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Rider-Waite-Smith-Key 13-Death
The Rider-Waite Death Card, (and its silver and black copy of the Prophet Tarot), as did Crowley in the Thoth Card, departed from the Tradition set by the Golden Dawn or the older Marseilles cards. Here, Waite, displays his own personal experience with this Card. The warrior quality of the Death card is expressed as a Skeletal Knight. His medieval presentation of Death as the Black Knight, riding past the fallen King of Matter. Before the Death Knight is the Bishop with fish-shaped Miter, implying the passing of the Piscean age. The rising sun behind the two towers (first seen on the Moon card) refers to resurrection which is the conquest of death. The flying banner, depicts a white rose of ten petals, five inner and five outer. Being based on five, the white rose refers to the 5th Sephiroth on the Tree of Life- Geburah's Martian force. However, the totality of the petals, refers to the entire Universe under Kether, as Kether is presented as the White color (perfect balanced Weight of all colors). This also relates to the 0-Fool and Uranus, to which the White Rose is related.
Prophet Tarot- Key 13-Death
The Prophet Tarot- Key 13-Death, is a silver and black copy of the RWS Tarot almost like a picture film negative.. In the past, the 14th Century Italian artist that came up with the scythe carrying skeleton, meant this to be a literal death. However, Tarot has evolved into more modern terms as has science, and we now know this Major Arcana to be about transition from one phase/condition to another and not something final and absolute. Transformation is a universal constant.
Death comes for us all, it is the necessary companion of Life. Form requires measurement, a beginning and an end. Plus , Organic matter imitates the immortality of Spirit, by recycling itself. . Again the ancient axiom proclaims: "Be like the Children", who don't fear death. Death is eternal, inescapable and necessary. A True Soul, fears not death, for it just ends a phase of Life, but not all Life; For Life is also eternal, inescapable, and necessary. Death just pushes Life along, as a necessary evolution. Just as Dark Energy pushes the galaxies along.
To the Qaballist, motion, is the function applied to Nun, the Hebrew letter supplied to the Thoth Death- Card and to the Hebrew word whose primary meaning is "to walk". Hence, Death is walking and reaping on the Death card. The Rider-Waite-Smith TAROT shows Death as on a prancing horse, either way it is represents the Qabalistic knowledge of motion. Hence, from this we gather many other meanings, such as, to travel, to pass away, to depart, to whirl, to sail away; all pointing at change/transformation helping arrive at the notion that change is the basis of manifestation and/or a Universal Constant of Becoming. The river seen in both the Rider-Waite-Smith and Prophet Tarot cards, is a symbol for this transformative force, as a river is a part of Water's Transformative manifestation, as it arises from a Sea, to become a vapor, that condenses into clouds, that become saturated and form rain, snow, and/or ice that change the landscape. Hence, the Element of Water, "dies" to one state and forms in another. It also is a symbol of Dark Water, that represents the subconscious and its fears.
The Sun is shown setting in the West, which is attributed to this card, as well as the planet Jupiter,, which governs all circular and rotational movement. The direction of South relates to the Sun and on both cards, the Sun is shown rising between the towers of both Life and Death..
The Zodiacal House of Scorpio, a fixed, watery sign, is assigned to the Death Card. Scorpio is ruled by Mars (Pluto) which is the Power of the Key 16-The Tower and is said by astrologer's to be the sign of exaltation of Uranus (Key 0 the Fool). Scorpio rules the sex organs, making it closely associated to reproduction. Interestingly, it is connected with the 8th house of the horoscope which called the house of death. The corresponding color is blue green and the musical tone is G-natural.
Qabalistically, Death -key 13, is known as "the ground of similarity in the likeness of all beings" and is called the Imaginative Intelligence by Dr. Paul Foster Case, a Western Hermetic Qaballist. Hence, it is the intelligent basis of resemblances that are transmitted through reproductive functions and/or DNA. Therefore, the Death card suggests the Ageless Wisdom that states "causation is mental"....Therefore, DNA, is an intelligent molecule.
The forces of transformation which result in physical death are inimical and feared only because the survival mind of the Subconscious misunderstands and fears them. These transformative forces are connected to reproduction, and by right use of Imagination (I-Magi-Nation) they can be may be tamed and transformed, so that they can be utilized for indefinite prolongation of physical existence. As many yogi's prove. "There is only One Energy that cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed (and Transmitted)." which is the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. This Tarot Card-Key 13-Death, is but the image of this statement.
Death, like every other event in Organic Manifestation, is a manifestation of Law, for image must begin and end as it is a "assumption of measurement". When one understands the Law, the personality will not "die", it just moves forward into the next journey of Self-Assumption/Awareness. Hence, the "fear of death" puts the personality into a "darkness of sleep", as it supposed it just ended. One finds this not to be true, when one conquers the fears of the Subconscious, which are all based on fear of death. I can remember many life times, that some accuse me of "being only your imagination". I AM, is the truth of existence, but "Me" is only Imagined, and /or assumed. Hence, all of us are "being only our imagination" and the I -Magi-Nation is the Nation of Manifested Self. Understanding this, will never come to those who fear, until fear of not only of dying, but of death itself has been overcome by the Wisdom of right Knowledge, and by the right interpretation of the phenomena of physical dissolution. Organic matter, mimics the immortality of the Solar Light Being, by eating itself to stay alive. Physical change is a type of "Serpent that eats its own tail".
The Rider-Waite-Smith, key 13-Death, relates to the Piscean Age and its religious dispensation of Patriarchy. However, TAROT was not invented for the Piscean Age only, and to limit the operation of the Law depicted in Key 13 to this one period of human history is to obscure the fact that Key 13 represents something that is at work in every age. Hence, the Tarot version of death has evolved even though, like older versions, the newer cards show a walking or riding skeleton with a scythe instead of a banner. Behind there is a river, and a sun. The river moves from the north-west to the south-east, as does the skeleton. The skeleton is the basis and/or essential thing in all movements of the human body.
The Rider-Waite-Smith and the Prophet Tarot- Death carries a black flag decorated with a white, five-petal rose, (Prophet Tarot is like a negative-hence a silver banner with a black rose) reflecting beauty, purification, and immortality and in numerology-the number five representing change. Together, these symbols reveal that death isn’t just about life ending. Death is about endings and beginnings, birth and rebirth, change and transformation.
I AM The Soul, and not seeking one! I make "bodies" in my name of "I Am"! Bodies allow intimacy with all measured creation and turn information, into experience, by in-form-action. Experience builds Wisdom.
The Death Card-Key 13, during a reading, suggests:
- Time, Age and transformation.
- Rarely does it symbolize physical death and only if borne out by the accompanying cards.
- For the Querent, this is the Principle of letting go, and moving on.
- A rebirth out of Old conditions.
- A type of transitional metamorphosis which destroys the something old to build the something new.
- A Realization of Life Power as it is released from past confines and revitalized by change and regeneration.
- Inner wisdom and consistency.
If reversed:
- Fear of Death (the root of all fears and phobias).
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