Course XLIII - Teaching 8: Suits
The 22 Tarot Figures symbolize, as you see, both cosmogonic and human powers under diverse forms and aspects.
At the same time, they are an enumeration of 22 liberation keys or paths.
Every path has four stages, or scales; and these four stages are symbolized by four suits. Each suit has ten numbers, from one, or Ace, to ten, and four figures: Jack, Knight, Queen and King.
Also every one of these cards has different meaning, according to the upright or upside-down position, symbolizing two great movements.
The twenty-two Tarot figures, and four suits, and the two movements, form 28 powers.
Every one of these 28 powers can be applied to every one of those figures, suits or movements, in diverse and multiple senses. Here are the twenty-eight powers:
1st Discovering mines of diamonds and gems.
2nd Tracing seven parts that divide the planet.
3rd Dividing petrography into four parts.
4th Putting in tune its mineral plexus with different mineral centers of the planetary system.
5th Perceiving magnetism of earth.
6th Knowing diverse qualities of metals and their combinations.
7th Transmuting one matter into another.
8th Ruling over winds.
9th Calling the water and knowing subterranean streams.
10th Controlling tempests.
11th Possessing the deadly thunderbolt and being incapable of burning.
12th Knowing diverse virtues of plants.
13th Knowing the plant that preserves life.
14th Ruling over vegetal lymph and transmuting it.
15th Subduing fierce animals.
16th Charming serpents.
17th Understanding the language of birds.
18th Subduing wild animals.
19th Changing his human form for another.
20th Changing water to wine, and wine to blood.
21st Knowing wheat ears and changing bread to flesh.
22nd Increasing objects.
23rd Materializing and dematerializing things.
24th Ruling over objects.
25th Knowing Gnomes, Undines, Sylphids and Salamanders.
26th Possessing the magical wand.
27th Having a white winged horse.
28th Forcing Nature to reveal all its secrets.
Generally the four suits are called: hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds.
Cup reveals negative power of primordial substance: image of matrix, descent, gestation dream, and material things. In Ancient Egypt, its symbol is the forty-nine bead necklace of Isis.
Club is active and positive manifestation of life; image of generation phallus, ascent, awakening and fullness. It is efforts to ascend to higher worlds, and spiritual yearnings.
Spade is union of matter and spirit, lower and higher, woman and man; it is collision, friction, fight, energy.
Diamond is mystical ring of gods; image of the mind, control of higher worlds, Paradise.
These four figures are image of humanity, precedent races, and future development of man. The King is the man; the Queen is the woman; the Knight is androgynous; and the Jack is asexual.
As for the two great movements: the upright figure represents positive aspect; the upside-down figure, negative aspect; first movement is mobility, activity; the second, rest, immobility.
According to sages of Ancient Egypt, a combination of these suits, figures and movements, applied to the number related to power, gives the solution of a problem.
