carelessly on his way, paying no attention to a dog which is biting his leg (the power by which he stands firm and progresses). The dog symbolizes his animal nature which at this step he has subdued, and because he has made it his friend to follow at heel, he heeds not its playful bites, yet nevertheless it interferes considerably with his ongoing.

He carries in his right hand and uses for a walking stick the rough limb of a tree instead of the straight wand or Rod of Power which his Initiation in the twentieth card conferred upon him. In his left hand he carries a forked stick cut from a tree. This he awkwardly carries over his right shoulder, while dependent from its forks hangs a wallet. There is a well established belief in the power of such a forked limb to assist in magical ceremonies such as locating water, gold or other metals beneath the earth (dousing). Such a stick is called a divining rod. The point where the two forks meet being the point of balance or equilibrium, one who has reached the step symbolized by the twenty-first card should, through correlating with the equilibrium in his own nature, be able to assert his power over nature. But this foolish youth has used the crotch of his divining rod as a convenient place to carry a wallet or he has perverted his powers to attain gold and supply his personal needs.

He is unthinkingly approaching a precipice where a crocodile is waiting to devour him. The crocodile is a well known symbol of esoteric wisdom, and in very truth it will devour every one who, having reached this step and passed a great Initiation yet who, instead of absolutely subordinating and ruling his animal desires, permits them to follow at heel, playfully biting at his legs, or who endeavors to take them with him on the Path in the role of friends and companions instead of servants, thus allowing them to distract him and impede his progress.

Since the Tarot has always been called the "Book of Life," and since this is the twenty-first card, the next to the highest of the series representing the entire evolution of man, and fol

lowing directly after the card of Initiation, it could not possibly refer to primitive man as claimed by certain writers.

The primary meaning of the word "fool" is not that of an imbecile or even an ignoramus, but "one who acts without judgment"; in other words, one who knows better yet does not govern his acts by his knowledge. One who is lacking in knowledge or mental capacity is not a fool: he is merely ignorant or mentally defective.

Therefore, in spite of this card being called the Fool it must refer to an advanced Disciple, one who has struggled to attain but having attained does not use his knowledge wisely; one who has reached great heights yet, when subjected to the subtle temptations of the higher selfishness and desire for power, has fallen and therefore deserves the admonition given to the Church of Sardis, “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest (i.e., still appears before the world as one who has attained), and art dead (i.e., has failed). . . . Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent."1 It represents that "exceeding high mountain" of spiritual attainment where the Christman receives his supreme temptations, but in this case has failed in the temptation of power. He boasts of his power over nature's forces, of his ability to interpret her laws, to bring from her depths her hidden treasures to enrich those who acknowledge his leadership. He boasts loudly of his power over his own animal nature and takes pleasure in showing the world his contempt for conventionality-symbolized by the exposure of his person-talking loudly of the purity he has won, hence the needlessness of proper clothing to cover his nakedness. Yet on his head the fool's cap proclaims aloud the utter fallacy of his pretensions, and sooner or later the waiting crocodile will devour him.

This card therefore symbolizes the negative or Left Hand Path of one who has through laborious effort climbed to the heights of Initiation yet has fallen. And verily such a one is

1 Revelation, iii, 1-3.

no number, for when the crocodile devours him his name will be blotted out of the Book of Life for this world-period and he must begin the climb all over again in future eons.

CHAPTER XLIV.

The Number 22. THE NEW JERUSALEM.

"Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumsised and the unclean.”—Isaiah, lii, 1.

"In thirty-two wonderful Paths of Wisdom did Jah, Jehovah, Tzabaoth, the God of Israel, the Elohim of the living, the King of ages, the merciful and gracious God, the most exalted One, the Dweller in eternity, most high and holy-engrave his name by the three Sepharim-Numbers, Letters and Sounds. Ten are the ineffable Sephiroth, Twentytwo are the Letters, the Foundation of all things."— Sepher Yetzirah, 15.

Number 22 is the last of the numbers under consideration in this work in which we have followed to its logical conclusion the entire Path of Evolution, both of man and the Cosmos as revealed in the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. And we find this number 22 equals 2+2=4 or the foundation of a never ending spiral of manifestation. For just as all numerical calculation is but the continuation and rearrangement of the ten digits, all of which are contained in the 4 (1+2+3+4=10), so we must build upon our fourfold foundation Eternal Progression.

The 4 made up of 2 plus 2, now to be considered in this number, is the perfect balance of man and woman and their joint creations. This is the White Stone which is the foursquare foundation of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, of which we read: "And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." 1

In The Key to the Universe we started with the circle which represented the Garden of Eden in which was found every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food, and in

1 Revelation, XXI, 2.