If you are familiar with the Genesis story, you will remember that an angel with a flaming sword guards the way to the Tree of Life. This sword is used as an image of the work of the Sephiroth. Another image is that of the Lightning Flash, but others (rain, wind, river, etc.) are also used when appropriate. You will also remember that it was a Serpent who tempted Eve to ‘eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil’ – and this is used as a symbol of the Paths. As the Serpent climbs towards Kether, the meanings become more abstract, but still relevant to everyday life. The two trees of Genesis have been combined into one by Qabalists, as they are ultimately inseparable; There can be no understanding without creative action, and no creative action without understanding. The alternatives are the fool who ‘rushes in where angels fear to tread’ (Action without Understanding), or who ‘will go in the water as soon as he knows how to swim’ (Understanding without Action). Neither is viable as a way of life.

I have incorporated this bit of Qabalah (and common sense) into the structure of these notes.  I will introduce some new aspects of the Tree; but all I can give you is information. With your deliberation and questions, you can turn it into knowledge; but only through putting it into action and observing it yourself, can it be converted into Understanding.

The Structure of the Tree I show here is fairly traditional, although some of the colours and other qualities are of fairly recent date. I will provide authorities occasionally, but I urge you to adopt the attitude I have; I don’t care if something was written by a monkey at a typewriter – if it’s useful, informative and valuable, what does it matter? I hope that in any apparently contentious areas, I can either demonstrate the usefulness of my approach, or at least show that it is as good as any alternative.

‘Ten are the ineffable Sephiroth; Ten and not nine, ten and not eleven’ (Sepher Yetzirah). The nearest we can get to an understanding of these are as pure number – although even numbers are images of a kind. Think of it like this. I could show you a film of an atomic explosion, and its devastating power would be immediately apparent; but if I then asked you to explain how the explosion happened, the film would have given you little idea. If, however, I showed you a formula – E=mc² – it would not have the dramatic visual impact, but (assuming you understood the maths behind the symbols) would tell you quite clearly where the power came from. So mathematics effectively represents the creative work of the Sephiroth.

The 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet (the Alephbeth) are the roots of words, and words are how we describe the world, how we come to understand it. However, all the information the Universe presents to us, whatever the form, is the work of the Paths. Naturally, if we are going to divide the whole of experience into 22 boxes, they are going to be fairly big boxes; and it would be impossible, were it not that the Universe is Fractal. Everything of significance is part of one or more Trees of Life, and will have characteristics and functions appropriate to its place on the Tree. So a hot water system can tell you how part of your brain works (in another section, I will show you!), and the scientific method will demonstrate the path of mystical initiation.

Correspondence, Attribution and Referral

A diagram of circles and lines might look pretty (if you like that sort of thing) but is meaningless unless the significance of each is known. I’ve said that numbers can represent the Sephiroth, and the Paths are the Hebrew letters. Because the Sephiroth represent the primary creative processes underlying (and generating) the content of the Universe, they are necessarily beyond apprehension. Therefore the Sepher Yetzirah, the earliest known Qabalistic work, says, ‘shut up thy mouth lest thou speak of them’. This hasn’t stopped a lot of so-called Qabalists speaking as though they had all the details buttoned up. I have many failings, but hubris isn’t one of them. I teach an approach to the Sephiroth, ways in which they can be seen at work; but what they are, I know not. The Sephiroth have names that give a clue to their nature, but are most clearly seen in the action of systematic processes – even in such basic systems as the hot water system for a house, etc. Once we begin to see their operation in a few places, we can learn much about their nature and function through the idea of Correspondence. This is the idea that similar (but different) processes or events take place in different systems, and we can learn about one by comparing it with another. For example, we might say that ‘food for a human’ corresponds to ‘fuel for a car’. It doesn’t mean that cars will run on bananas, or you will survive on a diet of petrol, but that the role of food corresponds to the role of petrol. Knowing that correspondence, and knowing that we soon get hungry again, we can infer that cars will also need refuelling. So with the work of the Sephiroth in different systems.

Correspondences are also helpful in studying the Paths (or letters). However, here we have a slight advantage, through the understanding of Attribution because, unlike the Sephiroth, they refer to processes and experiences in the Universe. Everything in the world that can be sensed has attributes. For example, I am bald, Australian, and as old as the hills. In Cumbria, those attributes alone might be enough to identify me. In Australia, you might need a few more. For our study, we are fortunate that the Hebrew letters have attributes. These are wide-ranging in their manifestations, but stem from a few primary qualities. I will introduce the most important of these over the next few weeks.

To summarise – Correspondence means ‘this bit (x) has the same sort of relationship to its system as this bit (y) has to its’

The origin of the Tarot deck is not certain, and people have ventured all sorts of hypotheses. Many have one feature in common – they tend to fit with the inventor’s (and the adherents’) predilections. Those who believe that Egypt was the source of all occult knowledge are sure the symbols are Egyptian; those who favour India see resonances of the subcontinent.

I have yet to find a devotee of Egypt who has been forced to concede an Indian origin (or vice-versa) – but s-he might be out there…

Others, usually the more sceptical, suggest a more mundane origin. There were many such decks floating about before and during the Renaissance; the Tarot, according to these folk, is just one of them, and the similarities to the Tree of Life are coincidental.

In view of this plethora of hypotheses, I am not cowed by the idea of putting forth my own – a minor variant of the ones affirming a strong link between Tarot and Qabalah. I found the supposed ‘coincidence’ of 22 Major Arcana, and Minor Arcana with four suits, four royalty, and ten numbered cards too much to swallow – especially when the meanings of the individual cards (especially the Major Arcana) are added. I believe that the preceding decks were used as a pattern for someone wanting to get the meanings of the Sephiroth and Paths across to a largely illiterate audience (especially ignorant of Hebrew). In the same way that English pub signs were originally vivid images easy for the average citizen to remember (‘The coach to London leaves from the "Dog and Duck"’), so with the images of the Tarot – designed to be familiar to the people of (in all likelihood) renaissance Italy.

I will not focus much on the Minor Arcana. The attributions of the Major Arcana, the ‘Keys’, I use are those of the Golden Dawn. There are many variants and alternatives but, in this series of talks/essays, I hope to have presented a convincing case for the superiority of this set.