Law of One the Tarot and Intuition

[kenney]

I made a short blog post on using the Law of One for reading the tarot.
Law of One the Tarot and Intuition

I never could agree with the meanings associated with the typical tarot descriptions. So I have begun to write out how I have managed to use book IV of the LOO as the foundation for how to manipulate the Major Arcana.

Feel free to pick through the rest of the blog, but for the moment this is my first page about channeling and the LOO.

[JustLikeYou]

I've read your post. Thanks for sharing it on this forum.

I have a few comments that might help you bring your synthesis into closer harmony with the rest of Ra's words. Such a synthesis is, after all, the challenge of any student who attempts to study the archetypes as Ra taught in so incomplete a course of training with Don.

First, though I'm having trouble finding the passage, Ra says that energy blockages available for healing are either (a) within the mind, (b) between mind and body or © between mind and spirit. This suggests that the work of spiritual evolution exists at the interface between mind and anything else, including itself. So I interpret the archetype cycles to describe these interfaces. Thoughts and emotions, then, cannot neatly be cordoned off into separate cycles; rather, they will be found in different forms in each cycle. The body archetypes, for example, include the mind's direction of the body. Practical planning, trade, and the physical sciences are forms of thinking that are proper to the body cycle, since they are concerned exclusively with physical activity. You are right, of course, to include instinct and cravings in the body cycle, but these are the feminine features of the body cycle. As feminine features, they await the activation through conscious action. The mind cycle, on the other hand, includes belief, identity, significance, value, emotional investment, devotion, betrayal, and all other aspects of human storytelling. The mind cycle is where I locate love, hate, and empathy, since these emotions are so responsive to and indicative of our judgments about who we are to each other. Finally, the spirit cycle's thoughts and emotions include mystery, awe, trust, hope, fear, resignation, and grace. The spirit is a channel between us and the infinite totality, so the experiences appropriate to it are the ones where we find ourselves approaching the infinite.

Another feature to ponder is in Ra's answer in 3.16. Ra says: "Before the body can be initiated, the mind must be initiated." This is the reason for the numbering of the cards. The structure of the mind/body/spirit complex, though, does not match this ordering: mind links body to spirit, so whatever comes through the spirit to the body must first move through mind. Now the requirement that the mind be initiated before the body should be suggestive of the content of the archetype cycles: the work of mind is more foundational and the work of body is a refinement upon the work already completed in mind. Ra says in 4.17 that the disciplines of the body have to do with the balance between love and wisdom. But this means that initiating the mind must require learning love and wisdom so that they can then be balanced in body. To put the same idea differently: we need to make our compassion manifest as attempts to be of service to others in order to discover how to be most efficiently of service. The lessons of body are lessons of trial and error.

[kenney]

I've read your post. Thanks for sharing it on this forum.

I have a few comments that might help you bring your synthesis into closer harmony with the rest of Ra's words. Such a synthesis is, after all, the challenge of any student who attempts to study the archetypes as Ra taught in so incomplete a course of training with Don.

First, though I'm having trouble finding the passage, Ra says that energy blockages available for healing are either (a) within the mind, (b) between mind and body or © between mind and spirit. This suggests that the work of spiritual evolution exists at the interface between mind and anything else, including itself. So I interpret the archetype cycles to describe these interfaces. Thoughts and emotions, then, cannot neatly be cordoned off into separate cycles; rather, they will be found in different forms in each cycle. The body archetypes, for example, include the mind's direction of the body. Practical planning, trade, and the physical sciences are forms of thinking that are proper to the body cycle, since they are concerned exclusively with physical activity. You are right, of course, to include instinct and cravings in the body cycle, but these are the feminine features of the body cycle. As feminine features, they await the activation through conscious action. The mind cycle, on the other hand, includes belief, identity, significance, value, emotional investment, devotion, betrayal, and all other aspects of human storytelling. The mind cycle is where I locate love, hate, and empathy, since these emotions are so responsive to and indicative of our judgments about who we are to each other. Finally, the spirit cycle's thoughts and emotions include mystery, awe, trust, hope, fear, resignation, and grace. The spirit is a channel between us and the infinite totality, so the experiences appropriate to it are the ones where we find ourselves approaching the infinite.



