Chesed (Mercy)
Kabbalistic Tree of Life
It is essential to understand the Tree of Life if you are to deeply recognize the symbolism of the RWS deck. There is no way around it. Thankfully, knowing how the Tree of Life relates to tarot will blow your mind. It is worth grasping Tree of Life basics, even if you do not intend to become a practicing Kabbalist. It will add depth to your tarot reading and bring the RWS deck to life before your eyes. Dozens of RWS cards are imbued with the tree’s symbolism. The tree is a fascinating esoteric system combining language, numbers, and graphics aligning perfectly with the structure of the tarot deck. In a sense, if you study the tree, you study tarot, and vice versa. The tree can sometimes feel overwhelming and intimidating. This chapter will provide a quick overview on a deep metaphysical system. We’ll have some fun while we’re exploring it.
The Golden Dawn knew structure was essential for their organization’s success. They used Masonic structure to organize their rituals and degree systems. They infused tarot and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life’s structure into their metaphysical workings. Tarot was connected to the Tree of Life by Éliphas Lévi. The Tree of Life has no “official” connection to tarot. Occultists simply realized the systems blended seamlessly.
The tree expresses divine nature as it appears, manifests, and seeps through reality into everyday life and the material world. Ancient Kabbalists were pre-medieval Jewish holy men who meditated and worked with Talmudic works and Hebrew scripture to understand the nature of divinity. Literally translated, Kabbalah means “to receive,” and it can be spelled many different ways, including Kabalah, Cabala, and Qabala. Any spelling is valid. Over the years, other faiths, including Christianity, placed Tree of Life symbolism in the context of their spiritual stories. The Golden Dawn occultists and the Western traditions that sprang up from the Golden Dawn’s work would go on to do the same thing. Waite explains it perfectly in his book The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah:
The true student of occultism believes in the existence of a knowledge—which in effect is occult science—handed down from remote ages, and that it concerns, broadly speaking, the way of union between man and God.31
The best way to explain the Tree of Life, which can feel weighty and confusing due to its philosophical nature and complex Hebrew alphabet and language, is to place it in the simplest possible terms. Indulge me: let’s go time traveling. Let’s head back—not to foggy London, not to ancient holy men in dark medieval times, but to the flashy, colorful, and hilarious 1980s. We are heading to the mall. If you wore deep blue Jordache denim, feathered your hair, and popped your puberty hormones around the time MTV debuted, you recall gaming arcades. If you weren’t around in the ’80s, you’ve probably seen arcades in movies and TV shows.
Gaming arcades were a major teen hangout found in most American malls and bowling alleys in the 1980s. They were dark rooms filled with kids and electrified with hot pink and lemon yellow neon. Flashing electronic games and snacks lured teenagers inside. Digital sound effects popped and zoomed from games like Pac-Man, Centipede, and Space Invaders. The arcade’s wall-to-wall carpeting was usually soaked with soda stains and sneaker grease. Speakers blasted Pat Benatar, Journey, and Madonna through smoky cigarette air.
Video games glowed at the front of the arcade while old-school ’70s pinball machines, a dying breed of game, were pushed to the back. Pinball machines had different themes. The themes took inspiration from popular TV shows like CHiPS or Dukes of Hazzard or movies like Star Wars or Jaws. The game itself remained the same no matter what theme the machine took: two flippers, three or four shining silver balls, and glowing bumpers set to ricocheting the ball anytime it hit.
The arcade will help us understand the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Now that you have the scene in mind, take my hand. Let’s move through the arcade and check out this room in back. We’ll step through this door, and now I’m closing the door. It’s pitch-black inside, totally dark, but bear with me. The darkness has something to show you. In fact, this darkness is everything. It is nothing, or no thing. You can’t see your hand in front of your face. This is the state of not-being that theoretically exists before the appearance of the Tree of Life.
Cross-cultural religious and spiritual creation stories usually include a time of nothingness prior to the beginning of god/human time. This is due to the linear nature of the human mind. Humans tend to think in beginning, middle, and end terms because our life, our days, and our experience of most things contains a beginning, middle, and end. We apply this structure to all our narratives, including our creation stories. Inside this state of darkness the divine presence usually makes its first appearance. As a reminder, I’m using the word “divine,” but you can insert any meaning you want: God, aliens, Buddha, Jesus, Zeus, David Lee Roth, whatever you like. I am not here to preach specifics or dogma. I am simply showing you how this really cool Tree of Life machine works and how it applies to tarot. Are you with me so far?
