Thanks for sharing these very rich and thought-provoking insights, Tom. Incidentally, one of the many reasons why I read the Zohar most days is that I never fully understand what I'm reading (either the Aramaic or the English translation), so it feels like it transcends the left brain in a very helpful way, putting me in a different state that's somehow more receptive and calmer, more open to a different depth of wisdom that maybe bypasses some kind of gate in my (supposedly) rational brain. I wonder if this effect is similar somehow to the effect of working with Tarot cards? But mostly, I really just wanted to express my principal reaction to your post, which is a deep admiration for your writing. There's so much brainpower at work here in the powerful marshaling of ideas and language, even as you work at moving beyond the limits of intellect. As I read it, I found myself thinking: it makes total sense that you got a First in politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford. It's a pleasure to watch your big brain at work, wrestling with all this esoteric material, and I'm grateful that we get to benefit from the fruits of your labors. Speaking of which, towards the end of your piece, I found myself thinking that the real key is the intention motivating all our questions and explorations. A moment later, I read your all-important point that "exploring why we want to know what we want to know has rarely been so important." I think that's a deep truth. I've been struck more and more lately by the realization that, when we're motivated increasingly by a desire to benefit others, truths are revealed to us in a different way. Anyway, just sending you my thanks, my appreciation, and my warm wishes -- William
I feel grateful simply to be in a position to receive a comment like this from someone like you.
I am increasingly thinking about WILL. It is all we have and in the Ra framework at least our work here is to decide to use it for self or self AND others. It is the will that does things but also selects which information to receive and why. It put me in the mind of Oppenheimer bringing down the knowledge to make a nuclear bomb… was that a good or a bad use of will?
Thanks, Tom. Yesterday, I listened to your interview with Jim McCarty about Ra and the Law of One. It's lovely to see how these teachings from so many different paths come to the same fundamental insights. Talk soon.
There’s an interesting interpretation of the Tarot system provided for by Mark Passio, that makes sense of both the Tarot and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life; he mentions how none of the occult traditions can really be studied in isolation but rather must be studied with respect to one another. As far as I can tell, both are also variations of the Hero’s Journey, as they’re all representations of how one can travel from ignorance to knowledge, from the Left Hemisphere in the material realm to the Right Hemisphere in unity consciousness.
In the Tree of Life, there are 10 sephirot (which are “emanations”) that form the shape of a tree, corresponding to various mental and emotional characteristics. An 11th sphere, named Da’at, is not considered one of the sephirot but rather the place from which the entire tree grows. There are three vertical pillars or paths on this tree; the left-hand path is the Pillar of Severity dealing with the internal aspects of consciousness; the right hand path is the Pillar of Mercy dealing with the external, masculine aspects of consciousness. And the middle path is the Pillar of Mildness which represents the synthesis between the two.
There also happen to be two main components in a traditional set of Tarot cards; the Major Arcana consists of 22 cards (11 deal with the human psyche, 11 deal with natural laws) and the Minor Arcana (56 cards divided into 4 suits.) The Major Arcana are the ones Passio focuses on because they seem to fit perfectly within the Tree of Life; in other words, each sephirot corresponds to a card from each group of the Major Arcana in Tarot.
I was also curious as to why the number 11, specifically, arises. And it turns out that there are 11 organ systems within the body (the integumentary system, skeletal system, muscular system, nervous system, endocrine system, cardiovascular system, lymphatic system, respiratory system, digestive system, urinary system, reproductive system); is this the reason for the number 11? Perhaps. It’s interesting to note that there are connections between the Tree of Life and the Vedic system of Chakras too; enlightenment consists in ascending the spine towards the highest form of unity consciousness found in the Crown Chakra, which corresponds to the sephirot of Keter. Passio also mentions how 11:11 is a significant and synchronistic number which mystics call the awakening signal.
Back to the Tarot – Kabbalah connections. The Microcosmic Tree of Life and the Tarot deals with individual enlightenment. In the Da’at position, we find the Fool card which represents the knowledge of the self; this is the start of the journey; a fool needs to be willing to put himself out there in order to gain wisdom, as you allude to in your article. Then, from the bottom to the top we find the following:
- Malkuth is the Wheel of Fortune—we’re subject to forces beyond us and are ruled by base instincts.
- Yesod is the Hermit—the desire for truth develops.
- Hod is Courage/Strength—courage is developed within, as the left hand path represents the internal qualities necessary to gain wisdom
- Netzach is the Chariot—will is the external manifestation of the internal courage.
- Tiferet are the Lovers—the union of the masculine and feminine principles signifies Care towards the world, this is the generative, creative principle.
- Gevurah is the Hierophant—shadow work; this is about internal self-control; how do you motivate yourself through inner dialogue?
- Chesed is the Emperor—how do you influence others now that you’ve attained a certain level of knowledge?
- Binah is the Empress—Understanding; this is an internal quality which comes from taking in information and processing it
- Chokmah is the High Priestess—Wisdom; we take action based upon the knowledge that we have come to
- Keter (Kether) is the Magician—This is the highest level of consciousness; we have admitted ignorance, developed courage and will, done the shadow work, influenced others, taken in information, understood it, acted upon it, and we are now Masters of ourselves, showing true self-respect; we can now lead the way.
Then next 11 Tarot cards form the Macrocosmic Tree of Life and can also be mapped onto the tree.
I certainly think it’s worth looking into further. Thought you might find it interesting.
