Gnostic Tarot: Mandalas for Spiritual Transformation by Lee Irwin

Author:Lee Irwin [Irwin, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781609256630
Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
Published: 1998-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

THE FOUR PAGES

Pages are message bearers, like Iris or Hermes, who carry out the work of the Inner Court, even though they may not understand the full implications of their actions. They nevertheless perform what is asked of them without question, hoping eventually to receive further initiation and training. The Page stands on the fringe of important, critical mystic events, but is not fully informed of the deeper, less obvious aspects of the motives or goals of the Inner Court. The Page is liminal, on the boundary, aware and yet not aware, informed and yet not informed. The Page represents the early stage of the student in training, the disciple, the newly dedicated, the novice. He or she knows enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be fatal. This is the card of the sorcerer's apprentice. The first stages of initiation into deeper mysteries excites and attracts both the innocent and the experienced, those who, no longer satisfied with the external world, turn to deeper mysteries less obvious and less understood by the worldly-minded. Here, in the place of Pages, one encounters those who, having spent a lifetime of study, meditation, and explorations of the mysteries, open the door to those seekers who, having practiced the first three initiations, are ready to begin the longer journey to true self-knowledge and Gnostic illumination. Steps must be taken to prepare body, mind, and spirit for higher awareness. This involves discipline and purity of mind, an openness to inspiration and a cultivation of spontaneous, intuitive perceptions. In the beginning, this requires transforming ordinary practice into an intuitive and psychic art.

The place of Pages is a place of study and learning, a search for deeper meanings and exposure to many different esoteric systems of thought and spiritual symbolization. There is an attraction to all types of esotericism, a tendency to mix and match arcane ideas or beliefs with various aspects of personal experience in an often arbitrary and imbalanced fashion. Pages are easily overpowered by initiatic experience and tend to overdramatize the personal as an ultimate center of cosmic life. This is a false tendency that arises because of the power released in the encounter with various archetypal manifestations of the psyche which are more highly controlled and integrated by the more advanced members of the Inner Court. The discipline of the Page is to go into various worlds, explore those worlds, gain a rudimentary mastery of basic concepts and practices, and not get caught in the webs of inflated self-identification or lost in the labyrinths of esoteric teachings and arcane systems. Esoteric knowledge is externally accessible in many hundreds or thousands of books, pamphlets, treatises, folios, secret publications, drawings, and mystic signs. These manifestations can easily become a substitute for true knowledge, as the Page is led from one work to another, from one author to another, from one system to another, until, filled with this external knowledge, he or she begins to take on the outward appearance of mastery, while within,

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