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The Tarot of Eli 2: Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Key 6 — The Lovers

The Sacred Marriage of Solar and Lunar Consciousness

The Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Key 6, The Lovers, is far more than a card of romance, attraction, or human partnership. In Western Hermetic Qabalah, it is a profound image of the union of opposites, the reconciliation of the Solar and Lunar currents, and the awakening of the personality as a living channel for the Greater Self.

On the RWS Lovers card, we see Adam and Eve standing beneath the blessing of the Angel. The man represents the Solar principle, self-consciousness, intellect, naming, direction, and active awareness. The woman represents the Lunar principle, subconsciousness, receptivity, sensation, memory, intuition, and inner response. Above them stands the Solar Angel, traditionally identified as Raphael, the Archangel of Air, intelligence, healing, and the breath o

Paul Foster Case, founder of B.O.T.A., associated the Sun with self-consciousness and the Moon with subconsciousness. He taught that these two currents are not enemies but complementary aspects of the One Life-Breath.

When the Solar and Lunar currents are rightly understood and placed in proper order, the human personality becomes a clear channel for the outpouring of cosmic life force. In this sense, The Lovers card is not merely about choosing a partner; it is about choosing harmony between the conscious and subconscious aspects of the self.

He also correctly emphasizes that Gemini, the astrological sign attributed to The Lovers, brings the themes of duality, communication, choice, adaptability, and the integration of opposites into this card’s meaning

Raphael, Air, and the Life-Breath

The Angel above the Lovers is Raphael, whose name means “God has healed.” He is the angel of Air and the eastern quarter, and Air is the element of intelligence, breath, communication, and subtle movement. This links The Lovers to Gemini, the mutable Air sign ruled by Mercury.

The bright yellow Sun behind Raphael symbolizes the radiant source of terrestrial life. Every plant, animal, and body on Earth is sustained by solar power. Esoterically, this Sun is more than a physical star; it is a symbol of ageless consciousness, the body of a Being, and the radiant vehicle of the Solar Logos. The physical Sun may one day perish, but the energy and intelligence it symbolizes belong to the eternal Life-Power.

Raphael’s hands are raised in blessing, sending the influence of the Supernal Life-Breath down to the Lovers below. In Hermetic language, this is the descent of the Supernal current from Kether, Chokmah, and Binah into the human field of awareness. In yogic language, it may be compared to prana, the subtle life-force that animates body, mind, and spirit.

Prana is often translated as breath, yet it is more than respiration. It is the vital current that sustains biological life, emotional balance, mental clarity, and spiritual awakening. Breath is one of the most immediate ways the human body participates in cosmic intelligence. Therefore, The Lovers may be seen as a card of sacred breathing: the conscious mind and subconscious mind learning to inhale and exhale as one organism.

The Solar and Lunar Currents

The man on the card looks toward the woman, while the woman looks toward the Angel. This is a key symbolic detail. Self-consciousness does not usually perceive the Superconscious directly. Instead, it receives higher impressions through the subconscious. The subconscious is the inner mirror, the dream-body, the symbolic field through which divine intelligence is translated into image, sensation, intuition, and memory.

This is why the relationship between self-consciousness and subconsciousness must be loving, not coercive. The subconscious cannot be bullied into obedience. It responds to image, feeling, rhythm, repetition, and persuasion. If the conscious mind attacks or represses the subconscious, the law of reverse effort is often activated: the very thing one tries harshly to overcome gains more power.

Thus, The Lovers teaches discernment. The conscious mind must become the wise framer of suggestion, identity, and intention. The subconscious must become the beloved inner companion, not the feared basement of the psyche. In modern psychological terms, this is the reconciliation of the conscious ego with the inner child, dream-self, instinctual body, and symbolic imagination.

