The Magician out of the Water. So these 3 MOTHER LETTERS in Hebrew represent the 3 root aspects of the Life activity or Light. BETH is called a DOUBLE LETTER. In its esoteric sense, that is, in its direct meaning, a DOUBLE LETTER is one that can be pronounced hard or soft. In English “S” is a DOUBLE LETTER; it can be pronounced like a soft “C” or it can be pronounced like “Z.” Now the esoteric significance of a DOUBLE LETTER is very different. It means that the letter stands for a pair of opposites, and the opposites in this case are Life and Death. There are 7 DOUBLE LETTERS, and they correspond to the 7 centers of the body (called Chakras in Kundalini Yoga and the Seven Golden Candlesticks in orthodox religion). These are the centers whose vibrations we need to become conscious of in our color and sound exercises. When these centers are working properly we are healthy. When they’re working inadequately the result is imbalance or illness. The letter BETH means HOUSE. The physical body is your house, but who are you that lives in it? Who are you that lives in your house? YOU ARE MIND, AND THE ESSENCE OF MIND IS WILL. The body is the house of the mind, but the Mind is the house of the Will. There is always a stream of consciousness flowing through our minds. THE MAGICIAN stands for that in you which is acutely aware, which WILLS. You are not your body and you are not the stream of consciousness which flows through your mind. You are the awareness which looks at your stream of consciousness which flows through your mind and selects from it for your own purpose. THE AWARENESS WHICH WILLS IS WHAT YOU ARE; AS ABOVE, SO BELOW. This universe is the house of the Eternal Light or Life, the Energy which we call God. This PRIME ENERGY is the AWARENESS, the alert spectator, the actor in its house, the universe, just as we should be an alert spectator or actor in our house, the body, but God’s house, if we could see it with His eyes and know its purpose, is perfect. HE AND HIS HOUSE ARE ONE. Due to the misuse of our body in our previous lives, we cannot identify ourselves with it until we make it over, but the ONE LIFE which we call GOD, naturally can and does identify itself with ITS body, the universe. There was nothing out of which it could make the universe but Itself. For the purpose of manifestation, the One energy divided Itself into Two (the masculine principle and the feminine principle). These two are called the superior and the inferior natures, though they are really equal. The superior nature is the Will, and by The Magician 19 working upon another part of itself, the inferior nature (the substance), it produced all the things which go to make up the universe. The Will supplied the ideas, the images. The inferior nature supplied the substance out of which those images took shape and gave them the shape which the Will instructed it to take. The receptor in our minds which perceives, which discriminates and which recognizes the relationships, is identical with the superior nature of this One energy which we call God. It is in this sense that we are made in the image of God. Our awareness which wills our Will is identical with His. This awareness we call the “Self-conscious.” We possess the power of ATTENTION, the power of seeing how things are related in cause and effect, only because that Energy possesses the same. If He did not possess it, we could not. It is this energy which is aware of what is going on, which wills, and which selects. We call that the self-conscious (the consciousness of Self). In the Bible, in the terminology of theology, the self-consciousness is often called Adam. An ancient and occult proverb says that Adam was set in the Garden of Eden to grow roses. The garden of Eden is an allegory for the human body, though most unfortunately you are not told this by the orthodox churches. And what is the consequence? Most people think this is one of the quaintest stories ever written, this story of the Garden of Eden. Being so full of contradictions people think it is merely a whimsical superstition trying to explain something that is not explainable. There is a theological phrase which we meet often in the Scriptures, “the Old Adam.” The Old Adam is the “natural man.” THE MAGICIAN in this card is the SPIRITUAL MAN. Spiritual man has made himself out of the natural man. The man, who by working on himself, has become spiritual. In this card you see him cultivating his roses, making himself spiritual; THE GARDEN IS HIS OWN BODY. Stripped of this little allegory it means that the self-conscious was set in the body to refine the desire of the body, to civilize it, as we say. Our body is the first medium of our activity and all our activity of expression must be manifested by means of our body on this physical plane. It is the mechanism of our expression.
