0. The Fool
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Number: 0
Card Title: The Fool
Esoteric Title: Spirit of Aether
Astrological Atttribution: Uranus (modern)
Elemental Attribution: Air (hot, wet)
Dates & Timing: Season of Spring
Hebrew Letter: Aleph Ox 1
Color: Pale Yellow
Intelligence: Scintillating Intelligence
Esoteric Function: Air of Reconciliation
Qabalistic Path: Path 11: 1 Kether to 2 Chokmah
Translation of Path: The Crown of Wisdom
Keywords: Choice, Beginning, Fresh Start, High Ideals, Crossroads, Neophyte, Intuitive Sense, Seeking New Experiences, Beginning, Innocence, Spontaneity, Carefree Innocence, Independent, Rebellious, Trickster, New Chapter, Openness, Innocence, Faith, Beginners Mind
Ill-Dignified: Apparent Fool, Naiveté, Foolish, Foolhardy, Blundering, Pollyanna, Indiscretion, Faulty choice, Irresponsible, Irresponsible, Rebellious, Reckless, Unmotivated, Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity. Hesitation
Interpretation:Choice is offered. Wanting to be happy and are searching for happiness. Release wants cares and worries. At crossroads, important decision to be made. Look before you leap. Consider past mistakes. Plunging into unknown. Protection thorough faith & innocence. Act as if you know nothing. What are you unaware of? Dare to leap. I now follow my heart. I am open and ready to go wherever it may lead. Fear Not. Trusting Silence. Ready for New Beginning. The Name given to the Highest Form of Consciousness by the Lowest Form, Free from expectation, Accepting things exactly the way they are.
Reversed Interpretation: A bad decision, indecision, apathy, hesitation, a faulty choice. Not connected by emotions. Are you making the right decisions? Review situation and results. Recklessness with money can cause hardships. May trust wrong people. Fear holding you back.
Rider-Waite Imagery
The fool stands on the edge of a cliff. The path is leading you in a new direction. The number of the fool is zero. The fool is considered the highest form of consciousness. The name the fool is given to the highest form of consciousness by the densest and most mundane. It looks foolish to people to see someone who acts without regards to outcome and without pre-conceived notions. When the fool shows up, you are heading off in to the unknown. if the fool is reversed, you may be feeling uncertain and insecure. You don’t get to see the entire path all at once. The lesson of the fool is to relax and go with the tide and flow of your life.
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)
Part I: The Veil and its Symbols
21–which, however, in most of the arrangements is the cipher card, number nothing–The Fool, Mate, or Unwise Man. Court de Gebelin places it at the head of the whole series as the zero or negative which is presupposed by numeration, and as this is a simpler so also it is a better arrangement. It has been abandoned because in later times the cards have been attributed to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and there has been apparently some difficulty about allocating the zero symbol satisfactorily in a sequence of letters all of which signify numbers. In the present reference of the card to the letter Shin, which corresponds to 200, the difficulty or the unreason remains. The truth is that the real arrangement of the cards has never transpired. The Fool carries a wallet; he is looking over his shoulder and does not know that he is on the brink of a precipice; but a dog or other animal–some call it a tiger–is attacking him from behind, and he is hurried to his destruction unawares. Etteilla has given a justifiable variation of this card–as generally understood–in the form of a court jester, with cap, bells and motley garb. The other descriptions say that the wallet contains the bearer’s follies and vices, which seems bourgeois and arbitrary.
Part II: The Doctrine Behind the Veil
With light step, as if earth and its trammels had little power to restrain him, a young man in gorgeous vestments pauses at the brink of a precipice among the great heights of the world; he surveys the blue distance before him-its expanse of sky rather than the prospect below. His act of eager walking is still indicated, though he is stationary at the given moment; his dog is still bounding. The edge which opens on the depth has no terror; it is as if angels were waiting to uphold him, if it came about that he leaped from the height. His countenance is full of intelligence and expectant dream. He has a rose in one hand and in the other a costly wand, from which depends over his right shoulder a wallet curiously embroidered. He is a prince of the other world on his travels through this one-all amidst the morning glory, in the keen air. The sun, which shines behind him, knows whence he came, whither he is going, and how he will return by another path after many days. He is the spirit in search of experience. Many symbols of the Instituted Mysteries are summarized in this card, which reverses, under high warrants, all the confusions that have preceded it.
In his Manual of Cartomancy, Grand Orient has a curious suggestion of the office of Mystic Fool, as apart of his process in higher divination; but it might call for more than ordinary gifts to put it into operation. We shall see how the card fares according to the common arts of fortune-telling, and it will be an example, to those who can discern, of the fact, otherwise so evident, that the Trumps Major had no place originally in the arts of psychic gambling, when cards are used as the counters and pretexts. Of the circumstances under which this art arose we know, however, very little. The conventional explanations say that the Fool signifies the flesh, the sensitive life, and by a peculiar satire its subsidiary name was at one time the alchemist, as depicting folly at the most insensate stage.
