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by Christine Payne-Towler

For the first three decades during which I wasassimilating information about Tarot, Iavoided the history of the Kaballah. Not onlyhad it seemed too abstruse and foreign, but theteachings had apparently fragmented due tothe many forced migrations imposed upon theJews throughout their history. I did not relishthe task of sorting out all the nuances, and Iwas intimidated by the volume of literatureassociated with this ancient study.

My attitude was a microcosm of the Americanapproach to Tarot: Why do we have to drag inthis other set of correspondences when thecards already hold so much information, whatwith their pictures, numbers, titles and theastrological references that are often on thefaces of the cards? Isn’t that enough to learnalready?

Well no, it is not. As a matter of fact, thatattitude prevents an important piece that isrequired if one is to truly understand the corecontent of Tarot. The Hebrew alphabet and itsassociations with numbers, astrology, angelsand a host of other correspondences providesthe very skeletal structure upon which thecards have grown. Without the Hebrew astro-alphanumeric associations that were laid outso long ago by our ancient ancestors, the Tarotcould never have taken its present shape. Soeven if we never learn how to pronounce theletters correctly or read any words in Hebrew,we must understand just what is going on withthese twenty-two letters in order to trulydeepen out understanding of Tarot.

In the Image of GodIt is the position of the entire Western MysteryTradition, the orthodoxy of Christianity, Islamand Judaism, and the unorthodox fringedwellers like alchemists, astrologers andGnostics that the human species is thecapstone of creation. Tradition has it that wecarry the Grand Plan within our constitution.Inside each of us is hidden a “little world,”seed and reflection of the “big world,” the

KABBALAH/CABBALAH

GRA TREE

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cosmos. This is the sense in which humanity is“made in God’s image.” In the spirit of respectfor the grand assignment which the humanrace is living out, the Hebrews developed theiralphabet mysteries to try to articulate ourplace in the whole and to develop a methodfor utilizing our divinely inspired powerssafely and morally.

The Hebrew nation, ancient tribe of sacredscholars, has been a force for literacy andspiritual cultivation in Western civilizationthroughout its stormy history. The Hebrewalphabet, derived from the Phoenician, be-came the prototype for all the Western lan-guages. Hence the letters have accumulatedmyriad associations and correspondencesthrough the eons. Research on each letterwould disclose an encyclopedia’s worth ofteachings in hundreds of languages spreadacross Western history. This treasure trove ofspiritual knowledge is a large part of what theEuropean Secret Societies have been pledgedto protect throughout the generations.

While enslaved among the Babylonians priorto the turn of the second millennium BC, theJews absorbed the excellent mathematical andastronomical skills of their captors. Theybrought away an understanding of how num-bers unfold from one another, the inner me-chanics of Sacred Geometry. Their passion-ately mystical national psyche, no doubtmixed with the unique discouragement thatensued from being a designated slave nation inthe Middle East, caused them to turn theirscrutiny inward to examine their relation tothe Divine and how it could be expanded.Over time, the Hebrew nation unfolded theirmysticism of numbers to illuminate how thephysical and energetic constitution of human-ity mirrors that of Moses’ God.

There is no way a short essay like this couldbe at all definitive, so it must be assumed thatwe are only skimming the tips of the icebergsof Kabbalah. Great help will be gained fromturning to Aryeh Kaplan’s wonderful contribu-tion, The Sephir Yetzirah. This extraordinarybook catalogs and comments upon everyversion of the Hebrew astro-alphanumericsystem from Abraham into the 20th century,and has been endlessly helpful to me. WeGentile occultists need this exact informationso we can understand what the Hebrew peoplehave been discussing among themselves, asidefrom the controversies that have played out inastrological, cartological or alchemical circlesin the name of Christian Cabbalah. I shall bequoting Kaplan quite a bit as you read along;if your interest is piqued or if you care aboutthese issues, you should own his book.

Origins of the KabbalahThe first formal document to codify thealphabet teachings for posterity was called theSephir Yetzirah. Tradition has it that it wastaught by Shem (aka Melchezidek) toAbraham around 1800 BC. Abraham is knownas the father of both the Hebrew and the Arabnations, as they were each dynasties foundedby Abraham’s two sons—one by his wife’sservant (the Arabic tribes), and one by his wife(the Hebrews). His banishment of the servantand her son when his wife finally gave him a“legitimate” heir is the basis of the ancientgrievance between these two immense andcompeting cultures.

Aryeh Kaplan explains that an eighteenthcentury BC dating for the Sephir Yetzirah “isnot very surprising, since such mystical textsas the Vedic scriptures date from this period,and there is every reason to believe that themystical tradition was further advanced in the

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Middle East than it was in India at that time.Since Abraham was the greatest mystic andastrologer of his age, it is natural to assumethat he was familiar with all the mysteries ofancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Abrahamwas born in Mesopotamia, and he also lived inEgypt” (p. xiv).

Scholars like to have more than legend to basetheir claims upon, so Kaplan looks further forproofs of the antiquity of the Sephir Yetzirah.Based on analysis of various historical stratawithin the text, he states that “the earliest partsof the book appear very ancient, possiblyantedating the Talmudic era [first and secondcenturies AD]” (p. xxiii). The Hebrew contentwithin the alphanumeric teachings of the neo-Pythagoreans in the first and second centuriesAD also verifies for us an already completesystem of correspondences (see next section).

