Do you have a love for both Christ and all things occult and metaphysical? In that case, you may wish to accompany me on the new journey I begin today. It’s a journey of reconstructing my beliefs and my craft to merge my faith in Christ with my esoteric practices and witchcraft. Just as I did when I deconstructed dogmatic Christian faith by working my way through the Tarot Major Arcana with the creation of the Wyld Godde Tarot, I begin this new journey with Tarot symbolism because symbolism is the language of the soul and the deep mind.
No lasting transformation can take place without addressing the soul itself.
For the purpose of this particular journey, I will work with the Biblical Tarot by Krasimir Kalin. We start at the beginning, with The Soul.
The Soul represents The Fool in the Biblical Tarot and this series is, quite literally, the journey of me reclaiming my soul as well as my faith and practice. The Reason I’m bonding so deeply with the Biblical Tarot is simply because it helps me feel seen and accepted at those deeper layers of my being.
So this series of posts combines reclaiming my path as a Sophianic Christian Witch with an in-depth study of the Biblical Tarot. I hope this will inspire others on similar paths as well as help add layers of meaning to this deck that will be useful in readings for self and others.
The Soul’s Freedom
A couple of weeks ago I published a post about the Fool that was themed around trust. Today’s Fool theme is freedom–The freedom of the soul to express its essence. I think I had to establish that foundation of trust before I could pluck up the courage to explore freedom fully.
The (Not So) Secret Diary of Christian Witch
The reason I feel guided to share this journey is that we see so much about deconstruction but not nearly as much as about reconstruction and reclamation. Reading the book Discovering Christian Witchcraft by Sara Raztresen and Emyle D. Prata (affiliate link) has emboldened me to step forward to speak my truth. To be fair, however much outside shaming I suffered from both Christians and Pagans, the worst sense of shame came from the religious programming and trauma that tied my soul down with lead weights.
Reading the Discovering Christian Witchcraft book made me see and understand the value of speaking about the struggles we might encounter on this path. Others benefit when we do. After healing from religious trauma, I’m still figuring things out but if I wait to speak out until I’ve figured it all out, I’ll wait forever.
What I do know is that the moniker ‘spiritual, not religious’ is not an entirely perfect fit for me. As I started rebuilding a spiritual practice last year while still recovering from RTS, I did add in decidedly religious elements. I gradually started using some of the standard prayers, for instance. I also started working with the Book of Psalms in a magical/hermetic context.
Religion (without the dogma) still provides structure as well as community. The community part of things is the one I’m not sure about. That said, I am now starting to find to some of my soul kin. By sharing my Biblical Tarot musings, I hope more Christian Witches, Christian Mystics/Shamans and Magical Christians will find me.
The Soul and The Bible
Before, we go into the symbolism of the Fool and explore the theme of freedom, it feels important to say something about The Bible. In fact, in doing so, I lay the foundation for this whole series of posts. The curious and questioning soul will invariable go through a stage of pondering the many contradictions in The Bible. This is particularly true when it comes to the very nature of God and the human soul.
In the New Testament, Yeshua shows us the tender love of ‘Abba’ (Daddy). Sin is simply ‘hamartalos’ (missing the mark rather than our innate nature) and through a change of mind, sincerely asking for forgiveness, we are free to change direction. Nothing needs to bleed on an altar or die on a cross for this to happen. There aren’t hundreds of law to observe on a daily basis.
Interestingly, Christians who observe none of the other laws of the Old Testament are very quick to throw scripture at ‘sinners’ who engage in witchcraft or homosexuality. The only reason they are able to do this is that their cognitive dissonance has become hardwired into their communication with the world around the. Others can see it but they cannot because they are in denial about the discrepancies and have handed their thinking over to the ‘experts.’ Not only Christians do this. Sadly, there is a general inability to use critical thinking and discernment in our modern society.
Not One Book
The Bible is a compilation of books whose number vary depending on the specific denomination. In the Protestant tradition, the Bible consists of 66 books, divided between the Old and New Testaments. The Catholic Bible, on the other hand, includes additional texts known as the Deuterocanonical books, bringing the total to 73 books. The Eastern Orthodox Church includes even more apocryphal works, resulting in a canon that can range from 75 to 79 books depending on the specific tradition. These additional books, often referred to as the Apocrypha, include texts such as Tobit, Judith, and the books of Maccabees, which are canonical in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
Many of the books in the New Testament were written decades after the death of Christ. For instance, the earliest New Testament book, often considered to be Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, dates to around 50 CE, approximately 20 years after Christ’s crucifixion. Moreover, several New Testament books are pseudonymous, meaning they were not written by the individuals whose names they bear. For example, the pastoral letters (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus) are often attributed to Paul but were likely written by his followers to continue his teachings.
