by Marcus Katz
For after the nobles who looked upon us from above through the hole had recreated themselves a while with our struggling and lamenting, a certain hoary-headed ancient man called to us to be quiet, and having scarcely obtained this, began (as I still remember) to speak on thus:
If the poor human race
Were not so arrogant
It would have been given much good
From my mother's heritage,
But because the human race will not take heed
It lies in such straits
And must be held in prison.
And yet my dearest mother
Will not regard their mischief,
She leaves her lovely gifts
That many a man might come to the light,
Though this may chance but seldom
That they be better prized
Nor reckoned as mere fable.
Therefore in honour of the feast
Which we shall hold today,
That her grace may be multiplied
A good work will she do :
The rope will now be lowered
Whoever may hang on to it
He shall be freed.”
Illus. Judgment, Alchemical Tarot, © Robert M. Place
Palace of the Phoenix : Gate 1
The Mystic Sister
Illustration. The Mystic Sister Leading the Alchemist.
This is the first gate of our Palace of the Phoenix experience, and is called “The Mystic Sister”. In many alchemical texts, we find the presence of a mysterious guide, often female, who leads the alchemist. We must contact this guide to lead us to the Palace of the Phoenix. We will do this by conducting our opening reading with a spread entitled, “The Lights of Nature” spread.
You will see in the alchemical image above similarities with Tarot images.
The Lights of Nature Spread
Take your cards, shuffle and cut whilst considering the life of Nature as a teacher. If the whole of the Universe is a teacher, what is it teaching? Consider that it is interesting that we humans are more prone to paranoia – the belief that everyone and everything is conspiring against us, rather than pronoia – the belief that everything is conspiring secretly to help us.
Lay out the cards in a circle, face down. Move a card in from each of the four quarters into the centre of the circle. Turn these 4 cards up and place them left-to-right in the order you pulled them and stack the others remaining in the circle. Take the base card from that stack as card 5 underneath the line of 4 cards previously selected.
Asking the Mystic Sister
To engage with this spread, we must consult with the mystic sister by asking a series of questions which open up the relationship between the 4 cards we have divined. In this unique spread method we do not use “positional meaning” but rather linking questions between the cards themselves. This is based on “clean language”.
Clean language is a system of working with metaphors which was modelled by Lawley & Tomkins, based on the work of the therapist David Grove (1950-2008). [1] This system has been introduced into a diverse range of communications including the work of many teachers, trainers, coaches, researchers and the police. [2]. It is covered more in Tarosophy.
You can either carry out a mental, verbal or written dialogue as follows, taking the first card and then asking the second card …
1. And is there anything else about [card 1]?
What does card 2 tell you about card 1, “is there anything else about it”? Particularly in the light of the question, what is the teaching of Nature? Write down or consider what comes to mind comparing the first card in the light of the second.
Then we develop the answer further by summarizing that response and then asking…
2. And what kind of [answer from card 2] is that [answer from card 2] [in the light of card 3]?
We then progress by asking …
3. And that’s [answer from card 3] like what [in the light of card 4]?
And finally …
4. And when [answer from card 4] what does the light of [card 5] teach?
As an example, if I drew:
The Sun
9 of Pentacles
Ace of Pentacles
Page of Wands
And the Base card: 5 of Pentacles
I would have this likely dialogue:
“ … and is there anything else about the Sun (in the light of the 9 of Pentacles, card 2)? Well, the Sun causes things to grow and eventually leads to a situation where everything has grown fully – but this may not be the happiness that was expected at the beginning. The child has grown up and feels a sense of entrapment. So I now see that the Sun has a negative side if not constantly renewed; we mustn’t allow expansion to overwhelm us and entrap us. In fact, this is a very alchemical reading already – and something Nature itself teaches, as anyone with an overgrown garden would appreciate.
So I answer the first question with “overgrowing”.
I then turn to the next question and ask “… and what kind of ‘overgrowing’ is that in the light of the Ace of Pentacles (card 3)?”
Well, it is a gift – and provides the seed for the next season, I see in the Ace of Pentacles. That being overwhelmed can sometimes offer us the opportunity to prune and cut, hack and slash even, and find space for new seeds of opportunity. In alchemy, the philosophers stone was not just the goal – it was then used as a “seed of gold” to turn everything else into gold, like Midas. Again, Nature – the mystic sister – teaches us to regularly take time to clear out old stuff; clothes, haircut, friends, memories and make space for the new.
So my answer is “clearing”.
I then turn to the next question and ask, “… and that’s clearing like what, in the light of the Page of Wands?”
I see that as suggesting that clearing is part of making a new journey, and part of the journey, a chance to gain a fresh perspective on the landscape and set new goals and ambitions.
So I answer “ambition”.