Here we are in the inky darkness. We can’t even hear the arcade music anymore. It’s like we are cut off from the world. No thing. Blackness falling like a curtain. A glowing light pierces the dark. This singular light appears in the center of the room, bright white but not blinding. It is warm and pulsating and you feel yourself drawn to it. The glowing circle has the word Kether (Crown) written above it. You move toward the light, intrigued and relieved to find something to look at. You bump into something cold and metallic. It hits you at your waist and hipbone. As you feel it with your hands, you realize you are standing against a giant pinball machine. The glowing light is a bumper beneath the glass of the game.
The circle, the light in the dark, is divine presence. The word Kether is its Hebrew name. The word Crown is its English translation because the word Kether means crown. It aligns with your crown chakra. The light looks like the eyeball of a god opening up. However, this circle is more than an eyeball looking at you and me. The circle is like a funnel or a waterfall. Divinity pours out like a fountain. This space allows Divinity to unfold its consciousness in this particular place and in this particular context. The material world, the human idea of darkness, gives a “thing” a context in which to exist; otherwise the thing or divine presence would be invisible. Divine consciousness appears just as you appeared when your consciousness unfolded.
A giant electric sign appears with an electric buzz and flash across the top board of the pinball machine. It says “Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Creation).” Sepher Yetzirah is the theme of this pinball machine. In real life, the Sepher Yetzirah is the title of an ancient Hebrew text created circa 200 CE. Sepher Yetzirah is the Hebrew title; it is also called the Book of Creation. The book explains how the Tree of Life operates. William Westcott, a founding secret chief of the Golden Dawn, wrote a translation of the Sepher Yetzirah in 1887 that was used as a primary text for the group.
The Sepher Yetzirah is a simple and concise manual explaining how divinity manifests in the world. How can an event as monumental as divine presence appearing be so simple? Think about it for a moment. The essence of all dogmatic and religious principles usually boils down to a few essential concepts. How people integrate, understand, and work with these concepts is where massive texts and years of study, work, and contemplation begin.
The nature of religious and mystical texts echo the occultist’s statement “as above, so below.” What is complex is actually simple, and what is simple is complex. Cool, isn’t it? It is just like us. We appear simple to an outside observer. Most of us usually come with one head, two arms, and two legs, yet the deeper you look into us, the more complex we become. Each of us is as unique as a snowflake, imprinted with personal memories, experiences, talents, preferences, and emotional makeups. Spiritual dogma reflects the humans who craft it. Therefore, spiritual dogma, like humans, is both simple and complex.
Back to our pinball machine—I promise you’ll be playing in no time, and I brought plenty of quarters. Don’t be shocked or offended that I am taking ancient rabbinical, mystic, esoteric studies and reducing them to a pinball game. This is a starting point. Tarot is complicated enough without throwing Hebraic mysticism on top of it. Here is the Tree of Life in simple terms. You can pursue a deeper practice on your own.
The game is currently dark below the glass, except for the Kether (Crown) circle. It’s glowing away, like divinity is apt to do. I plug the game into an outlet to show you the nine other circles, called Sephiroth (singular Sephira). Bells clang and lights flash as the entire pinball machine springs to life. Ten glowing bumper circles appear, including Kether. The glowing yellow circles are emanations on the Tree of Life. Each one has a different name, a different function, and a different number, one through ten. Kether (Crown), at the top of the game, is the highest, holiest, most sacred Sephira you will ever encounter. Everything begins and ends here. It is important to keep in mind that the energy of the tree moves down toward the material world, the same way a silver pinball moves down between bumpers or glowing circles until it slips through the flippers and back into the game.
Kether (Crown) is the highest point of the tree and is connected to pure divine energy. The Kabbalistic tree is upside down compared to our earthly trees. Because the Tree of Life is divine in nature, it is rooted in the highest spiritual place “above.” Our earthly trees grow their roots at the base in soft soil and gather nutrients from the ground. Earthly trees reach upward like steeples, temples, and holy architecture pointing upward toward the divine nature above us. The Tree of Life takes its nutrients from the Divine. The Tree of Life sprouts opposite to earth—it grows, spirals, and reaches down toward us. As above, so below.
