Thoth Study Group - The Chariot

noby

I've been reading Rachel Pollack's The Kabbalah Tree, and came across a fascinating historical passage which details a mystical practice within the Jewish tradition. This passage serves to give some background on the vision and approach to the divine which informs the Tree of Life and the Kabbalah as a whole, and also, at least in my eyes, speaks to some of the aspects of the Chariot card in the tarot.

Two thousand years ago, right around the time of the teachings of Jesus, Judaism faced a great crisis. Rome was trying to crush the Jewish desire to follow its own traditions, and in the year 70, in response to Jewish rebellion, the Roman army destroyed the vast Temple of Solomon that had stood as the center of Jewish ritual and spiritual life for hundreds of years.

Without the temple, and its seasonal rituals and sacrifices, how would people join themselves to God? The Sefer Yetsirah was, in fact, one answer, and it began a strain in mystical religion called "the work of creation," that is, the contemplation of the origins and structure of existence. Through meditation on the wonders of the sephiroth and the letters, and their place in the creation of the world, the mystic comes to a sense of the divine power that fills all existence, especially our own lives.

Another response was a kind of shamanic revival called "the work of the merkavah," or the work of the chariot. The chariot refers to a mystic vision described in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel lived during the Babylonian Exile, after the destruction of the first temple (Rome actually destroyed a second temple, rebuilt after the return from Babylon). His experience was therefore meaningful to those going through the pain of Roman attacks. The prophet described a highly detailed vision he had of a heavenly chariot, wheels within wheels and winged creatures with four faces. The merkavah mystics used this vision as their own vehicle for trance journeys into the seven hekhaloth (palaces) of heaven. The purpose of these journeys was to see the divine face to face, the very experience Jacob describes after his night of wrestling.

The great detail of the merkavah writings show that the journeyers considered the hekhaloth real places and not just hallucinations or subjective images. They warn of improper responses one might make at certain points in the journey. At the same time they recognized that all this took place on an inner level, stimulated by meditation and magical practices, for they described the experience as a "descent" to the chariot, even as the traveler ascended to the palaces. The chariot was inside the self as well as in the heavenly realms.

In my earlier post to this thread, I correlated the Chariot to mystical practices such as yoga. The practices of which I was thinking at the time were generally practices which originated or were refined in the "Aeon of Osiris." It's interesting now to look at the same inner work from an approach with a different quality and a different perspective. The shamanic practice described above arose during the Aeon of Osiris, but the roots of shamanism stretch back to the Aeon of Isis. Shamanic practices are a way of disciplining and directing energies to lead to liberation or at least an experience of the divine, yet lack some of the puritanical and dualistic attitudes which reflect part of the shadow side of worldviews from the Aeon of Osiris.

Of course, in the end, yoga, shamanic and trance practices, and any other mystical practices are all different approaches to the same thing, which is the working out of the human relationship with the divine, and the yearning for intimacy with the divine. It is interesting how discipline and restrictive outer forms can lead to such ecstasy and freedom. I think the practice and vision of the merkavah is interesting in the way it reflects on all of this, and speaks to the Chariot in many ways.
 

Edgar

What if the knight was a buddhist monk?

The Chariot is a card I pay a lot of attention to! I found out that the Chariot is both my personal and spiritual card.. A thing I read about adding all numbers of your birthday to find those cards(For me it's the same one for both. I have no idea what it means but I guess that I'll find out one day or an other!!), I really like that this card ended up being it because I see a lot of me into it(Maybe I'll explain later?)..

Anyway! Lets start with the babling! I always had a lot of interest for the spiritual/occult/magical/.. world of Asia and did some Asian studies plus T'ai Chi, Kung fu, Qi Gong, and some more.. All of this leading to this: The knight seems to be holding the Holy Graal at the level of the Swadhisthana Chakra( emotion, sexuality and creativity energy) or Manipura Chakra(The center of energy. The reason why the Buddha is most always represented with a huge belly is because he is a being full of energy and energy is stock in the belly. ) , either way that is a LOT(!) of energy! I don't want to talk about the Swadhisthana because Yoga / tantric is not my thing so lets pretend that he is holding the Graal at the Manipura Chakra level also known in chinese as the Dantian, one of the most important point of focus for meditation and energy gathering, his Dantian is almost has big has the Buddha's so yes it could indeed be the end of the journey his spirit being ready to lift off to the Nirvana(Not my interpretation but one possibility), the Gold armor not reflecting something he is wearing but his state of mind, his spirit (It made me think about those monk that you can hit with a stick wile they are meditating and nothing gets to them, they do not feel pain, they do not feel the outside world.) So meditation is the next stop. Lot's of people said that it looked like the knight was / has been on a journey and I have to agree with the ones who mention an inner journey, the face plate of the armor is down, the knight(monk) is meditating and nothing can get to him and he is doing a darn good job at it, just look at all the energy he is gathering! This, bringing me to an other reason why I am thinking that it is possible that he is not at the end of a journey but maybe at the beginning or middle of a journey... You just don't gather that much energy before going to bed this has to be the beginning or continuing of something..

Something else that caught my eye, the chariot the knight is sitting on looks a lot like a chinese chariot.

This is it! Sorry if it doesn't make any sense but this is my first attempt at interpreting a card ! ;)
 

abella

Moonudjat said:
From The Book of Thoth:???

Jupiter exalted in cancer and that means that the chariot is connected with Fortune. He is holding the wheel of fortune in his hands. only it is not the wheel it is the Grail filled with the great sea of Binah and spiritual life in the form of blood.

I have read that the Chariot holds the Holy Grail; however, I'm really moved to view it as the Wheel of Life or at minimum the Wheel of Life *within* the Holy Grail.

Images:
The Chariot: http://z.about.com/d/altreligion/1/0/F/4/2/s7.jpg
The Wheel of Life: http://www.biblelicious.net/wp-cont...eel_life_01.jpg

The Thoth deck has such diversified colouring for each card that no two cards are alike and the only card that comes close in colouring to the Wheel of Life is the Chariot. The main colours (in the Chariot card and the wheel of life) are blue, red, white, and gold.

Something to ponder...
 

rogue

The Chariot (flesh) is the vessel that carries the soul (blood), like the cup holds the wine.
 

abella

lampkin said:
The Chariot (flesh) is the vessel that carries the soul (blood), like the cup holds the wine.

I hear you; however, do you know what the Wheel of Life is all about?
 

rogue

Is that a Hindu thing? Can you tell me about it?
 

Formicida

The Wheel of Life link above seems to be broken. I haven't heard of it either.
 

ravenest

lampkin said:
Is that a Hindu thing? Can you tell me about it?

Its like a ladder but it curves over and around and behind you and back up again in a circle. There is bag of cash (or possessions or ...) hanging just out of reach.
You are the hamster.

Something like that ... ;)