I then ask, “… and when ambition [these questions are not grammatical!] what does Nature teach in the light of the 5 of Pentacles (the 5th, base card).
I answer, “when we are ambitious, we sometimes have to go through periods of feeling on the outside, impoverished, and not part of the mainstream. We have to use this time to struggle forwards, because it is just like winter – necessary to prepare the ground for the seeds sown to grow forth in Spring”.
In an alchemical sense, the teaching of Nature is here something that we might phrase as ‘in the darkness, the seed of gold grows”. Perhaps you can also develop an “alchemical saying” from your reading of your cards in this gate?
We trust this makes some sort of sense, as it is quite a radical method of reading Tarot. In Tarosophy we explore free-form methods of developing conversational readings using the whole panoply of clean language questions!
Whilst we hold our first converse with the Mystic Sister in this “Lights of Nature” spread, you may also wish to consider the following two Alchemical Images from Atlanta Fugiens, by Michael Maier. What Tarot cards do they resemble, in what way – and are there any significant differences?
Conclusion
The gates in this particular spread are constructed upon a particular pattern and will open themselves up to slowly reveal the Philosophers Stone where it is held secret in the Palace of the Phoenix. We have a long way to go, and little time. May the Light of Nature and our Secret Sister in the Work guide us!
Illus. High Priestess, Alchemical Tarot, © Robert M. Place
Palace of the Phoenix : Gate 2
The Laboratory
This is the second gate of our Palace of the Phoenix experience, and is called “The Laboratory”. Whilst we are all familiar with the concept of a laboratory, to the Alchemist, these were not simply places of chemical experiment – the inner world and the outer world were both seen as places where the “Great Work” of transmutation could be hastened.
In this gate, we
really start to experience the nature of “gated spreads” as the spread here feeds into the next.
The Sulpher Spread
Take your deck and shuffle whilst contemplating the following three processes:
Calcination – the slow burning fire, drying out all things to their basic elements.
Solution – the dissolution and resolution of a solid into a liquid.
Coagulation – cooling something liquid into a solid.
These are usually seen as the first three processes of alchemy and often the essential steps as the work progresses.
They also relate to the elements – Calcination (Fire), Solution (Water) & Coagulation (Earth). The next process, Sublimation, corresponds to Air, but here we are going to look at just the first three alchemical processes.
So we take the next symbol of the essential elements of Alchemy, the symbol of Sulpher, as our spread design, and we are going to add a little sulphur into our laboratory – our life – through the first three processes of Alchemy! We will try not to blow anything up.
Incidentally, Robert Place has the following cards as symbolizing these three processes:
Calcination - Hanged Man
Solution - Which card do you think may correspond to solution?
Coagulation - Devil
Adding the Sulpher
So using the symbol of Sulpher, we take 6 cards from our shuffled deck and lay them out to represent these three basic processes:
1 – Calcination: What do I need put patient work into accomplishing in the next 2 days to progress to the gate of the palace wherein lies the true philosophers stone?
2 – Solution: What must I change my mind about?
3 – Coagulation: What must I fix once and for all?
4/5/6 – What resources can I use to ensure these are balanced?
The important thing with these three processes is that you divine from your reading real-world tasks, causing change in your life. Applying these notions of alchemy to the world to see what happens when you work with three processes together. You may find they all inter-relate or all appear separate.
Illus. 5 of Swords, Alchemical Tarot, © Robert M. Place
We will examine what transpires and the insight adding sulphur to your life through this gate brings when we reach the next gate. It is important to ensure that you gain some “result” from this “experiment”, whether it be a change in circumstances or a state of mind, a new decision or insight, as that will be the material for the next spread.
Conclusion
This is one way that gated spreads work, engaging key esoteric processes in life then channelling them into the next gate/process in a structured magical manner.
Palace of the Phoenix: Gate 3
The Tree of Mercury
This is the third gate of our Palace of the Phoenix experience, and is called “The Tree of Mercury”. We now apply Mercury – the quicksilver of the Alchemist – to our result from the previous spread. We should by now have had some direct result from our actions arising from the previous gate. If not, please await a result before continuing on through this gate – the secret of Gated Spreads is that they are indeed gates! So go back to the previous spread until a result is obtained.
The Tree of Mercury Spread
We now use the symbol of the third of the most important elements – Mercury – to lay out our spread. We take the “salt” of our first work, the result of our “sulphur” and process it through the “mercurial” waters into manifestation. We do this by laying out the symbol of Mercury on the Tree of Life. This templating of one symbol onto another is a key feature in the Western Esoteric Initiatory System and arises from the concept of correspondence.
