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The Fool personifies the child in us. Spontaneously represents a fresh start and an open-minded openness. The expression of playful, life-like carelessness shows that we are entering a new area of our lives with astonishment, strong expectations and often without prior knowledge. It may also refer to the mood of a child, and therefore to carelessness, foolish naivety, playfulness, but it can also mean foolishness, or the simplicity of wise and humble insight, which we can only come at the end of a long and often arduous journey. The Fool can embody the copy, the blatant fraternity, but even the only honest court advisor as the king's alter native. In all cases, living in the present, expressing openness and spontaneous honesty, is always ready for new experiences.

0. THE FOOL

It has seemed convenient to deal separately with these main forms of the idea of the Fool, but no attempt has been made, or should be made, to prevent the legends overlapping and coalescing. The variations of expression, even when contradictory in appearance, should lead to an intuitive apprehension of the symbol by a sublimation and transcendance of the intellectual. All these symbols of the Trumps ultimately exist in a region beyond reason and above it. The study of these cards has for its most important aim the training of the mind to think clearly and coherently in this exalted manner.

This has always been characteristic of the methods of Initiation as understood by the hierophants.

In the confused, dogmatic period of Victorian materialisation, it was necessary for science to discredit all attempts to transcend the rationalist mode of approach to reality; yet it was the progress of science itself that has reintegrated these differentials. From the very beginning of the present century, the practical science of the mechanician and the engineer has been forced further and further towards finding its theoretical justification in mathematical physics.

Mathematics has always been the most severe, abstract, and logical of the sciences. Yet even in comparatively early schoolboy mathematics, cognisance must be taken of the unreal and the irrational. Surds and infinite series are the very root forms of advanced mathematical thought. The apotheosis of mathematical physics is now the admission of failure to find reality in any single intelligible idea. The modern reply to the question “What is anything?” is that it is in relation to a chain of ten ideas, any one of which can only be interpreted in terms of the rest. The Gnostics would undoubtedly have called this a “chain of ten aeons”. These ten ideas must by no means be considered as aspects of some reality in the background. As the supposed straight line which was the framework of calculation has turned out to be a curve, so has the point which had always been taken as the type of existence, become the ring.

It is impossible to doubt that there is here a continually closer approximation of the profane science of the outer world to the sacred wisdom of the Initiate.

* * *

The design of the present card resumes the principal ideas of the above essays. The Fool is of the gold of air. He has the horns of Dionysus Zagreus, and between them is the phallic cone of white light representing the influence from the Crown [Kether: see the position of the Path of Aleph on the Tree of Life.] upon him. He is shown against the background of air, dawning from space; and his attitude is that of one bursting unexpectedly upon the world.

He is clad in green, according to the tradition of Spring; but his shoes are of the phallic gold of the sun. In his right hand he bears the wand, tipped with a pyramid of white, of the All-Father. In his left hand he bears the flaming pine- cone, of similar significance, but more definitely indicating vegetable growth; and from his left shoulder hangs a bunch of purple grapes. Grapes represent fertility, sweetness, and the basis of ecstasy. This ecstasy is shown by the stem of the grapes developing into rainbow - hued spirals. The Form of the Universe.

This suggests the Threefold Veil of the Negative manifesting, by his intervention, in divided light. Upon this spiral whorl are other attributions of godhead; the vulture of Maut, the dove of Venus (Isis or Mary), and the ivy sacred to his devotees. There is also the butterfly of many-coloured air and the winged globe with its twin serpents, a symbol which is echoed and fortified by the twin infants embracing on the middle spiral. Above them hangs the benediction of three flowers in one. Fawning upon him is the tiger; and beneath his feet in the Nile with its lotus stems crouches the crocodile. Resuming all his many forms and many-coloured images in the centre of the figure, the focus of the microcosm is the radiant sun. The whole picture is a glyph of the creative light. 

0. THE FOOL

Pisces going to Aries, on the other hand Uranus/Mercur standing for curiosity, spontanity, madness Element: Air Tree of life: Kether going to Chokmah Number: 0 as nothing and begin of it all

The Fool is the symbol of true innocence, a perfect state of joy and freedom, the sure feeling to be one with the spirit of life, at any time. 

