Tarot Card Comparisons. The Shadow series: The Shadow Tarot-key11, Amprodias & Thoth Tarot-0 The Fool

Key 0 - The Fool card.

 

 

The fool is the universal principle that is associated with the state of conscious energy, that is us before and after death. In other words, the conscious state that is Spirit. Many of us know that we " have a spirit" but few of us know that we are Spirit and seek not spirituality but rather are Spirituality bringing  whole-conscious liberation and expansion to Earth anima and animus! Rather than just being assumed as being mystical, trans-personal, transcendent, ecstatic in its nature; the Fool represents the power of wonder and ecstasy that is so apparent in the very young before they succumb to indoctrination and form a "cultural identity". The cultural identity is not real so Cabalists/Kabalists/Qabalists call it "reality" which we all know as relative.

The Oriental symbol for fear is the tiger. In this card, fear is seen as attempting to gnaw on the leg of the fool who isn't giving any power to fear. He looks forward, and the tiger can't even make a dent.  The fool is the energetic essence of who we are---an unflappable immortal spiritual flow of energy consciousness that flows from the Infinite Source.  This card symbolizes the creative expression that is needed to  give birth to new  parts of our lives and to boldly take risks that are so necessary to evolutionary development!

 Every card in the Tarot Deck is an aspect of THE FOOL-0.

As a Qabalistic Initiation  Path, THE FOOL connects Kether (Crown) with Chokmah (Wisdom). To the Qabalist, Kether is known as the Source of All, and Chokmah is known as Father God.

The Path of Aleph, meaning OX, is about the "flowing of Life Force and creative power", showing the SPIRIT'S aim to be that of Earth and/or Sensual Being.

Crowley symbolizes this "Holy Spirit" ( The Spirit on every level of the Tree of Life)  as a dove in the Thoth Deck Card. Crowley also called The Letter Aleph, a phallic symbol.....but then so is the Projected Will that is THE MAGUS, and one wonders if Crowley was so besotted with the Phallus, that he was unable to see anything else; However, truth be told, by reference to Sexes and sexuality do we come to the minutest glimmering of understanding about the Universe.

Paul Foster Case calls the Fool the Eleventh Path, in his book THE THIRTY-TWO PATHS OF WISDOM. The eleventh path is the fiery or Scintillating Intelligence, which makes sense as The Path of Aleph boarders on the Limitless Light (Ain Soph), which is "not" or 0. The Ain is Light without limit which is darkness to us who need a beginning and a end to see. So here we try to explain what can't be seen as The Fiery Darkness which is the possibility of vibration or motion and the First Perception of the One having potential for activity.

In the context of Masculine sexuality, the Fool is the Testes (represented by the three flowers beneath the spread legs of THE FOOL), and the Magus is the Phallus, as he directs active first flow from the Fool rather than potentiality doing so. However, I fear that this is a rather limiting concept of the ONE-----as the Ain Soph is 0, but then, all concepts are less than the potential for conception. The Ain, is a place of limitless energy, thus without form.

We may reason that the potential for Thought, comes from the Dark Energy as Dark Matter (The First Material). The appearance of Thought emanates Mind, which is the vessel for Thought and/or Womb of Thought Forms, i.e. The I-magi-nation, transcending all reason. Therefore, our reason, leaves us with more questions than answers.

Limitlessness is a very difficult concept! To say that THE FOOL represents the initial potential for thought which transcends reason, is about the best I can do with words.

The special reality we may touch in sleep, often gives us images that do not correlate to our mundane understanding of reality, so our dreams seem to be so much abstraction and are considered as nonsense to our waking condition. However, the Great Work (As above so below) involves the assimilation of  The Real, not a reality conceived of mundane ideas. And the Real Concepts are from "what is Not' making "What is" from Dreams of Potential- Self!

To think of the Universe of Force and Form as "God Dreaming" (Darkness Dreaming it is Light) is very difficult to grasp, and the fact that you are a "Lucid" Dreamer (Image of God), who has been given the "Power of Observation", meaning you can change the Perspective of "Things", is just about as mind boggling as it gets....and just such a glimmer of insight requires a "beyond the Mundane" understanding of Self! Therefore, our Divinity is not often acknowledge by the mundane. Too make this understanding even more difficult, our Womb of psyche, the conception of "the image of God", is the invisible Sephira, Daath (knowledge), which is the Path Where Goddess (Understanding)/God (Wisdom) meet face to face (Yab Yum) and is known as the Path of Daleth-THE EMPRESS, your Spiritual Birth Mother! We are all born from Shadow into light!

