The concept

The twenty-one archetypes that precede it fall into three groups of seven — mind, body, and spirit — each group tracing its own Matrix, Potentiator, Catalyst, Experience, Significator, Transformation, and Great Way (77.12, 77.13). The Choice is what those three cycles build toward: the twenty-second concept complex, standing outside the three sevens as their capstone rather than as a fourth member of any of them (77.12). Where every other archetype takes on unique facets and relationships for each mind/body/spirit complex, Ra says the Choice alone is relatively fixed and single — the one point in the architecture that does not vary by seeker (77.13).

Ra frames this design as deliberate. The whole apparatus of foundations in mind, body, and spirit exists so that a mind/body/spirit complex, guided by free will, can arrive at a genuine polarization (77.12). Ra states plainly that this polarizing is necessary for harvestability from third density, and that the higher densities do their work on the strength of the polarity gained here (77.16) — which is why the purpose of polarity itself is described as developing the potential to do work, work performed more efficiently and with greater purity, intensity, and variety because it was chosen rather than given (78.24). The veiling of conscious from unconscious mind sharpens this further: Ra ties the very possibility of choosing to the separation introduced by that veil (79.31).

Ra's own history with this archetype is notable. Studying the tarot as their descendants transmitted it, Ra reports that only after their own third density had ended did they recognize what they call "the one great breakthrough" — giving proper emphasis to Arcanum Twenty-Two (88.16). They had sensed a unifying archetype but had not yet built it into the full complex of concepts needed to use it efficaciously (88.16). That recognition came a very long time ago by any human measure: Ra places the end of their own third-density choice-making more than two billion years in the past (89.8), a scale that marks the Choice as architecture shared across Logoi and epochs rather than a feature of any one planetary story.

The image

The corpus offers little commentary on the card's imagery beyond one exchange, and this essay does not extend past what Ra actually says there. Asked about the traditional description of the Fool, Ra first cautions that archetypes do not yield the same reading to any two seekers — each will find, within the constant complex of energies an archetype offers, whichever facets matter most to it (67.30). Applied to the questioner's reading of the Fool, Ra locates an aspect that had gone unremarked: faith, pictured as walking into space with no regard for what comes next — foolish on its face, but characteristic of the spiritual neophyte setting out (67.30).

Working with the archetype

Ra is explicit that taking on an archetype — clothing the self within it — is not a starting exercise but an advanced practice of the adept who has already studied the system at length (89.19). The route there runs through the other twenty-one first: each concept complex studied individually, then in the pairs that carry the polarity of male and female, building the mind/body/spirit connections the whole system maps (89.19). Only once that groundwork is laid do the deep mind's own rhythms surface reliably enough to intensify and articulate the magical personality (89.19). The Choice, standing outside that paired structure as the fixed capstone, is less a working partner in this stage of practice than the horizon the practice is oriented toward — the polarization all the other study eventually serves.

In Ra's words

Ra's own recognition, arrived at only after their third density had closed:

The one great breakthrough which was made after our work in third density was done was the proper emphasis given to the Arcanum Number Twenty-Two which we have called The Choice. In our own experience we were aware that such an unifying archetype existed but did not give that archetype the proper complex of concepts in order to most efficaciously use that archetype in order to promote our evolution.

88.16.4-5

The architecture the Choice completes — mind, body, and spirit as three sevens, capped by the twenty-second:

The philosophy was to create a foundation, first of mind, then of body, and then of spiritual complex. Those concept complexes you call the tarot lie, then, in three groups of seven: the mind cycle, one through seven; the physical complex cycle, eight through fourteen; the spiritual complex cycle, fifteen through twenty-one. The last concept complex may best be termed The Choice.

77.12.4-6

Reading the Fool: no two seekers meet an archetype identically, and here the overlooked facet is faith:

Each seeker will experience each archetype in the characteristics within the complex of the archetype which are most important to it.

An example of this would be the observation of the questioner that the Fool is described in such and such a way. One great aspect of this archetype is the aspect of faith, the walking into space without regard for what is to come next. This is, of course, foolish but is part of the characteristic of the spiritual neophyte.

67.30.6-9

The discipline that precedes any attempt to embody an archetype at will:

The clothing one’s self within the archetype is an advanced practice of the adept which has long studied this archetypical system.

The concept complexes which together are intended to represent the architecture of a significant and rich portion of the mind are intended to be studied as individual concept complexes—as Matrix, Potentiator, etc.—in viewing mind/body/spirit connections; and in pairs with some concentration upon the polarity of the male and the female.

If these are studied there comes the moment when the deep threnodies and joyful ditties of the deep mind can successfully be brought forward to intensify, articulate, and heighten some aspect of the magical personality.

89.19.3-5