they are polluted with the dark subconscious fears of mortality, that self-conscious physical manifestation bestows on consciousness. However, as I have stated before, the traveling up the Path of Qoph, towards the "Son/Sun Consciousness" of Tiphareth, notably changes the body physiology, as the Bright Beautiful Light Intellect of the Sun (Tiphareth) descends into it. When traveling up the Path of Qoph, the Personality becomes increasing aware of the Higher Self and less controlled by the dark survival fears of the body.Here, one knows that we will our reality, for the outer world is a simulation of our inner world. We are never being "Real", we are always being "Will", even if we don't know it. For if one intertwines thought, with emotion, one has willed it into life. It is the magic of weaving, the light of I AM to the Thoughts I create.

Paul Foster Case called The Moon, the "Corporeal Intelligence" which means the "body consciousness". Also in Hebrew the word "corporeal" means "to rain upon", which is why we see the symbols of Yods raining down from the central orb of the card (Down from Tiphareth-The Sun). Since this is a Watery Card, some of a more poetic bent, say that these Yod symbols are "tears of the Moon-Goddess" raining down and filling the Nile. However, what most Qabalistic Scholars agree on is that some type of frequency descends from the Moon to the Earth on the Path of Qoph, which is represented as raining Yods. To reiterate:The Qabalistic Thoth, Key 18, The Moon Tarot Card, is the Qabalistic Path of Qoph that is between the 7th Sephiroth-Netzach (victory) and- the 10th Sephiroth- Malkuth (Kingdom) on the Qabalistic Tree of Life and is  known as the Path of Transition where the Soul begins the process of incorporating the body. It's astrological constellation  is Pisces -mutable water, making this card the Moon in Pisces.

The path of Qoph is that of primitive instincts, of nature red in "both tooth and claw" which emerges uncontrolled by moral or ethical reasoning. The traveler of this Path will face aspects of themselves that our culture forces them to repress but are indeed integral and undeniable parts of our predatory human form.  This is the Survival Mind, where the "law of the jungle" resides in the dark pools of violence and conquest. This can be a very cruel path to endure, until the student is able to fear not these internal demons which removes the veils of darkness, allowing in  the Bright Intellect of the Son/Sun who applies beautiful reason to our consciousness.

The simple Hebrew letter of Qoph, translates into the English word, sleep.Thus we have a conscious relationship with the Moon, The bright Sun reflecting side, our waking consciousness and the dark sunless side of the "sleeping" subconsciousness. As the Moon has cycles, so does our Psyche , as during the cyclic phase of conscious withdrawal from the physical (Sleep) many of us still act upon the fantasies and information closely related to the bodies survival based experiences. Their dreaming is filled with phantoms produced by the bodies fear of pain and/or death which once consciously transcended, is the successful completion of the Path of The Moon. Therefore this is often a card of impure horror and hidden darkness that our self-conscious must pass through before our conscious-light can be reborn.

The Pysche, or Soul, is not afraid of Life, for it is Life, and the body, is a simulation of Life, called: The Alive. In the realms of the Alive, orgainic material must eat itself to stay alive and for those who witness death/eating, it can instill a great fear of being a victim to someones hunger. In an organic world, Time is still the greatest predator of all, so even time is feared. Here, the Soul, our Sun of the Divine Creative, must step in to remind the body, it must recycle because transformation is evolution, and to elevate the self-conscious and/or Personality, to levels of equal communication with the Soul and body.  Hence, we are to be a personality of Mercury, the "messanger of the Gods" who is able to "fly" from body to soul and soul to body The winged shoes of Mercury, just imply freedom from earthly concerns, one who is not chained to earth by fear.

Hence, the initiate, finds that birth, death, and resurrection are pivotal concepts on the Path of the Moon. These biological processes occur in the light and dark of our sensual perceptions. Sometimes, we are totally  consciously unaware of our fear of being eaten, as it resides in our sub-conscious, which is 90% of our mind. We use only the consciousness as our "observation" of daily life. 