Furthermore, according to Kaplan, “we findactual mention of Sephir Yetzirah in theTalmud [by 300 BC], and even though it is notabsolutely certain that it is identical with ourversion, there is no real reason to doubt thatthey are one and the same” (p. xv). He alsoreminds us that “Sephir Yetzirah is one of theprimary ancient astrological texts” which tellsus that it is in harmony with the standardastrological paradigm used by both Hebrewand Gentile magi throughout the Westernworld.

The difficulty with dating this book’s originsis that it came down through ancient history asan oral tradition, and was not formally writtendown until 204 AD. What we possess of it inthe earliest times is legend, or hearsay evi-dence, references to it rather than the textitself. But other alphanumeric references, inboth Psalms and Exodus, add evidence that a

well known and nuanced philosophy existedfor centuries in the ancient world before itever was committed to writing.

The body of correspondences that AryehKaplan is showcasing in his The SephirYetzirah, called the Gra pattern, is being givenon highest Hebrew authority and validated bycopious evidence as the original and extraordi-narily ancient bedrock of Western EsotericTradition. The Gra is the baseline from whichlater developments, even competing versions,will be drawn. In it are defined the naturalplacements of the Sephiroth, the Paths, andtheir astro-alphanumeric correspondences.This pattern, taken altogether, is called the GraNatural Array.

It should be noted that these correspondencesare the ones we find on the illustrious SpanishTarot, El Gran Tarot Esoterico, designed byMarixtu Guler and published by Fournier.These correspondences represent the traditionof Kabbalah, the ancient pure Hebrew streamof astro-alphanumeric mysteries. Remember,alphanumeric means numbers and letters, andwhen I add the prefix “astro,” I mean signsand planets are included too.

Parallel Influences of Hebrew andGreek ThoughtInconveniently, at the point in history wherewe can finally find these ideas in written form,we already find ourselves at a fork in the road.Kaplan indicates that the Sephir Yetzirah wasas well-known outside Hebrew circles aswithin because of its astronomical and astro-logical content. So we should not be surprisedif we see it being quoted or even assimilatedby scholars of later centuries. This is exactlywhat happened in the ancient world.

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TABLE OF CORRESPONDENCES FOR THE CONTINENTAL TAROTS

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One such scholar was Pythagoras, whose lifein the seventh century BC marks the inceptionof Hermetic philosophy and numerologicalmysticism among the Greeks. He traveled theworld while still in his thirties and forties,studying with every priesthood and esotericcollege he could reach and procuring the textsof those he couldn’t physically visit. When hefinally settled down to start his own school, hecredited the Hebrew Kabbalists and HinduBrahmans for enlightening him about theirnumber mysteries in which his own teachingsabout the whole numbers and Sacred Geom-etry were grounded.

Pythagoras wrote many volumes, a goodquantity of which still survive. But in thecontext of Tarot, what we are most interestedin is his participation in the “reform” of theGreek alphabet, which happened in his life-time. The objective was to bring the Greekalphabet back into harmony with the Hebrew,from which Greek had been derived. In thecourse of this scholarly labor, two pairs ofplanets were purposefully switched in relationto their respective letters.

This small shift created a second stream ofauthentic, ancient, esoteric correspondencesthat are no longer “pure” Hebrew. It is theseGreek/Hermetic variants that came intoEuropean history from various sources. Themagi of the Italian Renaissance passed theminto the Secret Societies, where they wereenshrined in the Fratres Lucis manuscriptwhich Dr. Lewis Keizer suggests is the modelfor the earliest self admitted “esoteric” Tarots:Etteilla, Levi, de Gebelin, et al. (see “EsotericOrigins of Tarot”).

The Tarots that use these correspondenceshave been grouped under the title The Conti-

nental Group and show two variants: thosethat were published before Eliphas Levi andthose that came after (see “The ContinentalTarots” essay and various tables and graphs).The difference is subtle, which is why it hasescaped the attention of Tarot scholars of thiscentury until now.

The Holy Word: An Alphabetof NumbersI want to insert a reminder for those who arenot used to the idea that spoken letters have acorrespondence with numbers. This may seemlike a made-up connection which could bechanged at will to serve the needs of a particu-lar code or cipher. But in the ancient world,the numbers associated with the letters,whether Greek or Hebrew, were not change-able according to whim. In both these lan-guages, the numbers were letters. By that Imean any mathematical value or calculation innumbers would be written out in letters. Eachletter also represented a literal number, thussimultaneously having both a sound and avalue.

This fact has profound implications which wemoderns often fail to understand. We caneasily grasp that a letter represents a sound;that’s phonics as we learned it in grammarschool. But a sound is also a vibration, afrequency resonating the eardrum in a math-ematically specific pattern, a ratio or bellcurve of ratios. So in that sense, a sound is anumber. The ancients already knew from theirown experience that sound works magic onthe world, both on the human psyche and onthe interior structure of matter. Rightly appliedsound, the Holy Word of old, can workmiracles. This is one reason why the names ofangels, choirs of angels, Sephiroth and otherdivine names in Hebrew were considered so

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powerful and sequestered so long from theGentiles.

Hence it follows that any noun, verb, name orother part of speech activates energies alongthe pathways in this Natural Array, whichrepresents the Body of God that humans sharein. These words also can be converted tonumbers, revealing the word’s “true essence”or interior nature. In the Hebrew language,words that add up to the same or relatednumbers are considered to have a direct link inthe energy-world, as if they were vibrating atoctaves of the same frequency. Gematria is theancient name for the study of words that havenumerical or geometrical structure in com-mon, and there are many and various tech-niques to employ in that study. Most of themagical codes and ciphers of the Westerntradition are derived through one or anotherform of Gematria in either Greek or Hebrew.

