In our most recent episode, Justin and I had a long, meandering chat about the tarot. While the episode focuses primarily on his considerable experience, I thought it might be fun to share a bit of the Tarot Deck that I recently completed, and share some of the magical bones and innovations that I brought to its creation.
The episode in question: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1aYGWDWUVsI5sd3LHBJYfK?si=nntE3VVnSOSQx1K57Ib1yw
I’ll be the first to admit that my approach here is probably not for most people. The traditional tarot folks will find different meanings and symbols portrayed throughout, and several of the usual features like the names and numbers of the cards are completely absent. It doesn’t really matter to me though. I made this for myself, and if anyone else finds some interest or inspiration in it, I’ll be totally stoked.
The Magic folks might enjoy those features as meditation and magical tools. Indeed the minors are meant to draw out magical correspondences and to serve as gateways to the astral & mental qualities of each sephira.
Each tool has a form in each of the spheres, and I did my best to tease out what is being brought out in the intersection of Element and Sephiroth. It takes on the form of a kind of journey from the creation of the tree of life by the divine laws (The Tzimzum for you hard-core Kabbalists) to the final manifestation of the physical tools that sit on table of a magician. Conversely, they might serve as inspirations for the dedication of specific tools for each sphere or even just for interesting new tools.
These took the longest to make by far, and taught me a lot about my tools, what they really mean to me, and what the minors are really about to me. I left behind the notion of the decans, which opened up whole new meanings, each one based on a simple equation: Sephira + Element = CARD.
The courts were an interesting development for me as well. The characters here are Elementals, intersected by the YHVH four-worlds pattern. The results were something that represented a kind of shift in my art style and introduced me to some new spirits I had never encountered before, along with a few that were amongst the very first I ever evoked. Each court card may serve as a real image of a spirit and so should be treated with respect, and could be used for evocations or whatever other method of contact a creative magician might come up with. I plan on writing more about these, with names and sigils in future, so if anyone is interested in that, it will be coming.
My approach here is not the “standard” Hermetic Quabalah that everyone learns when they start out. I used the GD queen scale for the colors of the spheres. The reason for that has to do with a notion of light & dark, through which all color emerges.
I have some other projects that use this idea since I first received some insights that confirmed, to my mind, the idea that divine nature is light, and it is the substance from which all has been created. In both the Hebrew Kabbalah (Ain Sof Aur) & Hermetic traditions (Consider Hermes’ vision in the Divine Pymander), light is considered the divine substance. Angels are creatures of that light, dispersed throughout creation as the colors emerge from light passing through a prism. This idea of light contained within the sephiroth as color is the fundamental idea to this deck.
Warning: We’re about to deep dive into a bunch of Kabbalah, which can be fun, but also really hard to communicate! Bear with me, Please!
Just as fundamental is the concept of the paths, representing the transition of the light from one Sephirah to the next. Here’s another important departure that I made based on years of testing, study, & experiment. It’s probably this idea, more than anything else that made me create this Tarot.
My journey in Kabbalah has been probably the most intensive aspect of my personal path. I started with Bardon, but also the usual characters of Lon Milo Duquette and of course the HOGD, which looms large over the whole world of Hermetic Qabalah.
My work with Justin informs a lot of my foundational views in this area. Though I study & practice on my own, one of the first things that sealed a break from the mainstream was discovering, by a series of accidents, the older assignment of Hebrew letters to the Major Arcana, 1 = א arrangement. This, coupled with a descending planetary attribution of letters created a harmony between the Hermetic and Hebrew Kabbalah.
This lead me to studying Alchemy, as well as more of the Hebrew sources and ideas around Kabbalah, and what I discovered was a much more fluid, in depth and vibrant interpretation of the traditional hermetic “filing cabinet” approach that dominates the conversation in those circles.
In studying texts like the Sefer Yetzirah, I discovered greater consistency with Bardon Kabbalah, Certain alchemical concepts like the parts of the soul, and through authors like David Chaim Smith, an appreciation for the paradigm shifting idea of Ain Soph as the Ground of all phenomena. I discovered that the tree of life was not a static, circuit diagram of the universe, but a living, evolving symbol used to communicate the interrelated categories of experience with the mysteriously paradoxical, infinite nature of being that is the heart of all mysticism.
Armed with the newfound freedom to interpret the Tree in new ways, I discovered some ideas that seemed baked into the bones of the Kabbalah that were not reflected in the Hermetic tree as I learned it.
