Can we talk about the Judgement card?

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 22 Mar 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

firemaiden	22 Mar 2003
Can we go over about the various meanings of the Judgement card again? A wake-up call? A sudden revelation? Arising from a dream? Divine Intervention? I am looking at the Card in the spiral deck. The fiery angel much like the angel of love, with blazing blond hair like the sun, playing a clarinet thing. - presumably very loud.. a blaze of light in to the darkness, blasting people awake in their slumbering graves...

DollChica	22 Mar 2003
All righty...According to Mary Hanson Roberts and her minature Tarot to Go book: Upright "This is a card of transformation. A fresh start is possible. It is time to forgive and forget, or perhaps do some soul-searching." Reverse "Stop delaying the inevitable. Indecision can lead to missed opportunities." Now, according to the book that accompanies the Sacred Circle deck...these are just exerpts btw... Upright ...Your past actions are shaping your present and you will be rewarded or punished accordingly...indicates that some experience will impel you to review your past in an attempt to discern the pattern of your life and choices you made to bring you to the present point. With this information, you will have a viewpoint with which to approach the future. This is a card of change and renewal. On a spiritual level, this cards heralds a profound change in your conciousness...Previously unrecognised patterns are made clear and seen as part of the whole. Reverse ...the time has come when you will have to answer for your past decisions. You have not been true to yourself - though you are a master of self-deception, you are consumed with guilt and fear. You will have to take the consequences of your actions...this card advises you to look honestly at what has brought you to the point. Stop trying to fool yourself and avoid the issue."

Astraea	22 Mar 2003
I have seen this card appear frequently in relation to karma -- to me, it means "chickens coming home to roost" (regardless of the timeframe).

Mimers	22 Mar 2003
I always go back to my journal before reading any posts to get my very first feelings from studying the card. My notes on this card are 3 pages long, so I won't put everything here. Here is the first paragraph: "Awareness. They are free. What once seemed like such a puzzle is so clear and easy to see. They are 'sunbathing in God's love'. Totally in touch with their inner selfs. Nothing 'earthly' weighs them down. The Angel sounded the tumpet that awakened them." I go on to describe my meditation into the card. Very interesting. The angel came and swooped me up and flew away with me. Complete feeling of freedom from the earth. When I looked down I saw 'Death' riding around on his hoarse, I saw the Devil laughing at 2 people arguing, I saw the Tower crumbling with people still trying to climb back up it and lots more. The Angel ended up dropping me off in the temple of the High Priestess. In front of her were basins filled with water which I splashed over my face. Throughout this I just felt really free and as I passed all the scenes from the other cards I saw them from a totally new perspective. A new understanding. Maybe that is it. A new understanding. Hope this wasn't too far out for anyone. :) Mimi

Thirteen	22 Mar 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Mimers When I looked down I saw 'Death' riding around on his hoarse, I saw the Devil laughing at 2 people arguing, I saw the Tower crumbling with people still trying to climb back up it and lots more. The Angel ended up dropping me off in the temple of the High Priestess. In front of her were basins filled with water which I splashed over my face. Hope this wasn't too far out for anyone. Actually, it's pretty darn accurate. Judgement is a card of healing and moving on--of rebirth, as the card indicates. Mimer's meditation is pretty close--you look back down at all the things you used to do, the things which kept you from a new understanding, a new life--and you leave them behind. You might say that you finally break away. But this isn't like the 8/Cups or the Fool card, just packing up and taking off for a new start. It involves laying things to rest before you leave. You pay off your old debts, make overdue apologies, decide to forgive, forget and let go of old grievences, come to terms with your past, erase old habits. Anything that could keep you tied to Earth (as it were) you take care of. Old Karma done, new life begun. Interestingly, this card can also indicate recovery from a serious accident or hospital stay. I tend to think of it, in this regard, as something that really changes your life--makes you reassess it, and realize that it's way too short. That you can't keep on doing whatever it is you keep on doing--maintaining that grudge, staying with that guy/girl who's just no good for you, putting off joining the peace corp. Time to really change. It doesn't have to be anything huge either...it could be an important, if seemingly minor decision--like to finally stop smoking or pay off your credit card debt. You get the idea. Judgement is a wake-up call. You can't move forward till you leave the old behind, wash it away, and open your eyes to that new understanding.

