VII
The Great Way of the Mind
The Chariot · The Mind
Archetype VII · Great Way · The Mind
The summary and vehicle of the first six archetypes — the mind's own majestic movement through what it has become.
“The Great Way of the Mind, the Body, or the Spirit draws the environment which has been the new architecture caused by the veiling process and, thusly, dipped in the great, limitless current of time/space.”
Ra · 103.11 · read in context ›
The concept
Ra calls Archetype Seven "one difficult to enunciate," offering three names rather than settling on one: the Path, the Way, or the Great Way of the Mind (). Its foundation is described as a reflection and summary of the first six archetypes of mind () — which is why the image is a chariot, the mind conceived as moving majestically through what it has already become, drawn by lions or steeds ().
The natural reading of a seventh, summarizing card is that it marks an endpoint — the moment the first six archetypes finish their work, the veil lifts, and intelligent infinity is contacted. Ra corrects this directly: the Great Way of the Mind is not attained after that contact, but is instead the framework within which the Mind archetypes — Matrix, Potentiator, Catalyst, Experience, Significator, Transformation — are already moving (). Asked again from a different angle, Ra repeats the correction: the student should consider the Great Way not as the culmination of a series of seven activities, but as the environment within which mind, body, or spirit does its work ().
This fits the larger architecture Ra gives for the tarot as a whole: three cycles of seven — mind, body, spirit — each built on the foundation of transformation within that complex (). Seven closes the mind cycle not by resolving it but by naming the space in which the whole cycle happens — the Great Way draws the very environment produced by the veiling process ().
The image
The tau and architect's square worn on the figure's chest are intended, Ra confirms, to suggest the proximity of the Great Way's environment to time/space (). The two sphinxes drawing the chariot are not a sign that catalyst has been mastered — Ra rejects that reading — but they do connote time: the mind ripens, moves, and is transformed in time (). One sphinx's bent leg shows the dual possibility built into this environment: rest is possible in time, and so is progress, though attempting both at once hampers the moving leg ().
The chariot itself is wheeled but has no visible harness, and Ra leaves the obvious question open rather than answering it: what actually links and harnesses the chariot's power of movement to the chariot ()? The card's sword and scepter, Ra notes, are astrological symbols that can be released from strict astrological meaning; more broadly, the negatively polarized adept fashions the mind's spiritual covenant for its own use, while the positive adept holds forth what the sword properly exemplifies — light and truth (). The veiling curtain pictured above the figure is shown both somewhat lifted and still present, since the mind's transformation is progressive rather than something third-density work completes outright (); it is drawn higher on the right than the left, reflecting that the positive orientation carries more potential — not guaranteed — aid toward that lifting ().
The session's pass through the card broke off partway when an accident with the recording microphone injured the instrument, turning the remaining questions to the resulting protection concern rather than the rest of the image (-); Archetype Seven was never worked through as exhaustively as some of the cards before it.
Working with the archetype
The practical weight of Ra's correction is that this archetype is not a future reward for finishing the others — it already frames whatever work is happening with the first six mind archetypes right now (, ). There is no waiting for it.
The veil's uneven lifting in the image argues against expecting a finished, permanent breakthrough within an incarnation: the work is progressive, and third density is not where it completes (). Positive polarity carries more available help toward that lifting, but only as potential, not as a guaranteed outcome (). The chariot's unharnessed wheels remain a question Ra puts back to the student rather than answers () — not every element of the mind's own architecture resolves into a stated teaching.
In Ra's words
Archetype Seven named, and its foundation as summary of the first six:
The Archetype Seven is one difficult to enunciate. We may call it the Path, the Way, or the Great Way of the Mind. Its foundation is a reflection and substantial summary of Archetypes One through Six.
One may also see the Way of the Mind as showing the kingdom or fruits of appropriate travel through the mind in that the mind continues to move as majestically through the material it conceives of as a chariot drawn by royal lions or steeds.
The correction: not a culmination reached after contact with intelligent infinity, but the framework within which the mind archetypes move:
However, it must be seen once again that the archetypical mind does not equal the acting incarnational mind/body/spirit complex’s progression or evolution.
…
While studying the archetypical mind we may suggest that the student look at the Great Way of the Mind not as that which is attained after contact with intelligent infinity, but rather as that portion of the archetypical mind which denotes and configures the particular framework within which the Mind, the Body, or the Spirit archetypes move.
The Great Way as environment, not culmination — and what the sphinxes do and do not mean:
Firstly, we ask that the student consider the Great Way not as the culmination of a series of seven activities or functions but as a far more clearly delineated image of the environment within which the mind, body, or spirit shall function. Therefore, the culturally determined creatures called sphinxes do not indicate mastery over catalyst.
The second supposition, that of placing the creatures as the movers of the chariot of mind, has far more virtue. You may connote the concept of time to the image of the sphinx. The mental and mental/emotional complex ripens, and moves, and is transformed in time.
The chariot's wheels, unharnessed — Ra returns the question rather than closing it:
However, it would be more appropriate to draw the attention to the fact that although the chariot is wheeled, it is not harnessed to that which draws it by a physical or visible harness. What then, O student, links and harnesses the chariot’s power of movement to the chariot?
The Great Way elsewhere: the Great Way of the Body · the Great Way of the Spirit
Study passages
Would the Conqueror, or Chariot, then, represent the culmination of the action of the first six archetypes into a conquering of the mental processes, even possibly removing the veil?
Would Ra comment on that?
In that case I have a few questions on Card Seven in order to finish off our first run-through of the archetypes of the mind. There is a T with two right angles above it on the chest of the entity in Card Seven. We have guessed that the lower T has to do with the possibility of choosing either path in the transformation, and the upper two angles representing the Great Way of the left- or the right-hand path in a mental transformation that makes the change from space/time into time/space, you might say. This is difficult to express. Is there anything correct [chuckles] in this guess?
The bent left leg of the two sphinxes indicates a transformation that occurs on the left that doesn’t on the right, possibly an inability in that position to move. Does this have any merit?