First, I realized that the diagram itself had a way of communicating its own structure. Three horizontal paths for the mother letters, seven horizontal for the doubles, and twelve diagonals for the simples or elementals. This arrangement formed a core part of the color symbolism of the cards, and the planetary attributes to the doubles, but we’ll get there eventually.
First, I’ll start with the Mothers: Sefer Yetzirah (SY) speaks over and over again about the relationship of these three letters: there is Shin above, Mem below and Aleph between them. This follows from creation down to the regions of the human body, from Shin in the Head, Aleph in the chest,, and Mem in abdomen and below… this idea is sort of a foundational one to the whole Kabbalah concept. So… that’s what I did. SHIN- ש (the Fool) is between Hokmah & Binah, Aleph א (The Magician) between Hesed and Gevurah, and Mem מ (Death) between Netzach and Hod.
Next, we have the doubles, which SY has some conflicting correspondences depending on which version of the text one is reading. I chose to go with the text itself, which presents the letters in alphabetical order, and the planets in descending order. This was probably the most shocking revelation for me when all the awesomeness of this arrangement is taken together.
The letters here are Beth ב- High Priestess & Saturn , Gimel ג- Empress & Jupiter, Dalet ד- Emperor & Mars, Kaph כ- Strength & the Sun, Peh פ- The Star & Venus, Resh ר- Judgment (or Revelation as I have come to call it) & Mercury, and finally Tau ת- The world and the Moon.
As to where to put them on the Tree? I decided on putting each letter on the vertical path above the sefirot that also corresponds to that planet. The only adjustment needed was to place Beth, the high priestess, in the middle pillar-which shifts Kaph, Strength and Tau, The World , Below their respective sefiroth. This bothered me at first, but the result is startling, both in terms of the colors that resulted, and the fact that it creates a hexagram in the tree itself. I learned a lot developing these, and I tried to incorporate so much symbolism & revelation in these, as a result, I think they’re worthy of some study and reflection.
Finally, the simples, or elementals. They occupy the twelve diagonal paths. I decided to go with the Hebrew path structure: notably removing the two that Hermetic trees tend to place on either side of Malkuth, and allowing them to connect Binah with Hesed (allowing for a path that crosses “the abyss”) as well as Hockmah and Gevurah. I then placed each simple in descending order from top to bottom. The result was three sets of four elements each, when the zodiacal elemental attributes are factored in.
So it looks like this:
When I look at these three sets, I see the Kabbalistic three-fold soul of Neschamah, Ruach & Nephesch that roughly corresponds to Bardon’s Astral, Mental & Akashic bodies/planes.
I see in the first set, the laying out of the two primary forces, the electric and magnetic from the divine unity that is Keter/Yechida. These form the basis of polarity, from which everything else flows. The fool is up here, note the repetitive symbolism of light dark, and the emergence of color.
The next set shows the Ruach or mental body (more of less), centered in the solar sefirot of Tiferet, and the influence of the higher sefiroth upon it. They can also serve as guides as to how to approach the higher spheres, to gain wisdom and insight. This set is the Magician’s home.
The last elemental phase is the division of the Ruach from the Nephesch. Here we see the Ruach dividing the universe by the very polarity set forth above it, dividing itself into conscious and unsconscious. This is symbolized by the falling of the two figures from the tower of Tiferet into the echo chamber of Hod. We see in the devil card the hiding of these two figures from the light of Tiferet, creating what is essentially the Jungian Shadow. The Death Card in this are shows them chopped up and distributed all around. This divides us and the world into day and night, self and other, consciousnessand unconsciousness.(the divine name Tzabaoth, meaning “of hosts” is added to Elohim and YHVH in Netzah & Hod interestingly, implying a sense of multiplicity). Our astral bodies are part of this division, being the liminal awareness between our consciousness and our unconscious selves. It is understood through temperament, intuition reflection. The moon to our Solar mental/ruach solar awareness.
I could go on and on, which is why I guess that Tarot booklets are a thing, hahaha! Thanks for coming on this tarot journey with me. If you really dug all of this, and this speaks to you as truth, and you want more, I do plan on making this available for purchase at some point this year, along with a book that outlines each card. If nothing else, I hope you find something inspiring here, to take your own Tarot Journey!
The Void Places of Spirit 