Qoph, spelled out in full: Qoph Vau Peh

Qoph is the back of the head, attributed to Pisces and The Moon card.
Vau is the nail, attributed to Taurus and the Hierophant.
Peh is the mouth, attributed to the Tower.

In one sense, the Hierophant represents order and the Tower is chaos. All of the forces of nature are present in the Hierophant card; the pentagram is balanced with the hexagram; the cross is the complement of the rose. The Tower represents disorder, excitement, overturning. The ordered house is destroyed and left in ruins.

There is an interplay between chaos and order. The Hierophant is the teacher, but the teaching is in a symbolic language in which each symbol is imbued with layer after layer of meaning. The tower represents the irrational and the impulsive, the sexual drives and the hidden resentments. The combination of symbolic language and irrational drives constitutes the kind of consciousness represented by Qoph as the back of the head.

Throughout the work on this path, the consciousness of dreams is distilled and refined into the consciousness of visions. In its rough state, Qoph is rooted in the body (Malkuth), close to the instinctual and the primitive, the animal parts of the psyche, untamed and superstitious, bound by fear and lust. In its refined state, Qoph is closer to the irrational beauty of Netzach and the creative vision of the artist or poet.

There is a bringing together of opposites on this path. Vau, the nail (which has the common meaning 'and', joining together the parts of a sentence), brings together and harmonizes the water of Pisces (Qoph) and the fire of Mars (Peh), reconciling the passive and automatic with the active and volitional. As the LVX descends into the murky depths of the lower unconscious throughout the course of the work, the inner workings of the psyche, previously hidden beneath the surface of the waters, are revealed in a new light. The Solar and Lunar aspects of the psyche are not brought into full union yet, but they are brought into a greater state of harmony than was possible before. They now turn towards each other instead of away from each other.

In another way, the Solar and Lunar parts of the psyche are made similar to one another. As the archetypal names and symbols associated with the mysteries are impressed onto what Paul Foster Case calls "subconsciousness" - that impressionable substance which comprises the Lunar nature in the depths of the psyche - the lower unconscious is made to conform with the higher aspirations of the conscious mind. Likewise, the conscious ego learns to speak in the Lunar tongue, coming to terms with the irrational language of the visionary. This is summed up beautifully in the Qoph section of the Golden Dawn Philosophus initiation ritual:

Before all things are the Waters, and the Darkness, and the Gates of the Land of Night. And the Chaos cried aloud for the Unity of Form, and the Face of the Eternal arose. Before the Glory of that Countenance the night rolled back and the Darkness hasted away. In the Waters beneath was that Face reflected, in the Formless Abyss of the Void. From those Eyes darted rays of terrible splendor which crossed with the Currents reflected. That Brow and those Eyes formed the Triangle of the measureless Heavens, and their reflection formed the Triangle of the Measureless Waters. And thus was formulated the Eternal Hexad, the Number of the Dawning Creation.

The text specifically refers to the creation of the world of forms from the supernal levels of being. That which is below is like that which is above, and the same processes hold sway in our own psyches. The waters here are represented by Qoph (as water), the Face of the Eternal by Peh (as fire), and Vau is that which brings them together, creating the hexagram.

Taken as a sequence, the letters Qoph Vau Peh indicate that in the waters are reflected the mysteries of spiritual fire. Qoph also refers to the body and to body consciousness. In this light, the sequence of letters indicates that the higher mysteries are to be found also in the body, stirred to awakening by the forces invoked in the course of the work.