Tarot Journey with Leisa ReFalo

Number: 6
Card Title: The Lovers
Esoteric Title: Children of the Voice Divine, The Oracles of the Mighty Gods
Astrological Atttribution: Gemini
Elemental Attribution: Air (hot, wet)
Dates & Timing: May 21 to June 21
Hebrew Letter: Zain Sword 6
Color: Orange
Intelligence: Disposing Intelligence
Esoteric Function: Smell
Qabalistic Path: Path 17: 3 Binah to 6 Tipareth
Translation of Path: The Understanding of Beauty

Keywords: Attraction of Choice, Divine Union, Balance, Completion, Interesting Experiences, Love, Friendship, Newness, Meetings, Harmony, Cupid, Sexuality, Bonds, Alignment, Relationships, Wholeness, Discernment, Unity, Love, Joining of People or Ideas, Combining

Ill-Dignified: Star-Crossed Lovers, Adultery, Projection, Physical Attraction, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, Jealous, Controlling, Infidelity, Quarrels, Love triangle, Interference, Pressure, Interference, Divorce, Strong Opposition.

Interpretation:
Choice between 2 lovers or attractive options. Two paths. Major decision concerning relationship. Time for choice. Important choice. Decision based on intuition. Between idealistic love and physical attraction. Love and Career. Paris & 3 Goddesses. Becoming conscious through relationship. Will need to choose from 2 or more paths. I am now ready to meet the partner I longed to meet. Coming together. Querent has found or will finds a person, career, challenge or thing that they will fall in love with.

Reversed Interpretation: Wanting the best of both worlds. Severe break in relationship. Desire for close bonds. Wrong choice. Interference by in-laws. Quarrels over children. Failure to meet the test. Unreliability. Separation. Frustration in love and marriage. Interference from others. Fickleness. Untrustworthiness. Unwise plans. Failure when put to the test. Failure, foolish designs. Another account speaks of marriage frustrated and contrarieties of all kinds.

Rider-Waite Imagery

There are three figures on the lovers card. The 2 human figures are nude. This represents their openness, vulnerability and equanimity. They accept things exactly how they are. They can also see things very clearly, nothing is hidden. A man on the right is looking at the woman on the left. She is looking up at the angel above. The Angel is looking down at the two figures. The man represents conscious thought. The woman represents unconscious or sub-conscious thought. The angel represents super-conscious thought or your higher self.

The lesson from this card is to become in touch with your intuitive self and higher self. When these three are working in proper relationship with each other you can clearly see things how they are. A main issue this card represents is learning about choices and discernment.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)

Part I: The Veil and its Symbols

6. The Lovers or Marriage. This symbol has undergone many variations, as might be expected from its subject. In the eighteenth century form, by which it first became known to the world of archæological research, it is really a card of married life, shewing father and mother, with their child placed between them; and the pagan Cupid above, in the act of flying his shaft, is, of course, a misapplied emblem. The Cupid is of love beginning rather than of love in its fulness, guarding the fruit thereof. The card is said to have been entitled Simulacyum fidei, the symbol of conjugal faith, for which the rainbow as a sign of the covenant would have been a more appropriate concomitant. The figures are also held to have signified Truth, Honour and Love, but I suspect that this was, so to speak, the gloss of a commentator moralizing. It has these, but it has other and higher aspects.

Part II: The Doctrine Behind the Veil

The sun shines in the zenith, and beneath is a great winged figure with arms extended, pouring down influences. In the foreground are two human figures, male and female, unveiled before each other, as if Adam and Eve when they first occupied the paradise of the earthly body. Behind the man is the Tree of Life, bearing twelve fruits, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is behind the woman; the serpent is twining round it. The figures suggest youth, virginity, innocence and love before it is contaminated by gross material desire. This is in all simplicity the card of human love, here exhibited as part of the way, the truth and the life. It replaces, by recourse to first principles, the old card of marriage, which I have described previously, and the later follies which depicted man between vice and virtue. In a very high sense, the card is a mystery of the Covenant and Sabbath.