Use of these and other magical techniquesempowers a practitioner to achieve one’sspiritual goals. A spiritual name or sacrednumber, written on a piece of paper with theright intention, can serve as a talisman forcontact with that energy/entity. This is the keyto an invisible but potent link-up with theChain of Being whereby the operator canspecify exactly which frequency s/he is tryingto contact.

In Greek there were also preserved lists ofancient God-names from the Orphics, the Isiscult, the Serapis mysteries, traditional mythol-ogy, and dead languages from their antiquity.All these names would be analyzed andemployed mathematically as well as mythi-cally.

I cannot convey how important it is for Tarotesotericists to ground themselves in Greek andHebrew number theory in order to fullyappreciate the profundity of our (quite a bitmore recent) Major Arcana. One perfectstarting place would be to study DavidFideler’s Jesus Christ, Sun of God. Althoughto my knowledge Tarot is not mentioned oncein the entire book, it is a thrilling immersion inthe alphanumeric Mysteries of old.

So when the subject of the “ancient alphanu-meric correspondences” comes up throughoutthis CD program, I am referring to a fixedbody of beliefs whose values have notchanged in three thousand years. A=1, B=2,and so on down the Hebrew and Greek alpha-bets. These correspondences are canonical, setin historical stone. Lists of correspondencesabound that are used for various purposes, but“the ancient correspondences” are none otherthan either the Hebrew originals or the Greekvariant, modified in 700 BC by Pythagoras.

Is It Hebrew or Is It Greek?Contributing to the confusion among Tarotscholars about the relationship between theHebrew and Greek alphanumerics is that,although Pythagoras credited the Hebrews forrefining his understanding of the number-letters, later Kabbalists of the first and secondcenturies were using the writings of the neo-Pythagoreans to help them reassemble theirtradition after the fall of the second Temple.So we have the Jews of the second century ADstudying second century revivals ofPythagoras’ writings from the seventh centuryBC, to find out what their Hebrew ancestorswere doing in the eighteenth century BC! Isthere any wonder we get confused?

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It did not help that the words the secondcentury Jews were using to explain theirKabbalah were drawn from the vocabulary ofthe Greek philosophers. In following up to seewhat I could find on this stage in the develop-ment of the Sephir Yetzirah, I found this quotefrom Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends inJewish Mysticism: “The combination of lateHellenistic, perhaps even late NeoPlatonicnumerological mysticism with exquisitelyJewish ways of thought concerning the mys-tery of letters and language is fairly evidentthroughout. . . . Various peculiarities of theterminology employed in the book, includingsome curious neologisms which find nonatural explanation in Hebrew phraseology,suggest a paraphrase of Greek terms. . .”(p.76).

I take these hints to imply that earliest redac-tion of the Sephir Yetzirah, which Scholemthought was assembled between the secondand sixth centuries, was already cross-infectedwith the Hermetic/Alexandrian number mysti-cism which we now know first emerged withthe Pythagorean school in the seventh centuryBC. So is it any wonder that the esotericscholars of the Renaissance seized upon theGreek form of these correspondences ratherthan the older and much more obscure butoriginal Hebrew ones? From the Europeanpoint of view, even that of a EuropeanizedJew, the Greek version was not only moreaccessible but culturally more familiar thanthe older correspondences, with their roots sofar away in the Middle East.

Remember, there is no difference between theHebrew and the Pythagorean correspondencesin the case of the letters that represent signs ofthe zodiac. The only difference was betweentwo pairs of planets, the pair Jupiter/Sun and

the pair Venus/Mars. One pattern representsthe Semitic origins of the alphanumericpattern and the other is a Greek “reform”undertaken in the sixth century BC. We couldsee them as the eastern and western forks ofthe ancient alphanumeric Gnosis.

Variant Kabbalah Trees Among theHebrewsAryeh Kaplan, in his The Sephir Yetzira,briefly mentionsseveral variations thatwere employed whenapplying the Paths onthe Tree. The first isan offshoot of the GraNatural Array, whichhe explains this way:“In practice, forreasons dealing withthe basic nature of theSefirot, they are notarranged in thisnatural order, buthave the middle linelowered somewhat” (p. 32). Kaplan seems torefer to the outcome of “the fall,” graphicallyillustrating that the “heart of creation” hasfallen out of contact with the Supernal Tri-angle and into alignment with earthly life.Now that the Sephiroth have become base,they don’t sit the same way in the Tree thatthey did before. This pattern still conforms tothe canon of three horizontals, seven verticalsand twelve diagonals, so it can’t really becalled a different system. It is the old NaturalArray with a kink, the distortion of our fallaway from the Creator. This pattern canrightly be called “ancient” because it camedown with the oral tradition from Biblicaltimes.

GRA WITH

DROPPED TIFARET

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The Kabbalah Gets Mixed UpBy the tenth century AD, however, lamentsbegan appearing in Kabbalistic writings aboutthe many versions of Sephir Yetzirah. AryehKaplan spends several pages discussing howthe “literally dozens of different variants” mayhave appeared (p. xxiv-xxv). Since there wereSecret Societies among the Jews just as theyexisted among the Gentiles, alternate versionsbecame “traditional” in separated communi-ties. Transcription errors were deadly in theseshort, tightly worded texts, as were errorscaused by oral transmission. Commentariesand margin notes from earlier versions gotincorporated into later copies. Also, andprobably most troublesome for historians,spurious versions were knowingly promul-gated, disseminated to confuse the uninitiated.When all is said and done, Kaplan names twomain versions, the Short and the Long, as

being widelydisseminatedenough to berelevant to hisdiscussion ofHebrewKabbalah. Onlythe Short versionenters into ourdiscussion onTarot.