The entire tree funnels into a single lone Sephira circle. It stands alone at the bottom and is numbered ten and called Malkuth (Kingdom). This is where you stand leaning against the corner of the pinball machine. Malkuth represents everything in the material world. It aligns with your root chakra. This is the place our bodies live, love, and exist in. It is the physical world around us. Every other Sephira exists in the invisible spiritual world. They are unseen by normal human eyes. Divinity pours out of Kether and moves through each Sephira until it emerges in the material world inside Malkuth.
It may feel counterintuitive or uncomfortable to know most of the Tree of Life is invisible to the human eye. At first, it can feel like a lot to swallow until we consider the tarot deck. The tarot, too, is mostly invisible to the human eye. It is made up of the major arcana and the four suits of the minor arcana. The four suits represents emotions and feelings (cups), thoughts and calculations (swords), passion and spirituality (wands), objects and people (pentacles), and archetypes (majors). We observe emotions in others and in ourselves, but we can’t hold them. We think thoughts and see others making calculations, but you can’t smell a thought. Our bodies experience and express passion, but passion itself is tasteless. Even pure archetypes of the major arcana are impossible to find in their entirety in daily life. There are only fourteen cards in the tarot deck that you can see, feel, touch, smell, and taste with your bodily senses, and that’s the suit of the material world: pentacles.
Tarot and the Tree of Life reflect life’s unseen qualities. Our experience of life occurs inside our minds and inside the individual’s experience. Our consciousness springs from deep inside us, our body and our mind. Life is experienced through personal perception. It is completely subjective. One person sees a glass half empty while another sees the glass half full. Once we know, understand, and integrate this truth, we have the opportunity to become powerful beings. We dictate our experience of life. Life does not define us. Technology is clever at tricking us into thinking we are having an authentic experience when we are not. To become grounded in the self, walk or move through nature. It will put you in touch with you. Nature, like tarot, will open doors of perception you didn’t realize existed if you pay attention closely.
The Sefer Yetzirah explains two Kabbalistic concepts intimately connected to tarot. The ten glowing circles on the tree called Sephiroth and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Can you see the connection between the Sephiroth and tarot? If you figured out there are ten cards in each suit of the minor arcana, excluding the court cards, I’m running to the snack bar to buy you a cherry slushy. Esotericists connect the ten Sephiroth to the ten cards of the minor arcana.
Did you realize the twenty-two Hebrew letters match up to the twenty-two major arcana cards? I’m treating you to an order of french fries with extra ketchup. The Sephiroth reflect and direct divine awareness. They are arranged like glowing circle bumpers on a pinball machine. The Sephiroth are connected by paths. Each path is like the straight line a silver pinball takes as it shoots through the game. The paths on the Tree of Life reflect energy moving from one Sephiroth to the next. All the Sephiroth are connected. It’s just like the veins in your body. Instead of pumping blood, the Sephiroth and its paths pump divine energy. All this circulatory energy winds up on earth in Malkuth (Kingdom). The paths are straight and specific.
I’m going to show you how they work by releasing a ball into the pinball machine. Ready? Pop in your quarter. A silver ball appears with a slew of ringing bells. You pull back and release the spring and send the ball to the top of the game. The ball moves in straight lines between the first and second Sephiroth. This is the Fool’s path. It moves between the first and second Sephiroth, Kether and Chokmah, back and forth. Here is the Magician’s path between the first and third Sephiroth, Kether and Binah. As I said, there are twenty-two paths on the tree. There are twenty-two major arcana cards. Each path is connected to a major card, but guess what? There are also twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Each path connects to a card and to a Hebrew letter.
Observe the Sephiroth’s pattern. The tree is constructed in a trio of triads. The three triangles funnel down into the tenth Sephira, Malkuth (Kingdom). The top triad is important, especially in regard to the tarot deck. The top triad is called the supernal triad. The word supernal means celestial or heavenly. Triad, as you know, means three. This celestial trio relates to all divine trinities found in religions across the world. It coincides with the trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It relates to the Wiccan Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The Tree of Life’s supernal triad contains Crown, Wisdom, and Understanding. Keep your eyes peeled—you’ll see many graphic representations of the supernal triad and larger versions of the tree inside the RWS deck.
