So far on our travels around the Cube of Space we have arrived on and advanced from the West face (Part 1). We then rounded the Northwest edge at the Justice card of that face unto the North face (Part 2). From there we’ve traveled through the center of the Cube, touching base with The World card and briefly encountering our true inner Self, represented by the Fool card, and then arriving at the South face (Part 3). From the South face of the Cube of Space we are now rounding the Southeast edge at the Teacher card onto the East face.
All that we have learned through our trials on the previous three faces of the Cube has prepared us for what we will encounter here on the East face. Our access to the wisdom from our Teacher within made it possible. Now you are able to advance further and become the spiritual Teacher.
Each and everyone of us was blinded on the West face when we arrived through the Wheel of Fortune. And then we encountered the Deceiver. It wasn’t going well for us! Yet here we are, on the East face. We may not make it in a single lifetime, but becoming the Teacher is in everyone’s future. Here compassion for ourselves and for others has become an underlying foundation of our personality.
Our next stop on the East face is the Chariot card, found on the edge at East Below. The Charioteer is the teacher who is fully self-realized, in touch with the higher Self, and in control of the lower self. I call this the Victory card.
This card represents the Middle Way on the Tree of Life. Here we don’t find the extremes of the right or the left columns of the Tree. That’s because we meet here, not as bodies, but as spirits. On this level we have a delightful relationship. It is the inner Self in each of us that makes us interesting to each other. The Charioteer is the triumphant rider in the vehicle of personality.
The Chariot is a summary of all the Keys in the first row of the Tarot Tableau. The Magician is our self-conscious, directive power. The High Priestess represents memory, a primary attribute of the sub-conscious mind. The Empress reveals the power of our active imagination, which resides in the sub-conscious mind.
The Emperor is our ability to reconstitute our lives so that they are fully in balance with the Law of Life. Our intuitive faculty is indicated by the Teacher. The Lovers Key symbolizes the keen discrimination necessary to recognize and unscramble all that is taking place in a positive, energetic, and innovative manner within ourselves.
The attributes of the Chariot card are receptivity and will. The Magician’s gestures signify that our support comes from that spiritual realm within us. Once we get the message from within, we apply our will. The Chariot card is the reward for the Magician’s efforts. The difference between people is not in the degree of their will power, like a possession. It is the degree of our ability to express this will power in our everyday lives.
The two wheels of his chariot reminds us of the revolving Wheel of Fortune card. But here the Charioteer is supported by, and moving in harmony with, the Life Power. The cycles of life, death and rebirth actually move him forward on the Path of Initiation. The two sphinx, “I like” and “I don’t like”, are under his control by the invisible reins of his mind. Look how quiet they are!
His journey is guided by the winged golden disk, the third eye, on the front of the chariot. The Cabala says, “the mind moves the body.” The Bhagavad-Gita says, “The Self is the Rider in the chariot of the body, of which the senses are the horses, and the mind the reins.”
His wand is crowned by the moon and the figure eight, representing the sacred stylus of Thoth and the power and ability to bring into being the sacred words of Spirit.
Here he becomes the Teacher who writes the words of guidance so that those who are still trapped in the city, aka the West face of the Cube, will be able to find a way out. The teachings from the inner school given to him on the South face are now given to the rest of humanity.
Our next stop is the Emperor on the Northeast edge. His title means “he who sets in order.” The Hebrew letter attributed to this card means window and the sense function is sight. A window is also a vantage point that allows us to survey all of our surroundings and to oversee all that goes on around us.
With this vision we gain supervision and control over our personal universe. It allows us to achieve insight into the realities of creation. Through meditation we’re now able to penetrate nature by looking through that which is visible around us. Your vision now goes into them, to their source of life. With this new awareness feelings arise within us which awaken our five inner senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.
Our spiritual senses are the same senses that we have on a physical level. To see without our eyes, hear without our ears, feel without our skin, taste without our tongue, and smell without our nose.
To develop this requires looking around you from the perspective of wondering what’s going on within what you’re looking at. Allow it to be revealed to you. The quality of our vision determines the quality of our lives. If what we see round us is based on appearances, then our response to the circumstances of our lives will be short-sighted and dark.
Order is achieved with the help of reason – the two principle functions of this card. To have order in your life you must establish order in your thinking. Use your imagination. It is a most powerful tool.
Having passed the tests of the Emperor card we move on to the Lovers card on the East Above edge of the Cube. When I first introduced you to the Major Arcana Tarot cards I told you that it was a book about Life and that were only three characters involved in the story. I also mentioned that those three characters are all found within you.
Here on the Lovers card we find all three. Adam represents your directing mind called the self-conscious mind. He’s personified by the Magician card. Eve is your receptive mind, or sub-conscious mind, personified by the High Priestess. The Archangel is your superconscious mind, personified by the Fool card.
The power to discriminate and perceive differences is rooted in the self-conscious mind. It is entering the awareness of duality, where conditions seem to be real in and by themselves, without an underlying cause. Yet they are but a reflection of the One Source. Without this ability to create illusions the individual self-conscious mind could not exist.
In the Book of Tokens is stated, “For the sake of creation the One Life that I am seemeth to divide itself, becoming Two.” The Creator manifested Itself in order to appear to Itself.