In fact, many Golden Dawn rituals are based around these symbols being invisibly (astrally) templated onto the temple floor. So as you move around the temple and encounter various experiences, these relate to the “Sepiroth” of the Tree of Life that you walking across!
So, take the result from your previous Sulpher activities and consider it as a seed for further growth. You may not know how to manifest this as yet, so this is why we add Mercury in our alchemical experiment.
Take your deck, shuffle and then layout the cards in sequence, 1 – 9 as the diagram, starting at the Sephirah known as “Chockmah” and going down the last position of “Malkuth” at the bottom of the Tree. Watch the order – you are making the “lightning flash of creation” zig-zagging from one side of the Tree to the other.
When you get to the bottom, lay out the 9th card then start again at the top by laying the next card on position 1, and going back down the lightning flash again to position 9. Then keep repeating until you have all the cards laid down in 9 piles, with the cards in each pile obviously face-up, with one card facing up at the top.
Your “event” is the “Kether” of this gated spread – the top Sephirah in the Tree of Life, so we haven’t laid out a pile for it. The other cards now facing up in each position show how we can manifest this in our lives, using Mercurial clarity and responsiveness:
1 [Chockmah] What must be energized
2 [Binah] What must be structured
3 [Chesed] What can expand and must be encouraged
4 [Geburah] What can contract and must be restricted
5 [Tiphareth] Where to find balance
6 [Netzach] Where to take advantage - opportunities
7 [Hod] Where to find assistance and learning
8 [Yesod] What you will find happening in your life that tells you things are settling
9 [Malkuth] The manifestation of the seed event - outcome
The cards in each pile can also be read as a narrative sequence explaining more about that particular aspect of the reading.
Palace of the Phoenix : Gate 4
The Palace
This is the fourth and final gate of our Palace of the Phoenix experience, and is the Palace itself. Here we discover the Alchemists Stone and the secret of the Great Work by combining our work with Salt, Sulpher and Mercury in the preceding Gates.
First, we would ask you to consider this very early mystical experience described in terms of an alchemical process – it is by Zosimos of Panoplis, 3rd Century A.D.
The Visions of Zosimos
The composition of the waters, and the movement, and the growth, and the removal and restitution of bodily nature, and the splitting off of the spirit from the body, and the fixation of the spirit on the body are not operations with natures alien one from the other, but, like the hard bodies of metals and the moist fluids of plants, are One Thing, of One Nature, acting upon itself. And in this system, of one kind but many colours, is preserved a research of all things, multiple and various, subject to lunar influence and measure of time, which regulates the cessation and growth by which the One Nature transforms itself.
And saying these things, I slept, and I saw a certain sacrificing priest standing before me and over and altar which had the form of a bowl. And that altar had fifteen steps going up to it.
Then the priest stood up and I heard from above a voice say to me, "I have completed the descent of the fifteen steps and the ascent of the steps of light. And it is the sacrificing priest who renews me, casting off the body's coarseness, and, consecrated by necessity, I have become a spirit."
And when I had heard the voice of him who stood in the altar formed like a bowl, I questioned him, desiring to understand who he was.
He answered me in a weak voice saying, "I am Ion, Priest of the Adytum, and I have borne an intolerable force. For someone came at me headlong in the morning and dismembered me with a sword and tore me apart, according to the rigor of harmony.
And, having cut my head off with the sword, he mashed my flesh with my bones and burned them in the fire of the treatment, until, my body transformed, I should learn to become a spirit. And I sustained the same intolerable force."
And even as he said these things to me and I forced him to speak, it was as if his eyes turned to blood and he vomited
up all his flesh. And I saw him as a mutilated image of a little man and he was tearing at his flesh and falling away.
And being afraid I woke and considered, "Is this not the composition of the waters?" I thought that I was right and fell asleep again. And I saw the same altar in the shape of a bowl and water bubbled at the top of it, and in it were many people endlessly. And there was no one whom I might question outside of the bowl. And I went up to the altar to view the spectacle.
And I saw a little man, a barber, whitened with age, and he said to me, "What are you looking at?"
I answered that I wondered at the boiling water and the men who were burning but remained alive.
And he answered me saying, "The spectacle which you see is at once the entrance and the exit and the process."
I questioned him further, "What is the nature of the process?"
And he answered saying, "It is the place of the practice called the embalming. Men wishing to obtain virtue enter here and, fleeing the body, become spirits."
I said to him, "And are you a spirit?"
And he answered, saying, "Both a spirit and a guardian of spirits."
As he was saying these things to me and the boiling increased and the people wailed, I saw a copper man holding a lead tablet in his hand. He spoke aloud, looking at the tablet, "I counsel all those in mortification to become calm and that each take in his hand a lead tablet and write with his own hand and that each bear his eyes upward and open his mouth until his grapes be grown."