I'll end this brief dissertation on the Fool, with this: All the Paths leading upward to Kether,THE FOOL, THE MAGUS, AND THE HIGH PRIESTESS, must be approached with a certain understanding of whimsy, as we realize that by crossing the Abyss and approaching Kether (As above, so below) means the total annihilation of Self as we perceive it. This observation presents us with the irony of our attempt to grasp such esoteric and refined principles from an earthly-mundane perspective.

Often, when teaching the Major Arcana and knowing what I speak, cannot truly convey what I am saying, brings a smile, if not outright laughter to my face. To me, The I AM potential is ironically displayed as a limited conception--a Me. For the I AM, being a "Me" must never be taken to seriously, for that concept will change daily, when one enters the Higher Self.

Just remember the first law of thermodynamics; "There is only one energy that cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed"...and transmitted. The entities of the Qabalistic tree of life both transform and transmit this Energy, that is represented as the Fool card of the Tarot Major Arcana....and the whole "you" is the union of all these transforming and transmitting entities (in physics, an entity is a "point in time") both subtly and objectively. So in actuality, you are the manifestation of the invisible Fool. 

The Shadow Tarot, deals with the "other side of the mirror", where reflected light does not exist. Rather, it is the place of Dark beginnings, and its gateway is the invisible Sephira called Daäth (Hebrew word for, Knowledge). Traditionally, this is the demonic realities of Christians, Islam, Jewish and various other religions. For religions must have something evil to fight, in order to have any value.

However, superstitions aside, Daäth is the gateway to the Divine Collective Unconscious. Where there never was visible light, only thoughts and dreams of beginnings and ends.

In her bold attempt to explain her magical workings from 1983 to 1988, Linda Falorio, invented these Shadow Tarot cards to supply the code necessary to open the gates into mundanely unexplored psyche.

The numbers on top of these cards, is not mundanely expressed in "normal" tarot and therefore to read these cards as Tarot, on must subtract the number 11 from the card's number. In the case of Amprodias/The Fool, this subtraction would leave the total of 0. Which is the Fool, in Tarot Major arcana.

The methodology employed in the making of these cards was to paint the ancient magical sigil of the Qliphoth of each day-side path "as resurrected by Crowley in his Liber CCXXI. (for research, get the Gems of the Equinox or 777 by Crowley). By projecting though Daäth, the meditating student enters the "Night-side of the Tree of Life".  For further explanation, I would suggest that one gets the book : The Shadow Tarot-Dreaming with Demons , by Linda Falorio.

The Shadow Tarot Card key 11- Amprodias, is Linda's interpretation of the " Dark Stared Crawling Chaos" of the heart of matter or the Void. This is her interpretation of Zoroaster's description of "a swirling, rebounding energy that shouts out loud". 

As I stated in the explanation of the Thoth Fool Card, to enter Daäth is to reenter the dark womb of our psyche, a place where the personality is shredded apart, leaving only the Collective Unconscious which houses the "idea of you". Thus the energy is shown on The Shadow Tarot-11, as lighting bolts (Tibetan Dorjes), five arms of electricity in the swirling chaos. A dark place where one leaves the rational mind and enters the Collective Unconscious through the central Black Hole of the Universe (Daäth).

The central image in the square, is the artistic interpretation  of the mad god Nyarlathotep of the Necronomicon and Lovecraft mythos. Here, the churning chaotic energy, produces "frequency", or the Music of Souls, before harmony, as if the Great Inane is surrounded by and orchestra of overactive- idiot musicians.

According to Linda Falorio, the entrance to Daäth, is filled or infested with,"nether aspects of erstwhile beguiling, fairies. Vampyres, they haunt these chasms of inner-space, imprisoning the minds of foolhardy magicians in transparent cells floating through the void like immense soap bubbles blown by the Fool of day-side Tarot." 

This is great imagery for the need for caution on the Astrals, as most mediumistic Channels, are subject to just this kind of Auric Vampyre under the guise of a "master teacher". When in reality, these pretenders just want in out of the "cold" of non-sensual being and need the "living energy" of the medium to feel alive.

The Amprodias card, once Skried, sends one through the Tunnel of Amprodias and enlivens ones vibratory energy. Vitality is enhanced, giving us the clairvoyance necessary to glimpse alien forms of consciousness that reside in parallel dimensions. These dimensions operate a velocities beyond our realities, and most of us are unaware of their existence. This inner journey gives us the "magic abilities" to see beyond euclidean geometry, giving us insights into mathematics beyond our normal perceptions. Here, we see or hear the mechanics of the Divine Collective Unconscious, while still being able to observe. 