In parapsychological terms, the subconscious is also the psychic threshold. It is the field where telepathic impressions, clairvoyant images, ancestral memory, emotional atmospheres, and subtle intuitions are first registered. The Lovers teaches that magical ability, or what Eastern systems call siddhis, develops through harmony between the outer mind and the inner mind

Adam, Eve, and the Two Trees

Adam stands before the Tree of Life bearing twelve flaming fruits. These twelve fruits represent the Zodiac, and each flame is triple because each sign is divided into three decans, giving the thirty-six decanates of astrological expression. This is the Tree of human self-conscious life: the twelvefold wheel of personality and the thirty-six modes through which the Solar intelligence expresses itself.

Eve stands before the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Its five fruits symbolize the five senses. Around this tree coils the serpent. In exoteric religion, the serpent is often treated as temptation. In esoteric traditions, however, the serpent is also wisdom, sensation, kundalini, healing, and redemption. It is the power that first appears as temptation but later becomes liberation when rightly understood.

Arthur Edward Waite saw the woman not merely as temptress, but as the working of a secret law of Providence. Through the so-called Fall, humanity (subconscious) gains the possibility of rising. In Hermetic terms, consciousness descends into polarity, sensation, embodiment, and choice so that it may return to unity with greater self-awareness and experience of mortality.

The Fall is not simply a tragedy. It is the beginning of the Great Work.

The Mountain and the Great Work

Behind the Angel rises the mountain. Mountains symbolize the abode of the gods: Sinai, Olympus, Meru, Fujiyama, and other sacred peaks. They suggest aspiration, initiation, effort, and attainment. Every soul has a mountain to climb, and The Lovers shows us that the ascent is made through the proper ordering of inner polarity.

The mountain may also symbolize gestation and creative potency. As a phallic and generative image, it implies the hidden work of formation. Love, whether spiritual, sexual, or mystical, is not merely emotion; it is creative pressure. It reorganizes the personality. It prepares a new state of being.

This is why The Lovers belongs to the path of Zain, the Hebrew letter meaning Sword. The Sword divides, discriminates, and chooses. Yet it also consecrates the union by cutting away illusion. The Lovers is not sentimental. It is a blade of discernment that separates true union from fantasy, compulsion, projection, and social programming.

The Hermetic Marriage

In Western Hermetic Qabalah, The Lovers is closely related to the Hermetic Marriage, the Chemical Wedding, and the alchemical union of opposites. The famous Rosicrucian text The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz presents this mystery in symbolic and initiatory form. Its language may read like a fairy tale, yet beneath the story lies one of the great esoteric maps of inner transformation.

The marriage of opposites is not merely the union of two people. It is the union of Chokmah and Binah, Wisdom and Understanding, force and form, electric and magnetic consciousness. In human terms, it is the marriage of inner Animus and inner Anima, Solar Self and Lunar Soul, awake awareness and dream intelligence.

True love requires sacrifice because it dissolves isolation. When two become one, neither remains exactly what they were before. The red crayon and blue crayon become purple. The old self dies into a greater composite. This is the “little death” of ecstatic union, the surrender of the separated ego into a more inclusive identity.

This is also why The Lovers is linked to sexual magick, Tantra, Gnostic union, and the sacramental mystery of polarity. The masculine principle is not superior to the feminine, nor is the feminine subordinate to the masculine. They are simultaneous reproductive aspects of intelligent energy. The masculine is electric, projective, catalytic, and outgoing. The feminine is magnetic, enclosing, formative, and creative. Their union produces the third principle: manifestation.

“When You Make the Two One”

The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas expresses this same doctrine when Yeshua says that the Kingdom is entered “when you make the two one,” when inner and outer, above and below, male and female are reconciled. This is the formula of The Lovers: polarity must be recognized, purified, balanced, and united.

In Qabalistic language, the apparent fall from unity into duality is the mystery of 0 = 2. Return is the mystery of 2 = 1. Paradise is not regained by rejecting matter, body, sexuality, or sensation. It is regained by sanctifying them through conscious union with the Higher Self.

The Kingdom, in this esoteric sense, is not merely a location after death. It is the restored Eden of consciousness: the Supernal harmony reflected into the human soul.

