Major Arcana:  The Secret Ordering of the Cards

THE MAJOR ARCANA of the Lurianic Tarot (as it is called) is predicated upon the correspondences between the twenty-two interconnecting paths on the Etz haĦayim and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alef-beth. Before proceeding further, one should understand that these relationships are definitive, and study of the Tarot without a real apprehension of the related kabbalistic philosophies is ill-advised. I have endeavoured to illustrate a one-to-one correlation between the astrological associations of these twenty-two interconnecting paths on the Etz haĦayim (as given by Rabbi Yitzħaq Luria in the 16th Century ce) and the Major Arcana of the Tarot. This results in the reordering of several of the Major Arcana in order to maintain a consistent set of associations between these two sets of information. Some of Crowley’s keyed correlations as given in his Hermetic Tables of Correspondences (taken from what were considered ‘traditional’ Tarot associations at the time) also had to be rearranged. As a result of this reorganisation, the Hebrew letter associations for each of the seven ‘planet’ Major Arcana cards were reordered. These were the Prophet (a/k/a ‘Magician’), Torah (a/k/a ‘High Priestess’), Empress, Sun, Tower, (‘Wheel of’) Fortune, and Cosmos (a/k/a ‘World’) cards. The alignment of these cards with the Lurianic model of the Etz haĦayim renders an order of associated planets all too familiar to anyone familiar with astrology: the natural order of the planetary spheres in the ancient model of the cosmos, from outermost to innermost (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, Luna). In my humble opinion, this is too obvious a sign to idly dismiss as coincidental; it is a veritable Yaaqov’s ladder leading from heaven to earth within the Tarot itself. This planetary order also coincides with the order of the sefiroth in the Etz haĦayim, beginning with sefirah 3, Binah (associated with the orb of Saturn), and ending with sefirah 9, Yesod (associated with the orb of Luna).

Followers of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a pervasive 19th Century ce mystical tradition normally referred to simply as ‘G.D.’ or the ‘Golden Dawn’, are known to endorse the order of the Major Arcana found in most Tarot card decks in use today. Largely taken from Tarot decks pre-dating the founding of this organisation, the ordering of the Major Arcana has undergone what I consider to be little scrutiny under the influence of the leaders of the Golden Dawn tradition, namely such personalities as Mathers, Crowley, A.E. Waite, and Paul Foster Case. Within the past hundred years or so, the only major change to the order of the Major Arcana was the interchange of Strength (now Trump VIII) with Justice (now Trump XI); this highly-publicised adjustment was embraced by the Golden Dawn at large and by many of its followers, with the understanding that the new reordering of these two cards aligns the symbolism in the Strength card with the zodiacal sign Leo, and that of the Justice card with the zodiacal sign Libra.

My contention against the followers of the Golden Dawn tradition is centred especially with respect to their disregard of Rabbi Yitzħaq Luria’s highly sensible ordering of the twenty-two interconnecting paths of the Etz haĦayim and his correlation between the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alef-beth and these twenty-two paths. According to the hermetic tradition of the Golden Dawn (which has attempted to assimilate aspects of certain kabbalistic studies into their own mystical tradition), the twenty-two Hebrew letters are assigned to the twenty-two interconnecting paths on the Etz haĦayim in an ordinal fashion, beginning with the paths connecting sefirah 1 (Kether) with other sefiroth, and proceeding down the tree in an hierarchical fashion. However, my support of Luria’s system stems from the notion that a one-to-one correlation mitigates the disregard of ordinally associating the Hebrew letters with the hierarchically arranged paths. In other words, because in both cases the paths on the Tree of Life and the letters of the Hebrew alef-bet number to exactly twenty-two, and because these two sets correlate element-to-element with a one-to-one relationship, it is not necessary to ordinally associate these two sets one with another.

An additional argument against an ordinal association between interconnecting paths and the Hebrew alef-beth is the debate regarding at which end of the Etz haĦayim to begin the ordinal letter associations: does one begin with the top of the Tree, or the bottom? Taking this incongruity to heart, it is a simple matter to realise that the Lurianic model of the Tree makes the most logical sense. The student may then, with this set of associations, correlate the Major Arcana with the appropriate paths and Hebrew letters. Additionally, a non-ordinal set of associations means that confusion over a starting point on the diagramme of the Tree (for ordinal letter-to-path association) is not a concern. Basically, the Golden Dawn tradition has taken upon itself to force associations here based on ordinal set correlation which esoterically make little sense. An example is found in Crowley’s Tables of Correspondences (which are, incidentally, keyed upon the Tarot), which assigns both elemental earth and the planet Saturn to the Hebrew letter Taw, a pairing with which I do not find myself in agreement. The reordering of the Major Arcana based on the Lurianic kabbalistic model shows Luna and elemental (planetary) earth paired with Taw. In some Western mystic circles, the Earth and Luna are regarded as separate entities; however, kabbalistically, they are separate but paired entities, as sefirah 9 (Yesod, corresponding to Luna) and sefirah 10 (Malkuth, corresponding to the universe, and via reduction, Earth) are paired together on the Etz haĦayim. Speaking allegorically, the laws governing the physical universe are inseparably linked to the matter (and energy) which those laws govern, much as the Earth and the Moon are forever conjoined by the gravitational attraction between them.

