Hi, this is Jaime here, and as I prepared myself in morning meditation for writing this article, I felt drawn to doing a tarot reading, which is rare.

And let me tell you: I pretty much pulled every harrowing and terrifying card in the deck. Particularly, I pulled the Devil card and the Death card for what I would face in the year ahead.

Aahhh… just what a gal wants to hear on her first full day back from a nasty bout of pneumonia!

Yet after my initial shock and fear {though I never took these to mean literal death or encountering evil and neither should you!), I breathed deep and really took in the cards in my spread.

They were so perfect in communicating the transformative realities I now face in my life, and that we all face as a cosmic tribe in the Aquarian Age. They spoke to the yin and the yang of the journey we are on, the light and the dark, the creative aspect and the destructive aspect.

Because we are collectively awakening and leaping forward in consciousness ~ deep into the still waters of Spirit, breathing a new kind of air, and witnessing new Truths about our Self as Divinity.

This spiritual awakening, however, will not be an instant enlightenment event nor is it a purely blissful walk in the park: not for us collectively, nor for any of us who have personally stepped onto the path of awakening. The reality is:

There is a Shadow Side to Spiritual Awakening.

We hope this doesn’t scare you (and you’ve probably already suspected as much is true). We simply feel that acknowledging and accepting the shadow side of anything is healthier and safer than ignoring it.

So here’s the total Truth about spiritual awakening in the symbolism and revelation of 4 Key Archetypes of Spiritual Awakening: The Fool, The Magician, The Devil and Death.

The first two archetypes represent your personal journey of transformation once you embark on the journey of spiritual awakening toward enlightenment. The latter two represent the necessary forces of destruction you’ll inevitably encounter as this journey dismantles your ego consciousness and re-members your true Divine Self.

NOTE: For a full treatment of what Spiritual Awakening is and what the process entails when an activation event for the purpose of enlightenment occurs, please read this article here.

{But be warned! The linked article leans drastically to the woo woo and taboo in the Mystical Realm and might sound like utter hogwash to those uninterested in esoteric exploration (so don’t blame us if it sounds crazy!)}

The 4 Archetypes of Spiritual Awakening ~ Light & Shadow

The Fool

The nature of the journey to enlightenment is much like the Hero’s Journey, evident in every myth and story across all cultures. And so it inevitably begins with an incident that will throw you out of your comfort zone and into an alien, unfamiliar world.

That world, in this case, is the world of the spiritual or the esoteric.

Hence, we all enter that unknown dimension as The Fool.

However, the archetypal Fool is the Sacred Fool. Stepping into this archetype at the start of a journey means that you are encountering new beginnings with innocence and hopefully open-mindedness. Numbering 0 (Zero) in the Tarot, it is both the first and last card of the Major Arcana. This is because there are two aspects to The Fool.

The First Aspect of the Fool (at the start of the journey):

The Fool in its first aspect represents childlike trust, curiosity and a total oblivion or blindness of the abyss he is about to step off into. He speaks to our excitement and desire for new adventures and for enlightenment, yet his carefree nature and inappropriate dress (fashionable, rather than practical for his arduous hike) hint that perhaps he doesn’t quite know what he’s in for. His companion, a dog that could symbolize his intuition, is the only one here that is seemingly aware of impending danger and attempts to warn him.

The Final Aspect of the Fool (at the end of the journey):

The higher truth expressed by the Fool archetype is that once the journey to enlightenment has been traversed, he has complete faith and trust in the Divine. At an ego level he has no need to fear any impending abyss or approaching ledge.

As A. E. Waite notes in his own explanation below, “it is as if angels were waiting to uphold him, if it came about that he leaped from the height.”

When we allow ourselves to inhabit this powerful archetype during our own journey (it happens either way, but we can choose to embrace or resist it), we accept that like a child, we will be ill-prepared and maybe even naive as we enter the new world of Spiritual Awakening. And that’s okay.

However that childlike ability to embark on the journey anyway, and to bring curiosity and a thirst for adventure, is exactly what gets us through. And then our naivete will transform into divine faith earned from a deep knowing, which is earned when we traverse the next 3 archetypes…

Here is a description of The Fool, excerpted from the Rider Waite Tarot Deck:

The Magician

Closely related to The Fool, the Magician is the more seasoned and serious manifestation. Both archetypes are also closely related to the Trickster.

Where the Fool bumbles toward the unknown, and later traverses life with complete faith and trust in that Unknowable Mystery, the Magician seeks to master and utilize the Unknowable Mystery, to call its secrets, knowledge and boons down from Heaven and into the earth (other seekers and the planet at large).

