It has already been intimated, if the Major Arcana are the most important cards within each pack of cards, then the Fool is the most important of the Major Arcana. It does not even have a number as such which means that its import has a significance beyond the usual limitations of time and space. Like the Joker in the ordinary pack of playing cards, the rules apply to it less.

The Fool represents the Quester within all of us, the King's offspring on the journey in search of the Pearl of Great Price. Yet the card can be seen to possess an even more universal significance. The Quest, or the Great Work, is not necessarily about one individual's desire for liberation from "stuckness" or a limited awareness. Those of a Jungian persuasion especially, have suggested that the Fool's Quest is also about the redemption of the world, of which each of us is so much a part. According to the Jungians, the world, being unconscious, needs the spark of consciousness, which each individual human being possesses, in order to redeem itself, through a raised awareness. Hence the particular symbolism shown to represent this card.

Those of a more ecological or less human-centric persuasion may of course, perceive a certain arrogance in this viewpoint, too much that smacks of magical thinking. Yet it does seem as though the need to be magical, is hard-wired into the human brain; there does seem to be that need to create order out of chaos, to seek gold out of lead, to extract inner meaning through art, and maybe control life and destiny thereby.

The Fool in the Chalice pack shows an androgynous figure of a golden or a mercurial cast, set against a pattern made to represent an inchoate chaos. Alchemically speaking, the Fool is golden because its essence is like the incorruptible gold to be found within mud, and mercurial, because mercury as an element always reforms into its parent mass whenever dropped or scattered.

In other words, no matter what happens, the Fool retains his or her integrity. As the Fall happens in a dimension beyond time and space, the Fool, in ordinary situations, can afford to simply remain within the existential here and now, responding to each situation with a mind like a tabula rasa free of all preconceptions and cultural biasses. (Some experts on the Tarot suggests that the Fool corresponds to the newborn phase of development, which also makes sense in the light of what has already been said about this card. This is one "meaning central to the card in ordinary divination" - that really it is best not to worry about making a fool of oneself in certain situations - nothing ventured, nothing gained. Also, when it came to the moral behind the story in The Emperor's New Clothes, who were the bigger fools?

The Fool has a simplicity of outlook - naiveté - which means that he or she is certainly more than capable of going where angels fear to tread. The lack of self-consciousness which this card symbolises also suggests that those who possess this quality also have perhaps, the saving grace of a beginner's luck. This means that he or she may emerge unscathed where others may come unstuck. A drunk person, for example, may very literally fall, but nevertheless come to no harm because the muscles are more relaxed than in a sober person. Paratroopers are said to report that the first jump may always be carried out with more bravado, simply because the individual is not yet aware of all the dangers and what precisely can go wrong in such missions. In olden times, a travelling juggler, clown or fool is allowed to say things which might mean persecution for those considered to be more constrained by the straitjacket of society's conventions. This, in fact, is possibly how the symbolism of this card originated. A professional fool - or a court jester, as an outsider - could act as a safety valve for discontentments within society because, much like a child or a madman, he could not be charged with full responsibility for his utterances. Much like the number zero itself, the role of the Fool might grant immunity from the rules which bind other law-abiding citizens to the ways of its society.

The Fool in this pack is shown to be jumping off a cliff, as is typical in most Packs. A little additional symbolism has been added, however, in order to enrich the symbolism of this card still further: here, the precipitous edge is includes a catastrophic cusp. This is because according to Zieman's Catastrophe Theory, the catastrophic leap into a new phase of development can be seen to be part of an ongoing process of change. The patterns within the picture are meant to evoke the fractal images of an infinite regress of evolution; as in most packs the Fool is chasing the Sun, a traditional symbol of enlightenment, whilst the butterfly in the top left column may simultaneously symbolise mutability and a capacity for transformation.