Ancient Egypt unknown symbol - help needed!

[Joyful Soul]

Hi Everyone,

I've started deciphering all the tarot cards now and I kind of got stuck on card number 9. It's the second (orange ray) card in the body section called Wisdom.

I have no idea what the creatures/figurines on the left side of the female figure are. They kind of look like weird birds with tails. As I said before I have no faintest idea what that might be.

If you have any suggestions or know the meaning of this symbol, please do share it with me.

With love and light,
Joyful Soul

[Jade]

1. The Potentiator of the Body (Wisdom, the Hermit) is a male card.
2. I'm pretty sure the two little figures at the Hermit's feet at serpents, likely signifying the two uses of wisdom that Ra speaks of with the kundalini - for positive, the serpent ends up on the brow, for negative, the serpent ends up at the naval. The staff represents the kundalini itself which is why I'm guessing the two serpents are at the feet, symbolising them in potentiation, as this is the potentiator.
3. Looking a the cards through the lens of the chakras can be helpful, but Ra says that it isn't a cut and paste thing, so it's best to expand a little bit from seeing the second card in the cycle as the "orange ray" card.

Good luck studying the tarot! Always glad to see more people taking up this study.

[Joyful Soul]

Hi Jade,
Huge thanks for your reply.
Hmmmm that changes things a bit. Regarding the Ra material. I could only find a detailed description of the mind cards but after that, the information is very vague. Did I miss something or Ra just left it for us to figure out ourselves?

Also, I am not sure what the male figure on Wisdom card holds in his right hand. I deduce that what it's in his left hand is a papyrus plant. And, yes I got the kundalini sign on top... including the 5 stars suggesting an ongoing change.

With love and light,
Joyful Soul

[Spaced]

For the sake of clarity for readers here is the image being discussed:



I've been wondering what those two things at his feet are for a long time, I guess they do kind of look like cobras see:

 which, as Jade mentioned, can symbolize wisdom, but in this form are sometimes thought to be considered as symbols of magical protection.

The two headdresses shown on these cobras (if that's what they are) traditionally represent the crowns of upper and lower Egypt.

As for the items in his hands, I believe he has a snake headed staff in his right hand and a lamp in his left.

As Ra mentions these symbols are specific to the culture that produced them, i.e. ancient Egypt, so their meanings can be obscure to us.

[Jade]

It's true that most of the information in the Law of One books is based upon the mind complex. Don, Carla, and Jim, just ran out of time to get any further into it. They are definitely meant to be something that we seek within to figure out ourselves. Personally, I've found that the more I study and contemplate the archetypes, the more I am able to use that lens to view the material as a whole. Then more of it becomes clear, in a snowball fashion.

As far as the stars go, Ra says that the stars were all added later, and essentially, distortions that could be eliminated from all of the cards. So I don't consider them when I consider the symbology on each card.

In the right hand the Hierophant has a staff with a serpent head. In his left hand is a flame, also signifying knowledge, illumination.

There is a modern version of this same deck, that is colorized and the images are drawn much more clearly. They aren't exactly the same, but it helps elucidate some of the images. https://www.google.com/search?q=brotherh...76&bih=678

[Spaced]

I have the brotherhood of light tarot deck and I have mixed feelings about it. It's nice to have a colored version of the deck but some of the attributions to the zodiac and the hebrew alphabet seem a little off for me. For example they have the Hermit here associated with Aquarius rather than Virgo as other occult groups do (to me Virgo makes sense for the Hermit with Aquarius being the Star). This makes me wonder about the colour attributions as well.

This doesn't really matter if you don't care about the attributions but they are plastered all over the borders of the cards which is kind of annoying, it would be nice to have them with just the images.

[JJCarsonian]

Hi Jade,
Huge thanks for your reply.
Hmmmm that changes things a bit. Regarding the Ra material. I could only find a detailed description of the mind cards but after that, the information is very vague. Did I miss something or Ra just left it for us to figure out ourselves?

Also, I am not sure what the male figure on Wisdom card holds in his right hand. I deduce that what it's in his left hand is a papyrus plant. And, yes I got the kundalini sign on top... including the 5 stars suggesting an ongoing change.

With love and light,
Joyful Soul

The Tarot cards were my lease favorite topic of the Ra material lol

[Dekalb_Blues]

~
Joyful Soul, some more info for your consideration:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uraeus 

https://books.google.com/books?id=S6pLvb...&q&f=false




  

[Joyful Soul]

Hi Spaced,

Huge thanks for your comment. And yes, the picture of serpents really explains the symbols on the card.
I really appreciate your help in this respect.

With love and light,
Joyful Soul

[Joyful Soul]

Hi Dekalb_Blues,

Thank you so much for the links and pictures. I greatly appreciate your help

With love and light,
Joyful Soul

[kenney]

They are small oil lanterns set at his feet. the Lantern in his hand is obscured by his cloak, which represents the physicality of life obscuring wisdom's power to know, and yet there are always lights at one's feet lighting the path to take.Here the lanterns are to the Left (sinister in heraldry) of the wise hermit illuminating the pitfalls he may encounter if he takes that path.

Ra does NOT follow the typical scheme of the Tarot. You will find nothing but frustration and and blind alleys for years attempting to correlate the nonsense of the typical tarot world with the world of Ra....I did it myself.

the cards used in the Ra book were the 1936 printing of the Brotherhood of Light deck of cards. This school still exists and they still teach Astrology, tarot, alchemy , and Kaballah (not so much the Kaballah to be honest). That deck itself came froman earlier Egyptain tarot created by a man named Papus( father)....

I could go on and on for hours about this if anyone is actually interested...

It is imorrtant to note that in typical Tarot study this card is Wisdom. for Ra this is the Potentiator of the Body. They are not the same at all. Wisdom as we define it typically is the domain of second card the Potentiator of the Mind for this is what is knowable by the will. The Potentiator of the body is more like the school of hard knocks, things you have learned physically the hard way. If you burnt your finger or got a hang over this card will would represent your recall and learning of this and the Matirx of the body would couple with these experiences and incubate the internal physical experience, culminating in the 10th card Catalyst of the body