Wow, lots of things to say about this thread and without that nice bottle of red wine Im sure i wouldnt even attempt it.
According to the yogis in the next 'stage' or 'dimension' or whatever name you wish to apply, then we will directly manifest anything we think about. We are told we can do this now (e.g. the secret - which I quote as it is well known, which is itself the same as ancient buddhist texts), but our minds are too cluttered to focus on what we want. To paraphrase an ancient yogic lesson, an 'ascended' being 'wakes up' in the new reality....and after a while wonders when night will fall, which it promptly does....'but if this is night where do i sleep?'..a bed appears...oh but at night will it be safe? maybe there are tigers in the night...so the tiger appears and eats him....i'm sure you get the gist...So maybe that is worth bearing in mind, think positively! realise all you wish for will manifest....
Anyway, what really prompted this reply, and it may be off original topic, was the mention of the Tarot and the 22 paths...I have been using the Tarot of 20 odd years now and about 6 years ago I realised the Tarot was a tool for 'spiritual awakening', or put another way, was a summary of various esoteric philosophies, which claim to show the path. Most Tarot books still see the 22 paths as a metaphor for our 'life journey' and usually slip into Jungian philosophy to discuss these paths..I could post these 22 paths if anyone is interested, but I hold no value in them personally.
Rather the 22 paths are a summary of the path to enlightenment. Or at least enlightenment as per the yogic/qabalistic/buddhist teachings, which are all essentially man made and 'male' dominated in their concepts...They do however, point to the 'truth', even if they do use 'male' concepts to do so....
I use male and female energies here, as they do, and they describe basic postive/ negative or yin/yang or light/dark concepts....nothing to do with gender in human terms.
As a brief and over simple overview to the Tarot path I offer the following: 'God' used to be a woman. Miraculously she bled with the rhythmic cycle of the moon, yet she did not die. She had life giving powers and from her breasts flowed milk to nourish the new life that she created. Eventually our understanding of the Universe grew and we were confronted with a more complicated view of the world.
200 years or so BC, in the age of Pisces, farmers began to realise that although the Earth Brought forth life, the supreme creative energy came from the Sun. Man also realised he had a hand in creation. Having played second fiddle for so long the backlash against women was severe and so traumatized the human race that we are still suffering from it. The sun was now worshipped, and it was believed that it died every night to be reborn again in the east every morning. This belief led to the creation of heaven and hell and gave rise to the belief that when we die we are judged by the Sun god - Osiris.
A new fact of life was created, that life comes from death and much blood was spilled on the earth as human sacrifices ensured the rise of the new sun. A tremendous power was placed in the hands of the priests who inserted themsleves between the people and the gods and implied personal responsibility for the rebirth of the sun.
Towards the end of Aeon of Osiris human blood was replaced by animal blood, which was replaced by wine. By the start of the 20th Century science had confirmed that the sun still shone on the other side of the earth at night. The new formula is one of continuing growth. We, like the sun, do not die; death is an illusion.
The newly crowned and conquering child is Horus, who as The Lord of the new Aeon is called Heru-ra-ha. He is Lord of Light, Love, Liberty and Life. The child god is both male and female and light and dark and to express this duality Heru-ra-ha has two forms; Hoor-pa-kraat is the passive and innocent god of slience and Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the active and violent hawk-headed avenger of the gods. We have to unite the male and female energies to make the 'ascension' to the next aeon.
OK...that same idea in a non tarot format would look something like this...we start with nothing, and to be enlightened we end at nothing...but the latter nothing is complete with experience and knowledge....its hard to grasp and hard to explain....often they use the equation 0=2. where 2 actually means cancelling opposites, so ying /yang, male female etc ..in math terms 0=(+1)+(-1). We cant analyze 'nothing', in the sense of absence of anything..hence this formula...now most philosophies dont stop at 2 points, yogis have 3 gunas, the abhidhamma buddhist texts have? (maybe 56 i forget)...anyway the concept is the same......let me give an analogy..we start with nothing, we are 'enlightened'..we are 'white light'.....we are born.we forget who we are and must become enlightened again...imagine that white light passing through a prism into many different colours...we must blend those colours (facets of ourselves) back into the perfect proportions that create white light again, i.e we become enlightened, we are 'transcended', whatever you want to call it....
so..the 22 Tarot cards, which each have a path on the tree of life, describe this process from 0 to 0. Or, in tarot terms, from the Fool to the Universe.
We are all unique, and we all have different starting points. I have posted how to calculate your personal tarot card on my wall, have a look, the tree of life is there also. On the tree of life, there is a line called the abyss. Manifestation only occurs below this line, above is beyond intellectual reasoning. If we think we are enlightened or have made it, we are truly deluded..these 'realities' are beyond any comprehension we could articulate. There are many warnings in the tarot that when we believe we have 'made it', there is considerable distance to the 'next' level and so on, and as I say, the final steps are beyond anything I could describe.
So..that was a long introduction to the paths...I have never written this out before, so i hope it makes sense. Frankly I am still digesting a lot of information about this path, and my 'ideas' are certainly not fixed at this stage. This is, therefore, my latest thinking on the spiritual meaning behind the 22 cards. .0 (actually 22 in tarot terms) is the fool, innocence, complete faith in the universe 1. the magician has the 4 basic elements at his command in raw format...2. The High Priestess has 'raw' basic spiritual energy at her command. 3, The empress is mother earth, a place to manifest this story...4. The emperor provides the rules and physical laws, there must be some order to our world 5. The Hierophant provides the spiritual 'law' 6. The lovers represents male and female energies in their raw format, not yet blended, this is the 'marriage' of these 2 properties. 7. The chariot shows the male and female energies blended for the first time (inside the holy grail) and 'speeding' onwards with the mix 8. Adjustment (not strength, that was a deliberate error introduced by Waite), is a need to balance these energies for the first time. 9. The hermit is a time for introspection and calm after this onrush of new experience. 10. The wheel of fortune is what the universe throws at us into this mix, good and bad luck..11. Lust (strength) is the first time we offer our 'blend' to the universe (we offer the holy grail, which contains the blood of the angels) 12. the hanged man is now redundant, it is a sacrifice we dont have to make in this age..(although there are deeper meanings to this card also)..13.Death is the change that we undergo after taking all this on board, we must change in light of our journey so far 14. 'Art' (or temperance) is the next stage to the lovers card, we once agin mix the basic elements of male and female within us..15.The Devil is all about ego, we must have the direction and will power to put ourselves and our blend into the universe, this is not a passive process. 16. The Tower. all that we thought we knew is destroyed. we realise that we were deluded, we see a new reality based on our journey so far. we lose all sense of out material world..17.The Star, and realise we are of the stars as well as the earth, we are deeply spiritual beings..18. Moon, but we are scared, we have no guide and the way is dark. we must have strength to go on, we must lose the fear...19. The Sun, always comes out, it is darkest just before the new dawn.we rejoice in who we really are. 20.The New Aeon, we realise we are both male and female and that our last reality was too male dominated. we are both, this is essential....21, The universe...we have made it, we are back in the light again, we take our place in the universe...
HHmmm, i hope that makes sense. It is a shallow overview of a deep subject and I have never written it out before, I hope it makes sense. For what its worth, I havent seen the above in any texts, i think its my own understanding of the cards on a spiritual level...
wow..enough..hope this was of value. Goodnight
(more wine please)