An Archetype Workbook

[rva_jeremy]

I suspect the Tarot deck was intended the same way, as a pictorial summation of detailed teachings given over many years.  The problem for us is that we're getting the information in a backwards manner where Don Elkins was guessing about the symbols and trying to unscramble the codes, rather than receiving direct teaching.  I'm suggesting that this is the opposite of how the pictographs were intended to work.  And I'm suggesting that this accounts for the frustration some of us feel.

I've often thought the same thing, Peregrine: how close is the course of study recommended by those of Ra in the contact to the past, direct course of study described by those of Ra? Of course, a landing/manifestation of Ra could clear all this up, right?

More seriously, I think the biggest thing missing is a concerted program of seeking. The images of the tarot are supposed to haunt. That means the answers don't lie in the images, as you seem to grasp, but instead lie within us, with the tarot as just a reminder. And in the western magical tradition, at least, there is the theory that rituals extend across incarnations, designed to "wake people up" and tap into the larger flow of learning than one lifetime. It is this seeking that is the missing element in my opinion, the element that seems backward to you, I think. Seeking in the Egyptian times was something that occurred in a more controlled and directed context than it now does, so there were things to build on that we are having to "reverse engineer".

Your point about the teaching aids being reminders is well taken. This is why I think casual discussions like this one will never be adequate to penetrate the archetypal mind in any truly helpful manner. We have to do the work within that allows the images to draw out purified, distilled aspect of the archetypal mind. There's also a sense in which we have to have our higher selves involved in order to work with mind at this level at all.

All of these points bespeak a rigorous dedication to study and contemplation, and if the contact is read closely, I believe you can easily see those of Ra suggesting just this.