The Veil & the Archetypal Mind
A veil between conscious and deep mind makes the choice meaningful; the archetypes are the deep mind's grammar, the tarot its teaching-image.
A deliberate forgetting was drawn between conscious and unconscious mind so that we would be forced to choose.
In plain language
Ra traces much of what is strange and hard about third-density life to a single deliberate decision by the Logos of this galaxy. The Logos lowered a veil between the conscious and the unconscious mind — a curtain of forgetting — so that entities, no longer simply knowing their unity with the Creator, would be compelled to choose their way. Everything that makes third density feel genuinely difficult — the experience of separation, the effort of faith, the weight of uncertainty — sits on the near side of that veil.
Ra pairs this teaching with a second: the archetypal mind, the deep structural blueprint of mind, body, and spirit that the same Logos built into its creation. It is encoded as twenty-two archetypes, which Ra identifies with the Major Arcana of the Tarot — not as a divination system but as a set of teaching images for the journey of evolution.
The two teachings belong together: the veil explains why the inner work is hard; the archetypes provide a map of that work; and the adept is the practitioner who learns to cross the veil consciously.
Why the veil was introduced
Ra frames the veil as a design change to address a problem in earlier versions of the creation. Without sufficient mechanism for polarization, entities tended to cycle through third density repeatedly without meaningful progress (). Earlier creations lacked the crucial ingredient Ra identifies as polarization. The Logos therefore sought to make the potential for polarization more available — and the chosen mechanism was the veil.
Ra describes the veil's structural effect with precision: by drawing a boundary between the conscious and unconscious portions of the mind, it made a declaration that the mind was complex; and this complexity in turn caused the body and spirit to become complex as well (). The entire three-part architecture of the mind/body/spirit entity is, in a sense, downstream of this one move.
What the veil makes possible
Before the veil, Ra explains, all facets of the Creator were consciously known to the entity. After it, almost none were — the situation is compared to the mantling of earth over all the jewels within the earth's crust (). From this hiddenness spring several capacities that were not available before: the potential for dreaming, the mystery of the body's hidden processes, and — most importantly — the faculty of will or pure desire, which Ra identifies as a product of the potential created by the veiling itself (). Whole spiritual realities become possible only because of the forgetting: the anger of separation, the longing for reunion, the stakes of genuine choice.
The archetypal mind and its structure
The archetypal mind is described as a mind peculiar to this Logos — not the great cosmic all-mind, but a specific refinement the Logos chose to offer as a framework for evolution (). It comprises twenty-two archetypes in three groups of seven (Mind, Body, Spirit) plus a final twenty-second. Within each group the same skeleton appears: a Matrix (the active-but-unmoving pole — for the mind, consciousness itself, called the Magician), a Potentiator (its vast resource — for the mind, the unconscious, called the High Priestess), and further archetypes carrying functions such as Catalyst and Experience (). The Matrix of Mind is described as consciousness that is, of itself, unmoved; the Potentiator is the unconscious, which encompasses a vast realm of potential ().
The Tarot as teaching tool
Ra identifies the Major Arcana as the images through which these archetypes were transmitted to humanity — devised by the third-density population of Venus as a training aid in developing the magical personality () and later presented to Egyptian initiates in a deliberate sequence (). Ra is explicit that this is not a system for divination but a resource for learn/teaching. The method Ra describes is sequential: present the archetypes in the order that reveals the relationships between Mind, Body, and Spirit; then study them in pairs; then go beyond what has been written, developing one's own correspondences until the archetype can be called upon at will. No formula is binding: Ra has no dogma to offer, and each perceives what is needful ().
The adept and the discipline of the personality
Magic, as Ra uses the term, is the ability to consciously use the unconscious — precisely the capacity the veil hides and simultaneously makes worth seeking. The path to it is inward and sequential. Above all stands what Ra calls the discipline of the personality, which is threefold: know yourself, accept yourself, become the Creator (). The third step is described not as an inflation of self but as its opposite — one who has genuinely become the Creator is the most humble servant of all, transparent in personality, capable of fully knowing and accepting other-selves (). The discipline is not a single achievement but an ongoing orientation of the will toward clarity and self-knowledge.
In Ra's words
The veil as a declaration of complexity:
The mechanism of the veiling between the conscious and unconscious portions of the mind was a declaration that the mind was complex. This, in turn, caused the body and the spirit to become complex.