Another feature to ponder is in Ra's answer in 3.16. Ra says: "Before the body can be initiated, the mind must be initiated." This is the reason for the numbering of the cards. The structure of the mind/body/spirit complex, though, does not match this ordering: mind links body to spirit, so whatever comes through the spirit to the body must first move through mind. Now the requirement that the mind be initiated before the body should be suggestive of the content of the archetype cycles: the work of mind is more foundational and the work of body is a refinement upon the work already completed in mind. Ra says in 4.17 that the disciplines of the body have to do with the balance between love and wisdom. But this means that initiating the mind must require learning love and wisdom so that they can then be balanced in body. To put the same idea differently: we need to make our compassion manifest as attempts to be of service to others in order to discover how to be most efficiently of service. The lessons of body are lessons of trial and error.

The different thought structures that make up mind body and spirit, are differentiated for the most part by the vibration frequency of the thoughts. Typically the body can connect with the spirit with less distortion than the mind. This is a natural process that happens instinctively i.e. intuition. To connect the mental thought process with the spiritual thought process one needs to apply intelligent energy and effort, things DO NOT just work this way naturally or else everyone would find enlightenment the moment they thought about it.

If for some reason a person has elevated a certain thought process higher than another, they would find they have had in theory switched a few cards around. This wrong functioning is not abnormal, sadly this is the norm.

But a caveat I should add about using the Tarot to study the LOO. The adept should follow the same path for learning the tarot that Carla was upon. The meaning of the tarot cards are so ephemeral and hidden, that is  quite easy to become lost in the veritable sea of analogies metaphors and definitions of the card meanings. Picking up an average tarot book that covers the Rider Waite deck, Thoth, Tarot de Marseilles, etc. will likely lead down a completely new path not the LOO. The questions Don poses and the Answers give by Ra directly reflect the Brotherhood of Light teachings that were very popular at the time and as the LOO group goes through the tarot they are merely expanding and elucidating the meanings of the cards in respect to those teachings.  

[JustLikeYou]

I'm not exactly sure what you're replying to in my comment, but you did say something I wanted to respond to.

The questions Don poses and the Answers give by Ra directly reflect the Brotherhood of Light teachings that were very popular at the time and as the LOO group goes through the tarot they are merely expanding and elucidating the meanings of the cards in respect to those teachings.

I've read C.C.Zain's companion book to the Brotherhood of Light deck, and my considered judgment was that it was in many ways a far cry from Ra's approach to the Tarot. While it contained a handful of interesting ideas, I do not recommend it to students of Ra. Ra is not merely rehashing what the Brotherhood of Light taught. On the contrary, Don considered the study of the archetypes to be the greatest empirical success of the entire channeling experiment precisely because Ra material was at its most novel during that study. To this date, I've found no other source except Ra that captures the essence of this approach, though some treatments occasionally do split the cards into groups of 7.

[Plenum]

First, though I'm having trouble finding the passage, Ra says that energy blockages available for healing are either (a) within the mind, (b) between mind and body or © between mind and spirit. This suggests that the work of spiritual evolution exists at the interface between mind and anything else, including itself. So I interpret the archetype cycles to describe these interfaces.

as a side tangent, there are 2 places where this is explicitly mentioned.

Early on, in session 2:

Ra: I am Ra. The principle of crystal healing is based upon an understanding of the hierarchical nature of the structure of the illusion which is the physical body, as you would call it.

There are crystals which work upon the energies coming into the spiritual body; there are crystals which work upon the distortions from spirit to mind; there are crystals which balance the distortions between the mind and the body.

All of these crystal healings are charged through purified channels. Without the relative crystallization of the healer working with the crystal, the crystal will not be properly charged.