The suggestion in respect of the woman is that she signifies that attraction towards the sensitive life which carries within it the idea of the Fall of Man, but she is rather the working of a Secret Law of Providence than a willing and conscious temptress. It is through her imputed lapse that man shall arise ultimately, and only by her can he complete himself. The card is therefore in its way another intimation concerning the great mystery of womanhood. The old meanings fall to pieces of necessity with the old pictures, but even as interpretations of the latter, some of them were of the order of commonplace and others were false in symbolism.

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]

Chapter X. The Symbolical Tarot

6. The 6th Hebrew letter (Vau).

ORIGIN OF THE SYMBOLISM OF THE SIXTH CARD OF THE TAROT.

The hieroglyphic sign for the Vau is the eye, all that relates to light and brilliancy. The eye establishes the link between the external world and ourselves; by it light and form are revealed to us. The dominant idea expressed by this letter will therefore be that of a connection, of a link between antagonists. We have already dwelt at some length upon the Vau, but we think it may be useful to quote Fabre d’Olivet’s observations upon this letter in extenso–

“This sign is the image of the deepest and most inconceivable mystery, the image of the knot which reunites, or of the point which separates, the nothing from the being. It is the universal convertible sign, which forms the passage from one nature to the other; communicating on one side with the sign of light and of spiritual sense ?? (a pointed Vau), which is but a higher form of itself; on the other hand linking itself in its degeneration with Ayin (?), the sign of darkness and of the material senses, which again is but a lower form of itself.”

The Vau is the second simple letter; astronomically it represents the second sign of the zodiac, the Bull.

THE SIXTH CARD OF THE TAROT. The Lovers.

This symbol represents reunion, antagonism, with all their consequences.

A beardless youth (our Juggler of the 1st arcanum), but without a hat, is standing motionless in the angle where two roads meet. His arms form a diagonal cross upon his breast.

The repetition of the 1st arcanum under another form. Here the man is not one of the Initiates. He does not know how to direct the magnetic currents of the Astral Light; he is therefore plunged in the antagonism of the different ideas which he cannot master.

Two women, one on his right, the other on his left, each with one hand upon his shoulder, point to the two roads. The woman on the right has a circle of gold upon her head, the one on the left is dishevelled and crowned with vine leaves.

The two arms of the Juggler, expressing the positive and negative, the two columns of the temple of Isis, expressing necessity and liberty, are here personified by the two women, who represent Vice and Virtue.

The future of the young man depends upon the road which he chooses, whether he becomes one of the Initiates, the Mage of the 1st arcanum (the spiritual ?), or the rash thunder-stricken personage of the 16th arcanum (the ?).

The spirit of Justice floats above this group in a radiant halo; he bends his bow and aims the arrow of Punishment at the personification of Vice.

A profound symbol indicating that if man chooses the path of Virtue he will not be left unaided, but that Providence will ally itself to his will and assist him to overcome vice.

In short, this hieroglyphic expresses the struggle between the passions and conscience, the antagonism of ideas.

But this antagonism is also the most powerful natural producer that exists in the world, when it resolves itself into LOVE, which attracts the opponents and unites them for ever.

This sixth card of the Tarot must be regarded under two aspects, which tend to the same signification.

1. As 3 of the 4, that is to say, as representing the 4th arcanum, or the reflection of 1 considered in its relation to union.

2. As balancing 4 and 5; this is shown in the triangle formed by the second ternary–

Each card balances the two others.

The 4 balances the 5 and the 6.
The 5 ———- the 4 and the 6.
The 6 ———- the 4 and the 5.

Its signification proceeds from this:–

• In the Divine. The Equilibrium between Will and Intelligence–BEAUTY (characteristic of the Holy Spirit).
• In the Human. The Equilibrium between Power and Authority–LOVE (characteristic of Humanity).CHARITY.
• In Nature. The Equilibrium between the Universal soul and the Universal life–THE UNIVERSAL ATTRACTION. Universal Love.