What was buried by the forgetting, and what it made possible:
The primary veiling was of such significance that it may be seen to be analogous to the mantling of the earth over all the jewels within the earth’s crust; whereas previously all facets of the Creator were consciously known. After the veiling, almost no facets of the Creator were known to the mind.
The threefold discipline of the personality:
The heart of the discipline of the personality is threefold:
One, know yourself.
Two, accept yourself.
Three, become the Creator.The third step is that step which, when accomplished, renders one the most humble servant of all, transparent in personality and completely able to know and accept other-selves.
In relation to the pursuit of the magical working, the continuing discipline of the personality involves the adept in knowing itself, accepting itself, and thus clearing the path towards the great indigo gateway to the Creator. To become the Creator is to become all that there is. There is, then, no personality in the sense with which the adept begins its learn/teaching. As the consciousness of the indigo ray becomes more crystalline, more work may be done; more may be expressed from intelligent infinity.
In Ra's words — The Archetypes and the Tarot
Ra traces the tarot's origin to Venus, where it was developed not as a divination tool but as a structured teaching of the twenty-two archetypes of the archetypal mind — the deep grammar that the Logos encoded into mind, body, and spirit (, ). Ra presents the Major Arcana as a study of archetypes rather than a tool of fortune-telling — to the committed student a resource for understanding evolution, to anyone else only pictures (, ). The lesson plan Ra used with early initiates proceeded systematically: first mind, body, and spirit presented in vertical columns (one, eight, fifteen; two, nine, sixteen; etc.) to reveal relationships across the three complexes, then archetypes studied in pairs, then — most importantly — each archetype learned by being entered and embodied (). Three paths of structured study are recommended: astrology, the tarot's Major Arcana, or the Tree of Life; the student should investigate all three, then commit deeply to whichever pulls most strongly (). The archetypes themselves are given in pairs: Matrix and Potentiator — the unmoved consciousness and the vast unconscious that moves it; the Balanced Body and the Wisdom that guides it; the Night of the Soul and the sudden lightning of its Potentiator (). The third archetype, the Catalyst of the Mind, governs the way the unconscious is first engaged by the conscious () — whether that engagement comes as a plunder or a courtship (). The image-logic of these cards is explicit: they haunt rather than explain, and the right-hand and left-hand transformations visible in them map the difference between open encounter with other-selves and the separative armoring of the negative path (). To the student committed to this study, the images are a genuine resource for understanding evolution; to anyone else, they are only pictures (). As with all outer forms, the disciplines of personality ultimately make the external apparatus unnecessary ().
The passages
— Origin of the tarot on Venus
The concept of the tarot originated within the planetary influence you call Venus.
— Divorcing divination from the Major Arcana as archetypal study
We must first divorce the tarot as a method of divination from this Major Arcana as representative of twenty-two archetypes of the archetypical mind.
…
In and of themselves the Major Arcana have no rightful place in divination, but rather are tools for the further knowledge of the self by the self for the purpose of entering a more profoundly, acutely realized present moment.
— Ra's lesson plan: columns, pairs, embodiment, and no dogma
We find it more nearly appropriate to discuss our plans in acquainting initiates upon your own planet with this particular version of the archetypes of the archetypical mind. Our first stage was the presentation of the images, one after the other, in the following order:
one, eight, fifteen;
two, nine, sixteen;
three, ten, seventeen;
four, eleven, eighteen;
five, twelve, nineteen;
six, thirteen, twenty;
seven, fourteen, twenty-one;
twenty-two.In this way the fundamental relationships between mind, body, and spirit could begin to be discovered; for as one sees, for instance, the Matrix of the Mind in comparison to the Matrices of Body and Spirit, one may draw certain tentative conclusions.
When at length the student had mastered these visualizations and had considered each of the seven classifications of archetype (looking at the relationships between mind, body, and spirit) we then suggested consideration of archetypes in pairs:
one and two;
three and four;
five;
six and seven.You may continue in this form for the body and spirit archetypes.
You will note that the consideration of the Significator was left unpaired, for the Significator shall be paired with Archetype Twenty-Two.
At the end of this line of inquiry the student was beginning to grasp more and more deeply the qualities and resonances of each archetype. At this point, using various other aids to spiritual evolution, we encouraged the initiate to learn to become each archetype and, most importantly, to know, as best as possible within your illusion, when the adoption of the archetype’s persona would be spiritually or metaphysically helpful.
