Tarot Card Comparison, The Shadow Series: The Thoth-key 18- The Moon & The Shadow Tarot-Path 29-Qulielfi

The Thoth Moon Card has been called the Karma Card ( work that needs to be done). Ultimately, we have a daily choice between supporting our authentic self or our dutiful man-made self.  There is the Real which is the Spiritual Being and then there is reality, the indoctrinated identity that we call our ego or personality.

In this card we see the gates that are guarded by the Ra kings of Egyptian sun god myth, who stabilize and protect our energy as we transform  from reality selves to our memory of Real Self.

We also see Anubis the Egyptian jackal headed god of Transformation who remind us that we must leave the old to experience anything new. If you know that everyone you see is another way of being you; you are using the Real sight of divine self-awareness. If you see everyone as enemy or friend, you suffer from reality blindness brought on by the survival/cultural mind of the animal that you should own; but now owns you.

The Moon is a card of illusion and reminds us that the illusion of the senses  are all psychosomatic, meaning that not everyone has the same sensual experience from same environments. In other words they are not repeated by everyone and therefore are not scientific proof.  In other words, reality rests in the "I" of the beholder.

Therefore, Reality is defined as trans-formative, the Real is the One who Transforms but is not the transformation itself.

You may also see the Scarab beetle on the bottom of this card. This is the symbol of the Egyptian god Khepri, the god of transformations. In the Thoth Moon card illustration, the Scarab is rolling the Sun across the horizon, into the other-world in the evening and this world at the dawn. This depiction represents the renewal of life and the Real eternal existence which is invisible and thus called dark.

The Thoth Moon card also represents the water sign Pisces. The traditional two fish of Pisces are symbolized here as the Anubi gate guardians, and represent the Picean commitment to evolutionary transformation.

When this card is Skryed, the querent is reminded that they are functioning in the realm of the unconscious, where they become aware that reality is a dream, that time/space and physical bodies are merely conceptions, and therefore deep cellular change is possible.

To the Qabalist, the Thoth Moon Card is the Shamanic call to enter into the darkness of unconscious desires and fears, as shown by The Shadow Tarot-Path 29- Qulielfi, so that one may transform passions into functional motion rather than dysfunctional illusion. 

The Qabalistic Thoth-Key 18- Moon, which is the 29th Path of the Tree of Life, is called the Path of Qoph,meaning, back of head or ear.

Connecting Netzach (Victory) with 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 "back of the head" path, is also known as the "Threshold to life", a spiritual birth that may be considered on two levels. On one level, it is the course of incarnation where the soul organizes the physical body of which it will inhabit.  It is a kind of sleep (physical consciousness not yet formed), a kind of pre-consciousness, that differentiates into mater from the collective unconscious of Netzach.

On another level, where the student is advancing spiritual awareness up the Tree of Life, it is a path of  conquest of the phantoms of their "man-made" personality which are creations of the created.

The path of the Moon is a probationary path, where the student must face the emotional phantoms hid in the dark recesses of their own mind, as well as those of the race.

This path can be disturbing to those of weak moral fiber, and can pose real dangers to one's emotional stability.  On the other hand, as shown in The Shadow Tarot-Quliefli- those strong enough to tread this Path and slay the monsters "within" our sleep-consciousness and understand their mechanisms, gain the capacity to manipulate  those qualities in ourselves and those of others. Mastery of Illusion is a product of this path.

The meaning of the Hebrew word, Qoph, is the back of the head, behind the head itself, is the Sum-Resh.Therefore, the Moon also 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 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. Something that Linda Falorio abstractly depicted in her Shadow Tarot Card 29.

In Thoth Deck Tarot, THE HIGH PRIESTESS, is a source of pure, crystal clear waters (consciousness) emerging from the God Head-The Father, to God the Son.

The Same waters of consciousness are seen here on the Thoth- The Moon card, and The Shadow Tarot Card, but they are polluted with the dark subconscious fears of mortality, that physical manifestation bestows on consciousness. However, as I have stated before, the traveling up the Path of Qoph, towards the "Sun (Son) Consciousness" , notably changes the body physiology, as the Bright Beautiful Light Intellect of the Son (Tiphareth) descends into the flesh, which much like a crystal, begins glowing with internal heat.