Ancient scholars considered the Hebrew language to be infused with divine energy. The letters of the alphabet help divine energy manifest in the world. This concept holds true of any language that sculpts, shapes, and informs the nature of reality. Remember when your mom told you that your words count? According to the Tree of Life, words really do matter. Each letter holds an additional meaning or metaphor inside the letter itself.
Here’s a cheat sheet for the Hebrew letters, tarot associations, and letter meanings:
|
Aleph |
The Fool |
Ox |
|
Beth |
The Magician |
House |
|
Gimel |
High Priestess |
Camel |
|
Daleth |
The Empress |
Door |
|
Heh |
The Emperor |
Window |
|
Vau |
Hierophant |
Nail |
|
Zain |
The Lovers |
Sword |
|
Cheth |
The Chariot |
Field/Fence |
|
Teth |
Strength |
Serpent |
|
Yod |
Hermit |
Hand |
|
Kaph |
Wheel of Fortune |
Palm |
|
Lamed |
Justice |
Teach |
|
Mem |
Hanged Man |
Water |
|
Nun |
Death |
Fish |
|
Samekh |
Temperance |
Peg |
|
Ayin |
The Devil |
Eye |
|
Qoph |
The Moon |
Back of the Head |
|
Resh |
The Sun |
Face |
|
Shin |
Judgement |
Tooth |
|
Tau |
The World |
Signature |
Numerology and the Tree of Life
Each Sephiroth contains a number, one through ten. Align the Sephiroth numbers to their corresponding tarot numbers to bring rich and deep meaning to the cards. Look and see how they enhance the meaning of each card:
One: Crown/Kether (Tarot’s Aces)
The Godhead appears. Perfect wholeness. One is the spark. Beginning. Something out of nothing. Consciousness. Possibility exists. Options become available. The blank page contains a mark, a spot. A figure appears on the horizon. It is one. It is you. It is awareness. It is a thing. It is the most sacred act of manifestation. It is the Primal Force. It is the root of all thought. It is ultimate creativity. In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us that
Kether contains all things, is it the egg in which reposes the germ of the universe, to borrow the symbolism of another system. In particular it contains the remaining Sephiroth, which are the sum of all things.
The Tree of Life grows exactly like an earthbound tree except it springs from above. It is a reflection of what is found on earth; as such, it is opposite to earth. Imagine a tall green tree in your backyard or local park. Imagine a giant hand appearing out of a cloud like a tarot ace. It holds a huge mirror over the tree. The reflection of the tree is oppositional to how the tree grows on earth. This is exactly how the Tree of Life grows. Its roots are at the highest point of the universe. It grows down and points toward the earth. This is why the root of the tree is located at the top and called Crown. This is why the root of the tree is called Kether and translates into the word “crown.” One single thing.
Two: Wisdom/Chokmah (Tarot’s Twos)
Energetic duality reflects the churning engine of life. Force and energy is expansion with no end until there is two. Rather than radiating into infinity, energy now has something specific to react to. Yin and yang appear. Dark and light. Sun and moon. Day and night. The recognition of oneself and a mirror. The definition of the “other.” The masculine and feminine. Mother to child. Lover to lover. Dancer and stage. Writer and page. Bees and flowers. Two white towers. Reflection. In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite reminds us that “Chokmah is described in the ‘Book of Formation’ as the Breath of the Spirit of God.”
The High Priestess is numbered two, and she is drawn in the RWS deck as the card through which tarot’s water flows. Water moving through the tarot deck is an apt metaphor for emotional compassion and love. It also reflects the nature of energy in motion, a here and there. It is ultimate intuition and ultimate paradox. A paradox is a concept feeling counterintuitive. A paradox is seemingly contradictory, yet it sees and feels true. The number two is the wellspring of complexity allowing diametric opposition. Can a single thing, being, or consciousness hold duality? Is it possible to hold two oppositional things equally? Yes, it is possible, and this remarkable intelligence is why Chokmah translates to the word “wisdom.” Two is duality.
Three: Understanding/Binah (Tarot’s Threes)
Triplicity is the ultimate creative act. The pairing results in a third. Two react to each other and a third appears. A result springs from the duo. The soul responds to the Divine, causing the Divine to respond in ecstatic manifestation. This is the ultimate act of creativity found in the trinity, the most powerful shape and form in the universe. In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us that “Binah, Intelligence or Understanding, is…the highest Sephiroth with which man can establish correspondence.”