Very well could be. Planets were also considered fundamental to many of these esoteric traditions; I'm really not convinced that these are big, dumb space rocks as I believed my entire life! They seem to have specific vibrations (which is quite woo as per your rating system) but I've heard many little nuggets of wisdom here and there; the relationships between the dimensions of the moon and the sun (with regards to the earth) are also very very interesting (and I'm sure far from coincidental) if you happen to look into them. (I can provide you a brief summary if you're interested)
I am! And yes I’ve seen allusions here and there. The idea of superintelligences is helpful to the extent of openness beyond the LH which is really the meta theme of my work.
A little long, sorry about that, but I took this all from the book ‘Who Built the Moon?’ written by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler, both amateur historians and astrologists who have put together a lot of the above-quoted information. Their thesis is that the Moon was put into its current position by some unknown intelligence which they call the Unknown Creative Agency, or the UCA. Even though this may seem fantastical, even ridiculous, at first glance, it surprisingly fits with the evidence that we have so far adduced and with the evidence that has yet to come.
The Sun, the Moon, and the Earth
The authors claim that the UCA [the Unknown Creative Agency behind the creation of the planet and the moon] wanted to bring attention to the fact that it had created both planetary bodies and the way that this was accomplished was by having the creatures on the planet realize that there are fundamental relationships in the distances between the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. The authors make the fundamental point that the numbers below are ratios and are therefore real and independent of units of measurement.
The UCA built “on a truly fundamental number that represented the planet. The number that was chosen was the planet’s spin rate per orbit of the star, which would have to be instantly recognizable as a value that was unique to the planet. (…) At the required time window, the planet would be rotating at a rate of 366 revolutions for each orbit around its mother star, and the use of the number value 366 would therefore be easily spotted as the Planetary Identification Number.”
Why 366 and not 365? We say a year is how long it takes the Earth to go all the way around the Sun which takes about 365 days. Now, every day the Earth spins around once but the tricky part is that the Earth spinning once (a true spin, called a ‘sidereal day’) actually takes a tiny bit less than 24 hours, about 236 seconds, or almost 4 minutes, less. So why do we still call each day 24 hours? That’s because we measure our days based on when the Sun is highest in the sky (noon to noon). But since the Earth is also moving along its path around the Sun, it has to turn a little more than one full spin each day to catch up and face the Sun again. That makes our "day" slightly longer than one true spin. If you add up those extra little bits each day, they total about one full extra spin per year. (236 ‘extra’ seconds x 365 days/ 60 minutes/ 60 hours = 23.93 hours.) That’s why the Earth actually spins 366 times in a year, even though we have 365 days.
So the number 366 is a fundamental number for this reason and humans can easily understand this number as unique to the Earth. The diameter of the Moon is 3,475 kilometers, in comparison to the diameter of Earth, which is 12,756 kilometers “Surely these Earth-dwelling creatures would be very surprised when they calculated the relative size of their planet to the orbiting [Moon] and discovered that the one is 366 per cent larger than the other.” Is that simply a strange coincidence?
The authors then claim that the Moon’s Planetary Identification Number, it’s PIN, “would be the reciprocal of the planet’s PIN number – the mirror image of 366. The mathematics was simplicity itself. The regulator’s PIN number would be arrived at by considering its size as 100 per cent and dividing it by the relative size of the planet, namely 366 per cent. Working to five decimal places the result is: 100/366 = 0.27322 The [Moon] was then carefully engineered so that at the key point in time it would be orbiting the planet at a rate of once every 27.322 planetary days. Surely, the creatures would notice that?”
Further, the size of the Moon compared to the Earth has precisely the same number value – being 27.322 per cent of its parent. “There is absolutely no reason why the [Moon]’s orbital period in planetary days should numerically echo the relative size relationship it also enjoys with the Earth.”
“The consequence of these arrangements would not be lost on the new life forms because they would easily realize that for every 10,000 of their planetary days, the regulator would complete exactly 366 orbits of the planet. Surely they would spot the use of round base-ten numbers and the PIN number 366 being echoed by the Moon? But then, if they did not recognize these message patterns it would mean that they still lacked the intelligence or imagination to be considered mature.”
The authors then claim that the UCA [the Unknown Creative Agency] must have been able to control the Earth’s rate of spin and orbital speed in order to ensure that it got to the magic 366 rotations at the required time, which is roughly at this time period in history. I suspect this might have been done on purpose to be noticed by humanity right now as we are presently entering a new Age [Pisces is leading to Aquarius] but that’s speculation for another article perhaps. In any case, the authors note that the orbital speed had been steadily declining for a long time but that this deceleration had ceased entirely by 1999, and nobody really knows why. “In 1999, [experts] discovered the Earth was no longer lagging behind. At the National Institute for Science and Technology in Boulder, spokesman Fred McGehan said most scientists agree the Earth’s orbit around the sun has been gradually slowing for millennia. But he said they don’t have a good explanation for why it’s suddenly on schedule.”
To add another ‘coincidence’ to the pile, the authors looked up the “actual speed that the Earth has settled at in its circumnavigation of the Sun, and we were surprised to find that its mean orbital velocity is almost exactly one ten thousandth of the speed of light in a vacuum. At 29,780 metres per second, the variance is less than two-thirds of one percent. We thought that this was probably a coincidence – but we could not pick and choose which factors are, and are not, significant. And we had to remember that the value 10,000 had already shown up in the number of Earth days for every 366 lunar orbits.”
This is where the Sun enters the picture. Its diameter is estimated at 1,392,000km and, as the average diameter of the Earth is 12,742km, it follows that 109.245 Earths could be placed side by side along the diameter of the Sun. “This is not a number that stands out for any reason – at least not immediately. But when we looked at the number of Sun diameters in the Earth’s aphelion (the distance greatest relative to the Sun in its elliptical orbit) we found that there are 109.267, effectively an identical value because the estimate of the Sun’s diameter is within this tiny margin. How strange. There are the same number of Earth diameters in the Sun’s diameter as there are Sun diameters between the Earth and the Sun. This is a near perfect echo that does not work for any other planet in the solar system.”