The two figures of Anubis, the jackal-headed gate keepers, symbolize this cyclic process of Life/Death (Spiral energy) as the god Anubis was the Egyptian god of  light and darkness, death and resurrection. The "As above, so below" is shown as a pattern on this card also reinforces this meaning.

The Moon, symbolizes the process that consciousness goes through, when energy proceeds from order to disorder (2nd law of Thermodynamics) , from organized flesh assembly to the disassemble of death and back again. Life, which is energy, uses death to evolve,and/or transform. We are both the Transmitter and the Transmitted of Life energy, and it is time the Soul runs the body, via a personality who is a messanger of the Soul, rather than a animal mind trying to be god.  

To understand the Qabalistic Path of Qoph-The Moon, is to understand the partnership of our  personality consciousness with the physical vehicle, which the Soul, a Yod- Personality (Solar Personality) builds for each manifestation by fragmenting past built personalities and combining the fragmented data into a new personality-data composites. Since most people perceive themselves as  having existence only through their present bodies, there is also this "illusion" of past lives; ghosts of feelings that have naught to do with this life. Often these come to the surface of the Dark Oceanic Subconscious emerging into the light of consciousness as broken pictures, not quite complete, but complete enough to create a fearful misunderstanding. Understanding that you have at least Two Personalities; the Soul which is the Real Personal expression of the Solar Logos, and the artificial intelligence/personality developed by interaction with past experience, environment experience and indoctrination. Reconciling the two, is is often a most difficult  undertaking...but not impossible with a personality of Mercury, i.e., a Magus. 

The Moon was often seen as a Goddess of Life (White Goddess of Light) and a Goddess of Death ( Dark Goddess) at once praised and then feared. It is the physical vehicle's  fear of dying that hounds our consciousness in many subtle ways, producing phantoms who manifest as phobias, obsessions, and mental - emotional disorders. Our consciousness comes from the immortal Soul-Psyche, and is unused to such thoughts of fear filled ending. However, the physical experience, is reactive,  which is what it is designed to be as it gets its information from the physical world through sensors/sense and this information is often interpreted as "pleasure or Pain". The Soul is Creator, and therefore, active and the only way to get translations of realities, is through a personality who can be comfortable in both worlds, of Action and Reaction; of conscious and unconscious. That is the purpose of a "self-consciousness", for it is to be a "free thinker" who can realize both the Active Psyche and the reactive subconscious of the body, as information centers rather than limits of self awareness called self identity. 

Bodies/Brains  forget they are also recycled; that they are a recycled part of the Whole Organic Organism, that we know as "Organic matter". Like I have often said to my own brain," You came from cranberries and to cranberries you shall return..." which is a slightly dark humor, that I use to give the brain pause from its attempts at survival thinking rather than listening to the "Inner Psyche" that I AM.  In this realm of triangles and/or tinities, I AM is incomplete without a Me... the first two letters of Mercury.

The Qabalist learns quickly that We are not a physical brain nor its produce. We are Spirit, and its Sun/Son, the Soul, who is supposed to program the brain with its own self-identity soft-ware, for the purpose of experiencing the discernment of being a "living thing", a close observer who works for a "Far seeiing Psyche". With mortality, thoughts can no longer be indiscriminate mental ramblings of an imagination dreaming it is. Our thoughts now must support life, and expand and liberate the "living" from self imposed limits, i.e. fear of death-based thoughts.

As we the Immortals, are here to redesign the "survival mind" of the animal body for the purpose of evolving planetary minds. We are the Sun's of Living Creative Conscious Energy, eminated from the Galactic Core Divine Creative, A Macrocosmic Psyche, who must reflect upon a world of Matter, our own self-realizations on a microcosmic scale. This reflection of solar thoughts has been for generations, symbolized by the Moon image. For as we all know, this is the realm of "Reflected light" which is less than one percent of the total electromagnetic spectrum that is the medium of our " personality-consciousness". The One Mind, is All Light, and/or Dark energy transforming itself into "Self Awareness", as Visible Light. As inheritors of this Solar Psyche, we bend, twist, spiral, light by a psycho-dynamic process of I AM ME and or "willed identity". In other words, the perspectives/beliefs of an declaration. I AM... can be anything! Therefore, the Moon reminds us that what we call real, is merely a reflection of our  Solar Psyche and/or Will! You may say, " I don't want to feel depressed", but the truth is, if you put emotion to a thought, thought being the "first material" of creation,and emotion being energy in motion, your Psyche believes this exactly what you want. For a Divine Creative doesn't make what it doesn't want and you have the "god-mind" of that Creative and call it Imagination, of which the Moon is also a symbol for. Since you have imagined  and emoted it so, then so it must be for you!

