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Voyen Koreis:

THE FOOL’S TAROT JOURNEY

A fantasy on the Tarot card theme

PREFACE

It was sometime towards the end of the seventies when I met Eliot. I could pinpoint the exact day when our first conversation took place relatively easily, by looking it up in any old calendar. This should not be too difficult, for I have never forgotten that it happened on Friday the thirteenth. Which only added to the abnormality of this encounter.

It was early evening when I dialled up the telephone number that I had copied earlier on the day from a rather unobtrusive card displayed on the small advertising board of a certain bookshop in downtown Brisbane. A voice at the other end said:

- Eliot Mendel speaking.

I too had introduced myself and went on:

- I saw your note about the seminar you’re having on Sunday, about the Greek mythology. Who is the lecturer?

- I’m going to lecture. Some members of our society will also be speaking.

- Which society is that, if you don’t mind me asking?

- Would you mind awfully giving me your phone number? I have something to do right now, but I would ring you back shortly.

I gave Eliot my number. Before he went away he asked me:

- Would you like to see me, in about a minute or so?

- How would that be possible?

- Simply by turning on the Channel Ten, if you have a TV on hand. I would like to see it myself. I’m going to ring you back as soon as it is over.

I went to turn on the TV. An early evening current affairs programme was in progress. After the ubiquitous advertising session the moderator announced that next there would be a talk about Friday the Thirteenth and the superstitions that accompany it. He brought in his guest, Eliot Mendel, whom he introduced as mythologist. The small screen was almost entirely filled in by the moon-like face, which instantly I found very likeable and trustworthy. The questions the interviewer was asking were naturally so selected as to go down well with the average television viewer, and Eliot Mendel obviously tried to do his best to oblige. For that reason I did not learn much I would not have already known. At the same time I had the feeling that it was easy for Eliot to talk about such matters, and that much more profound knowledge, together with very unique brand of philosophy, would have to be hidden under in the quintessence of his personality, masked by the sparkling joviality, which he only occasionally allowed to bubble over. As he promised, Eliot phoned me right back as soon as the programme was over, and we talked for at least half an hour, even though I had already made up my mind about definitely going ahead and attending his lecture.

About a quarter of a century has passed since this encounter. For at least twenty years, the society Eliot and I both belonged to went on meeting on at least a weekly basis. People came and people went, some moved in, some went abroad, some had even left this world, but for all this time the core of the group had remained the same. You may well ask what was the content of these meetings? Mythology, hermetic and esoteric subjects, alchemy, kabbalah, theosophy, mysticism, and a lot more. This meant that the Tarot cards inevitably appeared on the menu. We had devoted two full years to the study of symbolism of the Tarot in some detail. We had returned to the Tarot theme many times, and at a later stage I was also taking turns with Eliot as a tutor, in a cycle of public lectures on this subject.

It is time to describe my first encounter with the Tarot.

I was a young man of about twenty, when I saw the pack of genuine Tarot cards for the first time in my life. It was early in the 1960s, I was still living in the country that at the time was known as Czechoslovakia, and I was hopelessly, though gloriously, buried in the formidable bosom of the Army, and was to remain so for the duration of my compulsory two years military service. To the vast majority of conscripts of the same age this would have been much like the experience of any greenhorn in any army anywhere in the world – being subjected to the usual harassment on part of his immediate superiors, living under the all-pervading physical and psychological anguish; in this particular case exacerbated by the omnipresent communist propaganda. This was the early 60s, and it was the time of ripening Cuban crisis, as the armies of the Warsaw Pact, including the Czechoslovak army, were seriously getting ready for a grim armed conflict, which from their point of view appeared virtually unavoidable.

As a member of an elite Army Unit, I had avoided most of the physical part of being a novice soldier, some of the more esoteric aspects of being a “fighter on the side of forces for eternal peace” (as the official slogans stated everywhere), but there was no way I could escape the propaganda. I will not bore the reader with details; suffice to say that I was lucky enough to have been selected for an entirely different kind of duties than the 99.9 % of regular conscripts were obliged to perform. This because of a successful audition held several months before I was to be called-up, as a result of which I had landed the job as a singer with the Army Ensemble, a concert group that toured the country for the purpose of entertaining and raising the morale of the troops.

On the surface, meeting with, and on a daily and nightly bases interacting, with the cream of the whole generation of most promising Czech and Slovak young performing artists, might appear as an exciting and stimulating way of life, and in many aspects it indeed was so. Nevertheless, the bare reality of life within the body of a touring ensemble was far more prosaic. An essential part of the routine formed long bus trips, overflowing with bore, which we often tried to dispel by the age-old ritual of playing card games. It so happened that one day, while suspended somewhere halfway between our Prague base and the distant eastern border, which the country then shared with the now defunct Soviet Union, hopelessly tired of the game of “marias”, of which I had already endured several hours, I bailed out and chose instead to be a mere spectator at another circle of card-playing fraternity. They were all violin players from Moravia, which is to say that they grew up in a slightly different cultural environment than the rest of us, who harked mostly from Prague or its surrounds. The game they played was also somewhat different from what most of us were customarily playing and, above all, they played it with a pack of cards such as I had never seen before. They called them “taroky”, which is the Czech for the Tarot cards. The rules of the game resembled those I was used to playing with the regular cards, therefore it did not take me long to get to understand them. What I found really intriguing was the deck of cards they were using. The pack was an old one, and it was almost entirely worn out, probably being of a pre-war vintage. On top of the traditional four suits there were twenty-two trump cards, which bore the Roman numerals and which were adorned with some strange looking pictures. When the bus stopped in the middle of a forest for the mundane reasons, and while my colleagues took a breather from their game, I borrowed their cards for a more detailed examination. The card that immediately captured my attention was the trump numbered XII. It bore the picture of a man hanged on the gallows; however the condemned man, as he appeared on the card, was hanging from the gallows with his head down, and with the rope tied to his foot rather than to his neck. Though there were other unusual images to be seen, at the time these had not impressed me sufficiently to stay permanently in my memory. Nevertheless, it was the picture of the Hanged Man that made the lasting impression on me, and in my mind it became a symbol of the Tarot cards. I had no idea at all of their strange and obscure history, neither did I know that the Tarots are in fact the progenitors of all modern playing cards. I also had no way of knowing that one day they would become a rather significant influence on my life.

The Cuban Crisis had resolved itself, and the dreaded armies of the NATO never showed up. Instead, about six years later, it was the Soviet army itself together with its Warsaw Pact allies, which had rolled its tanks into Prague. After the initial confusion and some hesitation, I resolved to leave the stricken country, and I went to the country of my birth, England, eventually ending up in Australia. My fledgling interest in the esoteric subjects ultimately led me to another encounter with the Tarot, and it was destined to develop into a lasting, albeit often turbulent, relationship. At this point I want to stress most emphatically that I had never used the Tarot cards for divination purposes or fortune telling, let alone gaming, which is how it has been most commonly used in the past centuries. That side of them, of a more sinister nature, I always believed to be somewhat incidental, even though I realize that this is what almost certainly saved them from extermination. History, remote or recent, is littered with acts perpetuated by fervent believers in various orthodoxies, who find themselves in position of power, and who invariably see no other way of protecting their interests than destroying anything that looks remotely threatening their positions, by its propagation of free thought. Thus millions of books had ended their existence in flames, and such fate without a doubt would have awaited the Tarots, had their unknown, but immensely wise creators decided to put their wisdom (or otherwise) in a written form, into a conventional book. Their acumen instead led them to designing a pictorial book, entirely in accordance with the well-known Chinese proverb, which states: “One picture is worth a thousand words”. Moreover, pictures in hands of the nomadic Gypsies or of similarly ambiguous gambling patrons of medieval taverns, were always going to be overlooked in subsequent purges. The Tarots were thus saved for the generations to come of those “who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear”.

I see the Tarot trumps as milestones, which were set to mark the path of future initiates. Carl Gustav Jung was the first of the modern psychologists who seriously studied the esoteric subjects, and the Tarots had not escaped his attention. He described the Tarot trumps as archetypes. What is an archetype? The simple answer is that our body is ruled by instincts, which unknowingly make it react to the outside influences. Archetypes have a similar role within the realm of the human spirit. Culture and traditions of various nations or social groups may differ to a large degree, but archetypes always retain their peculiar character. In dreams, in myths, in fairy tales, or in songs of the bards of all historical epochs and cultural environments, essentially the same archetypal figures will always come into view, such as the Mother, the Father, the Child, the Hero, the Magician, the Tempter, the Trickster, the Wise Man/Woman, the Fool. There are also two handfuls or so of ever recurring archetypal situations and concepts, such as love, birth, death, good or bad luck, accident, justice, self-sacrifice, hope, indecision, pleasure, love triangle, etc.

Archetypes in various guises can thus be found in the twenty-two Tarot trumps. Above them all stands the Fool. The Tarot Fool is the archetype of an eternal pilgrim, who threads his way through the labyrinth of the world. In the book by the 17^th Century Czech philosopher, educator and mystic Jan Amos Komensky (also known as Comenius) The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart, the main character is at the beginning of his pilgrimage joined by an entity named Všudybud, Searchall in the English translation, in whom we might also recognise the pilgrim’s alter ego. He gives the pilgrim a pair of special glasses, which make him see things as they truly are, while together they roam the world, looking into people’s houses and backyards. Only the Fool has such innate ability to look and see everything with clarity, something that is usually denied to the rest of us, unless of course, we can discover and recognize the Eternal Fool that is buried deep within all human beings.