Another reason why the number stood out is because there are 10,920.8km in the Moon’s equatorial circumference. The authors state that this must have been a coincidence because “the number of kilometres in anything just could not be relevant since the metre is a unit that is an invented human convention. But then we realized that the Moon turns at a rate of precisely one kilometre every second at its equator and that did strike us as very odd. Maybe we had been too hasty in rejecting the role of the metric system.”
“Our observations about the patterns inherent in the size and movement of the Moon, in terms of ratios, stand out as being beyond mere accident. (…) We would ignore such results if they were only happening once or even twice, but we are confronting a whole list of nonrandom-looking values that add up to create what would otherwise be the most unlikely series of chance events in the history of the cosmos. And, in our view, anyone who dismisses all of these points as coincidence is being either very illogical or downright dishonest.”
Take a look at the following equation using kilometres: (Moon x Earth)/100 = Sun. This means that if you multiply the circumference of the Moon by that of the Earth, the result is 436,669,140km. If we then divide this figure by 100 we arrive at 436,669km, which is the circumference of the Sun, correct to 99.9 per cent.
“If we divide the circumference of the Sun by that of the Moon and multiply by 100 we get the polar circumference of the Earth. And, as we have pointed out, if we divide the size of the Sun by the size of the Earth and multiply by 100 we get the size of the Moon.”
Further, the Moon has a sidereal rotation period of 655.728 hours, which means it rotates once every 27.322 Earth days. Given that the Moon has an equatorial circumference of 10,920.8 kilometres, this means that the Moon is turning at 400 kilometres per Earth day!
Next, consider these unquestionable facts as a whole:
The Moon is one 400th the size of the Sun.
The Moon is 400 times closer to the Earth than the Sun.
The Moon is rotating at a rate of 400km per Earth day.
All of this means that during a total solar eclipse, the Moon appears to block out the Sun perfectly, a result of their nearly exact alignment in the sky. We often take this for granted, but with a moment’s reflection, it becomes clear just how unlikely such a precise match is to have happened by random chance.
The Earth is rotating at 40,000 kilometres a day and the Moon is turning at a rather precise 100 times less. The Moon always faces the Earth as it travels on its orbit around our planet and yet the average distance is such that the equatorial rotational speed is precisely one per cent of an Earth day. This is the phenomenon known as Tidal Lock, the idea that the Moon rotates at the same rate it orbits the Earth, keeping the same face toward the planet at all times, meaning that we only ever see one side of the Moon, and the dark side remains unobservable to us, essentially forever.
“As if all of this isn’t incredible enough we must also address the fact that the Moon has an orbit that makes it a ‘mirror of time’. The Moon mimics the Sun at key points in the year. For example, whilst the Sun sets in the north at the time of the summer solstice, the Moon sets in the south and when the Sun sets in the south at the time of the winter solstice, the Moon unerringly sets in the north. This is an aspect of Sun and Moon associations that undoubtedly seemed like magic to our ancient ancestors and is yet another reflection of the current position and orbital characteristics of the Moon.”
Well, I'm not sure what the counter argument to precisely engineered maths between the most important planetary bodies could be; I suppose it's just like the fine-tuning argument regarding the conditions which enable life to develop in this particular universe. It's either intelligent design or an enormous coincidence, and I dont think it takes a genius to figure out which is the from the RH and which is from the LH. From what I remember, they make the claim that this intelligence, which seeded life, WANTED humanity to recognize the fact that the world was intelligently designed; at least that's the claim based upon the evidence (and they go through quite a lot in the book.) They even mention how specific units of measurement (mentioned in relation to the moon) are directly tied in to the measurements of many ancient stonehenge type structures, but I'll admit I wasn't paying as much attention to those parts as I was focused on the moon haha
I really like the framing of tarot and other systems like I Ching as psycho technology for shutting the LH down to better access the right, hadn’t considered that.
I’ve known people who are against the Tarot and any other divine intervention from the universe & I’ve also known people who take it too seriously. Using it as a method to feed into delusions and make hard decisions for them.
Do you think the Tarot has become a weapon more than a meditative experience recently?
Thanks Ann! Tbh I don’t really know, I’m not really an expert. But what I am pretty sure about is that LLMs can be much more sinister versions of tarot.
“This highlights a core risk with divination tools: when you invite someone else to interpret a reading for you, their own will can influence your direction.”
That’s a fascinating idea, and so extending that, does that mean making one’s own hand-drawn or hand-crafted tarot cards creates the most resonant reading experience? The idea being that one’s own interpreted drawings contain one’s own personal psychological information. Whereas using a deck made by someone else is an “outside” influence. Of course for the sake of creativity, that could be desirable too.
So interesting. I literally know nothing but I noticed the deck in the law of one is very different from the Rider Waite deck. Why?
But then if archetypes exist beyond us, as seems to be the idea, how they are depicted is important! But I guess what resonates with an Egyptian won’t resonate with us…
I wonder if archetypes, as complex as they are, are a bit like those bistable illusions, where you can see either a duck or a rabbit; or a young woman or an old woman; a group of squares or a group of circles. What we see when encountering an archetype says a lot about our own internal architecture I think! But it’s also cool to find out that someone else can look at the same object in a different way and also be right.
In the words of the grandfather of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot—What if you could look at something everyone’s been looking at for a very long time and see something dramatically new?