As you can see, much work was done creatively by each initiate. We have no dogma to offer. Each perceives that which is needful and helpful to the self.
— Three paths of structured archetypical study
It is appropriate to study one form of constructed and organized distortion of the archetypical mind in depth in order to arrive at the position of being able to become and to experience archetypes at will. You have three basic choices:
You may choose astrology—the twelve signs, as you call these portions of your planet’s energy web, and what has been called the ten planets.
You may choose the tarot with its twenty-two so-called Major Arcana.
You may choose the study of the so-called Tree of Life with its ten Sephiroth and the twenty-two relationships between the stations.
It is well to investigate each discipline, not as a dilettante, but as one who seeks the touchstone, one who wishes to feel the pull of the magnet. One of these studies will be more attractive to the seeker. Let the seeker then investigate the archetypical mind using, basically, one of these three disciplines.
After a period of study, the discipline mastered sufficiently, the seeker may then complete the more important step: that is, the moving beyond the written in order to express in an unique fashion its understanding, if you may again pardon the noun, of the archetypical mind.
— Matrix and Potentiator across mind, body, and spirit
In the mind complex the Matrix may be described as consciousness. It has been called the Magician. It is to be noted that, of itself, consciousness is unmoved. The Potentiator of consciousness is the unconscious. This encompasses a vast realm of potential in the mind.
In the body the Matrix may be seen as Balanced Working or Even Functioning. Note that here the Matrix is always active with no means of being inactive. The Potentiator of the body complex, then, may be called Wisdom, for it is only through judgment that the unceasing activities and proclivities of the body complex may be experienced in useful modes.
The Matrix of the Spirit is what you may call the Night of the Soul, or Primeval Darkness. Again we have that which is not capable of movement or work. The potential power of this extremely receptive Matrix is such that the Potentiator may be seen as Lightning. In your archetypical system called the tarot this has been refined into the concept complex of the Lightning Struck Tower. However, the original Potentiator was light in its sudden and fiery form; that is, the lightning itself.
— The Catalyst of the Mind: archetype three
The third archetype may broadly be grasped as the Catalyst of the Mind. Thus it takes in far more than disciplined meditation. However, it is certainly through this faculty that catalyst is most efficiently used.
The Archetype, Three, is perhaps confusedly called Empress, although the intention of this nomer is the understanding that it represents the unconscious, or female, portion of the mind complex being first, shall we say, used or ennobled by the male or conscious portion of the mind. Thus the noble name.
— Death and rebirth as catalyst in every moment
This is correct and may be seen to be additionally correct in that each moment, and certainly each diurnal period of the bodily incarnation, offers death and rebirth to one which is attempting to use the catalyst which is offered it.
— Images that haunt rather than explicate
Remember, O student, that these images are not literal. They haunt rather than explicate.
Many use the trunk and roots of mind as if that portion of mind were a badly used, prostituted entity. Then this entity gains from this great storehouse that which is rough, prostituted, and without great virtue. Those who turn to the deep mind seeing it in the guise of the maiden go forth to court it. The courtship has nothing of plunder in its semblance and may be protracted, yet the treasure gained by such careful courtship is great. The right-hand and left-hand transformations of the mind may be seen to differ by the attitude of the conscious mind towards its own resources as well as the resources of other-selves.
We now speak of that genie, or elemental, or mythic figure, culturally determined, which sends the arrow to the left-hand transformation. This arrow is not the arrow which kills but, rather, that which, in its own way, protects. Those who choose separation, that being the quality most indicative of the left-hand path, are protected from other-selves by a strength and sharpness equivalent to the degree of transformation which the mind has experienced in the negative sense.
Those upon the right-hand path have no such protection against other-selves, for upon that path the doughty seeker shall find many mirrors for reflection in each other-self it encounters.
— For the student of evolution; for others, only pictures
To the student, the tarot images offer a resource for learn/teaching the processes of evolution. To any other entity these images are pictures and no more.
— Beyond the external form
You may note that as one learns the, shall we say, understandings or disciplines of the personality each of these configurations of prana is available to the entity without the aid of this shape. One may view the pyramid at Giza as metaphysical training wheels.
→ Browse the twenty-two archetypes, or draw one to contemplate.
The full corpus on this
Every place Ra touches this subject — the passages above are a starting point, not the whole of it.
Referenced in
Other curated pages that discuss the same passages.