“Three Fathers and their generations, Seven conquerors and their armies, and Twelve boundaries of the Universe.
See now, of these words, the faithful witnesses are the Universe, the Year and the Man.”
-Sepher Yetzirah
In the first Kabbalistic book of creation, the Sepher Yetzirah, the Hebrew letters are broken down into three categories: the three mothers (a.k.a. fathers), the seven doubles, and the twelve simple letters. The twelve simple letters are associated with the zodiac, the seven double letters are associated with the sun, the moon and the five visible planets, and the three mother letters are associated with Fire, Air and Water. The three mother letters also have a double nature since they are also referred to as three fathers depending on the context in which they’re being used. The letters do have numeric associations, however in the Sepher Yetzirah the numbers are considered before, and distinctly separate from, the twenty-two letters, which is why there are thirty-two paths of wisdom in the Tree of Life and not just twenty-two pathways. The letters are more closely associated with the astrological considerations; the cycles of time, the cube of space, and the nature of man.
The Tree of Life in the image above on the right side has a path arrangement that is based on a combination of all the path numbers 0-21, which when split between the pathway’s two ends. So, if the number was 12 or 21 then 1 would go to one end of the path and 2 to the other end. Then I combined the path numbers that connect to the sphere with the number of the sphere itself, then reduced the numbers down to a single ideal number. I then found the arrangements where each path/sephirah combined number could be reduced down to the number six.
The Tree of Life on the above left side has a path arrangement that is based on a geometric configuration of the astrological attributes, which can also be seen in the Cube of Space page of this site. Both of these configurations reveal different possible manifestations of the paths with these particular spherical, numerical, and planetary associations.
In both these examples the paths are not just based a subjective or arbitrary arrangement but on either a numerical or a geometrical consideration. Also, this approach wouldn’t have worked with the astrological attributes of the major arcana that have been proposed by previous commentators on the Tarot. The Tarot attributes first needed to be reevaluated to see how they could correspond with our modern understanding of the planets. Much to my surprise they could represent the nature of the planets and the zodiac even better than others had done before if their attribute assignments were simply approached differently. The addition of the three outer planets actually clarified a preexisting pattern in the cards that had be overlooked before; there are two basic groups in the major arcana: the ten character-based cards 0-9 and twelve experiential cards 10-21.
The ten Ideal Numbers 0-9 in this system correspond to the first ten cards of the Tarot and these cards can also represent ten planetary character archetypes: 0- The Fool (Sun), 1- The Magician (Mercury), 2- The High Priestess (Venus), 3- The Empress (Earth), 4- The Emperor (Mars), 5- The Hierophant (Jupiter), 6- The Lover (Saturn), 7- The Charioteer (Uranus), 8- The Courageous (Pluto), and 9- The Hermit (Neptune). Whereas the twelve double numbered Tarot cards can easily correspond with the natures of the twelve Zodiac signs and their twelve different types of experiences: 10-The Wheel of Fortune (Taurus), 11- Justice (Libra), 12- The Hanged Man (Pisces}, 13- Death (Scorpio), 14- Temperance (Sagittarius), 15- The Devil (Capricorn), 16- The Lightning Struck Tower (Aries), 17- The Star (Aquarius), 18- The Moon (Cancer), 19- The Sun (Leo), 20- Judgement (Gemini), and 21- The World (Virgo).