The Fool is a very persuasive fellow, revealing his true character while he persists in his pursuit of objectivity of the mind. So can, under favourable circumstances, be the other archetypal figures that appear in the Tarot. Eliot once told me about a strange vision that he had. It was late in the evening, and he was sitting in his study writing notes for a lecture concerning the Tarot cards. The High Priestess, one of the symbolical figures of the Tarot, was not at all on his mind at the time in question. Perhaps to assert herself, she came to visit him in the room. It may sound far-fetched, but our minds can sometimes play such tricks on us, particularly when we happen to be focused on something as powerful and stimulating as archetypes of the Tarot trumps. Eliot described to me how the Priestess suddenly walked into the room through an open door, clad in a blue flowing robe, exactly as she appears on most of the Tarot card decks. She did not say anything; she just paid the astonished magus a sharp, admonishing stare, and walked out again. He admitted that it took him a long time to recover from this experience. When he did, he went back to his writing, this time to concentrate on the one aspect of the High Priestess that he previously had not intended to include in his lecture. I was present at the lecture, and at the time I thought that it was very impressive. Only much later I was told about the strange vision that would have inspired it.

This incident highlights the potency of the Tarot archetypes, which can under certain circumstances influence or even temporarily rule the unconscious part of our mind. Pivotal to the Jungian psychology is the concept of Collective Unconscious. Freud was the first psychologist who determined that in an unconscious part exists in the human mind, not unlike a subterranean labyrinth, where intimate thoughts and desires, often suppressed by a person at an early age, are being held. These are continuously trying to gain our attention, by the way of our dreams, through mistakes that we commit, through various symptoms of mental or even physical infirmity, etc. Jung not only accepted this premise, but he further developed the idea. To the concept of personal unconscious, essentially as described by Freud, he added his own notion of the collective unconscious, which also includes the memories and experiences of our ancestors, and possibly even of our contemporaries, through as yet not fully understood means of communication on a different level of consciousness. The collective unconscious might thus be viewed as an invisible net, which in our modern times could perhaps be compared to the Internet, connecting the individuals within social or ethnic groups, within the nations, and potentially within the entire human race. In such analogy, archetypes would play a role similar to that of the Internet servers.

The archetype of the Tarot Fool had begun asserting itself soon after I began to write the first version of this book, though not in such dramatic way as experienced by Eliot. My original aim was to write a non-fictional book about the Tarot trumps, for which I had the preliminary agreement with a Czech publishing house. I was going to base it mainly on the notes previously used in the above-mentioned series of lectures on the subject. I also intended to include as illustrations some photographic images taken of the panels I had painted when I worked on a stage design for a play based on the Tarot theme, produced several years earlier. Nevertheless, the Fool had changed all this. Even as I was busy writing the first chapter of the book, he began to revolt. It soon became apparent to me that he was not going to stay contented and remain static, occupying the platform that I had initially created for him. He was absolutely determined to dive in and take an active part in the proceedings. Thankfully, he did not impose on me any Eliot-like visions while trying to break through to my conscious mind and gain my attention. As a result of his endeavours, I simply woke up one morning with a rather well formed plot of the future book in my head. He was not happy with the pictures I wanted to include in the publication either, and he made me do completely new illustrations in the style of old woodcuts, simulated on the computer. This was before the painting programmes that can now routinely do such work for us (though in a rather mechanistic and therefore unsatisfying way) became commonly available. In any case, this meant a lot of extra work for me without much chance of appreciation, except perhaps on part of some experts in the field of computer graphics, who might recognise it as being original. In this new version, some of the Tarot characters, particularly the ones appearing in the early parts of the book, had remained more or less inert, in the traditional way. Others however, became more active within the plot, while some smaller and incidental illustrations had been added to the original twenty-two trumps that head the procession.

The Fool’s dictatorship had not ended even at this point. I was nearly half way through writing about his adventures when he had suddenly let me know, again in a dream, that he wanted to have a partner. I understood the reasons behind his decision. He wanted to make it obvious that while having a unifying influence on human minds and spirituality, the way archetypes are being recognized and interpreted, is peculiar to each individual human being. This is why we eventually learn that the Fool’s companion, the Charioteer, while departing from essentially the same point and arriving to a similar, though higher, level of existence, is born within a different environment, walks along slightly different paths, makes different mistakes from which, as we feel, he may draw somewhat different conclusions.

In the Jungian concept, the journey marked by the Tarot trumps would represent the process of individuation, a series of psychological changes, which eventually merge into the complete human personality. And this is what the book is about.

PROLOGUE

-   I have a problem.
-   I know, why else would you have come to me? Describe your problem briefly, so that I can start talking about my problems the sooner.
-   Our meetings used to be a little more facetious, can’t you remember?
-  We had more time for ourselves, in those glorious days. Everything's changed since we both received our first promotion, and since then the workload has never stopped growing. Did you have a chance to have a glance lately at the statistics concerning the population growth?
-   Yes I did, and I know that it grew threefold since the previous release.
-   While our administrative power remained essentially the same. If anything, it may have got smaller.
-   With your uncanny sense for veracity you have zoomed straight to the root of my problem. I have learned recently that I'm going to lose one of my best workers. A quick promotion. I may have a very able replacement, but I have to pull him out of another department and I have no one to take his place there.
-   I sympathise with you, entirely. There was a time when we had a waiting list, but not any more. I, too, have a vacancy I haven't been able to fill and I was even contemplating that I should ask you if you could recommend someone.
-   You certainly have my permission to ask. Unfortunately, my replay is that I can't help you.
-   What about the others, do they fare any better?
-   I doubt it. No apprentices anywhere.
-   Wait a minute! This gives me an idea. What if we trained some speedily ourselves?
-   That depends on what you mean by the word 'speedily'. When do you need yours?
-   Tomorrow...
-   What about this afternoon? I don't know how would you manage that.
-   I don't know either, but I would like to try!
-   If I'm correct, the basic training takes seven human lives, on an average. In some cases it can be condensed into five lives. Even if we shortened the period of rest and contemplation between individual lives, let’s say, to only seventy human years, we could still not make it in less than something like seven centuries. That converts to about ten days. You won't get your replacement before the end of next week at best!
-   Your arithmetic's as good as ever, but there may be another way.
-   Another way?
-   It may be a bit radical, perhaps that's why it's never been used customarily used up to this point. Also, there was no need for any revolutionary changes to the system, while it produced enough candidates who successfully negotiated all twenty-two trials and graduated to this level. It worked perfectly, the graduates poured back into our sphere and they looked for a satisfying fulfilment. The Earth services would naturally attract them; there was something magical about returning to where they only recently walked themselves, and helping others to also reach the higher levels.
-  That's right, and we both know who is the culprit. Look no farther than to this thrice blasted Intergalactic Exchange, which has interfered with our idyllic conditions. Ever since it was introduced in our sector, the prospective candidates have all been queuing for those positions, and nobody wants to stay here any more. But can you blame them, just imagine that such an opportunity would have come our way when we were in their position - wouldn't we have jumped at it ourselves?
-   Exactly so. I, too have thought it a marvellous idea, that is until I found out that those who came here in exchange from the other spheres were individually brilliant, but quite unsuitable to our purposes. Our sector simply demands high local knowledge and specialisation, and those who don't have it to start with, are quite useless to us. We can successfully work only with the Earth graduates.
-   What are your suggestions then?
-   OK, here it comes. Up till now we have always recruited our workers from those who arrived here conditioned by the natural process of evolution, and we are in an agreement that this is our only feasible source for recruiting our staff. And that we should stick to it.
-   I'm still listening.
-   Well, at the root of it there are those seven lives, taken by an average candidate to reach the required level of self-consciousness. This is the norm, but from our own experience we both know that at least in some cases this can be shortened to five lives, which proves that the limits are flexible.
-   Yes, with exceptionally able individuals, and under certain conditions, the process of initiation can be accelerated.
-   Now comes the most important point. The precipitation appears to occur spontaneously, without any great involvement on our side.
-   If I follow you correctly, you propose that we apply ourselves to a greater extent in the process. But you cannot have your candidate on a wire and lead him on thus, that would contradict the basic articles of free will that are guaranteed to every individual. We simply cannot introduce any dictatorial methods!
-   I certainly wouldn't even contemplate that, but the system may be overdue for a revision. It is based on other systems that have been successfully applied elsewhere, and it was introduced on Earth a long time ago. Because it proved itself almost instantaneously, and because there were never any serious problems with it, no one had ever attempted to improve it. For instance, no in depth probe has ever been launched that would test the natural extent of human free will; consequently we have little idea how it operates, we only know that it moves within the certain established limits. Suppose that we chose the suitable candidates from those who have already qualified for the decisive journey through the Tarot arcane, and suggest to them, prior to the commencement of their journey, that it might be accelerated. At least, there would be a chance that some of the pilgrims might freely choose this accelerated mode of journey, if the benefits, and the risks, were explained to them.
-   OK, now for the vital part. What level of acceleration do you propose to suggest to them? Up to four lives, perhaps three... ?
-   To one life only.
-   That's impossible! That would be a sheer foolishness.
-   Why, you have just used the most proper expression. When I think about it, this is exactly what we are looking for.
-   The fools?
-   The Idiots, clowns, jesters, imbeciles, numskulls, jerks, nincompoops, goons, simpletons, blockheads, dopes, yahoos, twerps, jokers, call them anything you like. So long as they belong to that elusive society that is always so hard to define. I know what you want to say now; that at this level everyone must be exceptional in their own peculiar way.
-   I agree.
-   Well, we want those most peculiar among the exceptional to apply!
-   At my estimate, based on professional experience in dealing with the general statistics, there should be about a million souls momentarily finding themselves in the state of rest and contemplation, who would fit the description, and who would at the same time be eligible for the initiatory journey.
-   Out of this multitude, only a small portion, perhaps several hundred souls, would be focused on their causal body, the condition necessary for making such an important decision.
-   When do you propose to contact them?
-   Without any delay. Leave it to me.


