Peter Mark Adams conducts a thorough dissection of the symbolism of the deck, finding Platonic, Mithraic, and other esoteric symbolism. He also connects the contents of the deck to the conduct of the Venetian families who essentially invented modern banking and mercantilism.

"The supreme nobility of a Roman emperor does not consist in being a master of slaves, but in being a lord of free men, who loves freedom even in those who serve him."

— Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World (1934)

"The Indo-European concept of order, that is, as consciousness—this consciousness is naturally connected with Divinity as much as the [divine] Order is affirmed in the universe itself. ...

Consciousness is marked by a broad vision, which is literally the concept of Providence—molding the universe in your own image. Providere meaning being able to predict, to foresee; simply because through your own spiritual eye you project that same image onto the world, literally forming it through your consciousness. You can understand such consciousness as the 'broad vision' of individuals destined for spiritual freedom, because only God has no boundaries."

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https://youtu.be/dlxRcDOGElo

"This unparalleled Phoenix with its golden braid,
That Phoebus sends to us from the race of Gods,
Combining three into one, who descends from high places,
To be seen here below as victorious over the world."

Les dovze clefs de philosophie de frere Basile Valentin, c. 1616

You must be strong enough for this truth: you are not the life in you. You do not exist. No claim of “mine” holds. You do not possess Life—it possesses you, a burden you bear. It’s a lunar phantasm to think this “Self” endures beyond the body’s decay. Can’t you see this flesh binds your being, its every faculty—however solar or exalted—swayed by illness, trauma, or chance? Now, detach from this false self and cross the threshold, sensing the rhythmic analogy deepen into the telluric shadows of the force sustaining your form. Here it sheds name and individuation. This sensation stretches, merging “me” and “not-me,” pervading nature, upholding time, sweeping myriad beings—drunk, mesmerized—in its relentless, wild, limitless flow, ablaze with an eternal void and lack. Say to yourself: “This is.” If this truth turns back upon you, a kali-yuga frost chilling your core, an abyss yawning beneath—“I exist in this”—then you’ve seized the waters’ knowledge.

Julius Evola

Doctrine of the Two Natures

The Great Work is the purification and unification of the Solar and Lunar energies. This begins with an ascent out of the dark, telluric primordial waters ruled by the Lunar force—first and foremost, the domain of the physical body. The objective to attain is union with the heavenly Solar fire, or what is properly spiritual and supranatural. As the Moon reflects the light of the Sun, the incarnated soul (animus) shining with its divine spark must reflect off the Lunar to achieve unity with the Solar nature of the spirit (spiritus). Practically speaking, this can be applied to life by seeing how these principles unify in specific domains.

Mythos and intution belong to the Lunar domain while logos and rationality are aspects of the Solar. The mytho-poetic provides a fertile foundation for the blooming of decisive reasoning, insofar as the myth is actually reflecting Solar light. Dwelling purely in myth and poetry is begging to be lost in the dark, while focusing purely on the discursive and dialectic is akin to being blinded by light. It is only by context and intuitive feeling that the man, blind from the new Sun upon stumbling out of the cave, is able to see, but upon learning to move thusly, he grows accustomed to the light of the higher realm. This is to say, myth and art provide for the creation of thought as much as abstract reasoning provides for the creation of symbolic art. If one is impure, the other suffers, and with it goes the overall spirituality.

Likewise on a broad scale, belonging to the Lunar is the pagus while the Solar corresponds to the polis. The pagus is symbolically the hinterland, wilderness, or even "the people" (stripped of its modern democratic connotations) with blood and brotherhood essential to it; the polis is symbolically the city, the state, the law, and the seat of power and authority. They are more simply the clan and the crown. The nation by reflecting Solar light sows the seeds of a virile monarchy, or in more individual terms, fertile circumstances when properly oriented beget a royal nature. The wild, superstitious, autochthonic pagus needs the centralizing, directing authority of the polis while the latter relies on the fertile materiality of the former in order to produce the fruits of its virile principle. Again more simply and individually, a family and home need a principled framework to produce the best circumstances for the development of youth, while any organization (be it business or state) requires the active participation of its members who, being rightfully oriented, can provide it with a deep pool of resources from manpower to mythos. A fixation on the pagus produces chaos and vulgar chauvinism without merit, whereas an overactive polis is tyrannical and destructive even to itself.

Aristotle's clarification of Plato is key: while a principle or form is eternal and superior, in order to actualize in the world, it requires certain conditions. This is the nature of the two-way relationship between the higher and lower. As we've explored, recognizing the interplay between the virile Solar and fertile Lunar energies is essential to ascending the chain. The earthly, the mythical, the intuitive, the pagan on its own is not enough, but neither is the firey spirit, the logical, the rational, the political alone sufficient to master the world.

Across cultures and traditions, numerous paths exist that promise liberation somewhere ahead of us. Salvation is projected into a future fulfillment: a heaven to be reached, an awakening to be achieved, a perfected self to be realized. Christians pray toward a final redemption, Buddhists often strive toward enlightenment as an eventual culmination, and secular seekers pursue self-actualization through achievement, mastery, or recognition.

The forms differ, yet the structure is strikingly similar. What often goes unnoticed is the shared assumption beneath these paths: that something essential is missing *now*, and that wholeness belongs to a later moment that has not yet arrived. Theists, atheists, and non-theists alike, they all worship the God of the "not-now".

From the perspective of the Great Completeness, whether as expressed by Dzogchen's patriarch Garab Dorje or the patriarch of the Hellenic wisdom traditions, Plato, this assumption itself is a disastrous distortion.

Enlightenment is not an attainment added to an incomplete being. It is the remembrance of that which never entered the sphere of delusion in the first place.

Nothing needs to be imported causally from the future, and nothing essential was ever lost in the past. What is recognized is not a new state, but the ever-present ground that was temporarily overlooked. The sense of an innate lack, endlessly seeking completion in the “never-now,” prevents the natural fullness of the present moment from revealing itself.

The Here and Now is already completely enlightened in the simplicity of its ever-immanent immediacy—yet the conditioned mind, trained to measure progress and distance, overlays this immediacy with narratives of deficiency and postponement.

When striving relaxes, even slightly, something quiet becomes evident: completeness does not arrive. It reveals itself. And it reveals itself precisely where striving believed nothing sufficient could be found; here, now, prior to improvement, prior to becoming, prior to the causal chains of relative spacetime.

This is not a rejection of practice, devotion, or discipline. Rather, it is a reorientation of their meaning. Practice no longer aims at reaching anything. Instead, it manifest as the spontaneity of enlightened action.

In this sense, the Great Perfection does not promise liberation in the future. It points repeatedly, and deeply, intimately, to the freedom beyond any fabrications that was never elsewhere.

And it is in the ever-deepening ground of the soul’s own gestalt that the God of the “not-now” quietly dissolves, while the completely enlightened God of the Here and Now is born as Light from Light, without delay, without remainder.

Merry Christmas, and don't forget to leave porridge out for the gnomes.