One could say, that on the Path of the Moon, the Souls learns to run the physical vehicle by expanding the brain's perspectives beyond that of  life and death, into the knowledge of personality-resurrection. For a Mecury personality, does not experience death, it just travels from body to body, fully aware and functional.

At first, thePath of Qoph is a process of the Soul's organization of the physical body it will "inhabit" (it actually circumvents the body in 7 Energy Bodies of the Aura and flows in through the Chakras). For myself. I remember designing the body and if the chromosomes didn't link up the way I wanted....I just ejected them, which my dear Mother witness as miscarriages; three of them, until I got the body pattern I wanted. Now I know this sounds extraordinary, but a Soul who doesn't suffer the "sleep" of Death, has full cognitive abilities-----even when the body it has operated dies and the new design is yet to function.

Remember, that by our observation we change the observed phenomena, this is called in Quantum Phyiscs, the Simulation Hypothesis Since we can simulate "Self" as "ourselves", this allows the Soul to choose the parents, choose the body's DNA structure, and even the name of the body, processes that I translated to my physical Mother in dreams. Dreams are another attribute of the Moon. It is the Path of Qoph which is a Hebrew letter that means ; Back of head, Ear. 

This Psychic Path proceeds from the Unconscious of Netzach to a kind of pre-conscious flow, a kind of "Sleep", into a conscious material state. We should remember here, that we are not bodies, nor are we from the evolutionary consciousness of Earth---we are actually invaders from another time-space, Daemons (Greek word for God-man) who are the Children of the "Angels who have fallen to Earth",i.e. Alien astronauts and or Galactic evolutions of Pysche.

 Hence, no matter how benign or malevolent we are, we still have to inherit the "Alien Psyche" by advancing our thought from self absorbed to the Divine Impersonal. Therefore, we have to overcome the survival will of the animal mind that is part of the human body and fear based, with the greater Will of Spirit. This fact alone, helps to prove, that you are not of the body, but that it is a GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) of your Archetypal-  Self design! 

For the one who wishes to reclaim their Universal Inheritance, the journey of awakening from the "Sleep" of incorporation is begun by traveling "upward" along the Path of Qoph, into the Dark recesses of the Unconscious, and its illusions of fear and destruction brought on by the survival mind's fear of Death.  In other words we must slay the demons of our own animal death/fear of pain-illusions, that began as our bodies were ejected from the warm wet amphibian world of "Mother, to the nasty cold world of earth and therefore, forming our foundation of identity out of fear of rejection.

Qabalah, and tarot, help us remember the multidimensional Daemon consciousness that we are. This awakening process is a conquest of phantoms reflected from the material world, i.e. "Creations of the Created" and so it is a Path  out of darkness into the reflected light of the Sun. The Moon is representative of such a journey, as it has  both a dark side and reflected side.

When facing the darkest fears of one's own mind, and of the race, one undergoes some frightening and devastating  emotional and mental trials that involve real dangers to the physical and mental health of the individual whose sense of self is not strong. Therefore, the Gnostic and Qabalistic studies begin by building a strong recognition of Self and your ability as an infinite Self-Spirit to face the illusions of terror that belong only to the body's survival mind and have no power over you when you are awake and aware as a cohabiting Soul. Again meditation on this card is recommended.