The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]
Chapter X. The Symbolical Tarot
21st Hebrew letter (Shin).
ORIGIN OF THE SYMBOLISM OF THE UNNUMBERED CARD OF THE TAROT.
The Shin expresses the same hieroglyphic meaning as the Zain (7th arcanum) and the Samech (15th): this is an arrow, an object directed to an aim. But the movement which was direct in the Zain (?) and which became circular in the Samech (?), here takes the form of a vibration from one pole to the other, with an unstable point of equilibrium in the centre. The Shin is therefore the sign of relative duration and of the movement relating to it, whilst the Samech expresses cyclic movement, and therefore absolute duration.
Shin is one of the three mother letters.
TWENTY-FIRST (UNNUMBERED) CARD OF THE TAROT. The Foolish Man.
A careless-looking man, wearing a fool’s cap, with torn clothes and a bundle upon his shoulder, goes quietly on his way, paying no attention to a dog which bites his leg. He does not look where he is going, so walks towards a precipice, where a crocodile is waiting to devour him.
This is an image of the state to which unresisted passion will reduce a man. It is the symbol of the Flesh and of its gratification. From a moral point of view the following verses of Eliphas Levi well explain this symbol–
“Souffrir c’est travailler, c’est accomplir sa tÃche,
Malheur au paresseux qui dort sur le chemin;
La douleur, comme un chien, mord les talons du lÃche,
Qui, d’un seul jour perdu, surcharge un lendemain.”
More rapid return to the Divine World. Personality asserts itself– THE MOTION OF RELATIVE DURATION.
The intellect roughly appears under the influence of evolution– INNERVATION. INSTINCT.
The matter of the world attains the maximum of its material progression– THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.
21. The Foolish Man.
Affinities Hieroglyphic Primitive: The Arrow
Hebrew letter: The Shin (one of the 3 mothers)
Significations THE MOTION of Relative Duration
INNERVATION Instinct
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
Major Arcana Signification from the Divining Point of View
21. The Foolish Man signifies INCONSIDERATE ACTIONS. MADNESS.
The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]
Symbolism of Each Key
0. The Foolish Man. A man with a fool’s cap, dressed like a jester, with a stick and bundle over his shoulder. Before him is the butterfly of pleasure luring him on (while in some packs a tiger, in others a dog, attacks him from behind). It signifies Folly, Expiation.
Meanings of the Cards
0. The Foolish Man.–Folly, Expiation, Wavering; R. Hesitation, Instability, Trouble arising here from.
The Symbolism of the Tarot by P. D. Ouspensky [1913]
What is the Tarot? Card 0.–”The Fool”.
“Man.” An ordinary man. A separate man. The uninitiated Lower consciousness. The end of a ray not knowing its relation to the centre.
CARD 0. THE FOOL.
And I saw another man.
Tired and lame he dragged himself along the dusty road, across the deserted plain under the scorching rays of the sun. He glanced sidelong with foolish, staring eyes, a half smile, half leer on his face; he knew not where he went, but was absorbed in his chimerical dreams which ran constantly in the same circle. His fool’s cap was put on wrong side front, his garments were torn in the back; a wild lynx with glowing eyes sprang upon him from behind a rock and buried her teeth in his flesh. He stumbled, nearly fell, but continued to drag himself along, all the time holding on his shoulder a bag containing useless things, which he, in his stupidity, carried wherever he went.
Before him a crevice crossed the road and a deep precipice awaited the foolish wanderer. Then a huge crocodile with open mouth crawled out of the precipice. And I heard the voice say:–
“Look! This is the same man.”
I felt my head whirl.
“What has he in the bag?” I inquired, not knowing why I asked. And after a long silence the voice replied: “The four magic symbols, the sceptre, the cup, the sword and the pentacle. The fool always carries them, although he has long since forgotten what they mean. Nevertheless they belong to him, even though he does not know their use. The symbols have not lost their power, they retain it in themselves.
The Tarot Trumps by G. H. Soror, Q.L.
0. THE FOOLISH MAN
This card as usually presented shows a man in motley striding along, heedless of the dog which tears his garments and threatens to attack him. In this is seen only the lower aspect of the card, giving no hint to the Divine Folly of which St. Paul speaks. But in the Order pack, an effort is made to reveal the deeper meaning. A naked child stands beneath a rose-tree bearing yellow roses – the golden Rose of Joy as well as the Rose of Silence. While reaching up to the Roses, he yet holds in leash a gray wolf, worldly wisdom held in check by perfect innocence. The colors are pale yellow, pale blue, greenish yellow – suggestive of the early dawn of a spring day.
Book “T” The Tarot
Brief Meanings of Twenty-Two Keys
1. IF the question refers to spiritual matters, the Fool means idea, thought, spirituality, that which endeavours to transcend Earth. But if question is material, it means folly, stupidity, eccentricity, or even mania.