Pranayama and the Loving Breath

Because Raphael is the Angel of Air and the Life-Breath, The Lovers also invites breath practice. Breath is the bridge between conscious and subconscious life. We breathe consciously, but we also breathe automatically. Therefore, breath is a natural doorway between Adam and Eve, Sun and Moon, intellect and instinct.

A few useful breath practices include:

Nadi Shodhana — Alternate Nostril Breathing
This balances the Solar and Lunar currents, calms the mind, and harmonizes the nervous system. It is especially fitting for The Lovers because it brings the right and left channels into equilibrium.

Bhramari — Bee Breath
This humming breath soothes emotional turbulence, quiets anger, and turns awareness inward. It helps the subconscious feel safe enough to reveal its symbols.

Ujjayi — Ocean Breath
This steady, whispering breath strengthens concentration and creates rhythmic inner warmth. It is useful for meditation, ritual, and focused visualization.

Sheetali — Cooling Breath
This breath cools agitation and reduces fiery emotional excess. It is helpful when desire, conflict, or anxiety has overheated the inner field.

More forceful practices such as Kapalabhati and Bhastrika can be powerful, but they should be approached carefully, especially by those with high blood pressure, pregnancy, heart conditions, or respiratory concerns. The goal is not force but harmony. Breath should become a loving embrace of the body, not a punishment of the body.

Divination Meaning of The Lovers

In a reading, The Lovers may indicate romance, attraction, partnership, or a major relational choice. Yet on a deeper level, it asks: Are your conscious choices aligned with your inner truth?

It may show a relationship that mirrors the soul back to itself. It may reveal the need for honest communication. It may point to a choice that cannot be made from social conditioning, fear, or false persona. The Lovers asks the querent to choose from the Solar Self rather than the mask.

Upright, The Lovers indicates harmony, union, attraction, alignment, communication, conscious choice, and the possibility of sacred partnership.

Ill-dignified or reversed, it may indicate disharmony, indecision, projection, temptation, emotional confusion, false union, or a split between conscious intention and subconscious desire.

The card teaches that love is not merely feeling. Love is alignment. Love is the ability to stand naked before self, soul, and other without falsehood.

The Ocean Tarot — Key 6: The Lovers

Union, Harmony, and the Sacred Choice of the Heart

The Ocean Tarot — Key 6, The Lovers presents a tender underwater image of a mermaid and merman embracing upon the ocean floor. They stand beneath an arch of pink rose-colored anemone, while a yellow-gold jellyfish floats above them, its tentacles descending near their foreheads. The scene is beautiful, intimate, and symbolic. Its key themes are union, harmony, attraction, and choice.

In Western Hermetic Qabalah, The Lovers is not only a card of romance. It is the mystery of polarity seeking reunion. The masculine and feminine figures represent more than two people; they symbolize the inner Solar and Lunar forces of consciousness.

The merman may be seen as the active, projective, Solar current of self-conscious will. The mermaid represents the receptive, magnetic, Lunar current of subconscious feeling, intuition, memory, and psychic sensitivity. Their embrace shows the moment when these two currents cease fighting one another and become a single field of love, trust, and creative force

Because this version is set beneath the sea, the Ocean Tarot places special emphasis on the subconscious waters. The ocean is the great matrix of feeling, dream, instinct, memory, and psychic perception. It is the watery mirror of the soul. Here, love is not merely intellectual choice; it is an energetic and emotional immersion. The Lovers are not standing in a dry garden, as in the Rider-Waite-Smith card, but within the living sea of the deep psyche.

The rose-colored anemone arch suggests a natural temple of affection, beauty, and attraction. Pink carries the vibration of tenderness, compassion, and heart-centered receptivity.

In Qabalistic language, this may be related to the harmonizing power of Tiphareth, the sixth Sephirah, Beauty, where the Solar Self brings balance to the opposing forces of the personality.

