Under John Cooke’s guidance, the San Francisco Oracle was established by Michael Bowen in 1966 in order to promote counter-cultural messages and teachings about love and peace. ‘The Story of T-Ruth’ was published as a one-page article in issue 9 of the Oracle, right at the high point of the Summer of Love.
According to R.W. Bruch, this story “succinctly encapsulates the entire teachings of John Starr Cooke. In this sense, the SF Oracle was purposely and consciously designed to become a golden setting for the jewel of the Story of T-Ruth. This short essay contains the essence of Cooke’s mystical teachings.”
“The writing is cryptic and poetic, hinting at various occult ideas. The Story of T-Ruth established the mystic significance of The Book of T, the Word of ONE Tarot for the Aquarian Age.”
(A note on terminology in the following story: in this particular context the words ‘man’ or ‘men’ are gender neutral and signify humans and humankind).
The Story of T-Ruth
ONE – that Great Architect of the Universes – designed a single Design. Specifically (as far as those in motion are concerned), the Great Architect designed this Design for that personality continuum called man and his manifest chemical world.
This Design of ONE precedes all time and yet includes Time’s line as it unwinds. All events are now; the mind acts, performing acts or perceiving events. Nothing subscribed by Design is out-of-order or sequence. That which seems “unorderly” or “unsequential” to a man’s senses and understanding is always, actually, in perfect order and sequence within ONE’s Design structure. There are no mistakes. Nothing is what it seems. Everything is as IT seems.
When Design permitted, man in many cultures has sensed Design. This sensing of Design is called today “a happening.”
Men sensing Design today are known as Tall Ones. They are on the march because of a given understanding ordained within Design. These are the builders here on earth who are in accord with the prevailing Design of ONE. Although their building tools are similar, in all periods and places, it has only once more become obvious in the last years that the ONE is acting through them again. Tall Ones are uniting and recognizing one another throughout the world as part and parcel of the identical hidden work emerging on the world stage. What was esoteric and for the elite masonic priesthood formerly has now moved into the sphere of daily life among the hippies. In this all may join, provided they reach that point in which they know the soldering agent is love.
A tale:
“Ruth is here and Ruth is fruitful.
“A child was born. He walked with men and beasts. The men he tamed, the beasts he loved. And Ruth wept.
“The beasts ripped the man-child’s heart from his body and left it. No man came near the living-dead.
“Ruth gathered the heart to her bosom and roamed the far regions of the world seeking she knew not what. After some seasons of wandering, the living heart rocked.
“This stone was placed in a common spot for all to see and think upon. This – Ruth’s heart of hearts – reached the heart of all.
“You will live to see the day when this heart of stone is found and placed in operation.
“T – RUTH.”
The Books of T or the Books of Torirut – commonly known as the Tarot – comprise the heart which “rocked” in the above allegory from the given writings. The Book of One. Ruth’s heart of hearts is none other than those ever progressing pictographs of Design written on watery light. The 22 Major Trumps are the key to the symbolic Nile forging through man’s psyche.
The letter T – the crown – when folded produces the cube or the alchemist’s stone. The letter T is the heart of esoteric lore and represents the living gold at its transitional state or the point where the elements meet for transubstantiation-second birth. It exemplifies the state termed the fifth initiation, the fifth moment; that moment when a one knows ONE and transcends the entire universe and reverses his consciousness from outward seeming to that inner reality in which he knows he is all mankind. Design has ordered the moment each shall know is his own father; and the Books of T – the Books of Torirut or Tarot – are indicators of the ways the Nile or the psyche reverses.
Tahuti was the “Scribe of the Gods” for the Egyptians; and the Books of Tahuti buried, according to legend, within the Nile are none other than the symbolic glyphs known as the Tarot. Previous decks depicted the fall of man and the various designed forces that augmented the fall. Now that man has seemingly reached the zero hour of his fallen cycle, a new set of the Books are being brought out. The new theater is in season and the active symbols are manifest for those who are concerned to understand, know and use.
These present Books in conjunction with the older renditions – taken collectively or individually – are a means to Self-unveiling. Their depth is to be followed, their mystery to be entered by each individually. They are not meant to be taken frivolously nor is their meaning to be used to influence or to be exposed to the profane. When a man is consciously dealing with the Tarot, it should be recalled, he is dealing with the essence of ultimate force. Tall Ones shall not have their fingers lopped off… May this be an encouragement as well as a warning to those whose path concerns the Books of Torirut.
All levels of consciousness are now arriving at the point of The Happening or The Great Event. A reversal is immanent universally. The living golden heart palpitates, beats and the Books expose the heart’s beat. Each of the 22 Major Trumps has progressed to the point of reversal and the story that this new edition of the Books tell through symbol is the story of reversal upon all levels of consciousness.
In Nahuatl the word “Atlan” means “where the land met the sea.” When Atlantis fell beneath the “sea” – as pictured by Trump 16 called in the old deck The Lightning Struck Tower – these symbolic hieroglyphics along with the Great Pyramid of Giza were brought over into the newer state of awareness as the sole reminders of what had taken place in man’s consciousness. Atlan was not a mythical place. It was not, however, an actual continent existing in our present earth-time continuum but, rather, a different state of Being. When Solon called it the Land of the West, he meant exactly that. He was speaking of the Western continuum (the Amitahba region in the Mahayana Buddhist Mandhalla) which fell into the astral seas of illusion. In other words, at a certain zero point in time, Atlan became immersed in the waters of Maya when One who dwelt there fell in love with his own reflections and desired them.
“And the sons of God (the Elohim) desired the daughters of men” is a remembrance of the identical drowning. And, hence, The Hanged Man in the older Books is upside down.
This new edition of the Books of Torirut has been given as a way shower. They point the way of return to the progressed original state of Being.
It has been stated by Madame Blavatsky and other trained occultists that Atlantis shall once more rise from the “depths” during the latter half of this century. With the publishing of the New Books of Torirut and the immanent discovery of the Union Hall in the Great Pyramid, what appeared as myth shall be realized as T-Ruth for all those concerned. The Struck Tower in every man’s psyche will be reconstructed as the Citadel or completed man. X marks the spot for all those who can take IT up. Design alone completes Design. Naught can but BE.
– John Starr Cooke, 1967