Kundalika	23 Mar 2003
The Judgement card always seems stern and forbidding to me........makes me feel like I used to when I was in school and forgot to do my homework. I somehow don't see this particular card very positively for some reason:(

firemaiden	23 Mar 2003
WOW!! Thank you for all your amazing responses! and from meditations and journals! priceless! I am really delighted, thank you all so much for these incredible insights.

Kitty	24 Mar 2003
Hi Firemadien i'm just looking at the Aeon (thoth equivalent to judgement) - I see it as a very positive card. It has come up for me with the 6 of swords - it was about recovering from mental illness. It is about leaving the past behind for new beginngs but needing to acknowledge the past first. After being very ill with depression the card appeared at a time when I was recovering - I can remember thinking "ah I can feel myself getting better -gee that was tough - but its okay" A real sense of being reborn - a new start - fresh air!

firemaiden	24 Mar 2003
Wow, thanks Kitty. That sure goes along with the wakening from a dream aspect...and some of the thoughts I have been having about this card... was there any sense of divine intervention???

HOLMES	24 Mar 2003
Can we go over about the various meanings of the Judgement card again? A wake-up call? A sudden revelation? Arising from a dream? Divine Intervention? I am looking at the Card in the spiral deck. The fiery angel much like the angel of love, with blazing blond hair like the sun, playing a clarinet thing. - presumably very loud.. a blaze of light in to the darkness, blasting people awake in their slumbering graves... 1. the judgment is a wake up call due to the horn of gabriel waking up those who are dead. it is the ideal of judgment day. he has the red cross on his horn (if memory serves) as it symbolises a healing of the spirit. 2. it is a revelation as the moment the call to service hits us, whether it be our own soul. the source. or just humanity(how many times in our lives something happens that changes us, like holy cow, and our eyes get open) 3. arising from a dream is also an ideal, as in the course of miracles and the jeshua letter they say we are asleep in a dream , of past lives and future lives and we havne't awaken yet. that is how the dead can rise, for they are not truly dead. also in the keeping of today age where the dead, the depart can speak to people through mediums on tv. it is clear they are not dead as well. the call to awaken from the dream i believe is those who are earth bound, or lost in a house due to attachment, or simply those who choose oblivion as they believed in hellfire and the purgatory so they are punishing themselves making their own fictional hell. that is what the judgment call wakes up. if one believes in the biblical times of when jesus was crufixed and went to hell to get the keys. he actually built up his light, went to the darkness and released a light and those that were sleeping followed. . in two astral projections books astral odeyzzes, adventures in co creation (my title may be way out there as it is done by memory as well it is was written by marlin hughes though.) they describe how they do soul rescues , which is soul lost houses, and places and how they send light. and in her travel she met the master (christ) who said to her she is doing good work. i dont' know if it is true. but i found the story compelling. 4. i don't know about divine intervention, yet i would like to hope so on the highest levle . for myself i see the spiritual awakening of the judgment as we went to the light in the sun, was healed by the light. and now in judgement we are judgeing ourselves, if we did this, or that, how sucessful we were. and then in the world card we choose to go back to earth to once again be the fool. yet this is my opnion and of course isnt one hundred percent correct as much of it is opnion and personal belief rather then scienctific fact. still what a ride and a dream eh ?

