Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.
(Matthew iv, 11)
(Luke xi, 24-26)
(John v, 43)
Dear Unknown Friend,
Like the preceding Arcana, the Arcanum "The Chariot" has a twofold aspect. It represents, from one side, he who — having triumphed over the three temptations — remains faithful to the vows of obedience, poverty and chastity; and it represents, from another side, the danger of the fourth temptation, which is the most subtle and intimate temptation, and is the invisible synthesis of the three temptations: the spiritual temptation of the victorious through his victory itself. It is the temptation to act "in one's own name", to act as master instead of as servant.
The seventh Arcanum is that of mastership understood in the sense of temptation as well as achievement. The three Gospel quotations which are found at the head of this Letter delineate the nature of the ideas here.
Paul Marteau says that the general and abstract meaning of the seventh Card is that it "represents setting in motion in seven states, i.e. in all domains" (Le Tarot de Marseille, Paris, 1949, p. 33), and it is exactly this that we have designated above as "mastership". For mastership is not the state of being moved, but rather that of being able to set in motion.
The Son of Man resisted being moved by the three temptations in the wilderness; consequently, it is he who set in motion the forces which served him. "Then the devil left him, and behold, Angels came and ministered to him."
Here, again, is a fundamental law of sacred magic. One could formulate it in the following way: That which is above being as that which is below, renunciation below sets in motion forces of accomplishment above and the renunciation of that which is above sets in motion forces of accomplishment below. What is the practical meaning of this law?
It is the following.
When you resist a temptation or renounce something desired below, you set in motion by this very fact forces of realisation of that which corresponds above to that which you come to renounce below. It is this that the Master designates by the word "reward" when he says, for example, that it is necessary to guard against practising righteousness before other people in order to gain their regard, "for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew vi, 1). Reward is therefore the action that one sets in motion above by the renunciation of desire for things below. It is the "yes" from above corresponding to the "no" from below. And this correspondence constitutes a basis for magical realisation and for a fundamental law of Christian esotericism or Hermeticism. Let us guard ourselves from taking it lightly, for here is given to us one of the principal keys of sacred magic. It is not desire which bears magical realisation, but rather the renunciation of desire (that you have formerly experienced, of course). For renunciation through indifference has no moral — and therefore no magical — value.
Desire, and then renounce — here we have the practical magical meaning of the "law" of reward. To say that one has to renounce what one desires amounts to saying that one has to practise the three sacred vows — obedience, poverty and chastity For the renunciation must be sincere in order for it to set in motion the forces of realisation from above, and it cannot be so when it lacks the air, light and warmth of the sacred vows. It is necessary therefore to understand once and for all that there is no true sacred magic — nor mysticism, gnosis or Hermeticism — outside of the three sacred vows, and that true magical training Is essentially only the practice of the three vows. Is this hard? No, it is easy- it is the "concentration without effort" which was considered in the first of these Letters.
Let us now consider the text of the Gospel account concerning what happened immediately after the three temptations. "Then the devil left him" (tote aphiesin auton ho diabolos) says the Gospel according to Matthew, but the Gospel according to Luke adds "for a time" (Luke iv, 13). Now, these additional words give rise to the supposition that again a trial or temptation — the fourth, which is the most
subtle and intimate — is to come. And it is this which forms part of the teaching of the seventh Arcanum, which represents a crowned man standing on a triumphal chariot drawn by two horses.
"And behold, Angels came ... to him" (kai idou angeloi proselthon), i.e. now they were able to approach him, since a "space" necessary for their descent became free. Why and how?
Angels (a g g e l o i hoi angeloi, in Greek) are entities which move vertically, from above below and from below above. "To move" signifies for them "to change respiration", and "distance" for them amounts to the number — and to the intensity of effort that it comprises — of changes from inhalation to exhalation. Thus, for example, when we say, "a distance of 300 miles from the earth", an Angel would "three successive changes from normal respiration in the sphere of the Angels". "To draw near" for Angels signifies a change in respiration; "to be unable to draw near" means to say that the "atmosphere" of the sphere which they want to draw near to is such that they can no longer breathe there, and that they would "faint" if they were to enter this sphere.
This is why the Angels were unable to approach the Son of Man during the time when the concentrated forces of terrestrial evolution — the forces of the "son of the serpent" were active. They "occupied", so to say, the space around the Son of Man, so that the Angels were unable to breathe — and therefore they were unable to enter there without "fainting". But immediately that "the devil left him" and the atmosphere changed, they were able to approach him, and did so.
One can add, by way of a corollary, that the "law of presence" delineated above gives us a strong reason for acknowledging the necessity of churches, temples and consecrated or holy places in general. There are certainly other reasons again, but this would suffice, even if there were no other reasons, for us to defend the protection of all sacred places. Let us therefore protect through our thoughts, words and deeds, all churches, every chapel and, lastly, every temple, where one prays, worships, meditates and celebrates God and his servants.
" ... and they ministered to him" (kai diekonoun auto): the plural "they" indicates to us that it is a matter here of three Angels. Each temptation resisted corresponded to an Angel charged with the special mission of reward and who rendered a special service.
What, therefore, were these services?
He had refused — he, being famished — to command stones to become bread; now, it was "the word which comes from the mouth of God", become bread, which the Angel of poverty served him. He had refused to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple; now, it was breath from the height of the throne of God that the Angel of chastity brought to him. He had refused to accept the role of superman — to be king of the world at the price of worshipping the ideal of the world of the serpent; now, it was the royal crown of the world of God that the Angel of obedience presented him.
Just as the three mages offered their presents to the new-born Child — gold, frankincense and myrrh — so did the three Angels each offer a present to the Master, after his Baptism in the Jordan and his Confirmation in the wilderness: the crown of gold, the breath of incense from the throne of God and the divine word become food.
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