                                                           ***


-   How did you go? You don't look exactly radiant. Did you find any volunteers?
-   I found two.
-   Fools, doubtless?
-   The two of us are probably the greatest fools. We know what's awaiting them, yet we have the audacity to send them down there.
-   They have made the decision freely and by themselves, didn't they?
-   Without our intervention they would never have contemplated it.
-   You sounded a little more optimistic, only a little while ago.
-   Perhaps I did. Meanwhile, I've had some time to think about it. It’s becoming painfully obvious to me that we have acted as imbeciles, idiots and blockheads ourselves.
-   Why, you said before that this would be their own best qualification, do you doubt their abilities now?
-   Please, sit down. Do you remember what's expected of them?
-   A little. It's been a long time since I walked along that path myself.
-   How many lives did you take, was it five?
-   I think so, maybe six.
-   You were always equal, if not ahead of me. I only needed five.
-   All right, if you say so, it must have been five.
-   Are you aware how much wisdom you’ve had to absorb in the space of time five times as large as they will have at their disposal?
-   I have only a hazy recollection. In the recent millennia I did not concern myself with the program greatly, I have full confidence in my staff.

- A typical administrator, that’s what you have become.

- If you say so…
-   Fine. Let’s pry on your memory. What was it that had made the most lasting impression on you at the time? In other words, when I say 'the Earthly Initiation', what comes immediately into your mind?
-   That hanging bit, I must say. On the gallows, head down. I don't think that I will ever forget how I felt then...
-   What about the meeting with the Devil, didn't that impress you?
-   Perhaps, at the time. Not much now. I have seen enough of his antics to this day. How about you, what do you remember?
-   The light of the Hermit's lantern. Seeing it was the turning point for me.
-   Yes, very instructive. What comes after that?
-   The Wheel of Fortune, I think.
-   The Sphinx! The riddle. Would you still know the answer to her riddle?
-   Wouldn't I? One doesn't forget such a thing so easily.
-   You know, my greatest problems were right at the beginning. All those majestic figures one had to deal with: the Emperor, the Empress, the Hierophant, all the glitter, all the dignity. When I look at it from this viewpoint...
-   You must admit that it is effective. They are archetypes, without them the mankind would be lost. They, too, have their human face, only they can't show it in public, otherwise everything would just collapse.
-   Did you ever wonder why they come in so early in the journey?
-   Where else should they come in? There is a reason for their early deployment. They make the candidate spellbound, their presence makes him feel more important, it increases his self-confidence. Don't forget that it must be kept at the highest possible level for the duration of the journey, this sense of purpose, the ambiguous foreboding that in this life one is meant to fulfil certain tasks. Normally there would only be three, maybe four such trials, in the course of one life. Our ambassadors will have to go through the lot in a single lifetime.
-   You know, my doubts about this whole business have steadily been growing. We may have left them with absolutely no room for any errors.
-   And it's only human to err, isn't it. I must admit that I share your sentiments.
-   Remember all those tales about the errant humans, and what happens to them when they encounter what they call the 'supernatural'?
-   You mean the fairy tales, like the one about the man who gets the opportunity to name three wishes, and what he does with it?
-   Yes, that's exactly it. The poor creature becomes completely paralysed, and he can think of nothing but banalities and silly wishes. He is so hopelessly entangled that when he finally spells his wishes they contradict one another, and he ends up with nothing. Mankind has invented such myths and fairy tales as a warning against meddling with the supernatural, but those who heed it and limit themselves to their five senses do not fare any better.
-   Yes, mankind has this inbuilt fear of the occult; at the same time they yearn for their world to be more than what can be touched, smelled, examined, measured or seen.
-   When they think about the universe they admire its boundless majesty, next they are suddenly struck by helplessness and resignation. If only they knew that they are touching something that calls just for one tiny step beyond which stands the esoteric thought, the idea on which the whole universe is built!
-   That's when they back away. That's when they usually declare that everything is only governed by a blind chance, that everything evolves thanks to a series of blind chances, all without a plan, without a purpose.
-   How can we be certain that our journeymen will realise their role in the creative process? All they will be able to feel is a distant calling, an uncertain urge, a quiet whisper of their inner self that is their task to rediscover.
-   It's the search for the purpose of their existence that will be their goal. I hope they will be able to realise that their path does not lie in the direction of a quiet, unhurried life filled with meditation, as the life of a future initiate is sometimes portrayed. Theirs is a pilgrimage through life, full of difficulties, adversities and dangers that they have to overcome to reach us here, and begin a new cycle of their development.
-   Wait! We demand the impossible from those who are not in the position to understand properly the difficulties of their task and seriousness of their situation. Isn't it time we looked closely at our own motives and responsibilities? Aren't we doing this only as a result of our ineptitude? Let's face it; we want to change our well established system because we need new blood. But we cannot be sure that they will want to join us, even if they succeed. Surely they would have the qualifications, but wouldn't they still have retained their free will? If they feel like it, they might simply join the queue in front of the Intergalactic Exchange...
-   Let's go! We have to stop them, or at least talk to them again.
-   I'm afraid it might be a bit too late now. The incarnating procedures were due to begin at four o'clock sharp. It's half past four. You know what that means?
-   We would be talking to toddlers about a year old.
-   There are other avenues...
-   Surely. When did you last try to contact the Death agency to change their appointments? The personnel is always so considerate, full of concern for their clients and for their relatives, they'll talk about the bereavement it would cause and so on.
-   I see your point. What about the time warp?
-   You are clutching at straws. We would have both our departments working flat out just to smooth out all the ripples.
-   What shall we do?
-   Nothing. Once we have set the ball rolling, we will have to live with the consequences. Let's wait till tomorrow for the results of our imprudence.
-   By the morning we should see how it is shaping.
-   Happy journey, Fools!

0. THE FOOL

Fools move somewhere half way between the heavens and the earth. Given that, it should hardly surprise us to see one in such elevated position, walking, or perhaps we should say merrily dancing, above the clouds on the top of a mountain.
It is truly a blessing, being a fool. Nevertheless, accustomed as they are to their rational ways of thinking, many people, even a majority, might dispute such statement. At the same time, unconsciously, people would sense that fools were accorded some special Divine privileges, and thus they often held their fellow human beings afflicted with a degree of foolishness in a relatively high esteem. In all ages, those who could afford it, would often employ their personal fools; many kings have kept in their vicinity the court jesters, who would have the exclusive privilege of speaking the truth to their faces. Because of their inbuilt insolence, some court jesters may have lost their heads now and then, but mostly they would have been allowed to carry on their mission more or less without a fear of being punished or even reprimanded.
Since its inception, the world has been compelled to bear a constant stream of fools, but has anyone wondered where do the fools come from? It may well be that they are being continuously born from a distant Cosmic Egg, and blown by the winds of universal breath they are scattered into all corners of the Universe. Breathing, as a scientist would attest, is nothing else than a slow form of combustion; isn't the never-ending production of fools perhaps meant to prevent the Universe from being hopelessly covered by eternal ice? And indeed, do not snow bearing clouds come rolling in whenever humanity decides that it has grown tired of looking at their mentally handicapped, and offers them the comfort of living in isolated institutions? On the other hand, does not everlasting summer reign over the populace, while it can still look with the smile of understanding and appreciation on its resident village idiots?
A fool may create havoc wherever he sets up his foot, but he can also help to relieve of tensions the minds overloaded by burdens of everyday life; he can conjure up a smile on sullen faces by crawling under surmountable obstacles, by turning up with beer instead of water that he was supposed to fetch, or by delivering vinegar instead of the requested beer. When the atmosphere becomes too heavy with the political ideology, the fools invariably invent exhilarating jokes. It might land them in jail for a while, but from a cohort of fools a whole legion of trained killers will eventually be forced to retreat.