Kitty	25 Mar 2003
Quote: Originally posted by firemaiden was there any sense of divine intervention??? Its an amazing feeling - the recovering - its like coming out of the fog - a sense that you are still the same person but a new improved version - does that make sense? :) Divine intervention - I would say yes - there was a sense - like the divine was saying to me "okay you have had enough, you have dealt with the issues/aspects of yourself that had lead to this, it has been an experience to make you stong - you can come out now" I see it going with the people rising out of the coffins in the RW card - you were dead (well not actually dead - but out of action per say) and now you are rising up - out from the past state - you have paid you dues, you know where you have been and now onto the next stage of life. The karma aspect of judgement is interesting - past lives etc - don't see that so much with this card but peoples comments make sense. I always feel I understand a card once I have experienced it in life - haven't seen the karma aspect of judgement yet - perhaps I have, but don't recognise it yet?! :)

Kitty	25 Mar 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Thirteen Actually, it's pretty darn accurate. Judgement is a card of healing and moving on--of rebirth, as the card indicates. Mimer's meditation is pretty close--you look back down at all the things you used to do, the things which kept you from a new understanding, a new life--and you leave them behind. You might say that you finally break away. But this isn't like the 8/Cups or the Fool card, just packing up and taking off for a new start. It involves laying things to rest before you leave. You pay off your old debts, make overdue apologies, decide to forgive, forget and let go of old grievences, come to terms with your past, erase old habits. Anything that could keep you tied to Earth (as it were) you take care of. Old Karma done, new life begun. Interestingly, this card can also indicate recovery from a serious accident or hospital stay. I tend to think of it, in this regard, as something that really changes your life--makes you reassess it, and realize that it's way too short. Ah thirteen - you say it so well - yes to all of the above :)

magpie9	08 Apr 2003
When I first met the cards the Judgement was pretty scary, Last Trump and all that, but I got over the kind of belief system that fosters such absolutes as Sin = Hell, absolute faith = heaven, etc., and copnsequently spent a long time trying to figure out what this card ment to me. I won't drag you through my evolution on this one the long way 'round, but the first big change for me came on meeting the Crowly Aeon, with its sense of opening up into all sorts of possibilities, maybe even cosmic revalation...and certainly Karma, and the function of inner truth in our lives and "fates". Sooner or later we do have to face the music, on some level, and if we have not been honest with ourselves (never mind others) it can get Ugly. But now, I do see it as, above all else, the souls ascent to a new level of deep knowledge and all that that opens to it. It is a wonder-filled opening of a door into something that can feel as vast as a whole new unexpected universe. I believe the unexpected hugeness of it is a major part of it. I suspect that not quite knowing beforehand that it's really there is part of it. Somewhere I read "...the souls awakening to itself..." and I can't remember what taroist wrote that, or about what deck. But I like it very much as a one sentence defination. I don't want to gross or creep anybody out, but the closest thing I've seen in the 'real world' to it is a 'good death', where the being is working hard, laboring, to bring itself forth into this new diminsion. The process is so like childbirth, such hard labor. If you are really THERE, really connected, helping in this process, I swear you get a glimpse when that couragious soul breaks through and Passes. To put it in perhaps more ordinary terms: The snake sheds its skin at it oun rate, and emerges shining and renewed. But it has to do it on its own. Sometimes we see a person (including ourselves) having a really hard time with our shedding. it's going slowly, i't s stuck, they're blind, the list goes on, and it is so tempting to "help" by peeling them, like you would a sunburn. With snakes, you can kill them by 'helping' them shed. There's a lot more going on than meets the eye, there. With people, I suspect there is too. Which is why, IMHO, it's best to think more than twice before assisting them with your take on how screwed up their lives and or personalities, are. In a reading, I think of the card judgement as essentially a personal experience, which may help to explain why I think it's a bad idea to be Judgemental of others with any regurlarity. So much is hidden in this process, how can an observer possibly see enough to make a 'true judgement'...? Of course we have to make judgements in our everyday lives all the time...but I don't see those as having to do with the card Judgement. I see those as usually being minor arcana matters. :) My, how I do run on..*blush**simper*...puh-leeeze don't hurt me, it's just my opinion :)

magpie9	08 Apr 2003
um, hello? Is anybody there? W'ad Ah Dew? I'm kinda new at all this computor and internet and forum stuff, did I break some rule or something? Would somebody please say something...? I'm not all alone here, am I? BOOGA BOOGA??

