THE BOOK OF THOTH

THE TAROT OF ATH-KA-PTAH

LIBER II

ARCANA XII : THE HANGED MAN

"Remember, Son of the Earth,
that devotion is a divine law from which no one may have dispensation;
but expect nothing, but ingratitude, from men.
Let your heart be always ready to render its account to PTAH;
for if Arcanum XII appears in the Oracle of the Great Prophet of Ammon,
it is necessary for you to consent to torture to achieve the Great Work.
In the worship, the creative worker is all the opposite of the practical man;
He doesn’t stand planted firmly on the ground ,
Because he rocks between heaven and earth,
hung on with one foot to the gallows of the HANGED MAN..
In order to work well in the Temple,
it is necessary to devote oneself to the work with self-abnegation,
By dedicating oneself to the undertaken work.
Carrying out a task without taste and without love,
is toiling like a slave, not like a free divine artisan,
Prompted by creative fervour.
Disinterestedness makes the Artist, who is a devout person of the religion of the ART."

The HANGED MAN or self-denial.
The initiatory Influence exercises mysteriously, without resorting to the profane means.
It goes unnoticed, because it does not express itself either in resounding speeches, or in acts captivating attention.
The Initiated sentences himself voluntarily to a visible impotence, what allows him to act in his way with efficiency.
The project, which, far from any empty excitement, matures in reserve and silence gains strength of realization.
The "disinterested dreamer", who applies himself to his dream with self-sacrifice, prepares future by forgetting present.
 

ARCANA XIII : THE DEATH

"Remember, Son of the Earth, that earthly things only last a brief space,
and that the highest powers are cut down like the grass in the fields.
The dissolution of your visible organs will come sooner than you expect;
but do not fear death, for death is only birth into another life.
The universe reabsorbs unceasingly everything that has come out of its bowels
and which has not been spiritualised.
But the freeing of material instincts
by the voluntary adherence of the soul to the laws of universal movement
constitutes inside ourselves the creation of a second man, the celestial man,
and is the beginning of our immortality."

The initiatory Death leading to the Mastery.
What is effectively dreamt falls on the Tracing Board .
Which nobody approaches before penetrating into the Middle Chamber.
There, in the dark upon which the whiteness of skulls and bones stands out, any illusion faints and judgment tempers.
The Initiated dies to everything which is artificial and gets ready to receive Mastery.
 

ARCANA XIV : TEMPERANCE

"Remember, Son of the Earth, you must die to resuscitate:
By losing the earth you win the sky, the waters of which wash and regenerate.
Alliance with the forces from above will make you live again,
Now not like a recalcitrant slave attached to the soil,
But like a free ploughman, ambitious to harvest in aid of all starving men.
If Arcana XIV appears in the oracle of the Great Prophet of AMON
It is to tell you that to die amounts to free yourself from a slavery.
By dying to what is lower, you rise,
In order to gain a wider and higher life;
This life is not limited like the one of the physical body;
It is long-lasting and does not run out more than the Water of TEMPERANCE,
Which flows out perpetually from one bowl to the other one.
Bathe in this wave of youth and you will be regenerated! "

The Temperance or bath in the vivifying wave.
According to the oldest conception which is known from us,
The Fountain of Life springs under the paving stone of the central Sanctuary of the City of the Dead.
It is necessary to die to be revivified. By divesting us of what holds us in inferiority,
Death raises us and makes us participate in a less narrow life.
To live only for oneself restricts life, which widens in favour of the ambitious altruism to live for others.
Collective Life in Lodge grants his Salary to the Fellowcraft who knows how to work and shows himself worthy of becoming a Master.
 

ARCANA XV : TYPHON

"Whoever you may be, Son of the Earth,
contemplate the ancient oaks that were defying the lightning,
but which the lightning struck
after having avoided them for more than a century.
Cease believing in your wisdom and your strength,
if you were not granted by God to receive the key
to the mysteries that make of man a prisoner of fate ."

The DEVIL, Instrument of the initiatory Art.
Any energy is sacred: none should be cursed, even though it shows itself harmful in its application.
The Initiated must know how to collect all the currents and channel their rashness.
The DEVIL is at his service, if, by putting himself to the order of the 2-nd Degree (Fellowcraft),
He does not take an attitude of conceited parade.
Let us work ardently at the realization of the Great Work and we shall win the assistance of everything which can help us.
 