6. The Lovers.

Affinities

• Primitive Hieroglyphic: The eye, The ear
• Kabbalah: TIPHERETH
• Astronomy: The Bull
• Month: April
• Hebrew Letter: Vau (simple)

Significations

• Equilibrium of Will and Intelligence BEAUTY
• Equilibrium of Power and Authority LOVE
• CHARITY
• Equilibrium of the Universal Soul and the Universal Life THE UNIVERSAL ATTRACTION or UNIVERSAL LOVE
• Major Arcana Signification from the Divining Point of View

6. The Lovers signifies LOVE.

The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]

Symbolism of Each Key

6. The Lovers. This is usually described as representing Man between Vice and Virtue, while a winged genius threatens Vice with his dart. But I am rather inclined to the opinion that it represents the Qabalistical Microprosopus between Binah and Malkuth (see my Kabbalah Unveiled), while the figure above shows the Influence descending from Kether. It is usually considered to mean Proof or Trial; but I am inclined to suggest Wise Disposition as its signification.

Meanings of the Cards

6. The Lovers.–Wise Dispositions, Proof, Trials Surmounted; R. Unwise Plans, Failure when put to the test.

The Symbolism of the Tarot by P. D. Ouspensky [1913]

What is the Tarot? Card VI.–”The Lovers”.

“Man”. Another aspect of the “Adam Kadmon”, the “Perfect Man”, “The divine androgyne”. Love as the efforts of “Adam Kadmon” to find himself. The equilibrium of contraries. The unification of the duad, as the means of attaining the Light.

CARD VI. THE LOVERS.

I saw a blooming garden in a green valley, surrounded by soft blue hills.

In the garden I saw a Man and a Woman naked and beautiful. They loved each other and their Love was their service to the Great Conception, a prayer and a sacrifice; through It they communed with God, through It they received the highest revelations; in Its light the deepest truths came to them; the magic world opened its gate; elves, undines, sylphs and gnomes came openly to them; the three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, plant and animal, and the four elements–fire, water, air and earth-served them.

Through their Love they saw the mystery of the world’s equilibrium, and that they themselves were a symbol and expression of this balance. Two triangles united in them into a six-pointed star. Two magnets melted into an ellipsis. They were two. The third was the Unknown Future. The three made One.

I saw the woman looking out upon the world as though enraptured with its beauty. And from the tree on which ripened golden fruit I saw a serpent creep. It whispered in the woman’s ear, and I saw her listening, smiling at first suspiciously, then with curiosity which merged into joy. Then I saw her speak to the man. I noticed that he seemed to admire only her and smiled with an expression of joy and sympathy at all she told him.

“This picture you see, is a picture of temptation and fall”, said the voice. “What constitutes the Fall? Do you understand its nature”?”Life is so good”, I said, “and the world so beautiful, and this man and woman wanted to believe in the reality of the world and of themselves. They wanted to forget service and take from the world what it can give. So they made a distinction between themselves and the world. They said, ‘We are here, the world is there’. And the world separated from them and became hostile.”"Yes”, said the Voice, this is true. “The everlasting mistake with men is that they see the fall in love. But Love is not a fall, it is a soaring above an abyss. And the higher the flight, the more beautiful and alluring appears the earth. But that wisdom, which crawls on earth, advises belief in the earth and in the present. This is the Temptation. And the man and woman yielded to it. They dropped from the eternal realms and submitted to time and death. The balance was disturbed. The fairyland was closed upon them. The elves, undines, sylphs and gnomes became invisible. The Face of God ceased to reveal Itself to them, and all things appeared upside down.

“This Fall, this first ’sin of man’, repeats itself perpetually, because man continues to believe in his separateness and in the Present. And only by means of great suffering can he liberate himself from the control of time and return to Eternity–leave darkness and return to Light”.

The Tarot Trumps by G. H. Soror, Q.L.

VI. THE LOVERS
The impact of inspiration on intuition, resulting in illumination and liberation – the sword striking off the fetters of habit and materialism, Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the Dragon of fear and the waters of stagnation. (Note: Incidentally note that this is the design of the Order card. Andromeda is shown manacled to a rock, the dragon rising from the waters at her feet. Perseus is depicted flying through the air to her assistance, with unsheathed sword. The design is wholly different from that of the Waite pack. – I.R. [Israel Regardie]) The colors are orange, violet, purplish gray and pearl gray. The flashing color of orange gives deep vivid blue while the flashing color for violet is golden yellow. The flashing colors may always be introduced if they bring out the essential color meaning more clearly. In practice this card usually signifies sympathetic understanding.

Book “T” The Tarot

Brief Meanings of Twenty-Two Keys

7. Inspiration (passive, mediumistic), motive power, action.