VI. The Lovers. The impact of inspiration on intuition, resulting in illumination and liberation---the sword striking off the fetters of habit and materialism, Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the Dragon of fear and the waters of Stagnation.
The colours are orange, violet, purplish grey and pearl grey. The flashing colour of orange gives deep vivid blue while the flashing colour for violet is golden yellow. The flashing colours may always be introduced if they bring out the essential colour meaning more clearly. In practise this card usually signifies sympathetic understanding.
VII. The Chariot. Here we have a symbols of the spirit of man controlling the lower principles, soul and body, and thus passing triumphantly through the astral plane, rising above the clouds of illusion and penetrating to the higher spheres.
The colours amber, silver-grey, blue-grey, and the deep blue violet of the night sky elucidate this symbol. It is the sublimation of the Psyche.
VIII. Strength. This also represents the mastery of the lower by the higher. But in this case it is the soul which holds in check the passions, although her feet are still planted on earth, and the dark veil still floats about her head and clings around her. The colours, pale greenish yellow, black, yellowish grey and reddish amber, suggest the steadfast endurance and fortitude required, but the deep red rose which is the flashing colour to the greenish yellow, gives motive power.
IX. The Hermit. Prudence. These three trumps should be collated in studying them for they represent the three stages of initiation. The man wrapped in hood and mantle, and carrying a lantern to illuminate the Path and a staff to support his footsteps, He is the eternal seeker, the Pilgrim soul. His hood and mantle are the brown of earth, and above him is the night-sky. But the delicate yellow-greens and bluish greens of spring are about him, and spring is in his heart.
X. Wheel of Fortune. In the Etz Chayim, or the Tree of Life, the Wheel is placed on the Pillar of Mercy, where it forms the principal column linking Netzach to Chesed, Victory to Mercy. It is the revolution of experience and progress, the steps of the Zodiac, the revolving staircase, held in place by the counter-changing influence of Light and Darkness, Time and Eternity---presided over by the Plutonian cynocephalus below, and the Sphinx of Egypt above, the eternal Riddle which can only be solved when we attain liberation. The basic colours of this Trump are blue, violet, deep purple, and blue irradiated by yellow. But the zodiacal spokes of the wheel should be in the colours of the spectrum, while the Ape is in those of Malkuth, and the Sphinx in the primary colours and black.
XI. Justice. Nephthys, the third aspect of Luna, the twin sister of Isis. Justice as distinguished from love. Her emblems are the Sword and the Scales. Like her sister, she is clothed in green, but in a sharper colder green than the pure emerald of Isis. Her subsidiary colours are blue, blue-green, pale green. It is only by utilizing the flashing colours that we can find the hidden warmth and steadfastness.
XII. The Hanged Man. An elusive, because a profoundly significant symbol. It is sacrifice---the submergence of the higher in the lower in order to sublimate the lower. It is the descent of the Spirit into Matter, the incarnation of God in man, the submission to the bonds of matter that the material may be transcended and transmuted. The colours are deep blue, white and black intermingled but not merged, olive, green and greenish fawn.
XIII. Death. The sign of transmutation and disintegration. The skeleton which alone survives the destructive power of time, may be regarded as the foundation upon which the structure is built, the type which persists through the permutations of Time and Space, adaptable to the requirements of evolution and not yet radically unchanged; the transmuting power of Nature working from below upwards, as the Hanged Man is the transmuting power of spirit working from above downwards. The colours are blue-green, both dark and pale, the two dominant colours of the visible world, and the flashing colours of orange and red-orange.
XIV. Temperance. This is the equilibrium not of the balance of Libra but of the impetus of the Arrow, Sagittarius, which cleaves its way through the air by the force imparted to it by the taut string of the Bow. It requires the countercharged forces of Fire and Water, Shin and Qoph, held by the restraining power of Saturn, and concentrated by the energies of Mars to initiate this impetus. All these are summed up in the symbolism of the figure standing between Earth and Water, holding the two amphorae with their streams of living water, and with the volcano in the background. The colours are bright-blue, blue-grey, slate-blue, and lilac-grey.
XV. The Devil. This card should be studied in conjunction with No. 13. They are the two great controlling forces of the Universe, the centrifugal and the centripetal, destructive and reproductive, dynamic and static. The lower nature of man fears and hates the transmuting process; hence the chains binding the lesser figures and the bestial forms of their lower limbs. Yet this very fear of change and disintegration is necessary to stabilise the life-force and preserve continuity. The colours are indigo, livid brown, golden brown and grey.
XVI. The Tower. As always red remains persistent throughout the four planes, although modified in tone. Thus we find vivid scarlet shading into deep somber red and vermillion shot with amber. The contrasting shades of green serve to throw the red into relief. The tremendous destructive influence of the lightning, rending asunder established forms to make way for new forms to emerge, revolution as distinguished from transmutation or sublimation, the destructive as opposed to the conservative, energy attacking inertia, the impetuous ejection of those who enclose themselves in the walls of ease and tradition. |