The other,“older” versionthat Kaplan gives

us for the paths on the Tree (p. 28) representsthe Safed School, which is based on the Zohar,a small book of essays which is the mysticalembodiment of thirteenth century AD SpanishKabbalism. This pattern is a consequence oferrors slipping into the transmission of the

Kabbalah as mentioned above, and shows thatthe Gra version became altered by later devel-opments.

In the Zohar, the Sephir Yetzirah is exten-sively quoted, but in this case it is the ShortVersion of the Raavad (also from the 13thcentury) that is being referred to. In thisversion, the planets have become disarrangedfrom the letters as given in the Gra. Thisobscure little text connects the Sephiroth andthe Tree with the cosmos, tying the higher andlower worlds together with hierarchies ofangels and spheres and paths that are interre-lated through the letters of the alphabet into atheosophical system of the universe. Themysticism it inspired left a lasting impressionin Kabbalism.

At this point, the path-pattern which thethirteenth and fourteenth century Kabbalistswere trying to reconcile with the Zohar andthe Short Form can be seen to contain anasymmetry that begs for resolution. In it, thetwo lowest Paths on either side of Malkuth areremoved, and one hugely long one is added toconnect Chokma to Geburah. This strengthensand emphasizes the “Lightning Bolt” forma-tion that later Kabbalists/Cabbalists love somuch, but it leaves the image short one diago-nal, and looks lopsided. Kaplan does not tellus exactly how the letters are arranged uponthe paths in this version. It is this pattern thatRabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi (1534-72),affectionately dubbed “the Ari,” studied as hestrove to rebalance the Tree in light of theZohar.

The Implications of the Ari Versionon Tarot DevelopmentThe Ari version of the Sephir Yetzirah set abenchmark for the public Kabbalist schools of

TREE FROM SAFED SCHOOL

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the 1600s. It utterlydeparted from thehidden Gra form, eitherthe Natural Array or the“fallen” form forpractical application.Because of the greatreverence given theZohar, which hadbecome tradition by theAri’s time and whichhad accumulatedsignificant differingversions, Rabbi Luriaworked with the Short

Form of the Sephir Yetzirah from 1562 and thelopsided Tree of the Safed School to create hissynthesis. However, Rabbi Luria’s contribu-tion to the unfolding of Kabbalistic teachingswas immense but so controversial that itseffect was to call into question the monotheis-tic character of Hebrew religion.

In the context of the tenor of these times,Luria’s ideas represent a brilliant and remark-ably optimistic response to the miserableconditions his people were experiencing inEurope. There is no room in this essay toexpound upon the various details of his teach-ings (see Kabbalah by Gershom Scholem), butessentially in the process of detailing how thisworld came to be imperfect, he elaborated awhole new structure for the Tree of Life andrearranged the letter/path correspondences.

His was not an effort to prove any otherversions wrong (he apparently did not knowabout the Gra version), but only an account ofthe difference between Eden at the time ofcreation and the present world with which wemust now contend. Unfortunately, in theprocess of unveiling his wonderful Hebrew-

Gnostic synthesis, he resorted to argumentsand illustrations which veered, for many,dangerously close to Gnostic dualism.

There is no doubt that Luria was reflectingthemes that saturated intellectual circlesduring his lifetime. The Albigensian crusadeswere already over, and in the course of at-tempting to suppress the Gnostic heresies, theCatholic Church had unwittingly strengthenedand promoted the Gnostic core belief, provingthrough their viciousness that the mundaneworld was under the control of a cruel anddemented shadow of the One True God. SoLuria unfolded an explanation of what hadhappened to precipitate the “fall from grace”and how it might be repaired. In so doing, helaid out a scenario that paralleled the Gnosticand Hermetic cosmogonies also circulating atthe time.

Rabbi Luria did not mean to create anotherdualist heresy, and even if he did so uninten-tionally, many people innately identified withhis exposition. Intertwined as it was withthemes of exile and redemption, Luria’sdoctrines had emotional resonance with thecurrent life situation of being Jewish in Chris-tian Europe. People also found a basis forhope in Luria’s view of the future, when theeffects of the fall were to be reversed by therestoration of the world through the spirituallabors of the Hebrew nation.

Before the FallTo make what Rabbi Luria taught tangible, wehave to look at the Kabballah Tree in theancient Gra form, and then we have to contrastthat to the Tree as given in the Ari form fromthe 1500s. Looking at them back to backmakes the issues very clear.

ARI TREE WITH

SATURN AT DA’AT

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In the Natural Array as dictated in the Graversion, the archetypical human energy-bodyis shown as a tidy, symmetrical geometricfigure that embodies the 3x7x12 structure ofthe Hebrew alphabet perfectly. This is thestructure of human design which links us withhigher worlds. In this pattern, the three“mother” letters are corresponded to thehorizontal bars of the diagram, the sevenplanetary letters are the verticals, and thetwelve zodiacal letters are the diagonals. Thusthe twenty-two letters, as symbols of our innerspiritual energies, weave together the limbsand organs of our bodies with their heavenlycorrespondents above.

