The Adept Path: An Illumined Journey

This set of 21 panels is derived from concepts in the Ra Material Tarot. Like that deck, this is a tool meant to lift students on the path of spiritual growth into realization. Each card is an archetype and is meant to be inhabited, explored, intuited, connected, and expanded. So to meditate on a panel, or to visualize the self as that archetype, opens the self up to the Self much more powerfully than other tools, because that is the nature of an archetype.

The framework here is three sets of seven: A MIND series, a BODY series and a SPIRIT series all of which belong to a single individual on the path to realization. The first card in each series introduces the Adept, who is a principle, not a person. The Adepts represent each series and point to the viewer, the unseen participant. Each series, left to right, illustrate the archetypal progression and so they are a story being told. As well, the cards top to bottom do the same, they illustrate the continuity of the archetypes in each series. So not only do you explore one panel, you involve the horizontal and vertical relationships as well. Mind informs Body and Spirit, and so on. We are integrated being, the deck demonstrates that also. 

When I started this project it was only the first panel I planned to produce. I wanted to test what AI could do — I understood the archetypes and the philosophy; could AI render that in images? At this point I will say that the AI rendering is excellent but has some limitations. There is “drift” — images are revised or re-imagined with each small adjustment — that has absolutely plagued this project. I have learned a great deal, but no amount of creating a production master document with layout details meant that it would be applied by the generator. I departed from Ra Material Tarot in that those cards were line drawings and at this point, forty years later, difficult to interpret. Instead I kept the framework, with some updated verbiage, but created illustrated panels as a far more intense and immersive experience.

Ultimately, this is actually my illumined path of the adept. This is my lived life on a path of spiritual growth, my relationship with Spirit that imbues the work and I can attest to the acceleration they bring. The Mind series was straightforward, I was extremely emotional through the Body series, and the Spirit series came alive for me with mystery and Being. I have also attempted to keep the project uplifting — the Catalyst card could have been demonstrated with chaos or destruction — but I see a humanity that chooses to learn through joy and not tragedy. It is my opinion however that with the AI rendering tool, contemplating the panels and then creating your own projecct would be an invaluable spiritual growth process.

Ra was right.

Kath 06/10/26

AI generated images with extensive developmental input from me.  So copyright CC BY NC SA — Please attribute appliedunity.com, K.Neall, non-commercial use only and. you can create derivatives.