I’m just starting to read Tomberg. So I don’t really understand yet. But I think it’s like the hero’s journey. The pattern of the phase shift it represents is relatively uniform. But the way it presents in your life is unique. Nobody lives your exact journey, but it follows a consistent pattern.
Two references for you. One cultural. One scientific.
William Burroughs "One god universe" on the "spare arse Annie" album and his writing in general is great. He covers exactly the whole problem with frictionless (stagnant) evolution. "One violent crime generates more energy than a nursing home." Comes to mind as a memorable line. Naked Lunch (novel) really is a surrealist attempt at the naked truth. Highly recommend it.
Secondly, check out Peter Putnam Archives for a theory of "the participatory universe ". Putnam was a brilliant physicist, friend of Einstein, associate of the Manhattan team if I recall correctly. Anyway his theory of emergence and the Participatory thing rang so many bells from my travels in the metaphysical realms and my mystical journey.
I am not so much into the fringe stuff or tarot, but it sounds like you are looking for some clues that converge through the above mentioned men.
Change is happening fast at the moment, though. Might be a good time to keep your eyes looking forward and staying present rather than digging around head down in arguments about your depth of conviction.
Thank you Mort! I think my need to focus on depth of conviction is to ensure I have some company at the edge. Easy to lose an audience if you sound too sure about something that’s bonkers.
I am not sure I have ever had company during a mystical experience. Even when it is amongst other people.
And people thinking I am bonkers is par for the course, as far as I have experienced.
I occasionally meet people who make my so called auric envelope explode with softly falling floating points of light. Sort of like snowflakes, or "sparks flying" as the saying goes amongst those with eyes for seeing. Most people see nothing, even when I point it out and try to grab a few sparks floating in my personal space. For example.
They absolutely think I am a bit bonkers, but the pehnomena makes sense within my expanded understanding of inter-dimensionality. The person causing the sparks to fly kinda seems to partially understand what is going on, as they are experiencing real time entanglement.
But third party onlookers definitely have that look in their eyes signalling that I might be a complete loon.
Can't be helped. And not a bad defence against 'audience capture' dynamics.
And as you point out in your article, wildly different conceptions about the nature of Quantum exist amongst physicists. So.... Anyway. None of my business.
Don’t take my comment as a dismissal: it’s more an open response. One part of the path is welcoming different opinions on the path and learning from them, like yours.
I need to heed my own advice and pay attention to my immediate surroundings atm.
So let me quickly add that you (we) are never alone at the edge, or anywhere else. While the veil of ignorance hangs heavy on most people, for those who seek and pay attention there is plenty of company in the metaphysical realms, around and above, populated by beings and creatures. Not all in the same dimension and just as well. Diversity needs micro-niches to thrive.
Likewise, your micro-biome (intestinal bacterial populations) in your gut, particularly, is its own internal subsystem of consciousness often termed the gut mind (intestinal wall has as many braincells as are in a cat's brain and interacts biochemically with the biome. A hyper-complex substance.). Research over the last 15-20 years has discovered profound inplications for mood, mental health, autoimmune responsiveness and a host of other influences, which render the mainstream of Philosophy of Mind (brain-centrism) with some rather big challenges and a range of philosophical implications stemming from the reality of the gut instinct/gut feeling. By cell count we are only ten percent human, round about. You have plenty of company wherever you go. You just need to reach out, or in, and connect.
Ok. Last thing.
It is sometimes dangerous, or traumatic, to explore the realms. Some people go mad... you know the score on that, I imagine, given your cautious approach. The regulator of spiritual danger is the ritual. You can design your own simple practice, or borrow from tradition. Making a cup of tea is a simple, yet well known, folk(everyman) remedy to restore a sense of order. The Japanese have arguably taken it all a bit far, but nevertheless. I hope you get my meaning.
At the risk of sounding completely insane, I occasionally engage in online Tarot to help me reset my perspective. It is as if my brain becomes so used to following its ingrained pathways that I become incapable of viewing my life from a new vantage point without an external kick. Tarot does this for me, because the mere phrasing of the interpretations helps me unlock something new in my mind. This is why I like your observation that it's not about the cards, or even the story you hear, but about dampening your ego's desire to control your life's narrative with its crude and limited tools.
As a side note, I've found a copy of Meditations on the Tarot online, and this explanation of the Tarot Arcana struck me as profound:
"The Major Arcana of the Tarot are neither allegories nor secrets, because
allegories are, in fact, only figurative representations of abstract notions, and
secrets are only facts, procedures, practices, or whatever doctrines that one
keeps to oneself for a personal motive, since they are able to be understood
and put into practice by others to whom one does not want to reveal them.
