Justice
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The Marseilles card
The Waite-Smith card
Stage V - Sacrifice
This stage consists of two cards: The Star first, then Justice. It is in this stage that the Fool’s ego personality is sacrificed. The Lovers card is considered part of this stage, but also of the following stage, so I will defer its description until then.
At this point, as the Merkabah consciousness is experienced, the Fool becomes aware of himself/herself as a group entity, and not only as an individual being. Awareness has expanded to include a whole host of spiritual beings from many different realms, of which the Fool is now conscious. The experience of The Star comes first, then of Justice.
Justice
Justice is the doorkeeper of Persephone, the Goddess of the Underworld. Although this is the same figure depicted in the Star (indeed, all the females in the Major Arcana are different aspects of the same essence), here she has a darker aspect. She may appear malevolent in fact, if we didn’t understand her real purpose. Justice is the Celtic Washer at the Well. She is Kali, the dark aspect of Shakti. She is the Krone aspect of the pagan Triple Goddess (the virgin aspect is the Virgin Priestess and the mother aspect is the Empress, who we will meet in the next stage).
Why is she holding a sword? To deliver the coup de gras to the Fool. And what is it that she cuts? Here again, the glyph of Libra, associated with Justice, can aid us. Like Aquarius, this glyph consists of two lines, a straight one under another with a part-circle in it, like a Greek omega. The lower line is the physical body, the upper line is the Merkabah or star body. The sword stroke results in the mystical, yet real, death of the ego. However, the consciousness of the Fool doesn’t die, for it remains in the star body.
There are two other images associated with Libra that will further help us understand what is going on here. The first are the balance scales, as depicted in the actual constellation of Libra. The two balance pans represent the two bodies we have been talking about. The other symbol for Libra is lesser-known. It is the Phoenix bird, which dies by burning, but then is resurrected or reborn from its own ashes. This is a major operation of alchemy, but we can see it here in the Tarot cards more explicitly. We now jump quickly to the next stage, for the death has occurred,and rebirth awaits.