Let’s return to the Fool we have previously spotted. There he is, wandering as if he hasn't a care in the world, in his jester's apparel, a walking stick in one hand and another over his shoulder, which supports a hanging purse. He lacks care, while the world that lies far below his feet is awaiting his imminent birth. Any moment now is he going to stroll into it with vehemence, and unpack everything he owns, everything that is crammed into his bundle. We are all born naked, that is an undisputed fact of life. Most of us believe that we do not bring anything with us, that all we have has been provided for us by our parents’ genes. But is this indeed the truth? If it were so, why is it that a surprisingly large number of consummate fools are being born to perfectly normal parents? When a child of ten, born to and raised by an artistically non-gifted and tone deaf couple, suddenly begins to compose music, could it be that they have brought with them something that only belongs to them alone, something that cannot be suppressed by the environment, by education, by rationality, by anything? There is a great mystery surrounding the contents of every newly born child's bundle, it is only revealed much later, and it is always unique, regardless of whether he or she is predestined to become just another average citizen, or whether they are fated to astonish everyone around them, even every living soul in the whole world!
The Fool's future is about to unfold. At the moment he is still in a timeless zone, but his next step, his first conscious step, will inevitably take him over the edge of the cliff. The fall into the precipice that is human existence, perhaps fascinating and desirable, maybe miserable and lamentable, yet unavoidable, will follow. He may already sense that any procrastination, any delay, would be useless; that may be why he keeps his gaze firmly fixed on the distant horizon. He is ignoring everything, even taking no notice of the small dog who frantically tries to stop him by hanging onto his trousers, eventually tearing it off, and revealing part of the Fool's proverbial naked bottom. All the Fool wants is to go, he wants to fly; he does not want to be slowed by the lower, animalistic instincts. He wants to be human, he wants to make human errors, and he wants to learn from the experience!
A curtain has already fallen over the Fool's past, and the one in front of him is yet to be raised. It could be an opportunity to contemplate the future that awaits him in the vast space below his feet, if only he could think with any clarity, if only he would be allowed to use this brand new instrument that he is soon going to acquire, the human brain. But the incarnating spirit's connection with the body is still incomplete and loose; all he can do at this point is live in a sort of dream. In this dream state, he suddenly becomes aware that someone or something is trying to break through to him. The Fool allows it to proceed and he hears a small voice near his right ear.

-   Hey, you there..! Can you hear me?

The Fool has no idea who is talking to him.
-   Can you hear me, Fool?
-   Who are you? Where are you hiding?
-   I'm your inner voice; you carry me within your purse.
The voice seems to emanate from the end of the stick over the Fool’s shoulder. Again, it talks to him:
-   Do you know where you are going?
-   I..., well, ... I'm not sure... I think… maybe…that I'm about to enter another life.
-   Indeed, you are. But this life will be different to those that you have lived before.
-   Why should it be different?
-   Because you desired it to be so, and because you have accepted a certain conditions.
-   I don't remember anything.
-   No, you wouldn't. That's why I'm here, to remind you of this.
-   Did I make any foolish promises?
-   You may have, but you are the Fool. As such you are equipped to handle the situation. Many come into the world, carrying purses that often contain unique talents they have been developing over their past incarnations. They are thus committed to developing them even further, and this can be a burden to them.

- Why should it be a burden?

- It can deter their spiritual advance. You have no such ties, all you carry with you is your inner voice; you can remain focussed on your spiritual life.
-   Am I meant to become a monk, or something like that?
-   I didn't say that. On the contrary, what lies ahead of you is not meant to be a life of contemplation; it will be full of action, with many adventures.
-   I'm looking forward to that.
-   So you should. But I have to forewarn you, there will be some weighty trials!
-   These trials, will they be very dangerous? I mean, will I have enough courage to face them?
-   You will know that only when they come to you. But others have faced them before you, and many have passed. The only difference is that in your case these trials will come in a quicker succession, so you'll have to keep going, you cannot afford to remain inactive. Always act as if there were no tomorrow!
-   What about you, will you be helping me?
-   I will do my best, but it's not that simple. The problem is that you might not always be able to hear me.
-   Why? I can hear you very well.
-   You can hear me now, but later you might be too busy listening to others, and not to your inner voice. We should be able to keep in contact while you are a child, but as you will grow up you will inevitably begin to draw away from me, and perhaps forget me altogether when you have reached adulthood.
-   How can you be so sure of that?
-   Because that's the way of you, the humans. No matter how loud your inner voices keep yelling into your ears, you stubbornly refuse to listen. I'm resigned to this, because I know that you are meant to make mistakes, since that’s the only way you can learn.
-   Maybe, I can have something that would remind me of your existence.
-   What, a knot on your hankie? You will be born naked, remember?
-   If I try to fix it into my mind?
-   Perhaps there is a way, after all. Your future life will be a journey of self-discovery and you will need to gather information and experiences of the real world, while maintaining an open link to your intuition. Try to impress deep into your mind this one image: you are standing here with your walking stick planted into the ground and the other stick over the shoulder. The latter acts as an antenna and you can listen through it to your inner voice; the former is your grounding. The world you are entering, has not yet heard of radio transmission, so these words will not sound familiar. That's exactly why it might help to jolt your memory.
-   Antenna, grounding... I'll remember that!
-   I'll always be near you, ready to help. The rest is up to you. Happy journey!
The Fool's very next step takes him over the edge.

1. THE MAGICIAN

A boy who sits under the bush may be ten years old or a little less. He looks down the hillside that wards the small river winding through the valley, followed by the country road. Within his sight are the first houses of the town that appears to be without much life, in the late morning of a warm summer day. In a few days the school holidays will end and the boy surprises even himself with the thought that he will welcome the new school year, with everything that comes with it; the anticipated move to another wing of the school building, the new teacher whose arrival was rumoured before the end of last year, who will have to be tested and rated, one or two new students, who will likewise be subjected to a severe scrutiny. He is especially looking forward to receiving a pile of new books, well, there will hardly be any new ones, some of them would be quite worn out, full of underlined words or sentences, and stained by the ink spilled over them by several generations of students. Only the children of local luminaries, who could afford to pay for the new schoolbooks, will obtain them. He, the son of the widow, will have to make do with what is provided free. Any day, some of his good friends will return from their vacations, all charged up and ready to release waterfalls of words about their refulgent adventures, and he will have to be ready to at least match them, which is not going to be easy. Presently, all he can describe with any confidence is the recent sighting of a viper in the grass behind the local cemetery, but if he stretches the snake to about three times its actual length, it might do.
A shimmering movement behind the trees caught the boy's attention. Something was coming down the road and even from a distance it did not look like any of the vehicles that he would normally expect to travel towards the town. When it came closer, he saw that it was a cart pulled by a single horse and covered with a tarpaulin that once had carried some pictures, which must have faded over many years of exposure to sunshine and rain. But the man who drove the cart! He wore a coat of several colours on his lean figure, and even though he did not look up from his reins, the boy could still somehow sense that his presence as a beholder had not remained undetected.
The cart went past towards the town and he hoped that it was the juggler's destination. He knew that could not pay for the admission to any performance that might take place, but it would still be quite entertaining if he could watch from the outside as the spectators come, and then listen to the noises coming from the inside of the hall by the local tavern. If he gets really lucky, he might even be able to steal a look or two through the door or the window, and he would have something to talk about with his absent friends!

At the town square in the afternoon there was a large handbill, announcing a magic show, and the juggler's cart was parked in front of the tavern, where a small crowd of onlookers had already gathered. The widow's son joined them and his determination to see the magician perform his illusions grew steadily. In his head he began to hatch various schemes, but he had to admit to himself that none of them would be likely to get him past the ticket seller, usually the wife of the innkeeper, a strict and attentive woman, who would not fall for any simple trickery. The magician would not let anyone touch his equipment, and he hauled it inside the hall himself, not giving anyone the chance to earn a free pass, but the boy noticed that afterwards he left the side door slightly ajar. He glanced around, and seeing that no one was watching, he quickly seized the opportunity, slipped through the door and closed it behind him.
Inside the hall the rows of chairs were already neatly arranged, awaiting the evening audience, but at the back stood a pile of unused tables and benches that offered an ideal hiding place. The boy found himself a perfect spot behind the oak furniture with a good view of the stage, and he made himself comfortable for the long hours of waiting. The only thing that worried him was that his mother might be alarmed when he failed to turn up for the evening meal, but thought that if he tells her the truth afterwards, she would understand.
Something was going on around the stage; he could hear some noises coming from that direction. Spying through a gap between the tables, he saw the magician busy arranging his props, and for a moment he froze thinking that the man might have seen him, because he briefly looked in his direction. He went back to his work, but was there a knowing smile on his face? The magician finally left, and the boy breathed a sigh of relief. Alone, with only some woodworms to keep him company, he fell asleep.
While the boy slept, he had a dream. He saw the magician who was again preparing his instruments, but the performance was not going to take place in the hall. The venue was a green meadow full of blossoming flowers, amongst them stood a large grey cube - on it the magician had laid four objects, a sword, a chalice, a golden coin and a magic wand. In his cloth of yellow, red and blue colours, the wide hat formed into the shape of a horizontal number eight on his head, he positioned himself over the cube. With one hand he was holding a small baton like a musical conductor's, pointing skyward, the tips of the fingers of the other hand were touching the coin on the cube. And, again, he had that same knowing smile on his face; it betrayed a certain amount of artifice, but at the same time it was essentially honest and trustworthy. Overwhelmed by the magician's appearance, the boy heard him say only one sentence: - One of my hands is an antenna, the other is my grounding.-  Strange words, antenna, grounding, he had never heard them before, yet they sounded vaguely familiar… As he woke up, the boy was still whispering the same words, 'antenna, grounding'...
The boy's whispers were drowned in the noise of the audience that in the meantime had packed the hall. Soon it went quiet, as the show was about to begin. To the tune of a barrel organ, its handle turned by the intensely proud and self-conscious innkeeper's son, one of the boy's schoolmates, the juggler performed a series of tricks. In his lively hands the tightly knotted ropes were instantly and mysteriously untangled, eggs and borrowed coins had disappeared in front of the astonished eyes, and then reappeared again, seemingly pulled out of the ears of some mildly embarrassed people, to an immense delight of the rest of the audience. The magician's hat produced a live rabbit, quickly followed by a dove that flew over the heads of the audience and landed on the hand of the conjurer.

