Themis Institute: Our Philosophy

THEMIS:

Themis is one of the daughters of Uranus and Gaia. She is the personification of the divine right order of things as sanctioned by custom and law. She has oracular powers and it is said that she built the oracle at Delphi. By Zeus she is the mother of the horse and the Moirae.
Source: Elseviers Mythologists Encyclopedia

Excerpt from the Motherpeace Tarot Deck

"Justice represents the laws of Nature, as well as the relentless workings of Fate - the slow, regular turning of the Wheel of Karma. In the words of Ecclesiastes, 'To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.' In the Motherpeace image, Justice suggests the connections among people and animals and trees, connections that once came automatically. As Jane Roberts explains, 'each natural element had its own key system that interlocked with others, forming channels through which consciousness could flow from one kind of life to another.' A person understood herself to 'be a separate entity, but one that was connected to all of nature.' When this kind of connectedness was broken by the over development of the ego, it became necessary to formulate a system of 'ethics' that would summarize what people once knew without the need of words or concepts. 'Initially language had nothing to do with words and indeed verbal language emerged only when man had lost a portion of his love, forgotten some identification with nature, so that he no longer understood its voice to be his also.'

"The figures in the image [of the Justice card] are the three Fates in their Scandinavian aspect as the Norns or Nornen, the 'spinners' who hold the threads of destiny in their hands. In the words of Neumann, 'they spin the thread, tear it off, and determine what is to come.' Standing under the sacred ash tree (called Yggdrasil), they dispense the Justice of the Triple Goddess. They speak the 'language of love' and can easily identify with the various forms of nature to whom they speak. Words are not necessary, for the Fates enjoy a direct cognition of 'the other.' Most powerful of all the Norse deities, the Norns pronounce destiny over all (even the gods); and no one can undo their blessings or their curses. (Fairies who bless and curse newborn children in fairy tales like 'Sleeping Beauty' are a late version of the Fates).

"From the roots of the great ash tree spring fountains and wells from which the Norns draw the water they use for sprinkling the Tree of Life, which Neumann calls 'the place of conception, growth, birth.' They are the old wise women, 'learned in the old customs, the ancient precepts of right and wrong.' Rather than viewing each expression of nature as an 'object,' the women participate in the total reality around them. One touches an animal, and through that touching, becomes the animal enough to feel its truth and its life. Another touches the tree with one hand and water with the other, bringing them together for nourishment and harmony, balancing between the two and becoming one with them. The third sits quietly and enters into the still reality of a crystal, nature's most perfect form, seeing herself and the future within its clear facets. All of these activities are ways of 'knowing' without needing to conceptualize. 'The emotional reaches of one's subjective life, then, leapt far beyond what you think of as private experience,' says Roberts. With this knowing, one would naturally not casually kill an animal, cut a tree, or pollute a river, since to do so would be to hurt oneself.

"The Greeks called the concept of connectedness Themis, and saw it as an abstract principle of Law and Justice. Jane Ellen Harrison traces Themis back to her origins as the daughter of the Earth Goddess, Gaia, 'the oracular power of the earth itself.' The first 'ordinances' were prophecies, divine oracular decrees by the priestesses - utterances that later would become codified by someone like the Hierophant. As the daughter of Gaia, Themis was the 'earth-goddess with an unshakable power,' the power of absolute 'steadfast' law.

"Modern Hopi Indians believe that, in both the natural and the supernatural worlds, there is a fixed order and life is cyclical. Like the ancient Egyptians, they understand that we must remain in harmony with this universal order and maintain it with our blessings and rituals. If harmony lapses, then life will not 'progress smoothly' and humanity will not prosper. Then, says Patricia Boder, 'they must recognize their errors and restore order as quickly as possible.' This is 'karmic adjustment' - if something has gone wrong, it must be made right, immediately.

"When all of humankind was still 'under the sway of Themis, of collective conscience,' this obligation was 'so utterly dominant,' in the view of Harrison, that people were 'scarcely conscious of it.' However, as the hold of the group slackened, the field of religion 'is bit by bit narrowed' to 'the god as individual.' By Homer's time Themis had come to represent social contracts among people. While the male godhead was becoming the powerful deity, she had become an abstraction. The Greek Themis, like the Egyptian Maat, held a pair of scales for weighing the truth of situations; but Themis also carried a cornucopia, her connection to Gaia. She was the mother of the seasons, who, like the Norns, 'determined the proper moment for the fruitful earth's budding and exhaustion, proper times as well for human events.'

"The Egyptian Goddess Maat also went from Goddess of wisdom to an abstract principle of wisdom: Inner Truth. Maat, too, carried scales for weighing hearts of the deceased to decide whether they could go on to the afterlife or had to 'undo the errors of the recent lifetime.' Ann Forfreedom describes the way that the Egyptian people ascribed to the 'principle of Maat,' wherein if things weren't working right, people felt a right of redress. Peasants there created the first general strike in history when they didn't have enough food, considering it 'divine will' that the situation be corrected.

"An aspect of Themis is Nemesis - Goddess of divine vengeance, who turns the wheel of retribution and makes whatever adjustments are necessary to set things right again. We experience Fate in our lives when it seems to step in and cause certain events to take place that 'punish' us for our wrongdoings. Occult science and astrology teach that the universe moves in cycles, some of them very long as compared to our human lifetimes. Most religious traditions contain some sort of 'revelation' concerning the end of the current world cycle and its meaning for our lives. The prophecies of the Hopi and the Tibetans, as well as the biblical revelations, all agree that, 'man' will go too far and the earth may be destroyed as a result of selfish and willful actions. Most of them similarly agree that this has happened before.

"In Tarot tradition, however, the Justice card belongs to Libra, cardinal air sign of social justice and balance, symbolized by the scales. Libra is ruled by Venus (Goddess of love) and considers everything in terms of its relation to others. Libra loves beauty and harmony and wants to bring the world to a peaceful coexistence. In this way, Libra is Themis - the cords that draw the human race together and the urge to connect each of us with the all. A blessing on a single one of Earth's children blesses all; a curse on one hurts us all."

Reprinted from Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess through Myth, Art, and Tarot by Vicki Noble. Harper & Row, N.Y. 1983

Bibliography