It is beauty but also elements of the mind. Archetypal patterns are formulated here. The ability to communicate is born. Pattern and structure appear. A blueprint has emerged, and it makes logical analytical sense. All creative acts make sense in their context. The third element is often the integration and combination of the first two points, and this is why Binah translates to “understanding.” You can understand something when you see yourself in it. In the number three dual elements combine equally, and understanding is born. Three is creativity.
Four: Mercy/Chesed (Tarot’s Fours)
The number four fosters stability. Maturity is achieved. A groundwork and foundation is laid. Structure endures, and systems are placed. A house is built. A book is outlined. The plan is hatched. The recipe’s ingredients are gathered. The spell is plotted. Structural components line up. This is where spiritual essence moves toward manifestation. In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us that “it expresses the eternal love and compassion, connecting with life and vitality.”
Devotion explodes from this Sephira like a parent’s love for their child. Deep compassion is born. Kindness is fostered. Forgiveness is offered. The empathetic qualities inside of a four’s structure is why Chesed translates into the word “mercy.” The material world and its blueprint is now a distinct possibility. A map is there. The plans have emerged. The future is foreshadowed. Four grounds the world.
Five: Strength/Geburah (Tarot’s Fives)
Force must be applied in order for the material world to materialize. This effort and energy is found in the place of Geburah. Challenge is confronted. Unexpected outcomes complicate the matter. Stakes rise. Old patterns return to haunt. Wounds rip open and bleed. Past meets present as new formulations occur. True evolution requires moving past old boundaries. In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us Geburah signifies “Judgment, Justice, Judicial Power, known also as Pachad, or Fear.”
Limits must be placed on expansion in order for enduring possibility to emerge. This is how the Emperor reacts to the Empress’s creativity. By imposing limits, boundaries, and parameters, her creativity is actualized. It becomes real. This is why material limitations exist inside the material world. Without these limitations, the earth itself cannot exist. Emperor-like limitations are like gravity keeping the world together. Without gravity we would detach from the earth. Once a habit is formed, it is simple to maintain because natural energy supports repetition. Bread must be kneaded, nails hammered, and bedtimes enforced. Repetition becomes easier after the original effort. Tarot is grounded in repetition, matching the cycles of the solar system and the known universe. Material expansion and limitations come through discipline and specific applied energy. This is why Geburah translates into “strength.” Five challenges everything.
Six: Beauty/Tiphareth (Tarot’s Sixes)
Six is the heart center. This is the place of love. It is the place of giving. It is heart consciousness and divine compassion. Vulnerability is developed here because it has experienced the pain of loss and separation in the previous numbers. Six is the divine space of meditation bringing us back to our essential self. It is the gap and silence allowing the individual to reach straight into the godhead. Sixes are the notes between the music. The subtext of a poem. The unspoken truth. The place of listening. It is learning from another person just by being in their presence. The harmony felt when attention is placed on beauty and love. By extension, the individual becomes beauty and love. Six is the place of deep humor because laughter is a spiritual opening. In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us that “the sixth Sephira…summarizes the Divine goodness; it is the heart of the pillar of benignity.”
Structure and form make their way to the material world and a sense of aesthetic sensitivity is fostered. Appreciation for the complexity and variety of the world to come fills the soul. Evocative fall foliage stops you in your tracks during an October stroll. Time stops as you witness a searing orange sunset. Newborn babies swaddled in white cotton inspire a compassion and sensitivity you didn’t know you had. A stranger steps up out of the background to help you. Forgiveness is cultivated toward the one who wounded you. You discover compassion toward yourself in thoughts and actions. This compassion spreads to the world around you. Love is fully expressed. You become a healing force in the world. Kindness is given freely, with no reservations, no strings, and no expectations. This is why Tiphareth translates into the word “beauty.” Six is love.
