"The thirteenth numbered major trump is called La Mort, Death, and portrays a reaping skeleton with a great scythe cutting off the heads, hands, and feet rising out of the earth about it. In the course of its labors the skeleton has apparently cut off one of its own feet. Not all Tarot decks show this peculiarity, but this point well emphasizes the philosophic truth that unbalance and destructiveness are synonymous. The skeleton is the proper emblem of the first and supreme Deity because it is the foundation of the body, as the Absolute is the foundation of creation. The reaping skeleton physically signifies death but philosophically that irresistible impulse in Nature which causes every being to be ultimately absorbed into the divine condition in which it existed before the illusionary universe had been manifested. The blade of the scythe is the moon with its crystallizing power. The field in which death reaps is the universe, and the card discloses that all things growing out of the earth shall be cut down and return to earth again. Kings, Queens, courtesans, and knaves are alike to death, the master of the visible and a parent parts of all creatures. In some Tarot decks death is symbolized as a figure in armor mounted on a white horse which tramples under foot old and young alike. In the pseudo-Egyptian Tarot a rainbow is seen behind the figure of death, thus signifying that the mortality of the body of itself achieves the immortality of the spirit. Death, though it destroys form, can never destroy life, which continually renews itself. This card is the symbol of the constant renovation of the universe--disintegration that reintegration may follow upon a higher level of expression." — Secret Teachings of All Ages, 1928, by Manly P. Hall
"The veil or mask of life is perpetuated in change, transformation and passage from lower to higher, and this is more fitly represented in the rectified Tarot by one of the apocalyptic visions than by the crude notion of the reaping skeleton. Behind it lies the whole world of ascent in the spirit. The mysterious horseman moves slowly, bearing a black banner emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which signifies life. Between two pillars on the verge of the horizon there shines the sun of immortality. The horseman carries no visible weapon, but king and child and maiden fall before him, while a prelate with clasped hands awaits his end." "The natural transit of man to the next stage of his being either is or may be one form of his progress, but the exotic and almost unknown entrance, while still in this life, into the state of mystical death is a change in the form of consciousness and the passage into a state to which ordinary death is neither the path nor gate. The existing occult explanations of the 13th card are, on the whole, better than usual, rebirth, creation, destination, renewal, and the rest." — The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1911, by A.E. Waite
"One who arrives at this state can say with St. Paul, “I die daily.” Every morning becomes a resurrection to the awakened soul. All the old motives, all the petty ambitions, all the foolish opinions and prejudices gradually die out, as the cells which carry them are eliminated in the ordinary course of body repair. Thus, little by little, there comes a complete readjustment of all one’s personal conceptions of life and its values. This change from the personal to the universal viewpoint is so radical that mystics often compare it to death. Moreover, they are more literal than many of their readers suppose. It is by the death and reproduction of body-cells that the patterns created by imagination are finally fixed in personal consciousness. Then it is that we may truly declare, “The Kingdom of Spirit is embodied in my flesh.” — Learning Tarot Essentials, 1932, by Paul Foster Case
"Would they have refused to see Death only as the universal destroyer of perishable forms? Considering life as the only existing thing, it seems that they fear neither Death nor Nothingness. What ‘is' changes its aspect but is never destroyed: everything persists by being changed indefinitely by the action of the great transformer to whom individual beings owe their origin. By decomposing forms that have worn out and are incapable of fulfilling the job for which they were destined, this agent intervenes as a rejuvenator since he sets free energies which are destined to enter into new combinations of life. We owe our transitory existence to what we call Death. It allowed us to be born and can lead us to rebirth. The profane must die to be reborn to the superior life which initiation confers. If he does not die in his state of imperfection, then all progress in initiation is denied him. ‘To know how to die’ is therefore the great secret of the Initiated, for, by dying he frees himself from what is inferior to rise through sublimation. The true wise man therefore strives constantly to live better. That does not imply any practice of a sterile asceticism on his part, but if he wants to achieve an intellectual autonomy, must he not break with the prejudices which are dear to him and so die to his usual way of thinking? To be born to freedom of thought one must free oneself by being dead to all that is contrary to the strict impartiality of judgement." "In Alchemy, the subject destined to provide the matter of the Philosopher’s Stone, in the other words the profane admitted to initiation, is also condemned to death. Imprisoned in a hermetically sealed container, hence isolated from all outside living influence, the subject dies and putrefies. It is at this point that the colour black appears, symbolized by Saturn’s crow which is a good augur at the beginning of operations of the Great Work. ‘If you do not see this blackness in the first instance predominant over all other colours, then you must have failed in the work and must begin again!’ In accordance with all the Hermetic philosophers, Nicholas Flamel urges the would-be Initiate to withdraw from the world and to forget his frivolities in order to enter the path of progressive changes within oneself which lead to true initiation. This initiation includes two successive deaths. The first implies an incubation similar to that undergone by the chick (in the egg), whose shell he finally breaks. The mystic must withdraw into himself in the darkness of the ‘Philosophers’ Egg’ with a view to conquering light and liberty. One must die in a dark prison in order to be reborn to a life of independence and light. The new life achieved is not an existence of triumphant rest: it imposes continuous tasks, rich and glorious, the reward of which is the second death. Not content with freeing himself from his coarsest surroundings, the initiate dies this time more profoundly than at the beginning of his initiation, for he dies to himself, to his own personality, to his radical self. His renunciation, however, is not that of the ascetic, who has become indifferent to his own and to the fate of others. How would the Initiate, having died twice, despise human lives, when he only came back to life in order to live for them? If he has become one with the Great Being who becomes particularized in us, it is in order to share his infinite love. What distinguishes the ideal Wise man is that he can love with ardour until self is completely forgotten. He who achieves this generous disinterestedness has at his disposal immense power and possesses the Philosopher's Stone; a double death of initiation alone has been able to lead him to the zenith." — Tarot Of The Magicians, 1927, By Oswald Wirth
Library of Light Edition 1.0 — Last revised: December 2025