H. R. GIGER TAROT

III THE MIRROR OF THE SOUL
Questions

The Mirror of the Soul is the appropriate spread to use when there are two different things you want to know: first, what inner images of your own are you projecting onto the situation (spread I). Second, what external experiences arise out of it (spread II)? This means that this is a matter of recognizing in which form what you have evoked is translated into reality from the reflection and/or in what guise you encounter your inner images in external life.

Background

This method of laying the cards combines spreads I and II.

Interpretation

1 The Ego

The first card represents the consciousness of your own self (The Great Spirit). It is the way the subject expresses and perceives itself as such: this is your own conscious identity at this time.

2 The Image of the Ego

The second card shows you the aim of your identity (John Dee); this is the inner intention, which is the basis of the course you are following and leads you to your conscious identity.

3 The Other

The third card describes the challenge created by the encounter with the world (the Horned God): this is what confronts you from the outside as your environment.

4 The Image of the Other

The fourth card symbolizes the part of you that you have distanced from yourself and projected onto the opposite sex (Jane), which is reflected in the image of the partner.

5 The Id

The fifth card describes – in contrast to the conscious ego – the deeper layers of the personality (The Devil): the level of the soul that includes the unconscious, the emotions, feelings, drives, and strivings (“endothymus function”).

6 The Image of the Id

The sixth card shows the circumstances or the person through which evil surfaces in life (Edward Kelley), the clothing in which the Id is manifested.

7 The Superego

This card embodies the superego in the Freudian sense, the controlling authority (the hidden one) placed above the ego, which accepts that the laws of society are valid and binding. It therefore includes the moral regulations and opportunistic aspirations of our spiritual life.

8 The Image of the Superego

In the eighth card you encounter father figure (Rabbi Löw), who is inspired by the endeavor for a better solutions. He breaks through the barriers of perception and grows within the transcendental spaces of limitless levels of consciousness. As an authority that passes judgment according to your conscience, he mainly demands that we renounce the goals for which the id strives (cards 5 and 6) and places himself in opposition to the ego (card 1). In unresolved conflict situations, this can lead to repression of the desires or emotions unacceptable to the superego.

9 The Darkness (The Shadow of the Light)

The ninth card shows us the purposeful currents rising from the endothymus function (card 5); these are often tied to feelings. As motivating forces, they determine the dynamics of experience, desires, and action. On the archetypal level, this is the Great Unknown or the dark archetype (the Green Angel), which attracts you and places you at its whose mercy if you fall into its hands.

10 The Light (The Shadow of the Darkness)

The last card shows the higher understanding through which the human spirit rises above itself and can become aware of its own bicephalous nature (Baphomet) by recognizing itself from both inside and outside of its own ways of thinking. He is the Janus-headed figure who unites an inward view with an outward glance in a dual perspective: “I am the Devil who has overcome polarities by looking God in the eye and only seeing himself.”

IV THE BIG BANG
Questions

Every creative idea, every flash of genius is a miniature repetition of the “big bang” with which our universe began its existence. For beyond the cosmic struggle is also hidden the universal relevance of the same eternal question: What does it mean? That is why this spread is for asking about the basic creative potential in an idea, or about a notion that you have concerning where the basic creative potential lies. How will this matter develop? What is the objective?

Allegory (The Big Bang)

“In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep...” These are the first lines of the Book of Genesis in the Bible; we could say that receives a certain amount of confirmation by the Big Bang theory of modern physics. According to this theory, the universe began its existence with the primal explosion – the big bang. Prior to this event, the spirit of matter had only been present in something like homeopathic amounts since matter was compressed into an infinitely high density within an infinitely small space. Jahveh’s act of creation, giving birth to being out of nothingness (creatio ex nihilo) developed so incredibly quickly after the big bang that it passed through the chaos, quark, and hadron eras in the first milliseconds; seconds later, it went through the lepton and radiation eras. But it took several million years for the era of matter to begin.

Interpretation

1 Chaos (The Beginning)

Chaos is shapeless primal matter out of which everything emerges. It is the first act of the creative force that “generates itself” and then ignites its own idea. It is an eruption of flames, the overflowing power of which destroys existing forms so that the life force can flow into new forms. In spiritual cosmogony, chaos represents the bridge between the spirit and the idea. It is a symbol of the inner firepower underlying outer endeavors as an invisible inner impetus.

2 The Quark Era (The Creative Quality)

This era corresponds to the absolute primal idea of the divine manifesting itself as matter and penetrating into the world of forms. It is the spirit of the will, and of God’s spark, which conceal itself in form. Even during those first milliseconds of the young universe, it laid the cornerstone for continual development right up to the present day. The Quark Era only lasted about one ten-thousandth of a second. On our level of human creation, this means that the second card reflects the creative quality underlying our idea.