This archetype calls to the highest in us that seeks enlightenment, not just for ourselves, but so that we can serve and assist others in their awakening as well. The Magician also calls attention to the sacred truth that “As above, so below.”

When we step into this archetype in our journey, we begin co-creating and participating with the Heavens and we awaken to the desire to communicate that knowledge and experience to others. Within this archetype we pursue mastery of the new gifts, genius and sacred mysteries that we discover ~ all in service to God and to other seekers on the journey.

However one must be careful not to become addicted to, or within ego about, the phenomena, knowledge or gifts the Magician archetype awakens within us. Such a trap will feel powerful to us in the moment, and even seem powerful or proof of enlightenment to others… yet we will hence cut ourselves off from further awakening and any true possibility of unification with the Divine Source we originally sought.

Here is a description of The Magician, excerpted from the Rider Waite Tarot Deck:

The Devil

The entire origin of this article lies in the epiphany I had when researching this card and discovering:

The Devil is the exact shadow manifestation of the Magician archetype.

And so we cannot embody one without encountering the other. Though this card carries a lot of historical and religious context that would deem it evil or foreboding disaster, this is not an inherently wicked or evil archetype. Or rather it calls attention to the shadow side of awakening that is not meant to destroy or harm you.

Rather it is meant to destroy your ego attachments and ego consciousness.

I can tell you from personal experience, that can sometimes feel like you yourself are being harmed or destroyed. It has been a personal journey of mine that I’m still embarking on, to learn how to surrender to this vital-though-dark side of the spiritual journey in a way that is healthy and empowering even as it is destructive and dismantling.

You will encounter the Devil archetype in your own spiritual journey when your own shadow side begins to emerge for the purpose of cleansing, healing and reintegration.

It’s important to note here that you can never (nor should you want to) destroy your shadow. It’s also not inherently negative or bad. In fact some of your most noble aspects are hidden in your shadow. That’s why we are more terrified of our own greatness than we are of our flaws.

So facing this terrifying archetype is actually our first true step toward Ultimate Freedom. Only in facing our shadow can we balance it with our light and give it healthy expression. Refusing therefore to face this archetypal Devil can stall our process and lead to a crisis wherein your ego desires, fears and lusts become overwhelming and threaten to take over your conscious mind.

It also allows us the opportunity to again make our conscious choice:

Toward Spirit and away from Ego.

That’s a very difficult (and not always obvious) decision that is the hidden gift we encounter when we face the Devil archetype.

Here is a description of The Devil, excerpted from the Rider Waite Tarot Deck:

Death

Where we face the destructive nature of spiritual awakening in the Devil archetype, as it dismantles our ego in service to Spirit, we must eventually face Death itself, without dying to our physical body and this physical realm.

This is the meaning behind the phrase “twice-born” to describe enlightened or awakened individuals. People who experience death before physically dying (such as through visions, out of body experiences, altered states and so forth) will ultimately experience a spiritual rebirth.

However, just because this experience of Death isn’t physical (or seemingly final) doesn’t make it any less harrowing to experience. Because what dies is the part of us that identifies with ego (the ego itself doesn’t die, but rather enters into a more balanced service to the Higher awakened Self), and until we are awakened, ALL OF US identifies as ego!

But do not fear: even as this is a necessary archetypal experience each of us must encounter on our way to spiritual enlightenment, it won’t necessarily occur in this lifetime even if we embark on and traverse far on our spiritual journey.

And in such cases, our own physical death at the end of this life will provide its own transit and transformation as we continue our spiritual journey back to Source.

I personally believe that the transformative power of this archetype lies in our conscious choosing of it, rather than unwilling subjugation to it (which I think can and does happen when we face the Devil, which is why we have such rich stories and contexts around the Devil archetype as an embodied figure).

I can’t say any of this with authority or tell you I know for a fact it’s the truth, but after extensive research into archetypes and my own spiritual awakening process going on 3 years now, this is currently my sense of the process and these archetypes.

Here is a description of The Devil, excerpted from the Rider Waite Tarot Deck:

I recognize that some of the content in this article may be a bit departed from our normal more mainstream fare here at O! Lila. This is because we hope to curate for you spiritual tools from across all the realms of human understanding, including the more mystic or mysterious.

We hope you enjoyed this foray into the more mystical realms today.

Also, if you wish to delve deeper into the Tarot, primarily A. E. Waite’s tarot deck and accompanying explanations, we pulled the above excerpts from The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, available free online.