The Major Arcana of the Tarot are authentic symbols. They conceal and
reveal their sense at one and the same time according to the depth of
meditation. That which they reveal are not secrets, i.e. things hidden by
human will, but are arcana, which is something quite different. An arcanum is
that which it is necessary to “know” in order to be fruitful in a given domain
of spiritual life. It is that which must be actively present in our consciousness
—or even in our subconscious—in order to render us capable of making
discoveries, engendering new ideas, conceiving of new artistic subjects. In a
word, it makes us fertile in our creative pursuits, in whatever domain of
Thanks for sharing these very rich and thought-provoking insights, Tom. Incidentally, one of the many reasons why I read the Zohar most days is that I never fully understand what I'm reading (either the Aramaic or the English translation), so it feels like it transcends the left brain in a very helpful way, putting me in a different state that's somehow more receptive and calmer, more open to a different depth of wisdom that maybe bypasses some kind of gate in my (supposedly) rational brain. I wonder if this effect is similar somehow to the effect of working with Tarot cards? But mostly, I really just wanted to express my principal reaction to your post, which is a deep admiration for your writing. There's so much brainpower at work here in the powerful marshaling of ideas and language, even as you work at moving beyond the limits of intellect. As I read it, I found myself thinking: it makes total sense that you got a First in politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford. It's a pleasure to watch your big brain at work, wrestling with all this esoteric material, and I'm grateful that we get to benefit from the fruits of your labors. Speaking of which, towards the end of your piece, I found myself thinking that the real key is the intention motivating all our questions and explorations. A moment later, I read your all-important point that "exploring why we want to know what we want to know has rarely been so important." I think that's a deep truth. I've been struck more and more lately by the realization that, when we're motivated increasingly by a desire to benefit others, truths are revealed to us in a different way. Anyway, just sending you my thanks, my appreciation, and my warm wishes -- William
I feel grateful simply to be in a position to receive a comment like this from someone like you.
I am increasingly thinking about WILL. It is all we have and in the Ra framework at least our work here is to decide to use it for self or self AND others. It is the will that does things but also selects which information to receive and why. It put me in the mind of Oppenheimer bringing down the knowledge to make a nuclear bomb… was that a good or a bad use of will?
Thanks, Tom. Yesterday, I listened to your interview with Jim McCarty about Ra and the Law of One. It's lovely to see how these teachings from so many different paths come to the same fundamental insights. Talk soon.
There’s an interesting interpretation of the Tarot system provided for by Mark Passio, that makes sense of both the Tarot and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life; he mentions how none of the occult traditions can really be studied in isolation but rather must be studied with respect to one another. As far as I can tell, both are also variations of the Hero’s Journey, as they’re all representations of how one can travel from ignorance to knowledge, from the Left Hemisphere in the material realm to the Right Hemisphere in unity consciousness.
In the Tree of Life, there are 10 sephirot (which are “emanations”) that form the shape of a tree, corresponding to various mental and emotional characteristics. An 11th sphere, named Da’at, is not considered one of the sephirot but rather the place from which the entire tree grows. There are three vertical pillars or paths on this tree; the left-hand path is the Pillar of Severity dealing with the internal aspects of consciousness; the right hand path is the Pillar of Mercy dealing with the external, masculine aspects of consciousness. And the middle path is the Pillar of Mildness which represents the synthesis between the two.
There also happen to be two main components in a traditional set of Tarot cards; the Major Arcana consists of 22 cards (11 deal with the human psyche, 11 deal with natural laws) and the Minor Arcana (56 cards divided into 4 suits.) The Major Arcana are the ones Passio focuses on because they seem to fit perfectly within the Tree of Life; in other words, each sephirot corresponds to a card from each group of the Major Arcana in Tarot.
I was also curious as to why the number 11, specifically, arises. And it turns out that there are 11 organ systems within the body (the integumentary system, skeletal system, muscular system, nervous system, endocrine system, cardiovascular system, lymphatic system, respiratory system, digestive system, urinary system, reproductive system); is this the reason for the number 11? Perhaps. It’s interesting to note that there are connections between the Tree of Life and the Vedic system of Chakras too; enlightenment consists in ascending the spine towards the highest form of unity consciousness found in the Crown Chakra, which corresponds to the sephirot of Keter. Passio also mentions how 11:11 is a significant and synchronistic number which mystics call the awakening signal.
Back to the Tarot – Kabbalah connections. The Microcosmic Tree of Life and the Tarot deals with individual enlightenment. In the Da’at position, we find the Fool card which represents the knowledge of the self; this is the start of the journey; a fool needs to be willing to put himself out there in order to gain wisdom, as you allude to in your article. Then, from the bottom to the top we find the following:
- Malkuth is the Wheel of Fortune—we’re subject to forces beyond us and are ruled by base instincts.
- Yesod is the Hermit—the desire for truth develops.
- Hod is Courage/Strength—courage is developed within, as the left hand path represents the internal qualities necessary to gain wisdom
- Netzach is the Chariot—will is the external manifestation of the internal courage.
- Tiferet are the Lovers—the union of the masculine and feminine principles signifies Care towards the world, this is the generative, creative principle.
- Gevurah is the Hierophant—shadow work; this is about internal self-control; how do you motivate yourself through inner dialogue?
- Chesed is the Emperor—how do you influence others now that you’ve attained a certain level of knowledge?
- Binah is the Empress—Understanding; this is an internal quality which comes from taking in information and processing it
- Chokmah is the High Priestess—Wisdom; we take action based upon the knowledge that we have come to
- Keter (Kether) is the Magician—This is the highest level of consciousness; we have admitted ignorance, developed courage and will, done the shadow work, influenced others, taken in information, understood it, acted upon it, and we are now Masters of ourselves, showing true self-respect; we can now lead the way.
Then next 11 Tarot cards form the Macrocosmic Tree of Life and can also be mapped onto the tree.
I certainly think it’s worth looking into further. Thought you might find it interesting.
This is incredible. And so resonant. My weird thought, probably unrelated: we also have nine planets, a sun and a moon, making 11?
Very well could be. Planets were also considered fundamental to many of these esoteric traditions; I'm really not convinced that these are big, dumb space rocks as I believed my entire life! They seem to have specific vibrations (which is quite woo as per your rating system) but I've heard many little nuggets of wisdom here and there; the relationships between the dimensions of the moon and the sun (with regards to the earth) are also very very interesting (and I'm sure far from coincidental) if you happen to look into them. (I can provide you a brief summary if you're interested)
I am! And yes I’ve seen allusions here and there. The idea of superintelligences is helpful to the extent of openness beyond the LH which is really the meta theme of my work.
