The Origin and Basic Principle of The Tarot

The Law of One, Book IV, Session 76

Questioner: I am sorry that we have had such a long delay between the last session and this one.

It couldn’t be helped I guess.

Could you please tell me the origin of the tarot?

Ra: I am Ra. The origin of this system of study and divination is twofold: 

firstly, there is that influence
which, coming in a distorted fashion from those who were priests attempting to teach the Law of One in Egypt, gave form to the understanding, if you will pardon the misnomer, which they had received.

These forms were then made a regular portion of the learn/teachings of an initiate.

The second influence
is that of those entities in the lands you call Ur, Chaldea, and Mesopotamia who, from old, had received the, shall we say, data for which they called having to do with the heavens.

Thusly we find two methods of divination being melded into one with uneven results; the, as you call it, astrology and the form being combined to suggest what you might call the correspondences which are typical of the distortions you may see as attempts to view archetypes.

Questioner: Then am I correct in assuming that the priests of Egypt, in attempting to convert knowledge that they had received initially from Ra into understandable symbology, constructed and initiated the concept of the tarot? Is this correct?

Ra: I am Ra. This is correct with the addition of the Sumerian influence.

Questioner: Were Ra’s teachings focusing on the archetypes for this Logos and the methods of achieving a very close approach to the archetypical configuration? Is this correct?

Ra: I am Ra. This is correct without being true.

We, of Ra, are humble messengers of the Law of One.

We seek to teach/learn this single law.

During the space/time of the Egyptian teach/learning we worked to bring the mind complex, the body complex, and the spirit complex into an initiated state in which the entity could contact intelligent energy and so become teach/learner itself so that healing and the fruits of study could be offered to all.

The study of the roots of mind is a portion of the vivification of the mind complex and, as we have noted, the thorough study of the portion of the roots of mind called archetypical is an interesting and necessary portion of the process as a whole.

Questioner: Is there, in Ra’s opinion, any present day value for the use of the tarot as an aid in the evolutionary process?

Ra: I am Ra. We shall repeat information.

It is appropriate to study one form of constructed and organized distortion of the archetypical mind in depth in order to arrive at the position of being able to become and to experience archetypes at will.

You have three basic choices.

You may choose astrology,
the twelve signs, as you call these portions of your planet’s energy web, and what has been called the ten planets.

You may choose the tarot
with its twenty-two so-called Major Arcana.

You may choose the study of the so-called Tree of Life
with its ten Sephiroth and the twenty-two relationships between the stations.

It is well to investigate each discipline, not as a dilettante, but as one who seeks the touchstone, one who wishes to feel the pull of the magnet.

One of these studies will be more attractive to the seeker.

Let the seeker, then, investigate the archetypical mind using, basically, one of these three disciplines.

After a period of study, the discipline mastered sufficiently, the seeker may then complete the more important step:
that is, the moving beyond the written in order to express in an unique fashion its understanding, if you may again pardon the noun, of the archetypical mind.

The Law of One, Book IV, Session 88

Questioner: Thank you.

I would like to ask you as to the initial production of the tarot, where this concept was first formed and where the tarot was first recorded?

Ra: I am Ra. The concept of the tarot originated within the planetary influence you call Venus.

Questioner: Was the concept given to or devised for a training tool for those inhabiting Venus at that time or was it devised by those of Venus as a training tool for those of Earth?

Ra: I am Ra. The tarot was devised by the third-density population of Venus a great measure of your space/time in your past.

As we have noted the third-density experience of those of Venus dealt far more deeply and harmoniously with what you would call relationships with other-selves, sexual energy transfer work, and philosophical or metaphysical research.

The product of many, many generations of work upon what we conceived to be the archetypical mind produced the tarot which was used by our peoples as a training aid in developing the magical personality.

Questioner: I’ll make a guess that those of Venus of third density who were the initial ones to partially penetrate the veil gleaned information as to the nature of the archetypical mind and the veiling process and from this designed the tarot as a method of teaching others. Is this correct?

Ra: I am Ra. It is so.

Questioner: I will also assume, and I may not be correct, that the present list that I have of twenty-two names of the tarot cards of the Major Arcana are not in exact agreement with Ra’s original generation of the tarot.

Could you describe the original tarot, first telling me if there were twenty-two archetypes?

That must have been the same.

Were they the same as the list that I read to you in a previous session or were there differences?

Ra: I am Ra. As we have stated previously, each archetype is a concept complex and may be viewed not only by individuals but by those of the same racial and planetary influences in unique ways.

Therefore, it is not informative to reconstruct the rather minor differences in descriptive terms between the tarot used by us and that used by those of Egypt and the spiritual descendants of those first students of this system of study.

The one great breakthrough which was made after our work in third density was done was the proper emphasis given to the Arcanum Number Twenty-Two which we have called The Choice.

In our own experience we were aware that such an unifying archetype existed but did not give that archetype the proper complex of concepts in order to most efficaciously use that archetype in order to promote our evolution.

Questioner: Did Ra use cards similar to the tarot cards for training in third density? 