ARCANA XVI : THE FALL

"Remember, Son of the Earth, that the ordeals of misfortune,
accepted with resignation to the supreme Will of PTAH,
are the steps to a predestined progress which you will be eternally rewarded for.
Suffering is working in order to free oneself from the bonds of material things;
it is the putting-on of robes of Immortality."

The THUNDERSTRUCK TOWER struck by the lightning; the bad workers'work.
The Master HIRAM falls under the blows of the three bad Fellowcrafts.
-The first one embodies Ignorance, which, unable to understand spirit,
materializes the teaching and spreads the error which engenders any badly understood truth.
-The second one indicates Fanaticism, which reduces the Temple to the proportions of an exclusive and closed "God's House".
-The third one represents Ambition, which does not know how to moderate itself in the erection of Babel's tower which is doomed to collapse.

ARCANA XVII : THE STAR

" You who are going to receive the Water of Eternal Life,
Give way to heavenly influences
And merge into Cosmic Life ".

The Stars which shine in the night; Ideality aspiring to the Truth.
HIRAM's murder interrupts all work.
The night happens for Builders at a loss, without leadership.
In their distress, they scatter to look everywhere for the corpse of the disappeared Master:
A branch of acacia makes them hope suddenly, because there they see a pledge of perpetuity of life and resurrection.
The desolate country where we roam about is not barren: it covers itself with a comforting vegetation,
On which the eye rests by allowing itself to be charmed.
The Beauty which decorates makes its work and the Artist goes in for its School.
 

ARCANA XVIII : THE MOON

"Remember, Son of the Earth, that from the dream to its realization,
There is a long, uneven, badly laid out and always precarious path which Mankind entered .
It winds through treacherous areas,
over which the Moon only spreads a false light.
It is the Path of the earthy life, the one of trials, falls and bruises,
Which leads to the discrimination of error.
By crossing it, you lose your illusions and move towards the dawn of full light.
Remember, then, son of the Earth,
that whosoever dares confront the unknown faces death.
The hostile spirits, symbolized by one dog, wait in ambush;
the servile spirits, symbolized by the other one,
conceal their treacheries with base flattery;
and the idle spirits, symbolized by the crocodile,
will pass by without the slightest concern for disaster.
Observe, listen--and learn how to keep your own counsel."

The Moon; journeys in the middle of the mirages of error.
Masters Masons travel, no more alone as the Entered Apprentices and the Fellowcrafts, but by groups,
By giving to themself a mutual support.
They explore the astral world in search of the material rests of HIRAM.
As worthy Sons of the Widow, they are inspired by the Goddess ISIS's example travelling all over the earth to collect the scattered remains of OSIRIS's body.
In order to revivify tradition, let us collect carefully what remains of it in the form of legends, misunderstood rites and superstitions.
 

ARCANA XIX : THE SUN

"Remember then, Son of the Earth, the expected day is the one of pure Illumination.
By turning away from the error that you must have recognized,
you orientate yourself to the truth;
Discriminate illusion and reality will be disclosed to you.
Misleading appearances have no more grip on the Children of the Sun,
who live in a Garden of delights within their Town of Light.
They represent Humanity which has become reasonable and friendly
At the end of foolish and wild barbarism.
Doubly enlightened in his intelligence and his heart,
It realizes the ideal of a complete Civilization.
Happiness smiles to it because it has known how to redeem itself from the original Fall .
The Light of Mysteries flows dangerously in the service of Will.
It enlightens those who know how to use it;
it strikes down those who are ignorant of its power or who misuse it."

The Sun; the conquest of the Initiatory Light.
When the day rises up in the spirit, the Master HIRAM is found again,
fallen into a deep sleep from which the Masters will have to wake him .
They meet for that purpose, in order to put in common their intelligence and their affection.
HIRAM is revivified because his thought finds a new expression (replaced lost Word)
And the constructive aspirations animate all the hearts.

ARCANA XX : THE JUDGEMENT

"Remember , Son of the Earth, that fortune is variable,
even when it appears most unshakeable.
The ascent of the soul is the fruit of its successive ordeals.
Hope in the time of suffering, but beware of prosperity.
Do not fall asleep in laziness or forgetfulness.
At a moment unknown to you the wheel of fortune will turn:
you will be raised or thrown down by the Sphinx.
As soon as spirit opens itself to Light and heart to kindness,
the living is no more imprisoned in the grave of the flesh.
The trumpet of the Judgment wakes those that are asleep,
So that they resuscitate and commune with the ancestors whose activity has never faded.
The dead, they are not the deceased people,
But you who thrash about in the darkness of the carnal sepulchre.
The enlightened man's spirit gets free of the narrowness of body links.
He communes with the life-giving inspiration which raises the intellectual and moral dead .
Inspiration rewards the one that goes out of himself
To take part in a wider and higher life.
Nothing gets lost; past remains alive with regard to the future,
And you can evoke it to find the Wise men’s lost Word again .