A little long, sorry about that, but I took this all from the book ‘Who Built the Moon?’ written by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler, both amateur historians and astrologists who have put together a lot of the above-quoted information. Their thesis is that the Moon was put into its current position by some unknown intelligence which they call the Unknown Creative Agency, or the UCA. Even though this may seem fantastical, even ridiculous, at first glance, it surprisingly fits with the evidence that we have so far adduced and with the evidence that has yet to come.
The Sun, the Moon, and the Earth
The authors claim that the UCA [the Unknown Creative Agency behind the creation of the planet and the moon] wanted to bring attention to the fact that it had created both planetary bodies and the way that this was accomplished was by having the creatures on the planet realize that there are fundamental relationships in the distances between the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. The authors make the fundamental point that the numbers below are ratios and are therefore real and independent of units of measurement.
The UCA built “on a truly fundamental number that represented the planet. The number that was chosen was the planet’s spin rate per orbit of the star, which would have to be instantly recognizable as a value that was unique to the planet. (…) At the required time window, the planet would be rotating at a rate of 366 revolutions for each orbit around its mother star, and the use of the number value 366 would therefore be easily spotted as the Planetary Identification Number.”
Why 366 and not 365? We say a year is how long it takes the Earth to go all the way around the Sun which takes about 365 days. Now, every day the Earth spins around once but the tricky part is that the Earth spinning once (a true spin, called a ‘sidereal day’) actually takes a tiny bit less than 24 hours, about 236 seconds, or almost 4 minutes, less. So why do we still call each day 24 hours? That’s because we measure our days based on when the Sun is highest in the sky (noon to noon). But since the Earth is also moving along its path around the Sun, it has to turn a little more than one full spin each day to catch up and face the Sun again. That makes our "day" slightly longer than one true spin. If you add up those extra little bits each day, they total about one full extra spin per year. (236 ‘extra’ seconds x 365 days/ 60 minutes/ 60 hours = 23.93 hours.) That’s why the Earth actually spins 366 times in a year, even though we have 365 days.
So the number 366 is a fundamental number for this reason and humans can easily understand this number as unique to the Earth. The diameter of the Moon is 3,475 kilometers, in comparison to the diameter of Earth, which is 12,756 kilometers “Surely these Earth-dwelling creatures would be very surprised when they calculated the relative size of their planet to the orbiting [Moon] and discovered that the one is 366 per cent larger than the other.” Is that simply a strange coincidence?
The authors then claim that the Moon’s Planetary Identification Number, it’s PIN, “would be the reciprocal of the planet’s PIN number – the mirror image of 366. The mathematics was simplicity itself. The regulator’s PIN number would be arrived at by considering its size as 100 per cent and dividing it by the relative size of the planet, namely 366 per cent. Working to five decimal places the result is: 100/366 = 0.27322 The [Moon] was then carefully engineered so that at the key point in time it would be orbiting the planet at a rate of once every 27.322 planetary days. Surely, the creatures would notice that?”
Further, the size of the Moon compared to the Earth has precisely the same number value – being 27.322 per cent of its parent. “There is absolutely no reason why the [Moon]’s orbital period in planetary days should numerically echo the relative size relationship it also enjoys with the Earth.”
“The consequence of these arrangements would not be lost on the new life forms because they would easily realize that for every 10,000 of their planetary days, the regulator would complete exactly 366 orbits of the planet. Surely they would spot the use of round base-ten numbers and the PIN number 366 being echoed by the Moon? But then, if they did not recognize these message patterns it would mean that they still lacked the intelligence or imagination to be considered mature.”
The authors then claim that the UCA [the Unknown Creative Agency] must have been able to control the Earth’s rate of spin and orbital speed in order to ensure that it got to the magic 366 rotations at the required time, which is roughly at this time period in history. I suspect this might have been done on purpose to be noticed by humanity right now as we are presently entering a new Age [Pisces is leading to Aquarius] but that’s speculation for another article perhaps. In any case, the authors note that the orbital speed had been steadily declining for a long time but that this deceleration had ceased entirely by 1999, and nobody really knows why. “In 1999, [experts] discovered the Earth was no longer lagging behind. At the National Institute for Science and Technology in Boulder, spokesman Fred McGehan said most scientists agree the Earth’s orbit around the sun has been gradually slowing for millennia. But he said they don’t have a good explanation for why it’s suddenly on schedule.”
To add another ‘coincidence’ to the pile, the authors looked up the “actual speed that the Earth has settled at in its circumnavigation of the Sun, and we were surprised to find that its mean orbital velocity is almost exactly one ten thousandth of the speed of light in a vacuum. At 29,780 metres per second, the variance is less than two-thirds of one percent. We thought that this was probably a coincidence – but we could not pick and choose which factors are, and are not, significant. And we had to remember that the value 10,000 had already shown up in the number of Earth days for every 366 lunar orbits.”
This is where the Sun enters the picture. Its diameter is estimated at 1,392,000km and, as the average diameter of the Earth is 12,742km, it follows that 109.245 Earths could be placed side by side along the diameter of the Sun. “This is not a number that stands out for any reason – at least not immediately. But when we looked at the number of Sun diameters in the Earth’s aphelion (the distance greatest relative to the Sun in its elliptical orbit) we found that there are 109.267, effectively an identical value because the estimate of the Sun’s diameter is within this tiny margin. How strange. There are the same number of Earth diameters in the Sun’s diameter as there are Sun diameters between the Earth and the Sun. This is a near perfect echo that does not work for any other planet in the solar system.”
