We are currently engaged in an almost two-year initiatory Pathworking with The Qabalah Tree of Life. You can read what that's all about here. In the meantime, I have been documenting our work as we explore the Paths.
It is important to know these are brief notes. A true understanding of each Path begs a vital understanding of the Sephiroth connecting them. Further research on your own is highly recommended.
It is important to know these are brief notes. A true understanding of each Path begs a vital understanding of the Sephiroth connecting them. Further research on your own is highly recommended.
We have completed Path 20, now for Path 19 .....
The Lion, in the case of the Tarot Trump, has other meanings as well. In alchemy, the lion represents the uncontrolled forces of nature. So, immediately we can see the struggle of the woman holding open the mouth (another reference to Path 27) of the wild lion in order to control and subdue it. The woman of course signifies our highest connection to spirit, the Individuality. The subduing of the lion is not just subduing the lower, primal self; "the test of this Path is the ability to face up to everything that has happened during the complete span of personal evolution, accepting it all for what it is, without evasions or repression. It is a final reckoning . . ." (Gareth Knight, A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, Vol. II, p.126)
Travelling this Path we should see and be able to strip away the last illusion keeping us confined to the whims of our Personality, our lower self. "It is almost a masque where the outer 'faces' we present to the world are slowly removed, leaving us feeling very vulnerable. At least until we realize that being our true selves gives us enormous strength." (Aschroft-Nowicki, p.123) The key to this strength can found within the mysteries of the Hebrew Letter Teth.
Teth means the "serpent" and those with a shamanic knowledge-base should understand the serpent as a teacher of transformation from one state of being to another. In Hebrew mysticism, unlike modern Christianity, it is a symbol of wisdom. In the Western Mystery Tradition, Chic and Sandra Cicero explain that it "also represents a type of electromagnetic energy not unlike that of Eastern Kundalini. This 'serpent power' is used by mystics to activate the body's energy centers to cause a kind of divine rapture. The Nineteenth Path connects the Sephiroth of Chesed and Geburah, the primary spheres of water and fire on the Tree. Between these two polarities a natural electrical circuit is formed that generates this vitalizing 'serpent power,' which is part of the magnetic current that powers the entire universe. The ability to direct and regulate this power is the basis of all occult work." (Isreal Regardie, A Garden of Pomegranates, p.395)
Now Crowley changed the title of this Tarot to "Lust," and even though I generally don't agree with a lot of his changes to the Trumps, I do understand his reasoning here as stated in The Book of Thoth: "Lust implies not only strength, but the joy of strength exercised. It is vigour, and the rapture of vigour." (Crowley, p. 92) Whereas in traditional decks the woman is struggling with the lion, in the Thoth deck, "She rides astride the Beast; in her left hand she holds the reins, representing the passion which unites them. In her right she holds aloft the cup, the Holy Grail aflame with love and death. In this cup are mingled the elements of the sacrament of the Aeon. [Crowley's version of the New Age, Age of Aquarius, etc.] This sacrament is the physical-magical formula for attaining initiation, for the accomplishment of the Great Work." (Crowley, p.94 & 95)
The cup, even though it is not in the traditional imagery of the decks, is a prime symbol for this Path. It is a key symbol in esotercism for full acceptance and taking the full responsibility for it. "The drinking of the Cup," Gareth Knight says. "Is the complete acceptance of the way we have erred; and the way each has erred is the way each has erred and cannot be altered by one hairsbreath. [...] In the degree that we reject the sin, or the imperfections of each one of us, in that degree do we fail to understand how resurrected life may be achieved." (Knight, Vol. II, p.128)
Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki completes this sentiment in our commitment to the higher orders of universal law: "Acceptance of destiny we learned about on the last path, but learning about it and putting it into operation are two different things, and on the nineteenth path we are being told, not asked." (Ashcroft-Nowicki, p. 124)