Both the ancient Hebrew alphanumeric systemand the Greek Pythagorean alphanumeric systemconform to the 3x7x12 rule that places the lettersso specifically on the paths. Wherever diagonalpaths converge, there is a power-center called aSephira (plural, the Sephiroth). These centerseach had their own names and attributes fromthe earliest versions, but the greater practicalemphasis had originally been placed upon thepaths between the centers, along with practicalmethods for accessing and circulating theseenergies so we can use them to heal ourselvesand change the world.

Imagine the alphabetical pathways that con-nect the Sephiroth as if they were veins andarteries in the body conducting energies hitherand yon to create connections, feed functionsand balance polarities. Much of the earlieststrata of the Hebrew Kabballah mysticism wastied up in chanting and meditating to activateconsciousness along those internal pathways.One could easily compare this type of practiceto a theurgical form of yoga, employing acombination of postures, chants, geometricalvisualizations and meditations on the essentialnature of reality. The implications are all laidout in detail in Aryeh Kaplan’s amazing book.

After the FallIn comparison, in the diagram of the paths asdefined by the Ari, we see humanity in acondition of mortality after “the fall fromgrace.” We have seen attempts to quantify thedamage from the fall among even the earliestKabbalist philosophers, but these variantswere not considered dogma, only attempts totalk about what might have happened. Butwith the Ari version, due to Rabbi Luria’sGRA TREE

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genius and reputation, this pattern became thepattern, both among future European Jews andamong the Gentiles of the era.In the Ari pattern, we see the full tragedy ofthe fall. Where Tifareth used to stand (theheart center, associated with the feminine partof God, the Shekhina), a hole has opened, nowcalled Da’at. The energy that had filled thatplace has fallen and has descended to Malkuth(the world of time and space), which is nowhanging off the bottom of the diagram like anorphan. Something that was once very el-evated and close to the Source is now castdown and stands under all the other forces.From this point of view, “the fall” is not justthe loss of Eden but the degradation of theGoddess, who no longer occupies the heart ofthe creation. She now embodies the lowestworld, that of matter, time and space. This isthe world we find ourselves in now, accordingto Rabbi Luria, and we are challenged to findthe path back to our former estate.

When we investigate the nature of Da’at, the“new” Sephira, it seems to correspond to theHindu throat chakra, the power of the HolyWord to create by fiat. So this creative capa-bility, the Word, which used to flow effort-lessly from Tifareth, the heart, is now some-thing that has to be earned through effort andstriving, by aligning the lower nodes anddirecting will toward overcoming the distrac-tions of the left and right pillars. Da’at signi-fies a power-center that a person has to buildup to activate, although it exists in potential inall of us born after the fall. This work isnecessary to lift ourselves back to our originalnature.

The consequence of the fall is chaos in thepath structure below the Supernal Triangle(Kether, Chokmah, Binah). The 3x7x12

pattern, dictated by the Sephir Yetzirah, isdestroyed, because now the heart triangle(Tifareth, Chesed and Geburah) and the pelvictriangle (Yesod, Netzach and Hod) pointdownward. Malkuth, “the World,” is castdown into a position that didn’t even exist inthe old system; it now acts like an anchor on

ARI TREE WITH SATURN AT DA’AT

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the soul instead of like a throne or a wonderfulgarden from which to draw nourishment.

In the post-fall human, the centers below theSupernal Triangle become increasingly denseand crystallized, and for the first time, theyrepresent the planets of the solar system.Malkuth is Earth, Yesod is Moon, Hod isMercury, Netzach is Venus, Tifareth is theSun, Geburah is Mars, Chesed is Jupiter andDa’at is (at least potentially) Saturn. Thepathways are no longer arranged in theirpristine pattern from Genesis, which allowsfor alternative allotments for the planets and

paths, increasing controversy betweenKabbalistic schools.

Saturn, who has fallen to Malkuth but inpotential could “rise” to the “new” throatcenter, is the last visible planet in the solarsystem, therefore the symbol of limits, disci-pline, examinations and natural consequences.It is Saturn who occasionally makes us eat ourwords. He is also the one who sentences us tolive out our most frequently repeated fears andpessimisms. He is the lord of the bottom line,the have-to’s that no one can escape. Theancients used to say that Saturn was the finaljudge of whether we reincarnated again andagain or whether we could pass on from thisworld into a higher state. This natural associa-tion of Saturn with Da’at fits in well withLuria’s reincarnational themes, markinganother resemblance to Gnostic ideas circulat-ing in his times.

Rabbi Luria, in reaching for a way to explainhumanity’s fall from grace into the wretched-ness of this life, reconceptualized the way thepaths connect the Sephiroth on the Tree. Hewas not attempting to displace the Gra patternbecause he did not know it existed. He waslooking at the Zohar and the skewed Tree ofthe 1400s, hoping to patch the confusingwelter of versions back together.

Luria was simply trying to create a format bywhich humanity could reconstitute itself andbring the world back to its pristine condition.His philosophy had certain consequences onthe Tree of Life diagram, because “the fall”was seen as having changed our primal sym-metry, which is to say, having upset the energygrid of our bodies. So the Ari version is a mapof the problem awaiting solution, a damagereport, like a medical x-ray the doctor views

LIGHTNING-STRUCK TREE

13

before surgery. This is true for every versionthat has fallen away from the Gra NaturalArray. We are not supposed to enshrine thispattern as a way to live, but instead use it as agame plan for self repair. Luria was actuallytrying to give his people much-needed hope introubled times, but his approach ultimatelygenerated more confusion than it was able toheal.