Ra: I am Ra. No.

Questioner: What did Ra use in third density?

Ra: I am Ra. You are aware in your attempts at magical visualization of the mental configuration of sometimes rather complex visualizations.

These are mental and drawn with the mind.

Another example well-known in your culture is the visualization, in your mass, of the distortion of the love of the one infinite Creator called Christianity, wherein a small portion of your foodstuffs is seen to be a mentally configured but entirely real man, the man known to you as Jehoshuah or, as you call this entity now, Jesus.

It was by this method of sustained visualization over a period of training that we worked with these concepts.

These concepts were occasionally drawn.

However, the concept of one visualization per card was not thought of by us.

Questioner: How did the teacher relay information to the student in respect to visualization?

Ra: I am Ra. The process was cabalistic; that is, of the oral tradition of mouth to ear.

Questioner: Then when Ra attempted to teach the Egyptians the concept of the tarot, was the same process used, or a different one.

Ra: I am Ra. The same process was used.

However, those which were teach/learners after us first drew these images to the best of their ability within the place of initiation and later began the use of what you call cards bearing these visualizations’ representations.

Questioner: Were the Court Arcana and the Minor Arcana a portion of Ra’s teachings or was this something that came along later?

Ra: I am Ra. Those cards of which you speak were the product of the influence of those of Chaldea and Sumer.

Questioner: Ra must have had, shall we say, a lesson plan or course of training for the twenty-two archetypes to be given either to those of third density of Ra or, later on, to those in Egypt.

Could you describe this scenario for the training course?

Ra: I am Ra. This shall be the last full query of this working.

We find it more nearly appropriate to discuss our plans in acquainting initiates upon your own planet with this particular version of the archetypes of the archetypical mind.

Our first stage was the presentation of the images, one after the other, in the following order:

one, eight, fifteen;

two, nine, sixteen;

three, ten, seventeen;

four, eleven, eighteen;

five, twelve, nineteen;

six, thirteen, twenty;

seven, fourteen, twenty-one;

twenty-two.

In this way the fundamental relationships between mind, body, and spirit could begin to be discovered, for as one sees, for instance, the Matrix of the Mind in comparison to the Matrices of Body and Spirit one may draw certain tentative conclusions.

When, at length, the student had mastered these visualizations and had considered each of the seven classifications of archetype, looking at the relationships between mind, body, and spirit,

we then suggested consideration of archetypes in pairs:

one and two;

three and four;

five;

six and seven.

You may continue in this form for the body and spirit archetypes.

You will note that the consideration of the Significator was left unpaired, for the Significator shall be paired with Archetype Twenty-Two.

At the end of this line of inquiry the student was beginning to grasp more and more deeply the qualities and resonances of each archetype.

At this point, using various other aids to spiritual evolution, we encouraged the initiate to learn to become each archetype and, most importantly, to know as best as possible within your illusion when the adoption of the archetype’s persona would be spiritually or metaphysically helpful.

As you can see, much work was done creatively by each initiate.

We have no dogma to offer.

Each perceives that which is needful and helpful to the self.

May we ask if there are any brief queries before we leave this working?

The Law of One, Book IV, Session 89

Questioner: I have here a deck of twenty-two tarot cards which have been copied, according to information we have, from the walls of the large pyramid at Giza.

If necessary we can duplicate these cards in the book which we are preparing.

I would ask Ra if these cards represent an exact replica of that which is in the Great Pyramid?

Ra: I am Ra. The resemblance is substantial.

Questioner: In other words, you might say that these were better than 95% correct as far as representing what is on the walls of the Great Pyramid?

Ra: I am Ra. Yes.

Questioner: The way that I understand this, then, Ra gave these archetypical concepts to the priests of Egypt who then drew them upon the walls of one of the chambers of the Great Pyramid.

What was the technique of transmission of this information to the priests?

At this time was Ra walking the surface among the Egyptians, or was this done through some form of channeling?

Ra: I am Ra. This was done partially through old teachings and partially through visions.

Questioner: Then at this particular time Ra had long since vacated the planet as far as walking among the Egyptians.

Is this correct?

Ra: I am Ra. Yes.

The Law of One, Book IV, Session 93

Questioner: Then the adept, in becoming familiar with the Logos’s archetype in each case, would be able to most efficiently use the Logos’s plan for evolution. Is this correct?

Ra: I am Ra. In the archetypical mind one has the resource of not specifically a plan for evolution but rather a blueprint or architecture of the nature of evolution. 

This may seem to be a small distinction, but it has significance in perceiving more clearly the use of this resource of the deep mind.

Questioner: Then Ra presented the images which we know now as the tarot so that the Egyptian adepts of the time could accelerate their personal evolution. 

Is this correct, and was there any other reason for the presentation of these images by Ra?

Ra: I am Ra. You are correct.

Questioner: Are there any other uses at all of tarot cards other than the one I just named?

Ra: I am Ra. 

To the student 
the tarot images offer a resource for learn/teaching the processes of evolution. 

To any other entity these images are pictures and no more.