Another reason why the number stood out is because there are 10,920.8km in the Moon’s equatorial circumference. The authors state that this must have been a coincidence because “the number of kilometres in anything just could not be relevant since the metre is a unit that is an invented human convention. But then we realized that the Moon turns at a rate of precisely one kilometre every second at its equator and that did strike us as very odd. Maybe we had been too hasty in rejecting the role of the metric system.”
“Our observations about the patterns inherent in the size and movement of the Moon, in terms of ratios, stand out as being beyond mere accident. (…) We would ignore such results if they were only happening once or even twice, but we are confronting a whole list of nonrandom-looking values that add up to create what would otherwise be the most unlikely series of chance events in the history of the cosmos. And, in our view, anyone who dismisses all of these points as coincidence is being either very illogical or downright dishonest.”
And the ‘coincidences’ just keep on stacking up!
Take a look at the following equation using kilometres: (Moon x Earth)/100 = Sun. This means that if you multiply the circumference of the Moon by that of the Earth, the result is 436,669,140km. If we then divide this figure by 100 we arrive at 436,669km, which is the circumference of the Sun, correct to 99.9 per cent.
“If we divide the circumference of the Sun by that of the Moon and multiply by 100 we get the polar circumference of the Earth. And, as we have pointed out, if we divide the size of the Sun by the size of the Earth and multiply by 100 we get the size of the Moon.”
Further, the Moon has a sidereal rotation period of 655.728 hours, which means it rotates once every 27.322 Earth days. Given that the Moon has an equatorial circumference of 10,920.8 kilometres, this means that the Moon is turning at 400 kilometres per Earth day!
Next, consider these unquestionable facts as a whole:
The Moon is one 400th the size of the Sun.
The Moon is 400 times closer to the Earth than the Sun.
The Moon is rotating at a rate of 400km per Earth day.
All of this means that during a total solar eclipse, the Moon appears to block out the Sun perfectly, a result of their nearly exact alignment in the sky. We often take this for granted, but with a moment’s reflection, it becomes clear just how unlikely such a precise match is to have happened by random chance.
The Earth is rotating at 40,000 kilometres a day and the Moon is turning at a rather precise 100 times less. The Moon always faces the Earth as it travels on its orbit around our planet and yet the average distance is such that the equatorial rotational speed is precisely one per cent of an Earth day. This is the phenomenon known as Tidal Lock, the idea that the Moon rotates at the same rate it orbits the Earth, keeping the same face toward the planet at all times, meaning that we only ever see one side of the Moon, and the dark side remains unobservable to us, essentially forever.
“As if all of this isn’t incredible enough we must also address the fact that the Moon has an orbit that makes it a ‘mirror of time’. The Moon mimics the Sun at key points in the year. For example, whilst the Sun sets in the north at the time of the summer solstice, the Moon sets in the south and when the Sun sets in the south at the time of the winter solstice, the Moon unerringly sets in the north. This is an aspect of Sun and Moon associations that undoubtedly seemed like magic to our ancient ancestors and is yet another reflection of the current position and orbital characteristics of the Moon.”
This is breaking my brain. What’s the counterargument? And why do they think it exists? To show intelligent design? It fits Ra’s theory.
Well, I'm not sure what the counter argument to precisely engineered maths between the most important planetary bodies could be; I suppose it's just like the fine-tuning argument regarding the conditions which enable life to develop in this particular universe. It's either intelligent design or an enormous coincidence, and I dont think it takes a genius to figure out which is the from the RH and which is from the LH. From what I remember, they make the claim that this intelligence, which seeded life, WANTED humanity to recognize the fact that the world was intelligently designed; at least that's the claim based upon the evidence (and they go through quite a lot in the book.) They even mention how specific units of measurement (mentioned in relation to the moon) are directly tied in to the measurements of many ancient stonehenge type structures, but I'll admit I wasn't paying as much attention to those parts as I was focused on the moon haha
I really like the framing of tarot and other systems like I Ching as psycho technology for shutting the LH down to better access the right, hadn’t considered that.
Nor had I till I listened to Dorian’s pods (which are so great btw).
This was a fantastic read—very eye opening too!
I’ve known people who are against the Tarot and any other divine intervention from the universe & I’ve also known people who take it too seriously. Using it as a method to feed into delusions and make hard decisions for them.
Do you think the Tarot has become a weapon more than a meditative experience recently?
Thanks Ann! Tbh I don’t really know, I’m not really an expert. But what I am pretty sure about is that LLMs can be much more sinister versions of tarot.
Really good, Tom. Thank you.
Thank you sir!
“This highlights a core risk with divination tools: when you invite someone else to interpret a reading for you, their own will can influence your direction.”
That’s a fascinating idea, and so extending that, does that mean making one’s own hand-drawn or hand-crafted tarot cards creates the most resonant reading experience? The idea being that one’s own interpreted drawings contain one’s own personal psychological information. Whereas using a deck made by someone else is an “outside” influence. Of course for the sake of creativity, that could be desirable too.
So interesting. I literally know nothing but I noticed the deck in the law of one is very different from the Rider Waite deck. Why?
But then if archetypes exist beyond us, as seems to be the idea, how they are depicted is important! But I guess what resonates with an Egyptian won’t resonate with us…
I wonder if archetypes, as complex as they are, are a bit like those bistable illusions, where you can see either a duck or a rabbit; or a young woman or an old woman; a group of squares or a group of circles. What we see when encountering an archetype says a lot about our own internal architecture I think! But it’s also cool to find out that someone else can look at the same object in a different way and also be right.