It is my belief that leaders (and followers) of the Golden Dawn tradition have either neglected or refused to consider the sensible Lurianic kabbalistic model; this impediment means that potentially thousands of esoterics are using a system with inherent inaccuracies. The use of a Tarot deck aligned with the associations as presumed by followers of the Golden Dawn tradition could result in several errors in any reading, and perhaps an entirely fallacious reading a fair part of the time. However, this comes as little surprise, considering the notion that kabbalah is an inherently Hebrew tradition; to culturally displace or absorb this tradition into a ‘larger’, more ‘global/universal’ mystical system is simply unnecessary, and as previously stated, can result in misinformation. It is doubtless that the leaders of the Golden Dawn during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries (ce) may have had their own Hebrew/Judaic resources for their kabbalistic information; it is however, not doubtless that the information which they assimilated was necessarily from a kosher tradition. In the realm of Judaic studies, many kabbalistic systems may exist as a result of separate schools and differing points of view. Nowhere in orthodoxy is it stated that any particular one (Jewish) kabbalistic tradition is preferred to the detriment or displacement of another. Some simply make more ‘sense’ than others, and mystical traditions do have to make some sense; they are, after all, the creations of the minds of men.

The beauty and sensibility of the Lurianic kabbalistic model are easily understood by even the newest of initiates. The Tree of Life in its most basic of presentations consists of ten unique emanations which are interconnected by twenty-two unique paths. Given the most common attributes of the arrangement of the ten sefiroth, there are three horizontal paths, seven vertical paths, and twelve diagonal paths. Luria’s correlation of Hebrew letters to these twenty-two interconnecting paths assigns the three ‘mother’ letters a (Alef), m (Mem), and s (Shin) to the three horizontal paths, the seven ‘double’ letters b (Beth), g (Gimmel), d (Daleth), k (Kaf), p (Peh), r (Resh), and t (Taw) to the seven vertical paths, and the twelve remaining letters (‘elementals’) e (Heh), u (Waw), z (Zayin), h (Heth), j (Teth), i (Yodh), l (Lamedh), n (Nun), x (Samekh), o (Ayin), c (Tsaddi), and q (Quf) to the twelve diagonal paths of the Tree. The existence of sub-groupings within the Hebrew alef-beth and the paths of the Tree produces a set of relationships whose logic is virtually poetic, certainly moreso than the forced relationships based on an ordinal association between the letters of the Hebrew alef-bet and the paths of the Tree. Note that throughout this tarot deck and the companion documentation, the letter forms used for the Hebrew text are a modern patterning of the ancient Hebrew/Phœnician letter forms, and not those of the more widely recognised modern squarish Babylonian (merubah) style.

One major difference between the physical diagramme of the Lurianic model of the Tree of Life and that of the Golden Dawn is the absence of the two paths (connecting sefirah 10 with sefiroth 7 and 8), and the inclusion of two other paths (the first interconnecting sefiroth 2 and 5, and the second interconnecting sefiroth 3 and 4) in the Lurianic model. In the Lurianic diagramme, sefirah 10 (Malkuth) is outside the natural structure above it, since it represents the result of the Fall of Man and the subsequent separation of Creation from Creator. There is no logical reason for reckoning paths connecting sefirah 10 with either sefirah 7 or 8, as neither of these paths is available to the neophyte for ‘pathworking’; when Creation descended, it did so ‘vertically’, and not along the path of the well-recognised Lightning Flash which connects each of the ten sefiroth in order. Considering the Lightning Flash from another perspective, the path from sefirah 3 to sefirah 4 which crosses the Abyss (following the Lightning Flash) is not found in the Golden Dawn illustration of the structure of the Tree. There is no sensible reason for omitting this path or its counterpart (the path interconnecting sefiroth 2 and 5) in the diagramme of the Tree. A possible explanation for this omission may lie in the fact that adherents to the Golden Dawn tradition also acknowledge only twenty-two interconnecting paths (three horizontal, seven vertical, and twelve diagonal) and may have chosen to embrace a kabbalistic system which includes paths on the Tree connecting sefirah 10 with sefiroth 7 and 8, rather than crossing the Abyss with two additional paths. It almost seems as though the Golden Dawn diagramme of the Tree is based on the ‘natural’ symmetrical arrangement of ten elements into three columns, which is then stretched to accommodate a ‘descent’ theory of sefirah 10 (Malkuth) (see figures below).

the natural symmetrical arrangement of 10 elements into 3 columns

the current Golden Dawn diagramme of the structure of the Etz haĦayim

the diagramme of the structure of the Etz haĦayim, according to the AR”I (R. Yitzħaq Luria)

the diagramme of the Lightning Flash, representing the primordial flow of creative energy from the top at Kether, downward to the bottom at Malkuth