And also in Session 66:

The role of the healer is to offer an opportunity for realignment or aid in realignment of either energy centers or some connection between the energies of mind and body, spirit and mind, or spirit and body. This latter is very rare.

The seeker will then have the reciprocal opportunity to accept a novel view of the self, a variant arrangement of patterns of energy influx. If the entity, at any level, desires to remain in the configuration of distortion which seems to need healing it will do so. If, upon the other hand, the seeker chooses the novel configuration, it is done through free will.

[kenney]

I'm not exactly sure what you're replying to in my comment, but you did say something I wanted to respond to.

The questions Don poses and the Answers give by Ra directly reflect the Brotherhood of Light teachings that were very popular at the time and as the LOO group goes through the tarot they are merely expanding and elucidating the meanings of the cards in respect to those teachings.

I've read C.C.Zain's companion book to the Brotherhood of Light deck, and my considered judgment was that it was in many ways a far cry from Ra's approach to the Tarot. While it contained a handful of interesting ideas, I do not recommend it to students of Ra. Ra is not merely rehashing what the Brotherhood of Light taught. On the contrary, Don considered the study of the archetypes to be the greatest empirical success of the entire channeling experiment precisely because Ra material was at its most novel during that study. To this date, I've found no other source except Ra that captures the essence of this approach, though some treatments occasionally do split the cards into groups of 7.

I am afraid you have read one book of 22 books. The structure of the universe, the way that the mind works with complexes of thoughts and how those thoughts are urged about by the pressures of the planets, the environment, and conditioning are covered in the Brotherhood of Light books. To be honest by the time you have read all 22 books you may begin to wonder if "someone" hadn't read a bit too much of the brotherhood of light in the years leading up to the Ra material. The cosmology set forth, the techniques of mental alchemy, the techniques of medium-ship/channeling that are taught, how astrology affects physical life, healing, crystals, etc. covered in the Brotherhood of light courses is actually a MORE detailed description of how to DO much of what Ra suggests.

The Ra books take the tarot a step in a different direction than the Brotherhood of Light does, there is far more psychology in the Ra work. The concepts of archetypes are well formed by the early 80's and Don has an excellent grip on that. It is DON"s choice to approach the tarot in this way, not Ra's. One has to always remain informed of this. As we study LOO we are studying those things that were on Don's mind. What was on his mind exactly? I am not sure, i do know he is holding a brotherhood of light deck of cards. In the early 1980's this is an obscure deck of cards to come across. His questions in reference to the cards are obviously based around one of this group dabbling with those courses and their own studies of the tarot. Some of the questions point to CC Zain books other than the Sacred Tarot leading me to infer they read far more than that one isolated book from the series and the rest of the tarot questions seem to be in reference to the tarot descriptions in a book by Paul Christian called the History and Practice of Magic. Was he reading the new books coming out that were applying Carl Jung to the tarot deck as well, I can not say?

I have spent half of my life now studying the LOO books. After about ten years it suddenly dawned on me I have really been studying the things that Don and Carla found most interesting and mysterious. If one is studying the LOO what are they really studying? The things that Don brings up of course, coupled with answers that are just vague enough to not really answer the question. The only stuff that gets definite answers will be things that are for the most part completely unverifiable, Ra of course warns us of this paradox regularly.

So the LOO and the Tarot may more rightly be looked at like "the Tarot through the eyes of Don and Carla with some suggestions from Ra." It is always good to go back to the source and find out where something originated from. It can not hurt in any way to go back and read all that Brotherhood of Light stuff and discover what was inspiring some of these questions that Don is asking...i spent five or six years slowly plugging through all of those books while I did all the other stuff I do, it wasn't so bad....not to mention I learned astrology really well and basic alchemy while i was at it.

[kenney]

First, though I'm having trouble finding the passage, Ra says that energy blockages available for healing are either (a) within the mind, (b) between mind and body or © between mind and spirit. This suggests that the work of spiritual evolution exists at the interface between mind and anything else, including itself. So I interpret the archetype cycles to describe these interfaces.

as a side tangent, there are 2 places where this is explicitly mentioned.

