Letter: H (Chet) = Cancer
Path: Between Binah and Tiferet
Quality: House of Ancestors
Trump 8, Justice, shows the principle of analysis, that piercing vision which cuts to the heart of things. She weighs and measures all the parts of the process until the balance-point is revealed. This is Sophia as a figure of Law, Torah, Nomos. In this form she is the possessor of shrewdness in statecraft and the scribal profession. She is also the symbol of intellectual Light, the “Mistress of Science.” She embodies the canon of weights and measures.
The Justice card is the first step out of the inward focus of self-cultivation, which makes internal resources available to society and fosters the transformation of consciousness at a collective level. We are immediately confronted with a symbol of the law, both natural and human-made. Core concepts associated with Justice are balance, equilibrium, fair measure, and the challenge of being weighed against collective norms.
Justice adjudicates the commonweal in the collective assembly, ensuring the sustainability of the culture despite the tendency of individuals to take advantage or tilt the playing-field. We tend to be familiar with the image of blind justice with scales in one hand and the sword of truth in the other.
This is the classic posture of the Greek goddess Themis. Hers is the ancient justice principle that theoretically sorts out human relations in the cultural marketplace, the realm of trading and social exchanges. I emphasize this point because in our materialistic society we have lost track of the greater good, tending instead to look for opportunities to take advantage rather than opportunities to further the well-being of the whole.
The modern lust for profit is part of the cultural myth of manifest destiny and marketplace determinism. But these values are not suitable for human relations or spiritual development. So the feminine Divine must unsheathe the two-edged sword of truth and prune away all hyperbole, dissembling, and excuses.
This Justice will measure every comer by those exacting standards of impartiality and equity by which she measures herself. Each person who comes before her in the community court will have their “story” examined for every shred of accountability. In this sense Aleister Crowley was inspired when he changed the traditional name of this Trump to Adjustment for his personal Tarot.
Our Justice is of the type to speak truthfully to the needs of the innocent, the helpless, all those who have no individual voice and who therefore cannot defend themselves. Tending to the welfare of the least among us is one of the highest ideals of the Rosicrucian movement, but humanity is still struggling to find the best ways of realizing that dream in practice.
To fill in the gap, Major Arcanum 8 offers the image of the wise and disciplined mother who is at pains to balance out the needs of her individual family members while still advancing the general well-being of the whole. She knows how to make all of the products of wild Nature into food, comfort, and remedies.
Rather than living in an either/or universe of “bad and good,” Justice figures out what is useful and appropriate about every circumstance she examines. She understands the constant recombination of the four-season, four-Element wheel of changes, and from this format she is able to anticipate and provide the needs of her people as they arise.
Justice also knows how to distribute the goods of the family (or of society) equitably, ensuring that the largest number of her subjects get the benefits, instead of the most powerful few commandeering all the resources.
The above text is an excerpt from our book Tarot of the Holy Light: A Continental Esoteric Tarot - Volume One.