THE JUDGMENT. The Master's resurrection.
The rejuvenated Dead man lives again inside the Son of the Decomposition.
All which possesses life in itself goes out of the grave of oblivion, when the trumpet of the Great Judgment rings .
The experience of past centuries confers people the wisdom of understanding.
The Master HIRAM resumes the leadership of the works which will not be interrupted any more.
Soon PTAH's Great Temple will be finished.
 

ARCANA XXI : THE WORLD

Remember, Son of the Earth, Order give way to Chaos, the Great Work is over,
WORLD realizes the Divine Plan, the temple of PTAH is built.
At least, you perceive the result of the creative activity
in which you participate from your entire being.
Heavens open in front of you
And you contemplate as a Seer the outcoming of eternal developement.
Your ecstasy is not vain,
Because it proceeds of supreme lucidity which rewards the faithful Worker of IMHOTEP,
Who has been allowed to learn about the secret of the Great Architect of the Universe, PTAH.
If the Arcana XXI appears in the Oracle of the Big Prophet of AMON,
It means that you can reach the highest degree of Initiation,
And that you are going to be the owner of a power
The upward degrees of which have for only limits
the ones of the adepts’ intelligence and wisdom .
Remember that the world empire belongs to the Light empire ,
And that the Light empire is the Throne that PTAH reserves for sanctified Will.
Happiness is, for the Initiated, the fruit of the Science of Good and Evil;
But PTAH only allows to pick this immortal fruit
To the Man self-possessed enough
To approach it without desiring it . "

THE WORLD; the complete Initiation.
The Temple is being built, it ends and nothing misses there.
The Building is perfect in its arrangement and its execution.
The Ideal is realized, the Great Work is accomplished,
The divine Reign of Intelligence and Love has become established in the regenerated WORLD.
 

ARCANA XXII : THE FOOL

"Remember, Son of the Earth, the image of the coordinated multiplicity brings you back
to the strict Unity which is unlimited,
while you have limited strictly yourself,
so that all that you can conceive remains pathetically childish .
Beyond what you succeed in imagining a vertiginous hugeness
where your spirit gets lost extends.
It is the bottomless abyss from where Creation goes out and returns perpetually .
Reason gives its rights up in aid of the Fool,
personification of the unintelligible Infinite which,
Placed between the Beginning and the End (I and XXI)
Humiliates the thinker tempted to pride himself on the little that he understands
within the irreducible incomprehensibility.

If the Arcane XXII appears in the Oracle of the Big Prophet of AMON, remember that,
When you will have reached the summit
from where all the Realms of the Earth are contemplated,
Your sight will dive beyond the conceivable and you will succumb to the vertigo of Infinity.
ENSOPH, the bottomless Abyss, will absorb you,
to take you back to the womb of the Great Night,
Generator of beings and things.
Here, reason keeps silent in front of the unspeakable Mystery of mysteries fatally dumb.
Become aware of your nothingness, because,
without reverent humility, no return to the primordial whole! "

The FOOL; the Initiated does not delude himself about the relativity of his knowledge.
Completion could only be relative, because work continues infinitely.
If he stopped, everything would faint in the nothingness.
What is results from a necessary activity which an inconceivable passivity would neither precede nor follow .
By setting Infinity against Finished, we approach the domain of the FOOL.
The Compass draws us the borders of the reason; let us know how to remain there,
Respectful of the unspeakable Mystery the penetration of which is forbidden to us.

ALL CONTENTS ON THIS SITE ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT.
NO PORTION OF THE INFORMATION ON THIS WEB SITE MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM, OR BY ANY MEANS, WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM ATH-KA-PTAH.ORG.
ANY MATERIALS POSTED ON THE WEB SITE THAT YOU COPY, PRINT, OR DOWNLOAD ARE FOR YOUR PERSONAL, NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY. VISITORS OR USERS ARE NOT PERMITTED TO MODIFY, DISTRIBUTE, PUBLISH, TRANSMIT OR CREATE DERIVATIVE WORKS OF ANY MATERIAL FOUND ON THIS SITE FOR ANY PUBLIC OR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES.