Tree of Life Tarot – Mystical Keys

A New Universal Tree of Life and Tarot

This study is not intended to argue with those who are already totally invested in their chosen belief into what is the true meaning of the Tarot cards and their attributes. Some believe that the Tarot cards are esoteric representations of a sacred journey of the soul or an ancient initiation rite, while others may believe it is a picture book of astrology or some other esoteric notions. People will often want to believe whatever suits their prejudices, personal desires, or some childhood fantasies. So, just to be clear, whatever your preferred Tarot deck or interpretation of the cards may be this study probably won’t validate or confirm your beliefs. However, if you are open to new ideas and approaches to the Tree of Life and the Tarot perhaps this study will be of interest to you.

I can also say, with much certainty, that there is absolutely nothing to fear from the Tarot cards in and of themselves. Rest assured that the cards will not harm you in any way by using them, whether it be for fun, education or divination, for the cards do not have any supernatural powers magically infused into them. They are simply a deck of cards made of normal ink and paper and all the rest is just in peoples’ head.

The subject of the Tarot is riddled with wild speculations about hidden meaning and false claims of their supposed ancient esoteric heritage, but I wanted to bypass these foolish attempts to claim some unprovable ancient authority or lineage to some esoteric tradition, like so many have done before. Instead, I wanted to start my study of the Tarot in the Tree of Life from the ground up. To do this I needed to build a system of correspondences that followed its’ own continuity of contiguous connections from seed to tree. This meant that if I was going to use the major arcana of the Tarot deck to represent the 22-paths of the Tree of Life I would first have to redetermine the attributes associated with each card using the same criteria that I was using for the rest of the Tree of Life correspondences.

The history of the Tarot is not very clear at all, and no one really knows the intended meaning of the original cards or even who first created them for that matter. Those who claim that they are the supposed keepers of a traditional translation of the Tarot cards are simply trying to sell a pack of lies to gullible groupies of long-lost lore. The people who like to make spurious claims about being part of some old esoteric tradition have very shallow roots at best or, most likely, they’re just selling you a pot of pure bullshit that they’re calling a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It is truly anyone’s guess as to what the actual intended meaning of the original Tarot cards was, because there are no records of them. The introduction of the Tarot cards during the 14th century renaissance was but a small part of a much larger influx of new ideals about culture and philosophy that was pouring into Europe at that time and arguably was originally nothing more than a game.

The Tarot cards had only started to be incorporated into western esoteric schools of thought in the 19th century. However, it wasn’t until the early 20th century, with the arrival of the Rider-Waite deck in 1906, that the interest in the Tarot cards really blossomed and spread in America. This deck was put together by two members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: Pamala Colman Smith designed the cards under the direction of Arthur Edward Waite in 1909. The symbolism of this particular Tarot deck was heavily influenced by Alphonse Louis Constant, a.k.a. Eliphas Levi, who was a French occultist of the mid-eighteen hundreds who was the first to associate the Tarot cards’ major arcana with the 22 Hebrew letters and the 22-paths in the Tree of Life.

Since the Rider-Waite deck came out there have been a plethora of different Tarot decks published with similar symbolism and designs, especially after the revival of esoteric subjects in the 1960’s. There was also another colorful Tarot deck republished in the 60’s called the Thoth deck, which was first published in 1944 that became popular in the 1960s. The Thoth deck was painted by Lady Frieda Harris under the direction of Aleister Crowley for his Ordo Templi Orientis organization. For a good source of information on many of the different Tarot deck designs and interpretations that are out there I recommend getting the Dictionary of The Tarot by Bill Butler.

There are certainly parallel relationships that can be made between the 22 Hebrew letters and the Tarot. They are both based on the same number of major components, as well as the astrological attributes that both of them incorporate into their systems. However, although the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot deck have been grafted onto the western esoteric traditions approach to the Qabalistic Tree of Life since Eliphas Levi first proposed the idea, there are still many differing opinions as to which Atu should be assigned to what path on the Tree of Life. Which meant for my purposes the attributes of the Major Arcana would need to be fully reevaluated in order to find their most harmonious path assignments in this new Tree of Life system.

My own reconsideration of the Tarot cards attributes (see below) is a result of over fifty years spent researching variety of Tarot card interpretations, design variations, and the many different Tree of Life systems from both the eastern and western perspectives. It didn’t take long to realize that there really wasn’t any actual ancient Tarot tradition. The so-called traditions were nothing more than esoteric sales pitches based on wild guesses and a lot of cleverly concocted claims of ancient provenance. We really don’t know anything about what they did or did not know when the original Tarot was created, nor does it matter for the purposes of this particular proposal for a new Tarot construct. For this construct to be a fully self-sustaining system there needed to be a common premise from which all the components could be built upon in order to maintain a coherent thread of continuity throughout.

The first symbols within the Tarot whose cards I needed to resolve were the numbers zero through twenty-one of the major arcana. Since there were two differing opinions about what the number of the Fool card should be, either zero or twenty-two, I started with analyzing the Fool. The Fool as the zero card is the most commonly used today and I believe the most suitable. Most notably because the ideal numbers start with zero and the notion of the fool card is the image of a mindless nobody, a vagabond, someone with no social value, a zero. In addition, the very idea of zero was a new numerical notion to the Europeans in the fourteenth century, which was at the same time Jewish merchants, who were already adept at using the Arabic number system, were moving into Prague and Venice, and the Tarot cards were first produced in Europe.

The other Tarot cards where there was a major difference of opinion regarding their number, were the Strength and Justice cards. The dispute was over which one should be assigned to the number eight and which to the number eleven. One school of thought believes that the Strength card should be assigned to the number eight and the Justice card to eleven; while the other school thinks the opposite. Either way, these two cards would first need to be reexamined, and the most harmonious numerical associations determined, before they could be incorporated into this particular Tree of Life system. I settled on using eight for the Strength card and eleven for the Justice card, mainly because the numerological nature of eight was strength, thereby a more obvious representation of the Strength card. Whereas the Justice cards’ image represented the zodiac sign of Libra more, given its’ image of the scales, and the number eleven was also in the middle of the deck with ten cards on either side, as well as the equilibrium implied by the two ones in the number eleven itself.

Once the Tarot card number and image associations were determined a clear pattern started to emerge from the first ten cards; they all represented human characteristics. I then moved on to resolve the more elusive astrological attributes in the next twelve cards of the Major Arcana. The cards ten thru twenty-one appeared to be far more representative of the different experiential environments of the zodiac than the first ten single digit cards so I approached them accordingly. It is notable that the single digit verses the double-digit numbers have very distinctly different types of central themes in their designs. The first ten cards each had a personality type at the center of their image, whereas the next twelve cards are more indicative of an experience or a type of environment as the central theme of the card.

If you were to look at the different characteristics of the images and names in the Major Arcana, you will see a pattern start to emerge that has numerical parallels as well. The first ten cards (using zero for the Fool and eight for the Strength card) can all represent a particular planetary personality type and, if you were to look at the natures of the planets currently being considered, the natural progression of planets in our solar system is also reflected: The Fool as The Baby (Sun), the Magician as The Boy (Mercury), the High Priestess as The Girl (Venus), the Empress as The Mother (Earth), the Emperor as The Father (Mars), the Hierophant as The Teacher (Jupiter), the Lover as The Mate (Saturn), the Charioteer as The Inventor (Uranus), the Courageous as The Hero (Pluto), and the Hermit as The Wise (Neptune). Pluto may go a further distance from the sun than the other planets, but its’ orbital ring is the eighth out from the sun and always has to travel between the orbits of Neptune and Uranus as it travels around the sun.

The remaining twelve cards follow a similar pattern of association with the zodiac; they are not personality types so much as they are experiences that we may all go through in life. The Wheel of Fortune reminds us that we reap what we sow (Taurus), the Justice card as Balance or Fairness (Libra), the Hanged Man as Sacrifice or Surender (Pisces), Death as Ending or Transformation (Scorpio), Temperance as Blending or Tempering (Sagittarius), the Devil card as Fear or Restriction (Capricorn), the Lightning Struck Tower as War or Upheaval (Aries), the Star card as Knowledge or Aspirations (Aquarius), the Moon card as Ebb and Flow or the Risks of Night Time (Cancer), the Sun card as Growth or Attainment (Leo), Judgement as Duality or Contrast (Gemini), and the World card as Perfection or Fruition (Virgo).

The term “as above so below” was an esoteric concept that had been around at least since the Hermetic tradition of the Emerald Tablets of Egypt. This concept could also be applied in reverse, “as below so above”; in that from the observations of numeric and cyclic patterns on earth, they could deduce that there would also be similar influences coming from unseen planets cycling above us in the same manner as seen below. The Pythagorean and Platonian idea that the study of numbers allowed us to see beyond our limited eyesight and the belief in the cosmic harmony, inherent in the music of the spheres’ philosophy, had already suggested that there may be more planets in our solar system than we could see with our naked eyes. I’m just saying that this notion is not as far-fetched as you may initially think.

The question of whether or not to include the outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto could also be debated, being how they were discovered centuries after the original Tarot deck was invented. And if preserving the original intent of the Tarot cards was my only concern this would be a valid consideration. However, I was not concerned with the lack of historical knowledge of the three outer planets, since what we now know about these planets easily conform with the dynamic characters that exist in the first ten Major Arcana cards. So, I proceeded to see if they could be incorporated into the deck harmoniously. In fact, they fit so well together that it makes me wonder if these three outer planets may have been somehow known about already, perhaps numerically, or that their dynamic influences, although unseen, were still somehow felt and characterized, as seen in the descriptions of the elder gods.