Seven: Victory/Netzach (Tarot’s Sevens)
Spiritual experience expands as the tree spirals downward like a DNA helix reaching toward earthly realms. Mystery and divinity take shape and merge as the material world. The world of form and shape is approached. Strangeness occurs as separation from the godhead elongates. Spiritual landscapes take form, each unique to the energy traversing it. The creative mind takes over out of sheer necessity. Solutions are arrived at. Creativity and spirituality intertwine at Netzach, mingling inside the same landscape. Knowledge occurs in progress of the work. Inside this knowledge dwells perseverance in adversity. Manifestation is neither easy nor comfortable in its nature. Boundaries are constantly pushed to gain ground. Growth requires expansion. In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us, “Divine goodness itself looks forth upon all creatures, and all the worlds are in fulness and completeness. This Sephira is also termed Eternity.”
Find comfort in the expansion to exercise freedom and growth without internal resistance. Embrace discomfort and do not be fooled by it. Make discomfort your friend and cohort. Do not run away from the fine edge, the creative edge, where you find yourself dangling over an ocean of possibility. Instead, move into it. You may feel discomfort in a creative project, moving deeper into a pose in yoga class, or inside the fear of a new life situation. Baby steps; a little at a time. If you push too hard, damage may ensue. Take it easy, yet take it steady. If you do, you will push personal barriers and break new ground every day of your life. Discomfort and strangeness, once embraced, become the mystery taking shape. They create new possibility and unimagined outcomes. This is why Netzach translates into the word “victory.” Seven is the uncanny.
Eight: Splendor/Hod (Tarot’s Eights)
Eight is flow. The lemniscate. It is the place where all things add up. The energetic duality of two operates at a full-throttle flow. Work is completed, yet more is to come. Eight is the place of beauty, of refinement, of shining examples. Here is the window glancing down upon the material world. The molecular world is glimpsed in kaleidoscopic splendor. Work happens quickly; it is gaining speed. This is where ideas fly at the creators who will make them a reality. Ideas, stories, inventions, and possibilities come to the world from every direction. They are begging to be turned into reality. What is tugging at your heartstrings? What do you feel compelled to make and create in your life?
In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us, “It is the place of praise, the place of wars and victories, and of the treasury of benefits.” This is pure, perfect archetype about to be made real in the material world. The cookies are about to come from the oven. The baby’s head is crowning. The artist sees the painting take shape before her. A poem advances toward the poet. Lyrics take aim at the songwriter. The equation and solution enter the mathematician’s mind. This is the place where shining invisible things with a consciousness of their own are about to be made manifest in the world of form and shape. This is why Hod translates into the world “splendor.” Eight is arrival.
Nine: Foundation/Yesod (Tarot’s Nines)
Nine is the filter. Like a coffee grinder or a kitchen sieve, this is the space where everything is ground down and processed through the tree and into the material world. Nine is like a funnel. Matter becomes real, moving from the unseen through the veil into the seen world. Character and personality take shape in this space. Awareness of all possibility takes hold. Understanding is flush, ripe and running through the human body. The individual fills their skin. Blood pumps, features are defined, breath is exchanged. Hidden aspirations become crystal clear and apparent. Desire rushes to the surface. Heady moments of anticipation.
In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us that “it is the storehouse of all forces, the seat of life and vitality, and the nourishment of all the worlds.” The baby’s body moves through the mother’s birth canal. The writer flurries words. Snowflakes shower across fields. Wind gathers its speed across the mountain peaks. Lovers recognize one another. Feelings are put into words. Words translate into actions. Action causes a physical result. Results change reality. There is no going back. Something is about to exist. This is why Yesod translates into “foundation.” Nine is threshold.
Ten: Kingdom/Malkuth (Tarot’s Tens)
The ten is the complete manifestation in the material world. Completion. Success. Finality. Existence is real. It is done. It cannot be undone. This is the place of assumed possession. Objects and people can be seen, felt, and touched. This is the place where we spy what we want. Blueprints take shape. Results emerge. The individual stands in flesh and bone. Every form of perception is seen by its respective viewer. Colors dance, light reflects, waters lap. Green leaves shutter with cool breezes, volcanoes spew molten lava, roses bloom. Life, as we understand it, begins.
In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us that “it is the final manifestation, emanation, or development of the Divine Nature taking place in the Divine World.” The earth and physical reality exists in Malkuth, or Kingdom. This is the place where you can find everything in the world. This world is a reflection and manifestation of the Divinity above who casts infinite realities through infinite trees. An individual never knows what they might uncover once they begin to experiment with the metaphysics of the material world because each of us is built with different sensitivities. Kingdom is the party we all attend and the dance floor we all slink across. It is the home we inhabit. It is what we see, feel, touch, taste, and integrate. Ten is the material world.