In the words of the grandfather of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot—What if you could look at something everyone’s been looking at for a very long time and see something dramatically new?
I’m just starting to read Tomberg. So I don’t really understand yet. But I think it’s like the hero’s journey. The pattern of the phase shift it represents is relatively uniform. But the way it presents in your life is unique. Nobody lives your exact journey, but it follows a consistent pattern.
Hey fellow metaphysical surfer.
Two references for you. One cultural. One scientific.
William Burroughs "One god universe" on the "spare arse Annie" album and his writing in general is great. He covers exactly the whole problem with frictionless (stagnant) evolution. "One violent crime generates more energy than a nursing home." Comes to mind as a memorable line. Naked Lunch (novel) really is a surrealist attempt at the naked truth. Highly recommend it.
Secondly, check out Peter Putnam Archives for a theory of "the participatory universe ". Putnam was a brilliant physicist, friend of Einstein, associate of the Manhattan team if I recall correctly. Anyway his theory of emergence and the Participatory thing rang so many bells from my travels in the metaphysical realms and my mystical journey.
I am not so much into the fringe stuff or tarot, but it sounds like you are looking for some clues that converge through the above mentioned men.
Change is happening fast at the moment, though. Might be a good time to keep your eyes looking forward and staying present rather than digging around head down in arguments about your depth of conviction.
Just saying...
Stay safe out there.
Thank you Mort! I think my need to focus on depth of conviction is to ensure I have some company at the edge. Easy to lose an audience if you sound too sure about something that’s bonkers.
Well, ok then. As you please, of course...
I am not sure I have ever had company during a mystical experience. Even when it is amongst other people.
And people thinking I am bonkers is par for the course, as far as I have experienced.
I occasionally meet people who make my so called auric envelope explode with softly falling floating points of light. Sort of like snowflakes, or "sparks flying" as the saying goes amongst those with eyes for seeing. Most people see nothing, even when I point it out and try to grab a few sparks floating in my personal space. For example.
They absolutely think I am a bit bonkers, but the pehnomena makes sense within my expanded understanding of inter-dimensionality. The person causing the sparks to fly kinda seems to partially understand what is going on, as they are experiencing real time entanglement.
But third party onlookers definitely have that look in their eyes signalling that I might be a complete loon.
Can't be helped. And not a bad defence against 'audience capture' dynamics.
And as you point out in your article, wildly different conceptions about the nature of Quantum exist amongst physicists. So.... Anyway. None of my business.
As you were. Sorry to interrupt.
Don’t take my comment as a dismissal: it’s more an open response. One part of the path is welcoming different opinions on the path and learning from them, like yours.
I need to heed my own advice and pay attention to my immediate surroundings atm.
So let me quickly add that you (we) are never alone at the edge, or anywhere else. While the veil of ignorance hangs heavy on most people, for those who seek and pay attention there is plenty of company in the metaphysical realms, around and above, populated by beings and creatures. Not all in the same dimension and just as well. Diversity needs micro-niches to thrive.
Likewise, your micro-biome (intestinal bacterial populations) in your gut, particularly, is its own internal subsystem of consciousness often termed the gut mind (intestinal wall has as many braincells as are in a cat's brain and interacts biochemically with the biome. A hyper-complex substance.). Research over the last 15-20 years has discovered profound inplications for mood, mental health, autoimmune responsiveness and a host of other influences, which render the mainstream of Philosophy of Mind (brain-centrism) with some rather big challenges and a range of philosophical implications stemming from the reality of the gut instinct/gut feeling. By cell count we are only ten percent human, round about. You have plenty of company wherever you go. You just need to reach out, or in, and connect.
Ok. Last thing.
It is sometimes dangerous, or traumatic, to explore the realms. Some people go mad... you know the score on that, I imagine, given your cautious approach. The regulator of spiritual danger is the ritual. You can design your own simple practice, or borrow from tradition. Making a cup of tea is a simple, yet well known, folk(everyman) remedy to restore a sense of order. The Japanese have arguably taken it all a bit far, but nevertheless. I hope you get my meaning.
That is all for now.
Re-guards.
So good!! Your clarity and balance is so appreciated and received...Thank you! ✨️👏
Thanks so much Nickki. Just glad others are as interested.
At the risk of sounding completely insane, I occasionally engage in online Tarot to help me reset my perspective. It is as if my brain becomes so used to following its ingrained pathways that I become incapable of viewing my life from a new vantage point without an external kick. Tarot does this for me, because the mere phrasing of the interpretations helps me unlock something new in my mind. This is why I like your observation that it's not about the cards, or even the story you hear, but about dampening your ego's desire to control your life's narrative with its crude and limited tools.
As a side note, I've found a copy of Meditations on the Tarot online, and this explanation of the Tarot Arcana struck me as profound:
"The Major Arcana of the Tarot are neither allegories nor secrets, because
allegories are, in fact, only figurative representations of abstract notions, and
secrets are only facts, procedures, practices, or whatever doctrines that one
keeps to oneself for a personal motive, since they are able to be understood
and put into practice by others to whom one does not want to reveal them.
The Major Arcana of the Tarot are authentic symbols. They conceal and
reveal their sense at one and the same time according to the depth of
meditation. That which they reveal are not secrets, i.e. things hidden by
human will, but are arcana, which is something quite different. An arcanum is
that which it is necessary to “know” in order to be fruitful in a given domain
of spiritual life. It is that which must be actively present in our consciousness
—or even in our subconscious—in order to render us capable of making
discoveries, engendering new ideas, conceiving of new artistic subjects. In a
word, it makes us fertile in our creative pursuits, in whatever domain of
spiritual life."