When traveling up the Path of Qoph, the Personality becomes increasing aware of the Higher Self and less controlled by the dark fears of the body .

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 (spiritual fire) raining down from the central orb of the Thoth card.

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. What we all agree on is that something descends from the Moon to the Earth on the Path of Qoph, which is represented as raining Yods.

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 who applies beautiful reason to our consciousness.

The simple Hebrew letter of Qoph, also 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 and/or the Shadow side. As the Moon has cycles, so does our consciousness, 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.

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.  The two figures of Anubis, the jackal -headed gate keepers, symbolize this cyclic process (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.

To understand the Path of Qoph--The Moon, is to understand the partnership of our personality-consciousness to the physical vehicle, which the Soul Personality builds for each manifestation. Since most people perceive themselves as  having existence only through their bodies, this is often a most difficult  undertaking. However, knowing that you are the Sun/Spirit that reflects self-image on the Moon of material being, may aid you in realizing that reality is your Dream!

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 vehicles  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 Self Reflection of the Dark Forces of the immortal Soul, and is unused to such thoughts of powerful passions, thus placing them in its most powerful passion, i.e. fear of death. Thank the Goddess that we recycle, our consciousness, which is a "reflection" of the Soul Conscious-Personality and can therefore clean out the malignancy of fear.

Bodies forget, that they are a recycled part of the Whole Organic Organism, that we know as "Organic matter". Like I have often said," You ,my body, 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.  We are not a physical brain. We are Spirit, who is supposed to program the brain with its own soft-ware, for the purpose of experiencing the discernment of being a "living thing".  With our Powerful Imagination, straight from the Divine Creative of Force and Form, thoughts can no longer be indiscriminate mental ramblings of an imagination. They now must support life, and expand and liberate the "living" from fear of death- based thoughts or they will annihilate all life in an orgasmic celebration of self destruction!

  We the "Spiral Entities", Immortals from the Dark Universe B, are here to redesign the "survival mind" of the animal body. We are the Dark fiery Sun's of Living Creative Conscious Energy, who must reflect upon a world of Matter,  which for generations was symbolized by the Moon. For as we all know, this is the realm of "Reflected light" which is less than one percent of the total electromagnetic spectrum, which is the medium of our " personality-consciousness". 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.

The Shadow Tarot-Path 29- Qulielfi, depicts a place in the psyche that is in the twilight borderline between waking and sleeping consciousness.

Abstractly, she illustrates

the lower astrals, where elemental lurkers, or phantoms await at the threshold of personal subconscious. All the dreams of dark blood, and death, locked into the ever evolving collective subconscious of Earth life as it eats itself to stay alive. There resides here, both seductive and/or terrifying phantasms, according to the temperament of the dreamer.

 A sigil, that is traced on the limestone of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, represents the full moon on the Shadow card, depicting slugs, that thrive in the dark moist night, but dry up and die in the bright sun; the dead only to be eaten by their fellow slugs at night. This represents the fact that "life eats itself to stay alive."

 The twin towers of the Thoth (day-side) Tarot, have become the spread legs of the Dark Goddess, that have grown  into twisted mangrove trunks guarding the Gates of the Abyss (The Great Womb).

The Coral snake, known for its deadly bite, awaits between the legs of the Goddess Nu, providing the "kiss of Nu", a practice of ritual suicide best known as the bit of the Asp used by Cleopatra to end her life. Again, representing the personality-death necessary to travel through the Abyss.

Successful skrying of both the Thoth Moon or The Shadow Tarot -Qulielfi card, bestows powers of a manifesting imagination, where one can lucidly travel the astral realms, cast spells and bewitchment.  About spells and bewitchment, one must beware, for there in lies the "kiss of Nu". Casting spells for health, welfare,and wealth are safe. Casting bewitchments to enable others to see past their own nightmares, is clever and safe but to cast love spells etc. has dire consequences. Clairvoyance, prophetic dreams, and artistic vision are also gifts of the enhanced imagination.

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