The Fool has the number 0, for someone ready to go in any direction, open to all possibilities. He belongs nowhere, has no past, but an infinite future. Every moment is a new beginning. In arabic letters the 0 has the shape of an egg, the symbol for the origin of life. The Fool is change, motion and the readiness to jump into life, with no cares ever. The Fool knows no difference between possibility and reality, the zero means a total lack of hope and fear, the Fool suspects and plans nothing. He reacts directly to the current situation, nothing is calculated, nothing is hidden. 

In most decks the Fool is shown with an animal, as a symbol of nature, the animal soul in perfect harmony with the spirit that just follows its instincts. The Fool is courage, optimism and the belief in life and himself. When times are hard, and we suffer the pressure of 'being reasonable' or denying our instincts, the Fool reminds us that our inner person knows best what to do. 'Always trust your instincts'... 

In its negative aspect, the card can say that its qualities are blocked or reversed. Irresponsibilty, mad projects, recklessness - the careless human who covers himself with some artifical madness, for distrusting his instincts and fearing standstill and silence.

Drive: Changes, movement, the innocence of a child 

Light: The positive break up of structures and limitations, selfless idealism, endless fantasy, optimism, trust to instincts 

Shadow: The negative loss of structures, responsivelessness, useless daydreaming, infantility

0. (XXII.) THE FOOL (The Juggler) - Mercury / Uranus - Neptune - Madness

Keywords: Openness, trust, risk-taking, loyalty to ourselves, freedom, independence, creativity, performance, leapfrogging, follow-up of the heart.

Advice: Instructions: You are ready for a new start, perhaps for a quality change. Let yourself go, take a break even if fear tries to hold you back again and again. Trust the voice of your heart.

Question: What do you have to do to get rid of it? What is the role of the "tiger of fear" in your life? How do you imagine the bold jump into something new? Where's your heart calling?

Proposal: If the answers are not clear to you, draw another cards.

Confirmation: Now I'm following my heart's suggestions. I'm open and I'm going wherever you may lead me.

Analogies:

Ji-King: 25. Wu Wang (The Innocence - The Unexpected)

Mythology: The Fool (Parcifal)

Keywords: openness, curiosity, spontaneity, insanity, guiding, defencelessness

Anyone who dares to enter the unkown is either fool or wise. One question is the first step towards the answer.

0. THE FOOL

General Meaning

Pamela Coleman-Smith's artful rendition of The Fool in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck is often used to represent Tarot in general. Early classical versions of The Fool card, however, portray quite a different character — a person driven by base needs and urges, who has fallen into a state of poverty and deprivation.

In some earlier instances, The Fool is made out to be a carnival entertainer or a huckster. In others, he is portrayed as decrepit and vulnerable — as the cumulative result of his delusions and failures. Not until the 20th century do you see the popular Rider-Waite image of The Fool arise — that of an innocent soul before its fall into matter, untainted by contact with society and all its ills.

Modern decks usually borrow from the Rider-Waite imagery. Most Fool cards copy the bucolic mountainside scene, the butterfly, and the potential misplaced step that will send The Fool tumbling into the unknown. Don't forget, though, that the earlier versions of this card represented already-fallen humanity, over-identified with the material plane of existence, and beginning a pilgrimage toward self-knowledge and, eventually, wisdom. The Fool reminds us to recognize the path of personal development within ourselves — and the stage upon that path where we find ourselves — in order to energize our movement toward deeper self-realization.

In the Reversed Position

When the Fool card is reversed, you are encountering an unfinished side of yourself, a part still caught in the shadows of ignorance or immaturity. An emotional reflex or psychological attitude could be holding you back from responding authentically and naturally.

Release yourself from any dogmas or taboos so your natural truthfulness and instinct for right action can be restored.

In the Advice Positon

The Fool advises that you lighten up. Let yourself be spontaneous enough to stretch beyond the realm of logic. There is no advantage to be gained by thinking you possess the knowledge, power, or control to direct reality. Open and receive without question, instead of trying to manage what's happening right now. The Fool has no ambition to manipulate a specific outcome. Just be happy to be part of the whole.

Release any demands or expectations. Give your complete attention to events as they are occurring in the present moment.

Read more:

• » The Book of Thoth - A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians by Aleister Crowley.
• » Liber LXXVIII - On the Tarot - A complete treatise on the Tarot giving the correct designs of the cards with their attributions and symbolic meanings on all planes. - A description of the Cards of the Tarot, with their attributions, including a method of divination by their use.
• » Manuscript N - The Tarot - A Golden Dawn Manuscript - A Theoricus Adeptus Minor Paper.