firemaiden	09 Apr 2003
Quote: Originally posted by magpie9 ...the closest thing I've seen in the 'real world' to it is a 'good death', where the being is working hard, laboring, to bring itself forth into this new diminsion. The process is so like childbirth, such hard labor. If you are really THERE, really connected, helping in this process, I swear you get a glimpse when that couragious soul breaks through and Passes. Magpie, I get it now, you are really talking about death. At first I thought you were talking about something else, more metaphorical. Quote: With snakes, you can kill them by 'helping' them shed. Really? really, really? what happens with the snake? This is kind of an amazing analogy. Seriously, can you say more about what happens with the snake if you help it?

Trogon	09 Apr 2003
Quote: Originally posted by magpie9 um, hello? Is anybody there? W'ad Ah Dew? I'm kinda new at all this computor and internet and forum stuff, did I break some rule or something? Would somebody please say something...? I'm not all alone here, am I? LOL... naw... not alone... just takes a little time to get a response sometimes. Especially if you post something that makes people think... I know that for me, thinking too much gives me a headache... so it may take me a while to post a reply. :D I did like your comparison of re-birth to a snake shedding it's skin. I've had several snakes as pets over the years (they make great pets, btw) so can see that comparison very well. I had been following this thread since its inception and have found it very interesting. But, aside from asuring you that your comments were seen, and appreciated, I have little to add... Others have already mentioned, and added to, my understanding of this card. Great discussion...

samantha	09 Apr 2003
Judgement . For me its the reaping what you sow card......but on a larger scale than Justice ( which feels similar in type. ) Maybe the time scale on judgement is longer . With the result that many more threads , and levels , of behaviour , experience , interaction , and LIFE have been woven together. The fabric has been made , and your pretty much stuck with it . The past cannot be undone , so your just left looking at the colour and texture and pattern of what you have created ( for all choices were made by you. ) If you don't like what you see , then you can try and make something new the next time , although there is no indication that you definately will . Why pick out that merino jumper again if the rest of your life is spent on the beach . Still , your aware that it is there in the back of the cupboard.

firemaiden	09 Apr 2003
Samantha, I see the analogy with reaping and sowing. (why does it make me thing of that triple Z horror movie about people planted in the soil in a cornfield to be grown like vegetables? BLECK) There are a good many other cards (esp. in RW) with precisely the reaping and sowing themes, however, (sp. in coins) this ought to be grander than that.

magpie9	09 Apr 2003
First, thank you for responding, firemaiden and Trojon--I was all alone in the dark, whimper.......:D Firemaiden--yes, I really was talking about actual death--it does get confusing when we are using such vast terms as death and judgement to know when someone's being literal, or not. Sorry about that. And no, please, I hope no one mis-read my post to think that I'm running about assisting suicides or doing euthernasia or snuff-films or something. Worked in nursing a long time. People get born, people die; if you work there you're present at both events some of the time. Snakes. Yes. They can die if you try to help them shed. I'm no herptologist, but have had several snakes of non-poisenous varieties (-- they kinda came with Frog 2, my second husband and the Rat Ranch--which has nothing to do with tarot, except maybe i shoulda read on that , FIRST--though, to be fair, he had neither rats nor snakes when I got him) including Snookims the Anorexic Ball Python, my favorite. :D No I have never killed one by peeling it, but then, I don't even peel sunburn, gives me the cold clobbers, go figure...but I was told that by an Actual Herptologist. You can give the snakes (perhaps not the husbands?) rocks and tree branches and such for them to rub against when they're shedding, to help them shed succesfully, and I'm sure there's a connection to the Judgement Card here, somewhere. Or else to Divorce Lawyers and their function in assisting us to leave behind that which we have outgrown. * Ahem* It is my opinion that the Judgement card does not have to refer to actual passing on from one life to another, but can come up quite succesfully in other meaningful transitions and openings-up of life. Like divorce, if you realllllly realllly needed one. :D

magpie9	09 Apr 2003
Hey, Samantha, I really like that metaphor you used, " Why pick out that merino jumper again if the rest of your life is spent on the beach . Still , your aware that it is there in the back of the cupboard." That says it so perfectly. :) And I'll agree with firemaiden about the reaping and sowing, Judgement seems bigger to me, but looking back on it (it being the Event) from an Emotional distance, when it's become history--(like Frog 2)--I think the jumper in the cupboard really says it.