The Rebirth of light out of the hideous and abominable darkness of a Dark Energy universe, is the primary representation of this card, and is symbolized by the Scarab Beetle  (a reference to Kephera, the Egyptian Father of the Gods) rolling the Sun upward into a rising position. This also represents the highest creative force (sun) beginning its material self-expression as the lowest organic form. This is easily understood if you remember that we are Solar Beings/Light evolutionary Self (...Know ye not that we are stars!) (Spirits) who came to seek self-expression and sensual intimacy with life, through organic human forms.

The Moon card also shows Anubis in both forms, of the Dark nether realms of Death and the light realms of life-Resurrection and is a very complex deity of lunar opposites. However, one way or the other, birth, death and resurrection are pivotal concepts on the Path of the Moon. These are biological processes and they occur in the dark and light of our sensual perceptions.

The energy process is shown on the Thoth Deck Moon Card as cyclic wave motion, as a pattern of both above and below, linked by the Beetle of the Sun. In the simplest of terms, this is a Path of natural energy from which our bodies develop in the Womb and is continual process throughout our lives as cells live, die and resurrect-replace in daily life. The work of the Path of Qoph ends with the dissolution of energy back to its source, which is Netzach (victory).

Successful understanding of this path, is to understand the relationship of our personality-consciousness to the Soul, and the physical power-tool built for each incarnation. An active personality who walks in the light rather than a "null personality" who sleeps in the dark. We become "lost souls" when we don't operate the Power-Tool we were given, giving, by fear of pain, it's operation to the faux authority of cultural dogma which is based on "fear of rejection".  The Moon Card is a reminder that most people/souls, during the cyclic phase of withdrawal of consciousness from the physical Power-Tool, continue to act on information and phantasmagorical  fantasies related to survival subconscious, or "cultural group Soul" of body existence. If not released, the sleeping soul-consciousness becomes a phantom of its own fantasies that are so close to the fabric of material manifestation that they are often seen as phantasms or as ghosts.

The Moon card is veiled by illusion and those illusions must be understood in order for the Prodigal Soul to claim its Rich Universal Inheritance.

The Wild Wood Tarot-Key 18-The Moon on the Water, represents the Midwinter solstice, December 21st and the Dark Sun (Dark Energy).

The element is Earth, and it represents the gateway of the Soul.  It is the mystic still point, the null point, where mere desires and thoughts, change from subjective to objective life. Where, illusion becomes solid and real.

 The scene is of a full moon rising above a primal swamp land, a murder of crows flying by a heron, all overflying an aurochs. Submerged in the nutrient rich swamp water, is a primal egg, full of potential and creative power.

In the primal world, the Moon is not just a cyclic controller of tides, but is also the sacred and mysterious light that illuminates the darkness of the Abysmal void.

On the Moon on Water card,There is no visible path illuminated for the traveler, yet the whole landscape is illuminated. Therefore, it implies that the querent stands at the edge of a watery marsh of a primordial emotional state that holds all potential and creativity for the Psyche. Our eyes are drawn to the horizon where the Moon meets the Earth, beyond the barren trees. Beyond the sacred Heron,  lies the fusion of our ancestral soul with the soul of Earth.

As seen with the cow, the aurochs horns represent the waxing and waning moon, as well as, the head and horns shape of the womb and Fallopian tubes. Hence, in Druidic and Mithraic  tradition, the bull or ox  had a sacrificial role, representing the coming of new life from the death of Winter.

 The Heron is the sacred totem bird of fertility, and in the shape of a stork, it takes over the mysteries of reincarnation, offering powerful insights into life itself.

Hence, the Moon on the Water, represents the first steps beyond earthly awareness, i.e. reality, across the primal emotional void of creation. Here, also encompassed are the dark-moon aspects of fertility, sexuality and initiation, as well as, the irrational fear that is superstitiously associated to the creatures of the night, such as faeries, demons, werewolves, vampires, witches or other hidden or unseen shapes of our primal ancestral memory.

When the Thoth Moon or The Moon on Water card is thrown during a reading, it often means:

The Moon is about the Illusion of "life and death", so there will be moments of lying, falsity, deception, if the card is ill dignified. 

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