It Came to Pass

We ended our homeschool science class with the study of tarot.  Some may say this is heresy, that tarot is not science, but I defy that line of reasoning.  Consider these facts:

• The word “science” is derived from the Latin word “scio” which means “to know” or “to understand.”  My son shall be raised to have broad, not narrow, understanding. 
• Sir Isaac Newton, the paragon of the rational scientific method, was a lifelong alchemist.  The Renaissance alchemists pursued rigorous empirical observation and experimentation; the notion of “active principles” that repel and attract arguably contributed to the theory of universal gravitation. 
• Carl Jung, founder of “analytical psychology,” developed the concept of the collective unconscious, which resonates clearly with the tarot’s imagery.  At the C.G. Jung Institute, he supervised research on the importance of tarot.  

Such then, when I asked my son to pull one card from the Ryder-Waite deck, the “Hanged Man” emerged.  At the age of 12, my son pulled card 12 from the deck.  Jung referred to this as a synchronicity; events that coincide in time and appear meaningfully related, yet lack a discoverable causal connection.  “Causal” speaks to the rational mind, but we were plumbing the subconscious.  

At the age of 12 my son comes of age, which is a physical bodily experience as well as a deeply emotional and psychological transformation.  Card #12 deals with beliefs that are stored in the subconscious mind, what is handed down.  The Hanged Man represents a breaking away from that tradition.  As my son comes of age, he becomes his own man.  

Carl Jung believed that the archetypes are deeply embedded in the human psyche, and have emerged in the form of religious narratives.  Saint Peter, the “Rock” upon which the Catholic church has been built, reportedly was hung upside down, by the Roman Emperor Nero.  The hanging took place near the “Circus of Nero” close to the present day Saint Peter’s Basilica.  The Cross of Saint Peter, an inverted cross, remains a central image in the arms of the Holy See and the Vatican City.  

Let us consider this symbol more deeply.  In “Tarot” Paul Foster Case writes, reversal in Hanged Man is “a reversal of thought, a point-of-view which is just the opposite to the accepted by most persons.  In this scientific age we know that everything is an expression of the working of the law of cause and effect. …Practical psychology shows the potency of ideas.  It demonstrates conclusively the truth that thoughts are the seeds of speech and action, that interpretations are the patterns for experience, that what happens to us is what we have selected, whether the selection be conscious and intentional, or unconscious and unpremeditated.  

“The central theme of the hanged man…is that every human personality is completely dependent upon the All, here symbolized by the tree.  As soon as this truth is realized, the only logical and sensible course of conduct is a complete surrender.  This surrender begins in the mind.  It is the submission of the personal consciousness to the direction of the Universal Mind.  That submission is foreshadowed even in the picture of the Magician, who derives all his power from above.  Until we know that of ourselves we can do nothing, we shall never attain the adeptship.  The greater the adept, the more complete his personal self-surrender.”

Saint Peter of the Cross, in founding the Church during the Roman Empire, most definitely followed “a reversal of thought, a point-of-view which is just the opposite to the accepted by most persons.” To pursue this further we drove to Western Maine, to sit with a Reiki Energy Master, a White Witch, and talk about the tarot.  This Master, as a child, lived in Morocco, Athens and Cairo; living now in the Lakes Region she is not provincial but broad in her understanding.  

She explained that tarot is the journey to wisdom.  The journey begins at 0, when you know nothing, and then you go through life.  The Fool is ready to jump off the cliff.  #1 the Magician has tools to become grounded, spiritual.  #2 the High Priestess has intuition.  #12 the Hanged Man is saying “take your time, there is no rush.”

She spoke of card #13 Death.  She asked my son what he thought of death and he paused, then replied, “I think death is not good, it is bad.”  She explained that death can be seen as a change, that all things must pass and transform.  In that sense death is not bad, it is just change; it can be hard, very hard, but it is part of life.  “The old self of the Hanged Man is changing.  This is the death of the old way.  Your Dad’s belief system will die off and you will choose your own.”  She spoke about spirituality.  My son explained that he had no religious practice.  She encouraged a nature based approach.  As my son comes of age, he will make many choices, his own.  

Many cards had been lain on the table.  As we cleaned up, the last card picked up was #13 Death.  Again, synchronous, the Master commented, “You are all going through a transition.”  

And so our season of homeschooling has ended.