In her book about the Haindl Tarot Rachel Pollack states: " Hermann Haindl created these pictures. Following his guidance i have interpreted them. Both of us hope and expect that each person who enters their world will find a fresh meaning."

In comparison to most of his other cards Haindl stays quite close to the traditional picture with his Lovers. A nude man and a nude woman, painted quite naturalistic suggest a strong sexual and sensual impact. The polarity of male and female is repeated several times on different levels. Above the woman's head there is a unicorn, representing male sexuality, while a rose above the man´s head symbolizes female sexuality. Man and woman are holding a cup between them but also a little bit above them, symbolizing the synthesis of polarity. A speer coming from the sky and pointing into the cup repeats the sexual symbolism. The missing "third power" in the card could be seen as the suggestion that the solution is already present in the different poles. Their love becomes the "third entity" which connects the poles and shows the way out of the dilemma. Rachel Pollack emphasises the sexual act as a possibility to connect to the spiritual realm. She talks about Kundalini as spiritual energy woken up by certain Tantra practices in different spiritual schools. With the example of Kundalini she wants to show and to prove, that sexuality is a bridge from the physical to the spiritual level. The picture shows male and female symbols on three different levels: the bodies of the human beings as the physical level, the unicorn and the rose as a metaphor of the astral level and the cup with the speer as pure abstract symbols showing the mental level. Nevertheless in my opinion the physical level of sexuality/sensuality is much too strong and might make it difficult to transcent the superficial meaning.

Mia
Miradji@aol.com