There are two separate divisions in the Tarot deck, the Major and the Minor Arcana. I believe the Major Arcana is reflective of the Solar system and the Zodiac, whereas the Minor Arcana is reflective of the four elements and the Lunar cycle. They both have their distinctly different patterns and cycles that we have observed and experienced over time. In this Tarot system the major arcana is a representation of ten different character types, corresponding to the ten major planetary dynamics, and the twelve zodiac expressions, situations and environments that we may experience in our life. In this system the themes of the major arcana relate to our larger social situations, considerations or conditions of life. Whereas the Minor Arcana represents our mundane, day to day concerns of life; the experiences we have as the moon cycles through its’ 28 houses and the four elements through time.

The Minor Arcana can be divided into four elemental categories: The two male elements are Fire and Air, and the two female elements are Earth and Water. The Minor Arcana suites can be broken down again into the ten number cards and the four court cards. Although, in the common 52-card deck, which the minor arcana is based on, there are only three court cards that can correspond to the three zodiac modalities of cardinal, fixed and mutable. I think that the 52-card deck represents the four elements better because it expresses the three modalities more clearly by only having three court cards. However, the 56-cards of the Minor Arcana allows them to be used to represent the lunar cycle of 28 days, where each day cycle can be divided into two parts, night and light time, with the male suites representing the light portion of the cycle and the female suites representing the night portion of the cycle.

The Minor Arcana, like the Moon cycle, has rhythms and behaviors that are distinctly different from the rhythms and behaviors of the Solar cycle. The Moon orbits around the Earth approximately every 28-days with thirteen full moons a year. The more mundane routines and rhythms of life that occupy most of our day-to-day concerns and dreams can affect our lives just as profoundly as the larger social considerations of the major arcana. Mundane activities like counting down the days of your menstrual cycle, simply planning for your next payday, or your days off, all would fall under the sub-lunar influences of the Minor Arcana.

The use of Tarot cards for divination only became popular after Antoine Court de Gébelin, a French archaeologist, published a book in the late 18th century associating the Tarot with fortune telling and ancient esoteric teachings. They may have been used for divination long before this time, but there just wasn’t any record of this type of use yet. Although the Tarot can certainly be used for divination, it is not their primary function, for true diviners can use almost anything to foretell the future; things like sticks, stones, tea leaves, and even common playing cards are just some of the many things used by fortune tellers. The Gypsies have also used the 52 common playing cards, among other things, for divination purposes long before the 18th century. Unfortunately, all attempts to give any credit to the Romani peoples’ contributions to the esoteric traditions of Europe are often rudely rejected, like everything else they may have contributed to European art and history.

The Tarot Show
The Ten Actors & Twelve Scenes of the Major Arcana

The 28 Mansions of the Moon & the 56 Minor Arcana

There are approximately 28 days in a lunar cycle:
The 14-cards per suite each represent one of two male or female elements with 28-cards per gender. The 28-night times of the 28-day lunar cycle can be represented by the two female suites of Water & Earth (Cups & Disks) and the 28-light times of the 28-day lunar cycle by the two male suites of Fire & Air (Swords & Wands). Or perhaps you have another way of coupling the 56-cards (2×28=56) of the Minor Arcana that could better represent the dual natures of each of the 28-houses of the Moon.

The 52-cards of the common playing card deck (13-cards per suite) can possibly represent the 52 weeks in a year. The 52-card deck predates the Tarot, and its’ 13-card suites reflect the nature of the elements better than the minor arcana because the 3 court cards can each represent one of the 3 modalities of each suite’s element: Cardinal, Fixed, & Mutable. For example, if the King card represented the cardinal modality of the water suite of Hearts, then it would represent the sign of Cancer; in turn, the Queen would then represent the Fixed sign of Piscis, and the Jack would represent the Mutable sign of Scorpio. Or perhaps it’s the other way around; what do you think?

	Fire Signs	Water Signs	Air Signs	Earth Signs
ACT I The Cardinal Signs	16 Aries The Lightning Struck Tower	18 Cancer The Moon	11 Libra The Scales of Justice	15 Capricorn The Devil
ACT II The Fixed Signs	19 Leo The Sun	13 Scorpio The Death	17 Aquarius The Star	10 Taurus The Wheel of Fortune
ACT III The Mutable Signs	14 Sagittarius The Temperance	12 Pisces The Hanged Man	20 Gemini The Judgement	21 Virgo The World

FIRE Blades Spades Swords	WATER Vessels Hearts Cups	AIR Staffs Clubs Wands	EARTH Disks Diamonds Pentacles
Male Element This suite represents the element of fire, which reflects the nature of heat, transformation, and control by force. Swords are forged in the fire. Fire can either keep us warm or burn down our house.	Female Element This suite represents the element of water, which reflects the nature of fluidity, emotions and the power of adaptability. Cups are containers for liquids like water which can hydrate us or drown us.	Male Element This suite represents the element of air, which reflects the nature of oxygen producing plants, photosynthesis, and the power of wind. Staffs are made from trees which can give us oxygen or blow us away.	Female Element This suite represents the element of earth, which reflects the nature of food, property and the physical power of possessions. Disks are made from the earth which can provide us food or smoother us in dirt.

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