3 The Hadron Era (Dynamic Energy)

The third card shows the dynamic quality of our idea on the energy plane, meaning how the potential energy may assert itself (in the world) within the entire whirlwind of creation. Even in our inner experience, we must also accept the hectic phases that accompany outward changes and upheavals. Inner unrest originates in a creative urge to burst the framework that has become too constricting to the awakened spirit of fire. This corresponds with the cosmogony of the Hadron Era when, for some ten-thousandths of a second, the universe consisted almost exclusively of hadron, the smallest component detectable to physics in the atomic nucleus.

4 The Radiation Era (Compression)

The fourth card symbolizes the arrival of the atomic nucleus comprising simple chemical elements; namely, nuclear synthesis or genesis. The Radiation Era stands for the genesis of things from the unchanging, complete, divine oneness and for the slow compression of energy in time and space.

5 The Material (The Appearance)

Approximately half a million years after the big bang, energy had compressed so much that electrons were taken up by the atomic nuclei and were therefore able to form the first stable elements. The universe became visible: “And there was light!” This phase represents the spirit of creation in its most concrete form since divine ideas now appear in visible form and reflect back upon the creator in the act of giving birth to creation. On the psychological level, the fifth card therefore reflects the point in time when our ideas become manifested in the material world as miniature symbol of God’s creative presence (creatio continua). However, this occurs in the form of transcendental – and not causative – effects.

V MEPHISTO’S HAMMER
Questions

Let us just suppose that we are sad, depressed, and distressed. Nothing succeeds and we are blocked in everything we do. This is the appropriate precondition for this spread because depression is the key to clearer understanding (What is this crisis trying to tell me?). The cards point to an insight we require in order to recognize the meaning of our failure (What unconscious meaning is at the root of my failure?). Perceiving the unknown motivation, and not overcoming the crisis as quickly and painlessly as possible but without gaining in experience, is the meaning behind every failure.

In short: We do not perceive because we enjoy understanding, but perception is frequently the only experience that help us become acquainted with the conditions and basis of our self-deception. As a result, it becomes the precondition for eliminating it. If we do not willingly accept what wants to achieve realization within ourselves, it will be forced upon us. This way of fulfilling our destiny is naturally not particularly pleasant. Yet, it always also initiates healing, a process of development so that we can find our own center. Because they are the results of our own actions, personal catastrophes not only force us to be honest: They also make us complete because they bring into the world that very part of ourselves to which we are most blind. The cards therefore permit greater consciousness: through them we perceive the circumstances that make “sense” of our failure.

Allegory (The End of Creation)

John Faust looked intently through the ocular of his telescope and furrowed his brow. He did not like what he saw there at all. Not far from Pluto, the most distant planet from the sun, he had discovered a comet, one of those unfathomable wanderers in the universe forced by the gravitational pull of the distant planets into an orbital path around the sun. This in itself was nothing remarkable, but in this particular case it was such a titanic size as to present a danger, for it steered a direct path toward the earth. “I tell you, it’s going to cause problems. And why, I ask myself, has no one already sighted this stray from the depths of nothingness?” He pointed to the cosmic monster as it plowed through the night sky outside.

His colleague, M.E. Phisto, lit up a cigarette pleasurably and merely said: “Yes, yes … humanity has its little secrets that it likes to hide from itself What will it do now that everything is about to dissolve? Do you want to hear the truth, brother, without the inherited genetic blindness, which is such a mark of the human brain?”

He laughed: “They will do nothing at all. First they will panic, and then repress it all once again. They will become slower and slower and stop, just like the mechanism of a broken clock! The spirit, a quasi-conscious being, grown weary of the Earth and is preparing to abandon this tumbling spaceship. For it is already written in the Bible: ‘and the stars will fall from the heavens.’”

Faust turned towards him and slowly nodded with strangely void eyes: “Yes, this comet out there is like the divine spark that destroys everything. Like the final crescendo of a Devils symphony calling itself human development. We cannot stop it. It would be blasphemy to try! But perhaps our essence will survive the doomsday if our souls strive to reach God again. Who knows!”

Faust and M.E. Phisto announced their discovery. Their scientific calculations proved to be correct – that the cosmic messenger of the Devil would not elegantly slither past the inner planets and the Sun, but rather, that it would crash directly into the Earth. Then the world was seized by great fear and the bringer of death was called “Mephisto’s Hammer.” But horror soon gave way to stubborn despair, and the closer this tool of the Devil drew to Earth, the madder the party became. The nearer the sword of Damocles descended upon the heads of the human beings, the more they felt compelled to repress their fears. But the “Hammer” did not miss its target! With the enormous force of countless atomic bombs, it went down in the Caribbean Sea south of the Greater Antilles, annihilating all life on Earth in a single inferno.

Interpretation

1 The Impact (The Theme of the Crisis)

The impact means suddenly being torn from a harmonious state. It is the destruction of a stable system of balance. It therefore represents the subject of the crisis.