Because the Ari pattern of “after the fall”attributions was offensive to old-school rabbisaround Europe, a good deal of what one findson the subject is negatively biased. Much inkis spent bemoaning the way in which Luriaunwittingly exposed the monotheist core ofJudaism to accusations of harboring theGnostic dualism (see “The Gnostic Tarot”), acharge that undercuts the Hebrew claim ofbeing the original chosen people of the OneTrue God.

It looked to the skeptical as if he were positingtwo worlds with two separate administrations,the unfallen “upper face” of the SupernalTriangle (Kether, Chokma and Binah), wherethe energies are still balanced, contrasted withthe “Lower Face” of the planetary Sephiraresting on Malkuth, the fallen and chaoticWorld. This is the dualism that was so loudlydisclaimed by traditionalists of the sixteenthcentury, even though it explained in veryconvincing terms the reality of the Jewishexperience in Europe.

Rabbi Luria was offering a plan for the stepsthat Kabbalists could take to cultivate them-selves and right the balance of Nature upset by“the fall.” Unfortunately, it seems that thetraditionalists of Luria’s day could not get pastthe appearance of dualism to hear the call.Meanwhile, the literalists among his followers

forgot that he was proposing a provisionalmap, not the final goal.

And Now, Back To The TarotTo summarize what we have covered so far,history has preserved for us two “core ver-sions” of the ancient connections between theastrological signs and planets and the letters-which-are-numbers. These interlocking Myster-ies dictate the structure of Tarot as we know it.

The first connection between number/lettersand astrology was the version “received” byAbraham (according to legend), which is nowcalled “the Gra” after the Rabbi whose schol-arship revived it in the late 1800s. This is theversion presented by Aryeh Kaplan in hisdefinitive work, The Sephir Yetzirah, andrepresented on the deck El Gran TarotEsoterico (see “The Spanish School”).

The second set of number/letter/astrologycorrespondences is a product of the Greekalphabet reforms undertaken in 600 BC withthe help of Pythagoras, father of Hermeticnumber mysticism and harmonic theory. Thisversion represents an Alexandrian synthesisand became part of the Greco-Roman culturallegacy in Europe. The difference between thisversion and the original Sephir Yetzirah is thattwo planetary pairs have switched places (see“Graphs and Tables”). We have called this theHermetic/Alexandrian version or thePythagorean correspondences throughout thismanuscript, because the term “GreekKabbalah” creates a false impression.

Whatever it is called, this is the pattern well-known in Europe by the appearance of thefirst esoteric Tarots, and this is the pattern ofcorrespondences being used by any SecretSociety member from the Renaissance to the

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late nineteenth century. Whenever you readabout Cabbalah (the form the Christians andGnostics worked with) as opposed toKabbalah (the Hebrew form, unchanged fromits Middle Eastern inception), you can be surethat it’s the Pythagorean correspondences thatare being referred to. Remember, in bothvariants, A always equals 1, B always equals 2and so forth, as given in the tables.

The Non-Hebrew Kabbalah, calledCabbalahHistory shows us that some Gentile scholarsinterested in Hebrew themes picked up thisAri pattern and built it into their worldview.Gathering momentum in the century prior tothe first Tarots, a reawakening of classicalwisdom was dawning upon Europe from boththe Arab world and the eastern Mediterranean.Then, in 1492, the Spanish throne declared itsnation Catholic, exiling all Moslems, Jews,Gypsies and whoever else would not professthe faith. This great loss to the culture ofSpain produced more stimulation for thecultures of continental Europe. And in themiddle of it all, the first fourteen treatises ofthe Corpus Hermeticum were found, a mo-mentous event in European scholarship.

Simultaneously, and as a result of this wonder-ful return of the ancient wisdom to Europe, theSecret Societies began to reemerge intovisibility, producing the “Rosicrucian Mani-festo” in the early 1600s. The subsequentpublishing revolution embraced sacred litera-ture from all the traditions of antiquity. TheMasonic societies appeared, who over severalgenerations constructed a Hermetic synthesisof the Western Mystery Tradition and eventu-ally cast that construction into the form ofplaying cards.

Some Context for the RenaissanceFrances Yates states, in her chapter “Pico dellaMirandola and Cabalist Magic” from herwonderful book Giordano Bruno and theHermetic Tradition, “names of angels, namesof God in Hebrew, Hebrew letters and signs,are a feature of gnostic magic in which paganand Jewish sources are inextricably mixed. . ..thus both the Renaissance Magia and itsCabala could be regarded as reformed revivalsof magics ultimately derivable from pagan andJewish gnosticism” (p. 108). So even thoughthe ideas of the Alexandrian synthesis had notbeen current in Europe for over a thousandyears at that point, they were embraced withgreat spiritual enthusiasm upon their reemer-gence and taken to heart by the most talentedand visionary intellectuals of the day.

Although the return of learning to Europe wasgradual, certain themes remained perenniallyof interest. Greco-Roman culture was physi-cally engraved in the landscape around thesouthern Europeans, and the tradition ofHermes had a persistent hold upon the imagi-nation of learned Europeans. The Jews andGypsies were feared, romanticized and de-pended upon for their many “exotic” skills.Medicine especially was still largely magicaland depended upon non-Christian (pagan)methods, some of which were nasty anddisgusting or alternately, merely ritualistic, thetrue meanings often lost in time or corruptedin the transmission. Losses to superstition-induced illnesses and occasional bouts ofplague provoked intelligent people to keepsearching for better information, even if itcame from non-Christian sources.