Tree of Life Secret and
Kundalini Connection
Arthur Waite’s work with the Tree of Life did not stop once the tree manifested results in the material world. Once the tree is understood, one discovers the nature of the self in relation to the universe around them. These new eyes discover mystery at every turn. The mysterious is imbued in everything surrounding it. Every part, parcel, and piece of life is alive with energy, consciousness, and divinity. This mystery is examined and ultimately it leads us back up the tree, path by path, Sephira after Sephira, into infinite metaphysical journeys. The occultist travels the Tree on their own. They move through each Sephira until they rise to the highest point on the tree, the crown. Here they gaze directly into the eyes of the Divine.
Symbolically, this aligns with the Kundalini yogi who encourages life-force energy to rise from the root chakra to the crown chakra. It is the same process explored via two distinctly different cultural systems. Each achieves the same result: enlightenment and shifting perceptions of the universe and one’s place inside it. Christianity places the snake or serpent as a symbol of temptation, while yogis use the snake as a symbol of coiled energy at the base of the spine. This energy travels upward and enlightens the yogi as it activates every part of the body in a form of energetic resurrection.
Pillars
Can you make out three vertical pillars on the Tree of Life? The left Sephiroth line up to form the tree’s left pillar. The left side is masculine. The right three Sephiroth line up to make the right pillar. The right side is feminine. The center pillar is gender fluid, infused with both masculine and feminine qualities. It is an integrative center force. The middle pillar leads directly from divine awareness in the Crown to manifestation in the number in Kingdom. The RWS deck makes extensive use of the three pillars of the tree as a spiritual reminder. The High Priestess, the Hierophant, and Justice embody a physical center between two pillars. Their bodies become the center pillar sitting between two pillars, male and female. Pamela fills the deck and finds graphic balance for many of her cards using the three pillars. Pamela places many tarot characters between two mountains, trees, or towers, and in doing so she makes additional veiled references to the tree’s pillars.
The outer pillars reflect extremities, and the middle pillar fuses the energy. This is where an individual finds balance inside inner duality. It is the occult objective of integration of all energies inside the body. It is the alchemist’s Great Work. It is also why some people consider the World card to be a metaphorical hermaphrodite. The World card reflects an individual who is the master of balancing and integrating all the essences of who they are. The World dancer represses nothing. She moves and expresses herself just as she is. Because nothing is repressed, everything the individual does corresponds with their true intrinsic nature. Wicked magic ensues. Possibilities unfold. This is why the World card is the highest card of the deck.
Four Parts of Your Soul,
Four Suits of Tarot,
Four Kabbalistic Worlds
Let’s go back to the arcade and our pinball room for a moment. It will make this next part easier to understand. We walk away from our Tree of Life pinball machine and move over to the other side of the dark room. A glowing sign appears, blinking above your head. It says “Tetragrammaton (Name of God).” The sign is glaringly bright. You make out four pinball machines underneath it. Tetragrammaton is indeed the name of God or the Divine. Tetragrammaton is a Greek work meaning “consists of four.” The tetragrammaton is made up of four Hebrew letters.
Four pinball machines stand side by side and I plug each one in. They spring to life with bells and lights, ping, ping, ping. Each machine has a different Hebrew letter emblazoned across the top: Yod Heh Vau Heh. Under the glass each pinball machine has a tree and ten glowing Sephiroth, matching the original machine we looked at.
The Kabbalistic world is divided into four parts. The four parts align perfectly with the tarot’s four suits. The four Hebrew letters translate into Latin as YHVH. This is where the name Yahweh for God was derived. It is the Old Testament’s name for God. Make sense? These four worlds (or pinball machines) express the name of the divine creator. Let’s get back and examine what those letters actually mean. Remember when I told you that the Hebrew alphabet is infused with divinity? These four letters together express the Divine. They align to the four parts of the soul and the four suits of tarot. They make up the four parts of the Kabbalistic world.