The Process of Canonisation
The process of canonisation, which solidified the biblical canon, was a complex affair. Initially, there was a plethora of gospels and other writings about Jesus. The Council of Nicaea in 325 CE played a pivotal role in the process of deciding which books belonged and which didn’t. The selection aimed to unify the Christian doctrine under the power of the Roman Empire, marrying the church’s spiritual authority with the state’s political power.
This canonisation process excluded texts such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary. Thankfully not all copies got burned or tucked away in the vaults of the Vatican. We can now access some excellent translations of these ‘heretical’ texts and make our own minds up.
The Sinful Soul
The doctrine of original sin was not something the early church on the whole held as dogma. It was St. Augustine who introduced this doctrine in the late 4th and early 5th centuries. He posited that all humans are born in a state of sin due to the transgression of Adam and Eve. The introduction of this doctrine significantly strengthened the power and authority of the Church.
By promoting the idea that humanity was inherently sinful and in need of divine grace, which only the Church could dispense through sacraments and rituals, the Church positioned itself as the essential intermediary between God and man. This framework effectively created a problem that only the Church could solve, thereby consolidating its influence and control over the spiritual and moral lives of its followers.
The Soul and Freedom
In the Biblical creation account, God created the human soul with free will and in their likeness.
Elohim
The first creation myth in Genesis 1:1-2:3 describes a sequential and orderly process spanning six days, culminating in the creation of humans on the sixth day. This should in no way be interpreted as a literal six days, nor is any aspect of the creation myth a literal account of events.
Genesis 1:26-27 (NIV)
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
In this passage, Elohim is the Hebrew word that refers to God. Importantly, Elohim is a plural noun, implying a multiplicity. While traditional Christian doctrine often interprets this as a conversation within the Trinity, another interpretation based on the language itself suggests that Elohim represents a joint creation force, encompassing both masculine and feminine aspects. Thus, humans were created in the image of a Mother-Father God, reflecting a divine plurality.
In the second account, God is Yahweh-Elohim and makes woman out of one Adam’s ribs after creating Adam in his own likeness. It is actually the second account we see in the Biblical Tarot where God breathes the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils. Which account came first? Can both of these accounts be correct? I’ll leave that to you to answer. However, please don’t get caught up in semantics about something that was never meant to be understood as a literal account. Read it like the poetic mystery it is.
The Gospel of Thomas
This presence of both the masculine and feminine properties within the soul become important in the Gnostic Gospels. In the Gospel of Thomas, for instance, we learn that Yeshua taught the principles of soul alchemy, i.e. how we must unite the masculine (rational thinking/left brain) and the feminine (intuitive mind/right brain) in order to ascend.
“When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom.”
— Gospel of Thomas 22
This is a very different and much more empowering theology than the one stitched together by the church hundreds of years after the death of Christ. Incidentally, many think that the Gospel of Thomas is proof of a Q source.
The Soul Is Neither Male Nor Female
While the personality self has a gender, the soul does not. Through a multitude of incarnations, we have all had many lives as different genders. Even in canonical scripture, Yeshua tells the Sadducees that when we die we will be ‘like the angels’ who have no gender.
Matthew 22:30 (NIV)
At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
There is freedom in knowing this and it does away with the need to see ourselves as a half of a whole is need of a Twin Flame or Divine Counterpart to feel whole. The reason the soul takes on a specific gender is to learn specific lessons related to that gender.
Meditating on the innate lack of gender in our souls is a good starting point for relinquishing the control of the ego-personality and allowing the Higher Self to take the driver’s seat.
Uranus, The Soul and the Age of Aquarius
While there are a few hundred years yet to go until we hit the Age of Aquarius (according to Real/True Sky Sidereal Astrology), the approach of the Age of Aquarius is rising in the consciousness of the collective, paving way for the necessary and inevitable transformation ahead of us.
Interestingly, The Fool corresponds with Uranus in the Golden Dawn system of correspondences. The modern ruler of the Aquarius is Uranus. Uranus represents the higher mind, the mind that is capable of grasping that we are all One. Uranus is also a planet that symbolises freedom.
So what does freedom of the soul look like from a Christ Consciousness point of view? Is it the power to do whatever we want with our lives? Actually, it’s almost the exact opposite. It’s doing what what Christ did. He yielded to the eternal benevolence of the infinite higher mind by using those famous words ‘Thy will be done.’ This is true freedom. Anybody who has experienced (even momentarily) what it feels like to be at the right place at the right time to be able to truly be of service for the Highest Good knows this.