As part of the gradual shift that replaced theMiddle Ages with the Renaissance, the qualityof magic and mysticism, therefore the entire

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culture, became more refined. As more of theclassics of antiquity were rediscovered andpeople had the luxury of using their brains formore than survival again, we see a new opti-mism, a sense of spiritual and intellectualempowerment and a return of the synchretisturges stamped out by earlier Christianity. Ashistory’s mystics and sacred philosophersbecame available to European intellectuals,their narrow-mindedness and superstitiousnessbegan to evaporate, replaced by awe andreverence for the intelligence and understand-ing of antiquity.

The Renaissance Magi and TarotAround 1460, the aging Lorenzo de Medici ofFlorence received a Greek manuscript fromMacedonia that contained a nearly completecopy of the Corpus Hermeticum. He had a“pet scholar” whose work he especiallyvalued: Marcilio Ficino, who had been as-signed to the translation of the Plato manu-scripts. De Medici was afraid of dying beforehe had an opportunity to read the books ofHermes, so they were brought to Ficino totranslate posthaste.

What Ficino found in the Corpus Hermeticumand developed throughout the rest of hiscareer was the first Renaissance statement ofNeoPlatonism, an amplification of theAlexandrian synthesis of the first and secondcenturies. Through his agency, the entire astro-alphanumeric structure of the ancient Myster-ies came pouring into the magical imagina-tions of these inspired and brilliant linguists.

Due to Ficino’s regard for the Church, thewhole synthesis was explained and experi-enced from a Christian outlook. He wascareful to explain that he was using only theGod-given “natural sympathies” that exist

between visible and invisible things in thegreat chain of being. He attested to be merelyconnecting the upper and lower worldsthrough their innate lines of relationship, sothe Church ought not to feel threatened. Asthis Christian, Gnostic-leaning antiquarianencountered the Alexandrian synthesis ofGreek and Hebrew mysteries, a movementwas born.

In particular, Ficino brought talismanic andtheurgical practices back to Christian mysti-cism under the aegis of Hermes, mythicalauthor of the Corpus Hermeticum. He felt thatby strengthening the affinities between higherand lower things, he could help annul theeffects of “the fall,” permeating time andspace with divine energies channeled by hisastronomical talismans. To quote again DameFrances Yates, “When Hermes Trismegistusentered the Church, the history of magicbecome[s] involved with the history of reli-gion in the Renaissance.”

Ficino’s younger friend and colleague, Picodella Mirandola, wittingly or unwittinglycontributed another huge boost to the impetustoward the Tarot. Pico added Cabbalist magicto Ficino’s Christian NeoPlatonism, opening afertile field both for study and for controversy.He extolled the virtues of the magical signs,sigils, numbers, images and other devicesinherited from Hebrew antiquity and that formthe literal link between celestial and terrestrialthings. He asserted, quite firmly, that bybringing in the Hebrew mysteries, especiallythe seventy-two angels who connect theearthly realms to the zodiac (which we eventu-ally see on the Minor Arcana), we can em-power the natural symbolistic magic of Ficinowith the extra charge of genuine Biblicaltradition.

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All these new correspondences emerged fromclose reading of the Corpus Hermeticum andrelated studies, and they produced a tremen-dous mystical surge not only in dellaMirandola but in his whole milieu. DellaMirandola continuously reminded his readers/listeners that this was Christian Magic, notonly because it was meant to be used towardand dedicated to the Trinity, but because itcame from the Hebrew/Alexandrian synthesiswithin which Christianity is grounded. Historyshows us, however, that Pico della Mirandolawas not as well-received as he would haveliked; he suffered regular persecutions anddetractors because of how closely he skirtedthe line between scholarship and religion asdefined by the Church.

Without straying too far from the topic ofTarot, let me emphasize that Pico dellaMirandola also imprinted the Renaissanceimagination with the idea of the magus as anagent of the Sacred Marriage, uniting theheavenly and earthly realms throughtheurgical workings. Using focused conscious-ness, the Holy Word, sacred sound and thepowerful Hebrew talismans that dellaMirandola taught that embody the formulae forcosmic values, the world can be impregnatedwith celestial energies much more efficientlythat with Ficino’s natural magic alone.

It is also della Mirandola who first articulatedthe concept of Silent Invocations composedfrom Hebrew names, letters, signs and sigils,and through this concept, the numbered suitcards received another layer of meaning. Tothis day, on the esoteric Tarots of the FrenchSchool from Ettiella forward (and in some ofthe later English decks), one can see the sigilsof the zodiacal angels progressing on thenumbered suit cards. (Eliphas Levi called

these angels the “Shemhameforesh,” a badtransliteration of the Hebrew but a brilliantidea for making Tarot into Silent Invocations.)Tavaglione’s Stairs of Gold Tarot details allthese angels in the back of its booklet, allaligned with their various degrees of thezodiac for your magical convenience.

To sum up the contribution of this extraordi-nary person, we should look at the granddesign of his mystical conception. For theGentiles, Pico della Mirandola explained howwhat he called the “Twelve Punishments ofMatter”—the signs of the zodiac—are drivenout (actually, harnessed to the Paths) by the“Ten Good Forces” of the Sephiroth. In otherwords, if the domination of the astrologicaluniverse (fate and destiny) over the soul ofhumanity could be broken, then the Tree cangrow back up the Sephiroth (chakras). In thisway, the mortal soul is secured, the Ogdoad(eighth sphere, Da’at) comes together, and“the powers sing in the soul the ‘ogdoadichymn’ of regeneration.” When the Tree con-quers the pagan zodiac in the soul, the soulbecomes immortal. It is here that we see theunifying thought that binds della Mirandola tothe Christian Cabbalah above all other teachingsand makes him the enemy of the astrologers ofhis time. His was a system that a person coulduse with free will and determination, undauntedby the stars or the elements of earth.