Eventually, having already covered most of the stage with artificial flowers, all coming out of a visibly hollow and empty cylinder, the magician announced that the highlight of the evening was to follow. In front of everybody, he will cause one member of the audience to disappear. A large grey cube was brought to the centre of the stage and the magician asked that a committee be selected from the members of the audience, which will inspect the box and make sure that there are no hidden traps or double walls anywhere. He stood aside to allow the committee go on with its task, his arms folded on his chest, and with an ironical smile on his face he watched the local dignitaries crawl along the dusty boards of the stage, until they were completely satisfied that everything was in order. The magician then declared that he now needed another person, someone very courageous. People looked at each other, a couple of young men were about to make their way to the stage, but the magician dismissed them with a decisive gesture of his hand. He closed his eyes as if he was deeply concentrating, then in a well acted flash of inspiration he focused his gaze onto the pile of furniture and begun to walk there, followed by every eye in the hall.
A second or two later the audience roared with laughter, as the magician pulled the terrified boy from under the tables and led him to the stage. The boy's face was red from all the humiliation and unwanted attention, but the magician whispered into his ear:
-   Don't worry, nothing's bad is going to happen to you.
The reassuring tone of his voice brought out the lingering image of the dream, and the boy felt a little more relaxed, though still apprehensive. The magician silenced the laughing audience.
-   Some might think it foolish. I call it bravery!
People gradually stopped laughing, some of the present ladies even looked with adoration at the small boy.
-   Come on. Give him a good ovation!
While everyone in the hall applauded, the magician managed to whisper some instructions into his ear.
-   Just stay calm, and don't resist anything I'll do with you. A note, you’ll find, will tell you what to do next.
He said aloud to the audience:
-   This young man had not paid for his admission, so we will have to make him work for it. You, gentlemen, have already made sure that the box is empty. With your help, we will now put this audacious lad into it, nail down the lid, and put this chain around it!
The atmosphere inside the hall was heavy with expectation, as the boy crawled into the crate. The lid closed above him, but he scarcely had any time to worry what might happen to him there, because, almost immediately, one of the walls of the box swung open on hinges, he felt himself grabbed by a strong hand, pulled out, and swiftly deposited somewhere in a near darkness. He took only a few seconds to orientate himself; he was at the backstage, separated by a heavy curtain from whatever was happening on the other side. Directed by the local magistrate, the men there were still busy securing his former prison and making it escape proof, noisily hammering in the nails and securing it with a heavy chain. He also heard their voices:
-   We need another nail, there.
-   Ouch! That was my finger.
-   Who's got the lock?
-   Here, I'll keep the key.
-   No one could possibly get out of that!
And so on. He had to put his hand over his mouth, as he could hardly keep from laughing. Then he saw a hand move through the gap in the curtain; it held a piece of paper. He took it and read:
Take the back door and go to the main entrance. When you hear a lot of noise, walk in!

Soon he stood with his ear on the door. He could hear the squeaking of nails being forced out of the lid and some encouraging shouts from the spectators. Next came a loud gasp; they had obviously found the crate empty. As the uproar inside grew, he sensed that now was the time for his triumphant entry. At first his presence went unnoticed; all eyes were fixed onto the stage and on the frantic search that went on all around it. The magician stood by, he gave him a wink and put his finger over his mouth. He waited a little longer, until everybody was ready to give up the search, then he called:
-   Cashier! We have a late arrival, could you sell one more ticket?
The people turned their heads to the door and they begun to laugh, when they saw the missing boy standing there. The magician brought him back onto the stage, where they were both subjected to a loud acclamation.
The show ended, the audience had left the hall. The magician took the boy aside.
-   What’s your name?
-   Victor.
-   You did very well, Victor. You earned much more than the cost of a single ticket.
He put a golden coin into his hand. It looked much like the one in the boy's dream, only smaller.
-   Keep this, until we meet again. Now it's time for you to go back to your home. By the way, your mum knows where you are, I told the innkeeper to send someone with the message. But she must be waiting for you, so you had better run!

