The Fool Card
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
The Fool Card of the Tarot pack
is most often referred to as being part of the major arcana.
This is not the case as the Tarot Pack is actually 3 packs.
There is The Fool (1 card), The Major Arcana (21 cards) and The Minor Arcana (56 cards)
Investigating the history and meaning of the Tarot is an intensive study. The form of it today is said to have begun in the Italy of the Middle Ages. It’s association with the Romanies or Gypsies plus other factors place it’s origins way back in time to Ancient Egypt. Suffice it to say at this point that it is not primarily a divination tool or fortune telling device. Rather a book of knowledge. As is said ‘every picture tells a story’ or ‘every picture is worth a thousand words’.
A book could be written about the Tarot and the interpretation and meaning of each card. Many have been. The purpose of this post is to write down some ideas about The Fool card in a particular context. That context is setting goals and relates to a lesson that Bob Proctor gives on this subject.
To start with the number of The Fool card is 0 – This is fascinating as the circle symbol represents the totality of everything and also zero or nothing. (Which is an interesting concept – is there in reality any such thing as ‘nothing’? As someone said, ‘it’s always something, it’s never nothing’.) So the Fool is, in some circles, referred to as the God card of the Tarot. God, that which is the cause and effect of itself, cannot be created or destroyed, is – like the circle – without beginning or end.
This diagram is not saying that the intellect is the only thing that corresponds to the Major Arcana and so forth. Although the mind, of which the intellect is a factor, can appreciate what is behind the meaning of the cards. Rather it is to indicate the realms in which different goals lay.
By aiming at what is already known a person does not grow. They remain in their comfort zone.
By aiming at what they might not have done before, but can easily work out how to do there is not much of a stretch and they remain comfortable with it.
In both these cases there is no growth or change in the people concerned. Importantly others with whom they mix and like them the way they are, because they reinforce each others comfort zone, are undisturbed by their friend working on these particular type of goals. It is said that ‘friends are those who share the same weakness’.
Now, in the third case where a person really knows what they want, have no clue on how they will achieve it, but make a decision to go for it anyway this is where they go into the unknown. This is a stretch for them and they begin to change. They have to to be able to receive what it is they want, because being like they were before did not attract it to them. At this point their friends and associates start noticing a change and it disturbs the comfortability. They then start calling them the fool for attempting this new thing, tell them it won’t work, that they will fail and so on. The reason for this is that they don’t want them to leave the fold. They want to keep things just the way they are. This is ignorant behaviour, because there is a universal law – things are either growing or they are dying, nothing stays the same.
The Fool Card of the Tarot expresses this idea as one of it’s meanings. Yes, it looks as though the fool is about to step off a cliff, but symbolically it is stepping out into the unknown. The dog yapping at his heels represents the ‘dogs of life’. Those who would pull him back and hold him in the known comfortable and safe zone.
The idea is to set a big goal and walk boldly toward it even if you don’t know how to get there. The sum total of all knowledge exists in the unseen spiritual realms and what is needed will be delivered up to the mind in the form of inspiration and idea. As Bob Proctor says, ‘If you can see it in your mind you can hold it in your hand’. Spirit expresses itself through its polar opposite which is the physical.
I’m reminded of the engraving Albert Einstein had on the surface of his desk which was, “All creation waits, with eager longing, for the revealing through the sons of man”.