The function of the Lovers card is discrimination. As long as we are slaves to appearances we perceive only unreality. When we awaken from the dream of sense to the inner knowledge of our true nature, we begin to understand reality. The function of the Hebrew letter assigned to this card is smell, a word used to express discrimination.
Here we also have the function of reciprocation – the act of giving and receiving mutually. Reciprocation is a relationship between two different entities. We need to understand the relationship between the self-conscious Adam, and sub-conscious Eve. They represent two very different aspects of awareness, though when combined, they are the human personality. And then there’s the relationship between the super-conscious Archangel Michael and the human personality.
The true Self is the Archangel Michael. With all this in mind, we find that reciprocity between opposites, when it is harmonious, is always what we call Love. Hate is the inversion of Love. Both love and hate are human emotions, but they are also spiritual emotions.
This means that they are “root” emotions and that all other emotions and desires take on the character of either one or the other of them. We, as human beings, are on the path of return, headed back toward unity, a state of balance. Consequently, the force we must employ is the ability to combine into a coherent whole our desires and emotions colored by love. It is a uniting force of great power. We utilize the faculty of discrimination to help us determine and evolve the true color of our emotional life.
The Way to Freedom is the Way of Love. Changes are not brought about by coercion, but through friendly persuasion. Love Is unconditional and self-imparting, like sunlight. We don’t have to generate love. It exists as a universal principle. All we have to do is let it flow through us. Pairs of opposites are not antagonists, but compliments. Thus the right understanding of the universe shows it to be, in all its details, an expression of the power of love. It is the right balanced relationship existing between the various pairs of opposites of which the universe is apparently made up! It’s the Middle Path of the Tree of Life.
The tree behind Adam is the Tree of Life. It’s bearing 12 fiery fruits expressing the 12 signs of the zodiac. The zodiac expresses the 12 personalities of mankind. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil stands behind Eve. The fruits of the five senses are shown, as yet untasted. The serpent is lifted up the tree for healing. The serpent represents the power in ourselves that is our very salvation, the Kundalini experience. Adam didn’t have a fall. He had an uplifting experience that introduced him into a spiritual world through the agency of his feminine aspect. The apples were delicious and enjoyed by all!
You must have both intelligence and sensation in your life to make it successful. They are equally important, and you should think of them both at the same time. This card is a sacrament in the highest sense of the word because it represents the prolongation of life. Cabalists have great respect for God, for Creation, and for men and women. The Lovers Key sets forth this perfected balance between opposing forces. Its an ideal situation.
At this point we come to a cross roads on the East face. One choice is to continue on to the Cube face called “Above”. This is the solitary path leading back to God. This Path is represented by the Golden Key on the Teacher card. This Path is accomplished by briefly touching on the Empress card in the Center. Here we receive the ecstatic force of love both physical and divine. Then we return back to the Lovers card at East Above. From there we advance to the Above face of the Cube, where we find the Magician card at the Center. The Above face will be covered in The Cube of Space – Part 5.
Our other choice is to continue to the Empress card at the Center of the East face. There we consciously choose to give up traveling to the next two faces of the Cube called Above and Below. We, instead, decide to be consciously reborn on the West face to help our fellow man awaken to his spiritual Inner Self.
Let’s look at the Empress card. The Empress has power over all development in the material world – exactly why she’s call the Empress. She is the subconscious mind – she’s Eve from the Lovers card. You mustn’t ever forget this. Her power is awesome. Put another way, everything in the material world is created through her.
She is the essence of love and will give you everything you want, need and desire in order to fulfill her love for you. A function of this card is imagination. So she will not only give you what you desire, but multiply and embroider it, mixing fact with fancy to elaborate the outcome. Just look at her card. She sits on a fancy cube, there’s wheat to be harvested at her feet, and she’s very pregnant.
Now that you understand this, what are you, that part of you that’s Adam, asking her for? What do you think about throughout the day, where do you focus your mind, what do you listen to with your ears or watch with your eyes? She will take all of that and give it back to you, in abundance. In ways you couldn’t imagine! She is the agency through which your immediate world manifests. Is this where you really want to live?
What are you doing and thinking today that’s multiplying itself into your future experiences? Does it serve you, or will it destroy you? Here’s where the lessons learned in the Lovers and Emperor cards concerning discrimination, reciprocation, and order come in to play. At this point on the Cube of Space you understand all of this – love is always victorious!
On this chosen Path of returning to help others, we travel from the Empress card through the interior of the Cube via the Hanged Man card. We go through the door of the World card at the Center and enter again on the West face through the Wheel of Fortune.
This time as we enter the West face of the Cube of Space, we become a Messenger of Light. We are not as we were in previous reincarnations. We now have full knowledge of all that has happened before in our lives. This is the Path represented by the Silver Key on the Teacher card. We immediately ascend to the Temperance card at West Above.
The Messenger reaches maturity on the West face and begins to develop the power to illuminate wisdom in others.
At the end of the Messenger’s ministry the Messenger exits the West face via the Transition card and enters into the celestial government of the inner planes, where the White Brotherhood reside.
Gates of Light 