Psychology has since long recognized the power of suggestion on the human mind and on the body, behavior, and decision-making. Advertisers have since long made use of this power. So have politicians. So have influencers.
Despite the appearance to the contrary, the power of suggestion is ours. We can counteract any foreign suggestion with one of our own.
We don’t need to acquire the power of suggestion. We’re born with it. It works all the time, and we use it all the time. Every thought, feeling, emotion, idea, and imagination is a suggestion.
But we need to learn how to use the power of suggestion consciously to bring about desired results. We do that by consciously formulating thoughts, images, and desires. But there is more to this. The red lion stands for the force that connects us to the law of attraction. The woman opens the lion’s mouth, meaning she makes the force speak and reveal its secrets.
You guessed it: the woman in the picture is the patron of manifesting. Meditating on this card will promote your ability to manifest.
The Suggestion card shows the chain of command for manifesting. The flowers on the woman’s head signify the magician’s garden and the spiritual-intentional level of human expression. The woman represents the creative-feely level, which translates cosmic intention into desires. Mind, the woman tames the lion with a wreath of roses, which symbolizes love, a feeling. The wreath has the form of the number eight, which signifies cyclic movement, repetition, and rhythm. As such, the wreath stands for habits, routines, and rituals, e.g., the habit of doing things in the name of love. As a mathematical symbol, the eight stands for intellectual faculties. We establish constructive habits through rational and planned repetitions. The red lion stands for the bodily life force and emotions we control with habits, routines, and rituals.
As you can see, emoting positively is silver, thinking positively is gold, creative imagination is platinum, and being receptive to cosmic intention is palladium.
If you’re in doubt about what a constructive suggestion is and what it’s not, ask yourself what love would suggest. Taste is a good indicator too (taste is an important attribute of this card). Does a thought, ideal, imagining, emotion, or action leave an unpleasant aftertaste in your mouth? Discard or reverse it.
The traditional title of this Tarot card is Strength. Conscious, deliberate, and positive suggestions lead to strength, longevity, well-being, and meaningful experiences. Negative suggestions weaken the mind and body and produce adverse experiences.
On a side note, this card warns of the dangers of fortune-telling. In a fortune-telling reading, the suggestive power of Tarot cards may produce self-fulfilling prophecies. Imagine an inauspicious Karma appears in the spread. If the Tarot reader voiced the interpretation that the querent will experience injustice, the querent would expect exactly that — backed up by the card’s suggesting power — and the law of attraction would bring it about. This would not only lead to unnecessary challenges for the querent but would also produce karma for the Tarot reader.
On another side note, original Tarot cards picture the positive use of the faculty of consciousness they represent. Some Tarot decks, e.g., the minor arcana of the Rider-Waite Tarot, display negative imagery. Negative imagery gives negative suggestions to the querent’s mind, which may cause unwanted manifestations down the line. That’s why the Enlightenment Tarot uses geometrical arrangements of wands, cups, swords, and pentacles for the minor arcana and positive, psychological titles.
An auspicious Suggestion card calls for conscious, positive suggestions that will allow the querent to overcome her challenge. Remember that the flowers on the woman’s head represent the Attention card? It means that the querent should pay attention to her (self-)suggestions.
An inauspicious Suggestion card may indicate that negative suggestions/expectations caused the querent’s adversity or resistance. In this case, the querent wants to screen her mind for negative thoughts, imaginings, emotions, and expectations and eliminate or reverse them. An auspicious Reversal/Hanged Man card would confirm the latter.
The Suggestion card represents the second horizontal path on the Tree of Life that connects the 4’s and 5’s spheres — benevolence and law. The blue sun in the right upper corner represents Grace, and the lion signifies Necessity. This suggests that the power of suggestion is most effective if our suggestions have a benevolent motive. It also means that we need to consider applicable laws (5’s) when we formulate our suggestions. For instance, we can self-suggest to grow wings as long as we want, but it won’t happen. Mind the sequence of the paths in the picture: Grace → Suggestion → Necessity → Karma.
Fear is one attribution of Geburah/Necessity. This means that positive suggestions can overcome every fear, even the fear of death.
The titles and the five core meanings of the Suggestion card are:
Enlightenment Tarot title: Suggestion
Traditional title: Strength
Power of consciousness: Suggestion
Constructive use: Constructive suggestions
Unconstructive use: Negative, unconstructive suggestions
Auspicious state of mind: Strength
Inauspicious state of mind: Weakness
On the spiritual-intentional level, the Suggestion card stands for the secret of all spiritual activities, aka magic. An inauspicious Suggestion card may indicate the danger of unskilled use of magical rituals and dangerous enlightenment practices.
On the creative-feely level, the Suggestion card stands for the power of love and the shield of love, which protects innocent people, in particular, children.
On the intellectual level, the Suggestion card stands for positive thinking. An inauspicious Suggestion card may show the influence of intrusive thoughts that can lead to OCD. An inauspicious Two of Swords (dogmatism) may confirm this.
On the bodily-practical level, the Suggestion card stands for the power of the mind over the body, aka psychosomatics, aka the placebo effect. On this level, the lion signifies the bodily life force. Giving positive suggestions to this force gives rise to physical strength, health, and longevity. The wreath indicates that the body responds to love. If we love it, it will thrive. If we hate it, it will suffer. An inauspicious Suggestion card may also indicate, in particular in children, sensitivity to the following afflictions: heart palpitations, regurgitation, defective circulation, aneurysm, fainting, arteriosclerosis, angina pectoris, hyperemia, anemia, hydremia, spinal troubles of all kinds, including meningitis and curvature (see body zone below).
More Attributions:
Number: 8
Letter: Teth, meaning serpent. Since ancient times, the serpent is a symbol of Kundalini. And so is the red lion. Winged lions symbolize the rising of Kundalini. The sphinx, which is a combination of a lion’s body and a woman’s head, is a simple version of the Suggestion card.
Astrology: Leo (the lion force)
Color: Yellow
Body zone: dorsal region of the spine, the spinal cord, the aorta