To continue our discussion of the Lurianic Tarot, we now focus on the one major difference which is most noticeable: that of the order of the Major Arcana, or trump cards (note to the uninformed: the Major Arcana is a subset of the seventy-eight card Tarot deck, consisting of twenty-two trumps which bear no suit; they are normally expected to predominate over the interpretation of most modern Tarot readings and can affect the result for good or ill). The order of the Major Arcana in the Lurianic Tarot is somewhat different from the order found in most decks today, since Luria’s association of the seven Hebrew ‘double’ letters to the seven planets in traditional astrology differs entirely from that given by the Golden Dawn, as evidenced below:

Hebrew ‘double’ letter Lurianic planetary association Golden Dawn planetary association
b - Beth
6 Shabbathai (Saturn)
1 Mercury
g - Gimmel
5 Tsedeq (Jupiter)
3 Luna
d - Daleth
4 Ma’adim (Mars)
2 Venus
k - Kaf
0 Shemesh (Sol)
5 Jupiter
p - Peh
2 Nogah (Venus)
4 Mars
r - Resh
1 Kokav (Mercury)
0 Sol
t - Taw
3 Levanah (Luna)
6 Saturn

Notice that no commonalities exist between the Lurianic planetary associations and those of the Golden Dawn. This results in a completely different ordering for the Major Arcana associated with the seven planets, as well as different Hebrew letter relationships. The following table illustrates the ordering changes found in the Lurianic Tarot Major Arcana:

Hebrew Letter

Lurianic Astrological Association

Lurianic Order

Golden Dawn Astrological Association

Golden Dawn Order

Alef

a

.

Awir

fool

.

Air

fool

Beth

b

6

Shabbathai

cosmos

1

Kokav

magician

Gimmel

g

5

Tsedeq

fortune

3

Luna

high priestess

Daleth

d

4

Ma’adim

tower

2

Venus

empress

Heh

e

a

Taleh

emperor

a

Aries

emperor

Waw

u

b

Shor

hierophant

b

Taurus

hierophant

Zayin

z

c

Te’omim

lovers

c

Gemini

lovers

Ħeth

h

d

Sarton

chariot

d

Cancer

chariot

Teth

j

e

Aryah

strength

e

Leo

strength

Yodh

i

f

Betulah

hermit

f

Virgo

hermit

Kaf

k

0

Shemesh

sun

5

Jupiter

wheel of fortune

Lamedh

l

g

Moznayim

justice

g

Libra

justice

Mem

m

,

Mayim

pendulant

,

Water

hangèd man

Nun

n

h

Aqrav

death

h

Scorpio

death

Samekh

x

i

Qasshat

temperance

i

Sagittarius

temperance

Ayin

o

j

Gedi

devil

j

Capricorn

devil

Peh

p

2

Nogah

empress

4

Mars

tower

Tsaddi

c

k

Deli

star

k

Aquarius

star

Quf

q

l

Dagim

moon

l

Pisces

moon

Resh

r

1

Kokav

prophet

0

Sol

sun

Shin

s

m

Esh

angel

m

Fire

judgement

Taw

t

3

Levanah

torah

6

Saturn

world


Perhaps this group of twenty-two cards may have existed on its own separately from the cards of the Minor Arcana, and the deck as we know it today may have actually been these two smaller decks of cards, which were combined to produce the modern seventy-eight card Tarot deck. There are also questions regarding the correct order for these trumps (seeing as how in ancient Tarot decks, they were unnumbered), and there are several traditions which dictate different orderings for these twenty-two special cards. Apparently, in an attempt to assist with this effort, many decks used Roman numerals to indicate the order of twenty-one of these cards, the Fool often being devoid of any numeric index in older decks which have enumerated trumps. The more modern Tarot decks label the Fool card with a zero, naturally placing it at the beginning of the Major Arcana series. Other traditions have placed the Fool in almost every other ordinal position imaginable within this set of twenty-two cards, but I embrace the idea that the Fool card belongs at the beginning, and that is where it appears in the Lurianic Tarot. For more detail concerning this subject, see the later section entitled rectification |kabbalah.

Some ‘qabalists’ [sic] have endeavoured to ‘modernize’ the Etz haĦayim, either by adding additional (‘modern’) planetary or astrological associations, or by trying to force the model of the Tree of Life to fit the Latin, Greek, or Anglish alphabet by adding more (i.e., nonexistent) paths between the sefiroth. I am unabashedly against the mutilation of the Etz haĦayim in such ways. My first defense is the idea that the Etz haĦayim is a decidedly Hebrew construct, and it has no recognisable analogue in Latin, Greek, or Anglish mystical systems. In addition to this, the paths on the Tree of Life are associated with the Hebrew alef-beth, and to correlate even another (non-Hebrew) twenty-two-letter series with the Tree of Life would draw various numerological and other associations (which do not exist in the Holy Kabbalah) to the various components of the Tree.