                                                        ***

Given a freedom of choice so far as his future vocation is concerned, the Fool is likely to select something highly impracticable. After all, fools are not always meant only to become public servants, as many of us might erroneously assume. Some, without a doubt, do just that, but any bureaucratic system overloaded with fools would be doomed to soon collapse, and this has to be prevented at all cost. A safety valve was thus built into the cosmic order, through which the fools are being allowed to escape all mediocrity. Preferred modes of manifestation for such advanced spirits therefore are either a profound foolishness or a supreme intelligence; this renders most of them unfitted for the most common of existing career paths.
Having completed his education with his studies centred on some undisruptive subjects, such as philosophy or history, the son of the widow naturally has his problems finding a position that would match these qualifications. But he does not lose much sleep over it, and finds himself some menial work that will support him in postgraduate studies of art, literature, music and particularly languages, because he fully expects to leave this town and country, possibly forever, and he wants to be prepared as best as he can.
One day, the allure of travel becomes too great, and the Fool succumbs to it, packing his meagre possessions into a rucksack and saying good bye to a few friends. He sets out on a journey without a particular destination, sensing that forces awakened by his decision will take over and lead him. He chooses to walk, because his tiny resources are too valuable to be needlessly spent on luxuries, such as stagecoach ride. Anyone who has ever travelled with such an attitude knows, that 'chance meetings' and adventures, some of which are highly improbable, are nevertheless likely to happen. Journeying fools are most appreciative and therefore often become the recipients of unusual happenings, because Providence would not waste these on rationalists, who would be too likely to readily explain them away.
The Fool, in accordance to this law, was destined to meet another traveller, and naturally he was the juggler who once visited his home town, and whose coin he still kept in his pocket as a good luck piece. Astonishingly, the meeting took place on the background of the same scenery that he saw in a dream when he was ten years old, the dream that he still vividly remembered! The cart's wheels squeaked as it pulled up, and the magician descended from his seat.
    -   So, we meet again.
It was a simple statement, but the Fool was amazed, as it seemed almost superhuman to be able to recognize in his dust covered face the countenance of the child that the juggler had met only once, nearly twenty years ago!
-   How could you possibly have remembered me?
-   Well, there isn't much wrong with your memory either.
-   Yes, but you didn't change at all. You even have the same cart.
-   Except the horse, did you notice that I have a new one?
-   But we only met once…
-   Have you forgotten our other meeting, on this very spot?
-   Wasn't that only in my dream?
-   Some dreams can be reflections of a higher reality and children in them may appear as adults.
-   Who are you? This juggler's attire, it's a disguise, isn't it?
-   We all have to wear costumes and masks, in this world. In one way or another, life is always a theatre. You chose the fool's guise I dress as a comedian. It is preferable to wearing tailcoats with top hats or splendid robes with golden chains, which is all too often the way of the real comedians who inhabit this planet. They might as well put themselves into straight jackets and fetters instead of silk and laces, because it's their snobbery and their dogmatism that ties them down and stops them from progressing spiritually.
-   Is simplicity a sign of spiritual advancement?
-   Not necessarily. But those who seek to advance usually cannot afford to be pretentious, and true wisdom often has a reason to hide.
-   To hide, from what?
-   From the forces of darkness that always want to smother it. Many a wise men were declared heretics and were sentenced to asphyxiate in the fumes of auto-da-fe; millions of books loaded with wisdom were burned, and those who ordered such atrocities have put on their most resplendent garbs for the occasion. On the same day they might have even delivered sermons from the pulpits of the most wonderful cathedrals, declaring themselves and letting others celebrate them as the initiates of this world!
-   I take it as an implication that the real initiation has to be sought elsewhere.
-   Indeed, it has. Those who seek it are far more likely to obtain it in a primitive tabernacle, with a grassy floor under their feet and a ceiling of heaven above their heads, with the sun and the moon shining being the source of light rather then crystal chandeliers, with the birds in the trees substituting for a singing choir. But most important of all are the doors and the windows of such an open temple; they are the neophyte’s eyes and his ears.
-   Are there any more requirements?
-   Only one. The strongest possible desire to embark on the journey of self-discovery!
-   That's what I'm longing for!
-   That's why we meet here.
-   Will you initiate me?
-   Your pilgrimage will unfold from this point; it will lead you through the twenty-two arcane of human wisdom. Each of these demands a separate initiation. The real initiator is the first arcane, it is numbered 'zero', and it is represented by yourself, the Fool, the yet unwound but boundless potential. I belong to the next arcane, and I can initiate you into the secrets of true magic, which uses forces concealed behind the natural phenomena. Are you ready to receive my instructions?
-   I am ready.
The conjurer went to his cart and took from it the already familiar cubic box, now looking even more battered and worn out through constant usage. On it, he laid his instruments of magic, in the way that made the Fool's distant dream transform into reality. Then a great metamorphose took place, instead of an ordinary travelling comedian there stood the real and indisputable Magician, the genuine 'Magus' of an ancient lore. There was an air of supremacy in the manner in which he took up the sword and lashed it a few times in front of his one-man audience.
-   The swishing noise you hear is the sound of the sword in action, and the resistance of air causes it. Our whole environment is filled by air, the air we breathe, in the air we move, we act, and we react. As the tool of magic, the sword thus represents the first of the elements of ancient wisdom, the element of air. What would be the first thing that the sword would suggest to you?
-   It’s an instrument of war, of conquest.
-   Indeed, the sword is a symbol of courage, the necessary trait of personality that every initiate must possess. But its symbolism goes much further, far beyond the simple fights and warring games. There are true adversaries that must be challenged, and facing them requires more than a simple courage.
-   You mean confronting the enemy within, like the wrong habits, the weaknesses of one's character?
-   I wanted to hear it from your mouth. When facing our own imperfections, we need more fortitude than when we confront an outside opponent. Once we realize that some part of our personality has become an impediment to our progress, we cannot allow it to continue rotting away, we have to gather all our courage and cut it off without mercy. Thus the sword is not just the warrior's tool, it is also a surgical instrument - it can be used for healing and cleansing purposes, even for scientific discoveries. How would you best describe the qualities of those people who are intellectually active?
-   That they have a sharp mind.
-   Precisely! Sword is the positive and dynamic approach, it is the untiring state of the mind and of the body; it is the masculine activity that a future initiate must develop. Son of the widow, here I present to you, this sword!
The Magician held the sword in his right hand by its sharp end, and supporting the blade by the palm of his left hand, he offered the handle to the Fool, who accepted it. He returned to the cube and took the golden chalice, lifting it up in his cupped hands.
-   This is the chalice, a vessel used for preserving liquids, the watery element. As opposed to the masculine sword - air, the chalice - water, is feminine in its nature. What is the general perception of femininity?
-   It is said to be the weaker sex.
-   Do you believe this to be true?
-   That depends on how we define strength and weakness.
-   You certainly are no fool. Femininity indeed appears weak, soft, gentle and liquid, but this is only an illusion. You can have a sword forged out of the best hardened steel, but if you try it on a stone, it will soon be blunted or even broken, without leaving more then a few scratches on its surface. Yet the same stone will in time be eroded by water, through its patience and endurance. Such is femininity, liquid, fragile, faint and transparent, weak in its appearance. In reality it is stronger then any solids, because it cannot be compressed, broken, bent or torn apart. Imagine that you are piercing the surface of water with this sword. What happens?
-   Nothing much, the water takes it in, it closes around it.
-   And when you pull out the sword?
-   Nothing again, except maybe a few ripples.
-   You see? The wound that you have inflicted with your sword is instantly healed, which proves that femininity is in fact invulnerable. Air may be stormy, keen, threatening, while water is quiet and inconspicuous, it calmly flows, it searches, and it always finds its own level. But underneath the surface it is vivid and it is always capable of a decisive action. Just look at this chalice! It is empty, it is clean and immaculate, it passively invites someone to fill it up. When we do fill it up, what happens? Forthwith it becomes active, it determines what future shape its new contents will take.
-   I never thought of it in this way, but you are right, of course.
-   What you hear are the words of wisdom, and they are like a rare wine. Let's now pretend that you come to me with this chalice in your hands, and that you want to have a taste of the wine I have to offer. However, you have already tasted other brands of wine before this one, and some of it is still left in your cup. In fact, the chalice you hand to me is half full. What can I give you?
-   You can only give me half of your acquired wisdom.
-   The chalice will be overflowing before you have received it all. But that's not all, whatever you will have gained from me would be mixed with some cheap wine you have brought from elsewhere. The original taste of the fine wine will forever be lost to you! What conclusion would you draw from this paralel?
-   That any wisdom seeker should come to the place of learning with an empty cup.
-   Empty and clean. If there is any grime left in it, it will hopelessly contaminate anything that's poured into it. I especially want you to remember this important lesson. Now, take this cup and look after it well!
-   I will remember that, thank you.
-   Do you still have the coin I once gave you?
The Fool produced the coin from his pocket and the Magician looked pleased.
-   Look at the coin. It belongs to Earth, it was minted from its essence, from the most precious metal it can yield. Such coins hold eternal value, because they are the price of our labours, physical or intellectual. When the human society reached a certain level of development it began to trade, and with the commerce came the need for introducing a currency. How did you come to own this pair of shoes you wear and with which you are touching the ground?
-   I bought them.
-   You exchanged them for coins. Both, shoes and coins, connect us to Earth, both give us our stability, solidity and security. So long as we maintain our association with the Earth, we are able to retain our mental balance. Our equilibrium can easily be lost, especially if we delve too much in abstract thought. Those who have such problem can greatly benefit from any activity that would take them closer to the element of Earth, such as making pottery from its clay. States of depression, gloomy thoughts, can be dispersed through Earth's influence, the earth element can also help you if you find yourself under attack by an occult force or foreign thoughts. If that happens to you, touch the ground, or start playing with coins in your pocket with your hand. Phantoms don't like the Earth, and this will help to chase them away. Now, tell me what's on your coin.
-   It bears a pentagram.
-   Everyone knows that pentagram is the symbol of magic. But why is it so? Man practises magic; without people there would be no magic on Earth. Any physical act we perform is first conceived in our mind and then willed by us, this is what magic is all about; the power of human intellect. The coin is round, like our planet, and the pentagram, the five-pointed star, resembles man in a magician's hat, with his arms and legs outstretched, as if he were to embrace and rule the whole world. And man can do just that, but only when he trains himself to use the tremendous power of his conscious mind!
The Magician laid the coin on the surface of the cube and he took the wand and held it up in one hand, while pointing to the coin on the cube with the finger of his other hand. For a short while he remained in this position, the same as seen in the Fool's dream. After a while he spoke again.
-   The magic wand is made of wood, a combustible material; it represents the element of fire. The main task of any genuine magician is to direct the cosmic fire to Earth, so that the latter can be invigorated by it. He closely resembles the conductor of an orchestra, who draws with his baton the sound of musical instruments, which he moulds and concentrates into celestial symphonies. He, who can learn to properly use this wand, can use it to transform a cacophony of noises into a grand opera of life. Take it and learn to do it yourself!
You are now in possession of all the basic tools of magic. They symbolize the four states of cosmic substance and the four axioms of the ancient wisdom, which I urge you to engrave forever into your mind: WILL!  DARE!  ACT!  KEEP SILENT!
Remember that there is only one true magic, that it is always positive and that it is employed in building and in construction. On this level, it is used in the building of real houses and real cathedrals. On higher planes, you concentrate on erecting the house of your personality. Finally, you raise a temple of the human spirit, an edifice never touched by hand. This temple will remain standing forever!

                                                           ***

The Magician fell silent. Now a wandering juggler as before, he went to load the cube back into his cart, with the Fool helping him to lift it. The older man suddenly turned and held the hand of his apprentice with a strong grip.
-   It's time for us to part, Victor. Maybe that we will meet again, that depends on how you successful you will be on your oncoming journey. Before we separate, there is just one thing that I will tell you. As you have gained initiation into the first arcane of wisdom, you are no longer a fool, you have earned the right to call yourself a neophyte, that is the candidate for a higher initiation. Let it be a victorious journey!
Soon, the tarpaulin over the juggler's cart, worn out and bleached by the sun, was only a small speck on the horizon.

2. THE HIGH PRIESTESS

The road Victor was following led towards distant mountains, and he felt that climbing the range would suit his present frame of mind. Echoing through his mind were the Magician's final words about building a temple of the human spirit. He recalled the Biblical story of Solomon and his temple in Jerusalem, and particularly the words of the scriptures that it was not touched by a human hand, which had always sounded mysterious to him. Now he understood what they meant; the temple was conceived and designed by its architects on a higher level. The physical temple, the work of many hands, was only a reflection of the supreme work. Like everything in this world it was transient, it stood for several centuries before it was destroyed, again by human hands. The real temple the biblical architect had built still stands, it can never be violated, it will remain standing forever.
Victor had plenty of time to contemplate - for days that followed he travelled alone, and he instinctively avoided the more populous districts. The road became a pathway, it turned into a narrow track that threatened to vanish altogether, but just as Victor began to seriously consider turning back and trying to find another route he saw a narrow path that steeply climbed onto a mountain. An arduous climb led him through several defiles and eventually to a mountain pass. After a long trek through a valley, the path began to rise again and suddenly it took a sharp turn. When Victor reached it, he viewed a distinctive double mountain peak, and underneath it, below the sheer rock face, several buildings surrounded by a wall. They must have been made of white marble, because the intensity of light they reflected almost hurt his eyes. A monastery? What else could it be, in such remote part of the world?
A barely discernible trail continued winding up the steep slope, and it was already dark when Victor reached the gate and knocked on it several times. There was no answer; those who lived there must have already gone to bed. He had no other option then unpacking his sleeping bag and laying down for the night, next to the silent wall.
When he woke up into the chilly highland morning, Victor noted with relief that the gate was now open. He walked through it, unchallenged, without a living soul in sight. He found himself in an enclosure, in the centre stood a temple surrounded by a few smaller buildings. The door of the temple was open, he walked to it and cautiously looked inside. It took a while for his eyes, dazzled by the whiteness of the marble walls, to get used to the dim light inside, but eventually he could see to the far end of the anteroom. Two large pillars stood there, marking an entrance into an inner chamber, but hanging between the pillars was a turquoise coloured veil that obstructed any farther view. Moreover, the entrance into the 'sanctum sanctorum' was guarded.
In front of the veil a woman was seated, clothed in a long, flowing blue robe. She had a golden tiara on her head and on her knees she held an open book. Victor moved a step or two closer to her, but then his gaze met with such severe and forbidding expression on the priestess' face that inadvertently he backed again to the entrance. Unconsciously he knew that under no circumstances would the female sentry allow him to enter the inner chamber, or even get near it. Absolute determination to protect her secrets was written in the priestess' expression as well as in her body language; she would certainly have been capable of staring down a whole army if it tried to invade the temple.
Victor turned away and walked out of the temple; it was obvious to him that there were certain things he was not meant to know, secrets that he was not allowed to penetrate. As he walked down the steps, he glimpsed some figures entering one of the buildings and he was bold enough to follow them. He found himself in a large hall, which was full of nuns, all identically dressed in white robes with purple head coverings, all seated on benches around several long tables, and eating their meal. Absent nevertheless were noises that one would normally expect to hear at such a large gathering. Even though the nuns' faces turned to him as he entered, some even reflecting a mild expression of surprise at his unexpected appearance, all this happened in total silence.