The beings of parallel dimensions, do not necessarily speak in words as we know them, thus there seems to be an ability to "speak in tongues" given to the initiate. For communication is possible and our brains hearing center seems to understand the communication. I have entered the "Dark Eagle" mentioned by Don Juan in Carlos Castaneda's books, and have been torn down to a mere red dot...all was taken apart accept the original that came from the Ain. Yet I still had observation skills. I was sent back as "the Faceless Dark Goddess, called me husband" and I have definitely been changed.  This skrying meditation is not to be done by those who have not completely known the inanity of existence. For existence is I AM and has only the presumption of Self Awareness and is manifestation entertainment for the Soul who never really lives, but makes alive it's dreams and laughs at its self absorbed comedies and dramas.  Thus, it is great fun being the "I AM Me", for even sorrow is but a dream.

When experienced, Daäth releases our stressed pent up energy, releasing vitality, allowing true freedom to think, to achieve great heightened powers of perception, courage, and freedom to pursue one's will. Therefore, the Tiger, of death, doesn't disturb one's psyche in the least. We manipulate only illusion and call it "ourselves". We are the Artistic Psyche called "Spirit" and the art of illusion is our entertainment.

To reiterate, THE FOOL- 0, or Amprodias, is the initial potential for thought, transcending all reason. Thus objectifying the Upper Regions, the Supernal Triangle, is a futile endeavor. However,once we recognize the impossibility of consciously approaching the Highest Levels of the Tree of Life, i.e. The Universe, in a direct manner, we are forcibly driven into the key Principles of the Mysteries/Metaphysics  of As Above, So Below.

 

We begin seeing that the Below is a mirror reflection of the Above; The Divine Spirit is all we know, we breathe it, we live within it, it is ourselves. Because we know this Divinity to be "the One Energy that cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed", we know that everything is of this One, as symbolized by THE FOOL that is the Path of Aleph or the Tunnel of Amprodias.

In the Thoth Tarot context, Aleph is attributed to Air and means Life-Breath. Just as Spirit is from the Greek root word Spiro, which means Breath and is also the root word for spiral. The One Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is then the Spinning or whirling Life-Breath. This is well known in Eastern cultures, and Prana Yamas (Breath yoga) are a major if not primary pat of all Spiritual development. The Word Prana, is the Life-Breath energy.

Now in the past, I have described the Magus as relating to "Words" (vibration), the underlying sonic of patterned manifestation. However, it is the power of breath that expels the sound. Thus THE FOOL activates THE MAGUS.

Crowley, considered Air to be a vacuum, as related to THE FOOL who is the fertile Nothingness and egg of Spirit, The Void, so too speak. The universal Egg of Spirit is known, by Globalists, to be the EGG OF AKASHA, the zero of THE FOOL, also represents this egg of spirit, and is the mathematical formula of  one Male, minus one female= 0 . Therefore, the understanding is that the Egg of Akasha, is a fertilized ovum of undefined sexuality, but having the potential for Both! 

THE FOOL, is the very expression of the god name of Kether, Eheieh, which means I will be. This is the Divine Child as yet unborn, who is all potential and who is our very beginning! This is the gateway to un-manifested psyche, i.e. Amprodias.

The Tiger, "fawning about" THE FOOL'S  leg, is an archetype representing the Animal Nature as related to the Higher Spiritual process; the fear based survival thinking. The Horns on the figure represent those of Dionysus Zagreus, the green clothing is that of the Green Man of Spring, the grapes at his feet are a tribute to Bacchus, the Greek God of Ecstasy, and the Crocodile (great creative energy) a swimming at his feet in "the Nile" (Crowley quote). Images referring to the Godhead, are the dove of Venus and the vulture of Maat Then there is the triple egg shape created by the caduceus in motion, symbolizing the Ain Soph Aur (The three states of Nothing). 

As you may realize, the imagery is so subjective that I haven't the space to detail it all for you. If you need more detail, and you do, I would recommend reading Crowley's BOOK OF THOTH.,  Robert Wang's Book: THE QABALISTIC TAROT and investigating the Mythology of the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians.

If ill defined by accompanying cards, The Fool, is then the harbinger of folly, mania, extravagance and even negligence.

Thank you for your interest, comments and supportive donations. May you live long and prosper.

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