The Lovers is Key 6, and 6 is the number of harmony, proportion, beauty, and the radiant center. Therefore, this card teaches that real love is not possession; it is balance, mutual recognition, and the graceful alignment of two beings in one shared field.

The golden jellyfish floating above them functions almost like an underwater angelic presence. In the Rider-Waite-Smith card, the angel Raphael blesses the lovers from above. In the Ocean Tarot, the jellyfish becomes a more aquatic symbol of higher intelligence. Its golden body resembles a floating sun or luminous crown, while its delicate tentacles descend like currents of subtle energy.

Since the tentacles hang near the lovers’ foreheads, they suggest telepathic rapport, psychic sensitivity, and the transmission of feeling before words. This gives the card a parapsychological meaning: true lovers often communicate through emotional atmosphere, subtle impressions, dreams, synchronicities, and shared intuition.

Metaphysically, this card shows the law of attraction operating through resonance. The lovers are drawn together because something in one recognizes itself in the other. Yet The Lovers is also a card of choice. Attraction alone is not enough. The soul must ask: does this union reflect my values, my truth, my integrity, and my higher purpose? The Lovers asks us to choose not merely from desire, but from alignment with the Greater Self.

Cosmologically, the ocean floor represents the womb of manifestation. Life on Earth first emerged from the waters, and in many myths the primordial sea is the matrix from which creation arises.

The mermaid and merman embracing beneath the sea therefore show the union of complementary forces before manifestation rises into form. Their love is a generative current. When the Solar and Lunar, active and receptive, electric and magnetic principles unite, a third force is born: manifestation, healing, creativity, and spiritual growth.

Upright, The Ocean Tarot Lovers signifies love, connection, harmony, emotional union, mutual attraction, and the need to align choices with personal values. It may indicate a relationship, a deepening bond, a soul-level attraction, or an important decision that requires both heart and discernment.

Reversed, or ill-dignified, it may suggest disharmony, emotional imbalance, conflicting values, poor communication, or a relationship that has lost its sacred center. It may also point to inner division, where the conscious mind wants one thing while the emotional body longs for another. The remedy is reflection, honesty, and a return to inner alignment.

Compared with the Rider-Waite-Smith Key 6 — The Lovers, the Ocean Tarot Key 6 — The Lovers shifts the symbolism from the airy, angelic garden of Gemini and Raphael into the watery temple of feeling, intuition, and psychic union.

The RWS card emphasizes conscious choice, divine blessing, Solar and Lunar polarity, and the union of self-consciousness with subconsciousness under the guidance of higher intelligence.

The Ocean Tarot emphasizes emotional immersion, heart resonance, subtle communication, and love as a current moving through the depths of the soul. Together, they teach that true union requires both Air and Water: clear conscious choice and deep emotional truth.

When THE LOVERS is thrown during a reading:

• The Lovers represent all kinds of Love.
• It is stating a principle of Art and Craft of Relationship.
• What is also suggested is the magical image of the power of surrender in which one form is given up attaining another form.
• Being involved in a process of cooperation. ---combining energies for a common goal.
• Yin Yang attraction of polarities, or universal forces for one another.
• The power of sexual surrender to the Goddess within.
•  This card can also mean a love affair with some sort of trial or choice involved... be it marriage or profane love.
• Embrace your desires and trust your heart.
• True Love.
• Feeling lucky in love, a little crazy in love.
• There is the Tantric Philosophy here also, only through physical union with a female can either a man or a god, achieve true reality and the power to deal with it; A Spiritual/ sexual union, is required for shamans, priests, and holy men with the female is required before they gain full possession of their powers. This is also a process for Priestesses, who must be able to invoke the "Divine Phallus" through the Male forces before they can gain their Powers inherited from the Divine Hermetic Marriage.

when reversed and/or surrounded with negative cards, it implies:

• Childishness.
• Frivolity.
• Thoughtfulness divorced from practical consideration.
• Indecision.
• Self-contradiction.
• Sexual hangups.
• Self-consciousness and subconsciousness as antagonists.

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