2 The Deluge (The Consequence of the Crisis)

The impact of a comet striking the ocean triggers off enormous tidal waves all over the world; they roll towards the coasts with deathly force. The second card therefore symbolizes the aggressive destructive power of the crisis because it “surges above” its own barriers and forces its way from inner seclusion into outer, manifested experience.

3 The Darkening of Light (Sexual Chill)

The sun’s light is eclipsed for decades by matter stirred into the atmosphere by as a result of the impact. Temperatures plummet throughout the whole world and most animals and plants do not have the right conditions for survival because they cannot adapt quickly enough to the altered circumstances. The third card is therefore life becoming extinct or the emotional nadir: the spiritual center of the crisis.

4 The Greenhouse Effect (Emotional Overheating)

With the settling of the stirred-up matter, temperatures quickly begin to increase again due to the enormous quantities of carbon monoxide released through the firestorm caused by the impact of the comet. This releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide that have a greenhouse effect. The heat consumes whatever life that remains. This card is therefore an allegory for overheating within the soul or the pressure of pent-up feelings.

5 End and Beginning (Human Beings)

The fifth card symbolizes the renewal that is fulfilled in the resurrection of human beings. Because the light reaching us today from distant galaxies was radiated millions of years ago, each look into the universe is a view into the past. Those human beings existing a million years from now will probably have emerged from the life forms surviving the present catastrophe. Consequently, this card does not show us the steps to take to overcome the present crisis on the psychological level. Instead, it depicts the goal towards which our development will lead us after the crisis is overcome.

VI THE NOHNS’ WHEEL
Questions

The thing we call “fortune” is the manifest expression of the process of transformation that we experience in our lifetime. These show us the structures concealed within the deeds, which are both cause and effect to the same degree. Therefore, we are not prisoners of the Norns’ Wheel, but wanderers upon a path that leads us through the effects of our own actions. Although this means that we do not have the power to alter our destiny, we can still change our view of things. The vital question of destiny is not what we are able to change in the current situation, but what is the meaning of our actions: the goal towards which our development is heading.

Background (The Norns of Destiny)

This spread is a combination of beginning and end, of the Big Bang (IV) and the Hammer of Destruction (V). It links the polarities of creation and destruction to the steady movement of the Norns’ Wheel that, because it spins eternally, is therefore between the two. The question that moves you is the point of intersection through which you focus the journey to yourself (between birth and death). You must accept that everything you experience is in turn never the actual cause but only a ripple triggered by pre-existing causes that can themselves be traced back to a basic pattern increasingly distant in time; effects following causes that can be found in your spiritual development. Everything that you experience is never just the cause but also the effect of a genealogical pattern pressing tirelessly further into the future. As the subject of your question (and the focal point of your increasing consciousness) it swings both back into the past and forward into the future. On the allegorical level the three Norns – who turn the wheel of Fortune, and therefore keep the cosmic cycles in motion – symbolize the inner laws that take effect in the actions of people.

Interpretation

1 The material as the basis

The issue in question.

2 The impact as resistance from outside

The shadow you encounter outside yourself.

3 The flood as a consequence of this resistance

The physical plane, upon which the shadow manifests itself.

4 Chaos as the primal beginning

The first opportunity dawning on you in the fog of numinous fears (the aim).

5 The Quark Era as creative quality

The higher (spiritual) meaning of your action.

6 The cooling down of the Earth as inner frustration

Emotional resistance.

7 The Greenhouse Effect as emotional overheating

The inner (exaggerated) reaction to external resistance.

8 The Hadron Era as physical assertion

The dynamic quality of your actions.

9 The Radiation Era as physical condensation

The compression of your aim (hopes and fears) in time and space.

10 The human being as the outer goal of our development

The goal towards which your development leads.

VII THE FIVE-RAY SPREAD
(THE PATH OF DECISION)
Questions

What shall I decide to do? Should I buy a car? Resign from my job? Take a holiday? What’s going to happen if I do it? And what’s going to happen if I don’t? What’s the right path?

Background

This spread is only appropriate when we cannot decide in favor of one or the other possibilities. The right-hand side (the left from the reader’s perspective) describes the active possibility (if we do it). The other side describes the passive possibility (if we don’t do it). In this process, the significator (card 1) makes it possible to psychologically clarify the background to the question since it reflects the personal state of consciousness, which is mirrored at the time of this decision.

Interpretation

1 The Basic Situation

The realities of those conditions that lead us to make a decision. This also includes the quality of the background of the question that you are currently interested in.

2 The Physical Level of Acting

The physical realm of experience if you decide to do it.

3 The Physical Level of Not Acting

The physical realm of experience if you decide not to do it.

4 The Emotional Level of Acting

The psychological realm of emotions if you decide to do it.

5 The Emotional Level of Not Acting

The psychological realm of emotions if you decide not to do it.