Pico della Mirandola and his philosophicalpeers (Marcilio Ficino, Cornelius Agrippa,John Dee, Paracelcus, Francesco Giorgio,Giordano Bruno, Johann Reuchlin and others)were at the crest of the Renaissance wave,fusing their scholarship with their art and theirreligion. They made it their business to inves-tigate the philosophies and practices used byour multicultural ancestors. (It is a mystical

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experience just to read about these people inYates’s meticulously researched tomes.) Theywere deeply devout Christian, Gnostic andHebrew scholars, passionately writing vol-umes and debating about ancient philosophy,filling folios with art and imagery and practic-ing theurgical rituals designed to put the soulin contact with our higher Source. It is too badthat the Church eventually felt too threatenedto let this wonderful flowering carry on. Butwhile it lasted, we all benefited, because in thesweep of the expansion the Tarot appeared,and on the momentum of the Renaissance,Tarot soared into the esoteric empyrean.

As a matter of fact, it is from the notebooks ofthe last Renaissance magi, a German Jesuitnamed Athanasius Kircher, that I believe theimages which brought overt esotericism intoTarot were eventually drawn. Kircher isdiscussed in the essay “The ContinentalTarots” as well, but for this chapter, we mustacknowledge his contribution to the ChristianCabbalah content of Tarot.

Kircher’s Christian CabbalahWhen we left the Hebrew Kabbalah to look inon the Renaissance magi, we had brought theTree and the Paths up to the reforms of theAri. His version of the Tree was an attempt tosynthesize the Path attributions of the ShortVersion he had in his hands with the awkwardTree of the Zoharic Kabbalists of the 1300s.

We saw that in the Renaissance, Christianapplications of the Kabbalah were being discov-ered and synthesized from new translations ofancient manuscripts, and the Gentile world wasgetting a history lesson. (They did still think thatHermes predated Moses, however, causing themto promote the Alexandrian Mysteries even morethan the Hebrew. It took more scholarship yet to

untie that intellectual knot!)

Athanasius Kircher was born in 1602 andlived until 1680; his was a long and produc-tive life. As a priest, he was not engaging inhis studies with the aim of practicing magic orreviving the Mysteries, but his combination ofscientific interest and spiritual respect for theancients caused him to treat all his subjectsrespectfully, keeping in mind their best at-tributes. He was an artist, a linguist and aCabbalist and had many other areas of exper-tise. I have no doubt his voracious intellectand voluminous writings and images influ-enced Tarot profoundly.

With all the sincerity of his Christian trainingand the scholarship that made him the lastRenaissance polymath (he created the firstCoptic grammar), Kircher “reformed” theKabbalah Tree into the renamed ChristianCabbalah pattern. We see this pattern nowthroughout Tarot, alchemical and magicalliterature. It is he who decided to count out thealphabet along the paths in top-down order, anapproach that has nearly completely supplantedthe 3x7x12 ordering of the Sephir Yetzirah asreported in Aryeh Kaplan’s master work.

Kircher’s is also the final and loudest voice inthe Renaissance chorus that attributed thewisdom of antiquity to Egyptian culture. Hehad no way of knowing the truth in the waythat we do now, in our age of scientific arche-ology and linguistic analysis, but the force ofhis conviction, that Egypt is the source of allthe oldest magic, continued to reverberatethrough the Mystery Schools for several morecenturies, stimulating the Rosicrucians andlater Masons—Etteilla most notably—toincorporate Christian NeoPlatonist Cabbalahinto the Silent Invocations that Tarot embodies.

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In the sequence of Renaissance magi fromFicino to Kircher (and through many fascinat-ing characters whom I regrettably cannotmention here), we see the force that drivesTarot into expression. The ancient Mysteries

were already in place, although episodicallyforgotten and re-remembered with the cyclesof history. The rediscovery of the bone struc-ture of the Mysteries at the cusp of the pub-lishing revolution made the creation of SilentInvocations in card form possible for themasses. How could Tarot not emerge as the“flash cards of the Mysteries”? It was the nextlogical step!

ConclusionIn this brief and incomplete scan of thisfascinating stream of Kabbalah/Cabbalahknowledge, I have tried to keep the focus uponthe details relevant to the formation of Tarot.This approach cannot help but leave somereaders annoyed at what I left out, whileothers will wonder why I dragged so muchdetail in. My only defense is that I havelearned to find it fascinating, and I hope youwill too.

Tracing the ins and outs of the evolution of theletters/numbers, astrology and paths on theTree of the Kabbalah is a life’s work in itself. Ihave presented some of the results of myresearch in order to assist in untangling theriddles that have arisen around Tarot and itsnumber/letter associations through the centu-ries. I hope that this material rewards with afew insights and evokes input from otherscholars who have found these topics ascompelling as I have.

This chapter is excerpted from ChristinePayne-Towler’s forthcoming book, TheUnderground Stream: Esoteric Tarot Re-vealed. To order copies of her book, or toreach Christine for private consultation call1-800-981-3582.

KIRCHER’S TREE CORRECTED