magpie9	09 Apr 2003
Firemaiden-- since you asked--Please do not try to visulize this, it's horrible and disgusting- I think what technicaly happens with helping peel a shedding snake, is because the new skin is not all formed at the same time, if you get too agressive with healpfully peeling you can kind of get ahead of the process and actually peel up the new, as yet unfinished, layers of skin. As you can imagine, this does not work too well for the functioning snake trying to live in that skin, whoem you have just helpfully, with the best possible intentions---Flayed.

firemaiden	09 Apr 2003
eeeeeeeeww. That is truly disgusting! yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyikes!!! I tried not to visualize it, truly I did. About the back of the cupboard. There is nothing quite as magical and myterious as the back of the closet, the top shelf, in the back. I cannot find them now, no matter how long I look, but somewhere I still harbor the hope that I will discover all the childhood toys that were stashed up there when I outgrew them, until they mysteriously disappeared. It was an old ritual, every once in a while I would stand on a chair, and paw through the back the closet . I never knew what to expect. I just knew the back of the closet was magic. There was the ritual of the "Kitty Doctor." AT Christmas that battered stuffed-kitty with its matted and patchy rabbit fur, missing an eye-peg or two, and bleeding little wads of cotton stuffing, would take a trip to the "kitty doctor" and come back .... BRAND NEW!!!! One day, in the back of the closet ... I discovered the discarded shell of a previous incarnation.

magpie9	09 Apr 2003
Oh, firemaiden-- that must have been awfull---how did you deal with it? Did you go bury it in the garden, corner your parent, invent reincarnation, call it Karma-in-motion,or just have the screaming Hoo-Haws? Does that relate to or color your view of the Judgement card ? Now-a-days? Ever? It seems like the sort of thing that ought to have an effect on Something Tarot, do you think?

firemaiden	09 Apr 2003
To be honest, I don't think it was awful. I must have known deep down who the "kitty doctor" really was LOL. (or maybe that is why I grew up an aetheist?). I may have even been amused. It may explain why I don't believe in the ressurection of the dead. ;)

magpie9	09 Apr 2003
:0 oooooooooooooooooh!Firemaiden, You go, girl! You have me helplessly ROLFL....:D

Trogon	12 Apr 2003
Quote: Originally posted by magpie9 Firemaiden-- since you asked--Please do not try to visulize this, it's horrible and disgusting- I think what technicaly happens with helping peel a shedding snake, is because the new skin is not all formed at the same time, if you get too agressive with healpfully peeling you can kind of get ahead of the process and actually peel up the new, as yet unfinished, layers of skin. As you can imagine, this does not work too well for the functioning snake trying to live in that skin, whoem you have just helpfully, with the best possible intentions---Flayed. Uhhh... actually... this is not quite correct. As I'd said earlier, I've had several pet snakes over the years - 3 Gopher Snakes, 1 Banded Sand Snake, 2 Garter Snakes, 1 Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, 1 Ribbon Snake, 1 Western Hognose, and (currently) 1 Corn Snake). It has been my experience, as well as what I've read in numerous books and articles on snakes, that a snake does not shed it's old skin until the new one is fully formed. A snake's new skin will not come off if you assist it with shedding. This I know for certain, not only from reading but from personal experience - my current pet snake (Penny) is quite old now and about every other time she sheds, she needs some assistance - so we run a bit of warm water, which helps to soften the old skin, and rub the old stuff off. It comes off much easier this way and she doesn't end up with patches of 2 or 3 or more layers of old skin still being attached. Sorry for getting so off topic... but the metaphor of symbolic death and rebirth can still apply to this natural cycle in reptiles. As well as Autumnal die back of Tulips and Daffodils, with the Spring rebirth of these plants.