Let’s take a close look at the first letter glowing on the first pinball machine. Yod vibrates in color across the top of the game. The board is filled with symbols of pentacles, as found in the RWS deck. Yod aligns with the suit of pentacles. Inside the game and beneath each Sephira, a tarot image has been placed. The Ace of Pentacles’ image is under the crown chakra. Divinity pours out of the crown as it also pours out of the ace of every suit. The aces, like Divinity, spill forth the entire suit. By the time we get to the tenth card, there are results seen in the material world. Everything following the ace is part of the ace. It is the same way you can trace your entire life, day by day, back to the day you were born. You are born with your entirety inside you.
Pentacle court cards decorate the four corners of the pinball machine, the King of Pentacles on the top left and Knight of Pentacles at the bottom left. Queen of Pentacles at the top right and Page of Pentacles at the bottom right. The kings and knights align with the masculine pillar, and the queen and page align with the feminine pillar. The pattern holds true for the following three worlds and tarot suits. These are the four Kabbalistic worlds, four parts of the soul, and how the tarot aligns with the tree.
Physical World: Pentacles/Yod
Yod is the material world and the world of pentacles. It coincides with Kingdom in the Tree of Life. Here is everything you can touch, taste, hear, and see. Everything connected to the world of pentacles connects to Yod. This includes books, chairs, food, people you love, your long, silky hair, and your beautiful, sweet, aloof cat. This is the material world of form and function.
All of the pentacles’ minor arcana cards (ace–king) are found inside Yod, the material world.
Emotional World: Cups/Heh
Heh is the creative world and the world of cups. This is the place of dreams, blossoming thoughts, and emotions. It is from this lofty place that ideas pass through swords to gain a design and find ultimate substance in the material world. It is an imaginative landscape of fantasy with no boundaries, no laws, and no limitations. It is open and wild, rich and forthcoming.
All of the cups’ minor arcana cards (ace–king) are found inside Heh, the creative world.
Thinking World: Swords/Vau
Vau is the formative world and the world of swords. This is the mental world of thoughts and ideas. It is the thought process for everything before it actually exists in the material world. It is articulation and calculation. It is the space of the mind. This is the narrative world of story. This is where we formulate the stories we tell about ourselves and others. It is the space of “I think, therefore I am.” Observe your thoughts. Craft your narrative mindfully.
All of the swords’ minor arcana cards (ace–king) are found inside Vau, the formative world.
Energetic World: Wands/Heh
Heh is the archetypal world and the world of wands. This is the place where archetypes are born. It is the top of the tower. It is energy, passion, and essence. Associating the top of this pillar with the suit of wands is a reminder that passion comes from a divine source and is the most powerful tool in life. It is the generating space of all life as we know it and carries the power to manifest dreams and nightmares into reality.
All of the wands’ minor arcana cards (ace–king) are found inside Heh, the archetypal world.
Final Thoughts
Now you’ve gained insight into the Tree of Life. The tree is but one of many spiritual systems explaining the nature of divinity. The tree and the tarot link perfectly to express the somewhat complex nature of the universe and the material/soul existence inside of it. One might say the Tree of Life is a mathematical, linear, masculine sense of understanding the universe. The same conclusions and experiences might be reached by a gardener who sees the unfolding nature of the universe in her neatly arranged flower and vegetable beds. The Buddhist monk high in the Himalayas may reach similar conclusions inside the context of his language and cultural conditioning.
Tarot is a portal allowing readers to look through the material world and gaze at the interior. They may examine the interior of personal landscape, the interior of others, or the interior nature of the world we all live in. Tarot gifts readers with the ability to look past form, structure, and language and gaze directly at what is. Once forms and archetypes are identified inside tarot, readers discover and recognize these forms everywhere they look. Readers discover the vast interconnectivity of all humanity and realize that spiritual systems in every culture—from Hindus to Muslims to Christians—ask the same questions in different languages and cultural contexts. The stories differ, but the desire is consistent. Why are we here? What is the point of life? Where are we going? What does it all mean? How can we become who we truly are?
Tarot and the tree’s structure allow the individual to move up and down invisible worlds at their leisure. Tarot is a tool containing seventy-eight gates through which to explore and examine all parts of the interior life and the external life. Possibilities abound and worlds unfold every time a card is flipped. Infinite questions can be asked of the tarot. A single question shines like Venus rising in the evening summer sky: How high, how deep, how far are you willing to go?
31. The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, 37.