A hand touched his elbow. Victor saw that it belonged to an elderly woman of tiny stature; she looked at him kindly, with a motherly smile on her wrinkled face. She beckoned him to take a seat in the corner, and when he did, the whole assembly returned to the quiet ritual of eating their breakfast that had been interrupted by his arrival. Victor was also served a bowl of gruel and a jug of water, and he appreciated this simplest of meals more than if he had been invited to a large feast. The old woman came back, and still without uttering a word, she beckoned him follow her. Apparently, the monastic order she belonged to was under some strict observance, and the nuns were not allowed to speak, he did not know whether the rule was permanent or only temporary. The nun led him to the annexe of a building nearest to the temple, and into a cell. She pointed to a bed that was its only furniture, and then she meaningfully lifted up one finger. He can stay one night. Because he wanted to show her that he understood while at the same time feeling obliged not to violate the code of silence, he traced an arc of the sun's path overhead and then pointed to his rucksack. The nun nodded in agreement and left.
Except for the temple's inner chamber, there seemed no restrictions as to his movements, but respecting the nuns' privacy, Victor spent most of the day outside the convent's walls. There, below the temple, he found a spring of water coming out of the rock, with the stones surrounding it all worn and polished, bearing witness that the place must have been frequently visited by the nuns. He sat on a stone and admired the view of the landscape below the range. In a far distance, presence of a large river could be sensed rather than directly seen, and he intuitively knew that he was now sitting at its source and that the stream, which came from this rock, was somehow associated with his future journey. He decided that the next day he would follow it and see where it would lead him.

***

At night in his cell, Victor had a dream. Again he found himself in the anteroom of the temple, facing the High Priestess. Even now, she was uncompromising in her resolve not to let him go inside, but a part of the veil that shrouded her nature, at least was drawn aside. Without words, the woman communicated with him, and through the dream Victor learnt that the High Priestess personifies the entire process of initiation to which he had committed himself. She was the symbol of Divine Motherhood, and as it is with all mothers who would not allow their children see too much of the grown-ups' way of life too early, the apparent strictness and flatness of her refusal was in fact a form of protective kindness. In a sense, being new on the path of initiation, Victor was like a newly born child who has to first learn his first steps. The inner strength of determined mothers comes from higher forces; motherly love and understanding are mysterious powers, beyond the limits of ordinary human comprehension. True mission of a woman can only be perceived by another woman. Among men, only some artists, chiefly poets, can sometimes undertake restrictive journeys into the realm of the mothers.
While the origins of womanhood are remote, on earthly level they become further blurred by the invisible and periodical potency of the Moon. This is where the erroneous view, held by most uninitiated people, of the Moon being no more then a mere satellite of our planet, had developed. From the esoteric point of view, though now manifestly lifeless, the Moon is Earth's mother, her life giver. Because of this fundamental misunderstanding, there remains the unfortunate tendency to see woman as man's satellite, whose only role is to forever remain in his orbit. Ideally, woman should fill the role of a High Priestess, in her family, for the whole of humanity, and in some bygone cultural eras it was indeed so, but not in the more recent times. In the cultures that allow women assume more active roles in worldly affairs it can only be achieved by them through suppressing a part of their femininity, that imperceptible constituent of their psyche often called the feminine mystique, the natural seat of their intuition. Upon making such sacrifice they are able to act more positively and decisively on the material level, but they become less active on the spiritual level. A total emancipation of women in this world can only be achieved when a complementary adjustment is made in the realm of the spirit, eventually reaching the state of balance of a higher order.
The on-going battle of the sexes is of little concern to the temple's guardian, because she knows who she is and where she belongs. The High Priestess represents the first step in the process of manifestation, with her, the involution of the spirit into matter began – it had originally entered the state of material existence by becoming polarised. The two pillars at the entrance, one being positively and the other negatively charged, symbolize duality. The veil that is spread between them is the sacred mystery of Motherhood, a profane person is forbidden by the Universal law to see beyond it and to desecrate it.
An open book lies on the High Priestess' lap, it is white as the light, but even the primeval light already contains the whole spectrum of colours in potentiality – correspondingly the clear pages of the book hold the whole of knowledge that is attainable by humanity. Its openness invites us to read and to learn all Nature's laws. Anyone who enters the path of knowledge must begin the search in the Nature's lap; when it is read with full understanding it eventually unveils the mysteries of the inner temple. In the unfolding process of cosmic evolution, the High Priestess represents the second stage, the number two, and duality. Unity, the state that preceded it, was sterile and as yet incapable of any evolution; it first had to create an opposition to itself, within itself – the original act of Creation. With the number two, polarity, the principle of fatherhood separates from the principle of motherhood. From here on, the principle of choice is introduced, the opposing concepts of the good and the evil, light and darkness, the positive and the negative. Those who endeavour to walk on the path of knowledge must also lead their searches in two directions, observing the outer world while at the same time fathoming the depths of the human soul. Most ordinary humans incline towards one way or the other, either aiming at the outer direction towards scientific observation, or inwards, towards artistic pursuits. The sons of Cain and the sons of Abel have not yet settled their differences.
The last thing Victor caught sight of in his dream was the robe of the High Priestess, blue and liquid and flowing out of the temple in a stream, running down the mountainside, becoming a river. And he knew that he saw the stream of Universal knowledge, accessible to anyone, but to be followed only by those possessive of the strong heart and determination of a true explorer.
Victor woke up. He knew where he had to go. Among the silent women he ate his breakfast, he thanked the nun who had looked after him, and he walked out of the open gate.