magpie9	12 Apr 2003
Thanks for the correction, Trogon- It's ben about 25 years since the snakes, now, so I consider myself no expert. I guess someone was having me on with the flaying concept, and I believed him. I do remember that we put bowls of warm water in with the snakes, when they where having a difficult shed. I'm not sure I ever understood jut why, except they really seemed to like it... I took it to be soothing to the snakey soul :) And yes, I too think the metaphor still works, 'tho not as dramaticaly!

jmd	14 Apr 2003
What a wonderful discussion on this card. I must admit I had never thought about it in terms of the skin-shedding snake, but this certainly makes sense on more than one level. In terms of the resurrection of the dead - and here, I do think that even a puzzled skeptic would agree - the snake is a wonderful symbol of eternal renewed life. One only has to think of what the snake may symbolise, and what little death it has, for the clarion call to but re-awaken it from partial slumber. As long as it has both warmth and moisture, it may rise anew. Other aspects of this card have also been discussed in the XX - Le Jujement thread, and will thus try to not repeat comments made therein. On another note, then, I often place this card upon the non-sefirot of Knowledge (Da'at). Here, however, the call is to re-turn towards the world, rather than the depths into which one may have penetrated within the confines of one's psyche. The call transcends the soul's or body's demands, and one's inner living spiritus may be awoken. To be true not only to oneself, but to live that anew within one's community of the living, despite arising as if from the grave - out of Plato's cave - in which others may yet languish. It is as if the opening of the Rose of the heart blossoms for the one who may recognise its spiritual essence, and yet remains but hidden from others' eyes - not because it is hidden, but because the eyes are either unopened or facing other directions. This card, in essence, thus calls for a re-turn to one's deeper self, yet towards others.

isthmus nekoi	14 Apr 2003
Judgment is ruled by Pluto in the Vertigo deck, not sure about its more traditional assignment.... I think I get V's Judgment roughly 1 out of every 5 readings, so my interpretation is probably highly subjective but.... The impression I garner is that you're on the crest of reconstruction. Pluto rules destruction *and* regeneration, esp in terms of really dramatic, back from the dead types of regeneration. There are links w/Judgment (Pluto), Death (Scorpio) and Tower (Mars). I view it like this: Death - the old system must be changed, time to end has arrived, the old system ceases to function, ready for change. Tower - the actual destruction of the very structure of the old system. ouch. Judgment - sitting in the ashes, watching seeds germinate, seeing the structure of a new world order. So in Judgment, you are ready to rebuild your kingdom. You've torn everything down and the new world's just around the corner, if you've got the blueprints, all the materials needed, and the will to construct to get there. Time to make sure that the new kingdom you build is one you want to rule: this is where you must be discriminating and well, judgmental. So yes, this is a return to the world, glorious, triumphant, yet humbled. It's a wonderful, challenging time. It's Persephone coming up for a little air.

skytwig	14 Apr 2003
so many good thoughts here! Sylvia Abraham also 'awards' Judgement XX with the planet Pluto. I think of a forest after a fire and the green noses of new life poking through. And we, the Phoenixes that we are, rising from the firey mulch of our lessons and learnings, rising as new and more brilliant beings. We have delved into the shadows of our Moons and found clarity, that Sunny exposure and clarification. We have allowed Death to work its magic and allowed the old to fall away (or be torn down) Tower. and we have utilized the healing waters of the Star, the Mysterious Gift of the Universe, to heal old wounds and create new flesh! Renewal, regeneration actualized in the lives of many wondrous souls who choose to be the Best they can Be!! Cool stuff, eh?

The Can we talk about the Judgement card? thread was originally posted on 22 Mar 2003 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.