Early on, in session 2:

Ra: I am Ra. The principle of crystal healing is based upon an understanding of the hierarchical nature of the structure of the illusion which is the physical body, as you would call it.

There are crystals which work upon the energies coming into the spiritual body; there are crystals which work upon the distortions from spirit to mind; there are crystals which balance the distortions between the mind and the body.

All of these crystal healings are charged through purified channels. Without the relative crystallization of the healer working with the crystal, the crystal will not be properly charged.

And also in Session 66:

The role of the healer is to offer an opportunity for realignment or aid in realignment of either energy centers or some connection between the energies of mind and body, spirit and mind, or spirit and body. This latter is very rare.

The seeker will then have the reciprocal opportunity to accept a novel view of the self, a variant arrangement of patterns of energy influx. If the entity, at any level, desires to remain in the configuration of distortion which seems to need healing it will do so. If, upon the other hand, the seeker chooses the novel configuration, it is done through free will.

thanks so much..

[JustLikeYou]

I am afraid you have read one book of 22 books.

Oh man, that's a lot to slog through. Would you suggest a single book as an entrypoint? As I said earlier, I wasn't impressed with the one on the Tarot, which is why I didn't pursue anything else from the BoL. What in this literature do you find best compliments Ra?

It is DON"s choice to approach the tarot in this way, not Ra's. One has to always remain informed of this. As we study LOO we are studying those things that were on Don's mind. What was on his mind exactly? I am not sure, i do know he is holding a brotherhood of light deck of cards. In the early 1980's this is an obscure deck of cards to come across. His questions in reference to the cards are obviously based around one of this group dabbling with those courses and their own studies of the tarot.

While I'm clearly not as familiar with the BoL corpus as you, I knew Carla when she was alive and am still in contact with Jim. I'll ask Jim about this next time I see him, though I do remember both of them saying that they were uniquely impressed by Don's ability to handle the archetype study. It was new to all of them at the time, so they were struggling to stay above water. In fact, you can even see how novice they are in the first couple of questions where Don offers interpretations of the cards. It has all the marks of someone who is looking at these pictures for the first time.

It might also help to know that Don and Carla had been channeling the confederation for years before Ra, and much of the vocabulary and philosophical foundation Ra uses was already in place thanks to these earlier contacts. Remember Ra's words in the very first session: "We hope to offer you a somewhat different slant upon the information which is always and ever the same." Ra understands themselves to be communicating the same basic philosophy as the BoL, the alchemists, the theosophists, etc., etc.

answers that are just vague enough to not really answer the question.

Ra's answers are brief and technical. They are sometimes ambiguous and they usually do not make explicit the available subtleties. In my experience, those subtleties really are implicit in Ra's words, but I don't think Ra was one to spoon feed the mysteries of the universe. There are times when Ra does not answer the question, I agree, but there are many more times when the answer is meant to be starting point that gives a direction for you to flesh out the answer on your own---and even these instances are when the genuine answer to the question is that there are lots of ways to go about it, whatever it might be in the instance. Ra's answers are also precise enough that one can submit Ra to a test of internal consistency.

So the LOO and the Tarot may more rightly be looked at like "the Tarot through the eyes of Don and Carla with some suggestions from Ra."

This strikes me as overstated. Don was usually helpless with the Tarot. He would make some kind of vague statement about what a picture was supposed to mean and Ra had to come in and correct the errors. The bulk of the information comes from Ra, mostly unbidden. As far as teachers go (and I'm a teacher), Ra is quick to give away answers and generous with the "yes and" response. It's sweet, actually.

I should also note that Jim was more interested in the Tarot than Carla. In many ways, Carla channeled Ra because she loved Don, and not so much for any other reason.

But I do agree that the approach to the Tarot specifically as the mechanisms of the psyche is Don's influence. That was what he saw in them, so that was what Ra pursued. My own work on the archetypes began from that starting point and has been transitioning into a view of them as personas, a feature Ra mentioned but Don never explored.