Arcanum
noun: things that are mysterious or difficult to understand
noun: either of the two groups of cards in a deck of tarot cards
noun: information known only to a special group
Arcanum II. Priestess. Knowledge.
The Arcana depicts a woman sitting at the threshold of the Temple of Isis between two columns. Her face is covered with a veil, as a sign of hiding the truth from the curious and ignorant. A book lying on the lap and half hidden under a cloak means that secrets are revealed only in solitude to wise men who control themselves.
Don't look for explanations or justifications for the decisions you make. Rely on your intuition. Don’t give this power to everyday little things, appreciate every minute alone with yourself, turn to your inner voice. Keep your feelings and thoughts clear, be kind to others.»
— Papus
«In front of a massive stone pylon - the entrance to the temple, a woman sits on a smooth cubic stone. Her naked body involuntarily amazes with its waxy, amber, translucent color: its lines are very sharp and relief. Her legs are tightly clenched, and her frozen pose with a completely vertical back seems somewhat unnatural.
She wears gold sandals on her feet and a patterned gold lace around her neck, slightly covering her upper back and chest. In her right hand, pressed to her heart, she holds a scroll of papyrus, which lies partly in folds on her knees and falls to the soles of her feet. In her left hand she holds a lotus flower; its brush is tightly compressed and tightly grips the stem.
A slightly transparent blanket of smoky color is thrown over the head, covering the knees and part of the papyrus, almost completely hiding them from view. The Woman is wearing something like a metal helmet on her head; it has two horns supporting the ball. Directly behind her, against the background of the pylon, two mighty columns supporting the portal are clearly visible.»
«Absolute World First Cause, Triune Universal Spirit, in His Transcendental Nature, Incomprehensible and Ineffable, is known by approaching through the turner of the first three Arcana.
In His first Hypostasis It results in the Cosmic Transcendental Being and its first attribute - Will, in the second Hypostasis It is projected into the mind as Cosmic Transcendental Consciousness.
Both of these Hypostases are inseparable from each other, mutually condition each other, and the human mind, devoid of power dismember the supreme dilemma of Being and Consciousness, can only lead to its contemplation by the consciousness of the human spirit through their a priori constructions.
“The first three Sephira: Crown, Wisdom and Reason must be understood as One and One Something.
The first represents knowledge, the second is the one who knows and the third is what is known.
In order to explain this identity to oneself, one must know that the Knowledge of the Creator is not the same as the knowledge of creatures, for in these latter knowledge, as such, is different from the one who possesses it and depends on its objects, which, in turn, are different from the knower .
This is exactly what is explained in three terms:
thought, the one who thinks and what is thought (??? ????? ?????).
On the contrary, the Creator is in Himself at the same time:
Knowledge, and He Who Knows, and That Which is Known.
In a word, the form of His Knowledge does not consist in applying His Thought to things that are outside of Him;
knowing in oneself,
knowing yourself in yourself,
He knows and sees everything that is.
Nothing exists that is not united with Him, and that He does not find in His Own Essence.
He is the Type of all that exists, and all things exist in Him in their purest and most fully completed forms;
Thus, creatures have perfection precisely in this existence, through which they become united with the Source of their being, and as they move away from Him they lose this state, so perfect and so sublime.
—Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, "Pardes Rimonim"»
«Beginningless Cosmic Spirit, Source, Creator and Creator of everything, in the aspect of Arcanum II results in the doctrine of Divine Matter, about the Great Mother of all that exists, Isis Divine, about the Absolute Truth as the Primary Body of the Spirit.»
“Like a beauty hidden in the entrails of her palace, who, while her lover passes, opens for a moment a secret door through which she is visible only to them and again disappears for a long time, the doctrine shows itself only to the chosen and does not show itself with equal completeness to all the chosen ones.
At the beginning she only makes a sign with her hand in passing, and then the point is to see this sign - this is a method called the method of hint; later she approaches a little closer, whispering a few words, but her appearance is covered with a thick veil through which her gaze they cannot penetrate - this is a method called the figurative method, even further she appears before the chosen one with her face covered only by a light veil - this is the method of the Haggadah; finally, when he thus gets used to such communication, she appears before him, face to face and reveals to him the hidden corners of her heart - this is a mystical method.
The initiate then easily comprehends all those manifold mysterious truths that are hidden under the external meaning and which can neither be shortened nor supplemented.” — Zohar [Vladimir Shmakov “Holy Book of Thoth. The Greater Arcane Tarot.”]
See Also