3. THE EMPRESS

As Victor expected, the stream he followed had gradually widened as it descended the mountain range. The trek was difficult from the beginning and it was not getting any easier, as he often had to wade through shallow water, climb over boulders and avoid the many roots that extended from the banks like imposing buttresses. Once he was even forced to take an altogether different route because the brook suddenly fell over a cliff, forming a large and spectacular waterfall.
Victor was so charmed by the picturesque landscape that he stayed there for several days, camping in a small cave, eating the wild berries and particularly trout, abundant in the inlet and easy to catch by hand under its banks, thanks to the skill he acquired in his early boyhood. He caught more fish then he could eat, so he had some dried in the sun and it became his staple food when he later continued on his expedition.
After a few more days of tracking the stream he followed progressively widened, eventually becoming a small river, which no longer flowed through a virginal land. On both sides of the rivulet mature fruit trees grew. To Victor the sight of ripe apples was irresistible, especially after the rather one-sided diet the he was lately forced to by circumstances. He chose the tree with the best looking fruit to climb into, and was ravenously biting into the third apple, when he heard a commanding voice that sounded from below:
-   Hey, you there! Get down, and fast!
The two men who stood under the tree did not look as though they were joking, they were tall and burly and they had menacing expressions on their bearded faces. And to cap it all, they held naked swords in their hands. Victor had no choice but to obey them. He jumped down, where he was instantly taken a prisoner. While he was having his hands tied behind his back with a rope, he tried to justify his act of thievery:
-   I'm sorry, I was hungry and...
-   Look, no use your telling us, said one of the men and the other added:
-   You'll have to explain to her Majesty, what you're doing in her garden.
-   To whom?! Does this garden belong to the queen?
-   Don't play silly games with us, will you? Most probably you're a spy, anyway. Shut up a let’s march!
-   Where are you taking me?
-   To her Imperial Majesty, as I said. No more silly questions.
To demonstrate that this was indeed the end of any conversation, the man pushed Victor, and not very gently, on his way.
Victor harboured no great desire to mix with the Royalty, but he told himself that if unavoidable, he would have preferred to be conducted more conventionally than being dragged along the path in a manner suited to a common criminal. The inevitable thought that even the mythical progenitors of humanity were said to have been guilty of a similar transgression was of little comfort to him, because of the serious consequences that followed their disobedience of the law. Moreover, poor Adam could have at least claimed that he was misled, while in Victor's case, as he had to admit to himself, it was a sheer greediness that had landed him in this trouble.
The time stood still and Victor forgot for the moment that he was, in a somewhat rough style, being led towards an unknown destiny. He felt that the scent of the air he was breathing had inexplicitly changed; the late summer transformed into the early spring, with a mixture of smells from the flowering trees and plants. Countless birds that nestled in the tree tops added their songs to the buzz of busy insects, together they sounded an overture to the most joyful of seasons, when Nature turns on all her charms and almost seems to touch us on our faces. Somehow, Victor was aware of the Empress' presence in the garden, he knew that these wonders had all belonged to her, and he kept thinking of what she would be like. He imagined her to be a beautiful young woman who would sit on a throne, somewhere not too far, near the purling brook, enjoying all the tributes that were being paid to her by the gloriously cheerful life that surrounded her. Of course that she would wear the imperial crown on her head, in one hand she would hold a staff, in the other a shield with a flying eagle, the symbol of her lofty position. At her feet there would be a sickle moon, because she is related to the High Priestess who was her predecessor on a higher level of existence. In her, the creative potential as the guardian of Nature's secrets has become realized, the mysterious Isis has become the fertile Ceres, the sacrosanct Virgin was transformed into the Madonna of the gardens. While the former devoted herself to service of the Spirit, the latter is its fulfilment, radiant with an abundance of creative energies, causing the rampant growth of everything that surrounded her. While the High Priestess looks back to the origins of the Spirit, the Empress looks forward, into the field of manifestation. Under her heart she feels the germ of a new life, she herself is Life, she is the embodiment of eternal youth, which does not recognize and does not even want to hear about the existence of old age, of autumn, of winter, of death, of decay, which only wants to live in an eternal spring, and does...
Victor felt that the Empress could not possibly be as unapproachable as the woman in the temple, though he could not expect his plight to be of more than passing interest to her. In his mind, the Empress personified the natural forces and these do not distinguish between Good and Evil, it would be contradictory to their main task if they were to be biased in one way or the other. An observer of Nature can always see the apparent goodness and softness that she displays in certain ways, but cannot be ignorant either of her balancing austerity, sometimes even cruelty. Thus he may stop and admire the charming form and colours of a wildflower, in the next minute only to be horrified by the sight of a grasshopper being eaten by ferocious ants while still alive and moving! Nature cannot permit herself to be sentimental; the predicament of any individual is not of a great concern to her, life of an insect, even of a human, is only a tiny part of one of her numerous cycles. We understand very little of the forces she employs and if we start to play with them, without the necessary knowledge and purity of mind, we risk having our fingers burned. Any attempt on our part to rewrite the laws of Nature, however well meant, is always hazardous, because the ways of Nature are extremely complicated, and we can never be certain of what we might disrupt or throw out of balance. Thus scientists might want to satisfy their curiosity, and perhaps even their lust for power over the forces of Nature, and try to justify their meddling with these forces by declaring that this is going to benefit mankind in some way, perhaps by finding a new method of curing a disease. They might even cure some people of their ailments, and be hailed as saviours of mankind. However, there is no way for a scientist to be anything other than a specialist in a certain, very limited field. Moreover, in the course of more recent centuries, such fields have become narrower and narrower. Further still, our lives are far too short to allow individuals or even successive generations of scientists to observe some of the larger cycles of Nature. Thus we might be totally ignorant of consequences of some acts we might conceive as beneficial, which in a longer run might turn against us - our innocence and oblivion could easily lead to a future disaster. Of one thing we can always be certain: Nature will always find a way to equilibrium, sometimes even by sending out troops of ravenous ants who devour the offending grasshopper…
The events that led to Victor's present situation had a similar flavour of innocence and oblivion, nevertheless, there were signs he should have read. For instance, he should have realized that cultivated gardens must have their owner, and that his act would, in fact, be stealing, which for him could have some serious repercussions.
The thought brought him back to reality. Meanwhile they had left the orchard and reached an open green. There, surrounded by her ladies-in waiting, was the Empress. The guards would not dare approach her directly, instead they waited for one lady to notice them and come to them; they told her that they brought a man they had caught acting suspiciously inside the palace grounds. The lady walked to the Empress and came back with the order that Victor be brought before her Imperial Majesty. As he was being led to her, Victor saw that the Empress wore no crown nor carried any staff and that there was no sickle moon by her feet, but in many other respects she looked much as he imagined her to be, young, beautiful, and almost certainly, pregnant. When she spoke to him, her voice sounded surprisingly familiar.
-   What were you doing in the garden?
-   I humbly apologise, your Majesty, I didn't know I was in your garden.
-   There are fences with signs everywhere, or can't you read?
-   I'm sorry, your Majesty, I didn't come across any fences, or any signs.
-   Which road did you take?
-   With your permission, your Majesty, I didn't take any road, I came along the stream.
-   I see. Well, you have a point, there is no fence there. But there is nothing but wilderness, all the way to the ranges.
-   Yes, your Majesty, that's where I came from.
-   From the mountains? And along the stream? How long did you follow it?
-   From its origin, your Majesty.
-   You've been to the convent!
-   I only stayed there one day, your Majesty.
The Empress looked at Victor with a glimpse of interest, then she suddenly begun to laugh.
-   I don't blame you. My sister rules it, and she's not much fun, is she?
Seeing the Empress' amusement, Victor felt a little more relaxed.
-   I didn't exactly talk to her, but she impressed me as being very strict.
-   That's a mild way of putting it. She is much older than I, and I haven't seen her since I was a child, but she was always like this and I doubt that life in the convent would have mellowed her much. Free him from those ropes!
The last words were directed to the guards, who quickly obeyed. The Empress ordered her entire entourage to stand back and bid Victor to come closer.
-   You can leave the formalities out now, I want to have a talk to you. You must belong to a rare breed if you were allowed in the convent. You saw my sister, but she wouldn't let you go inside the temple, isn't that so?
-   Yes, your M...
-   I asked you to drop that Majesty bit, didn't I? You stayed overnight there, did you?
-   I did.
-   And my sister appeared to you in a dream, is that so?
-   Yes, she did.
-   That's her way. This can only mean one thing, she recognizes that you are on a spiritual path. It also means that she sent you here and that I'm obliged to help you to get further along your way. She does that, from time to time, you know?
-   I thought that it was my idea, to follow that stream.
-   She probably would have put it into your head. But don't despair, young man, you'll have plenty of opportunities to show off your originality in the future. And you'll need some of it very soon, tomorrow, in fact. Today you should stay in the palace and have some rest, but in the morning the coach will take you into the city, with the letter I'll give you for my husband. He enjoys meeting people like you, but you better be prepared for any tests that he might give you. I'll give you only one hint: look for the human face behind his Emperor's facade, and you'll succeed.
-   Thank you, I'll do my best.
-   That might not be enough, you too, must learn to relax and stop being so rigid. I know it's hard for you, and it might be even harder when you put on the clothes appropriate for your appearance at my husband's court, but I cannot let you go there like this. You wouldn’t even get past the gatekeeper. The tailor will come to see you this afternoon.
Victor was quite speechless. In a few minutes his fortunes had changed so dramatically that from a common criminal he was instantly transformed into a cavalier about to receive a visit from a tailor! Compared with that, this royal audience, and the one that awaited him tomorrow, paled into insignificance. He sensed that the Empress' attention was being transferred elsewhere, deep within herself. Perhaps she felt a movement of her unborn child. She probably did, because when she spoke again, there was tenderness in her voice that could only belong to a Mother and it made Victor realize that this was the reason it sounded so intimate to him.
-   It's a very long journey you have committed yourself to, and this is only its beginning. Have a good rest, you'll need all your strength, and not only tomorrow. Fare well, young man!
Victor bowed silently to the Empress and withdrew. The Empress' lady took him to the palace to hand him over to the servants who took care of him. The rest of his day was spent in the surroundings full of glamour and riches, but his mind perceived little of it, it was already focused on the future.

                                                         ***


That night, sleeping on the palace bed, Victor had a dream. He found himself in the same garden as in the daytime vision of the Empress. But this time, there was no sign of the Queen of Nature, her throne was empty, and the garden looked sad with the flowers wilted. The trees were loosing their leaves, vegetation leaned to the ground and, even as he watched, brown and dry patches began to appear in the grass.  It was like in the Greek myth he read about while still at the University, concerning the Mother-Goddess, who suspended all the growth in protest against the abduction of her daughter Persephone by Hades, the ruler of the Underground. Victor was overcome by the same feeling of melancholy that the whole of Nature was suffering; he did not know what he should do, how he could help Nature restore her usual vividness.
There was a sudden glare of light, as if the Sun was about to rise, and with it, Victor heard a voice that spoke to him:
-   Do not despair, my son. Nothing dies forever, death in Nature is always followed by rebirth. If you can become attuned with this, if you can rise above the depths of your sensuality, you'll learn once and for all that the Eternal Light created you, that you have a body of Light, and that through it you can experience the sense of eternal bliss.
And, indeed, Victor's body became buoyant; he floated and basked in the soft warm light, which had no direct source, but filled everything, including himself. He floated to the empty throne and descended onto it, and from this position of power he gave the silent order to Nature to commence growth. There was a movement in the bare ground directly in front of him, as a tiny sprout pushed its way through. It began to grow rapidly before his eyes and soon he could see that it bore a single ear of fast ripening corn. The voice came back.
-   Pluck out this corn and forever keep it. This ear of corn symbolizes the three highest degrees of perfection. It is LIFE, it grew towards LIGHT, and it is striving to reach the TRUTH!
Victor pulled the corn out of the soil, and while he held it in his hand, he saw that the Nature around him was becoming alive.

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