by Marcus Katz
The Tree of the Dawn
At the portal of the mysteries, we stand in the Outer Courtyard, utterly unknowing of the journey ahead. We do not yet know of our illusionary perception of the world, we know not that what we are will be destroyed, and we have not yet heard the voice in the silence, or seen the Sun at midnight. These vague intimations seem like parables, metaphors, nonsensical or disconnected symbols – we have not even yet taken to believe that they are accurate descriptions of real events that will transpire within our very soul. Indeed, although our soul is constantly communing with the divine, and telling us, ‘it is love and it is true’, we do not yet know it. We are a child of Earth, and the “light shineth in the darkness but the darkness comprehendeth it not.”[173]
Ahead of us stand three paths, and they are marked by the tarot symbols of The Last Judgement, The World and The Moon. As we are in the world (and must become ‘not of it’) we tread this path first, seeking the answers to our questions in the mundane and material, in the world of action and activity. At last, we come to exhaust these enquiries, and realise that this way has no end, no possibility for answers at all. The Work of the Zelator is completed by this constant activity and enquiry no matter its content.
So we return, and try to renew ourselves; we pretend to be one thing after another – we take on roles and characters inside our heads and in The Last Judgement card we are seen to be reborn. We do stuff. Perhaps, too, we try to look deeply inside ourselves – The Moon path on the other side of the Tree, responding to the pillar of Force, by using every prompt from the outside as a question for our inner nature.
This great triad, corresponding in this Tree to the Hebrew letters QShTh, the Rainbow, generates the Veil (of Paroketh) in its inbalance, and The Blasted Tower (‘revelation’) path in its balance. We think we see, but only through a glass, darkly.[174]
We must exhaust the outer and inner enquiries and work before returning to the world – and then we can make progress up that path. It is only in returning to our previous attempts that we can make progress, as nothing is by chance – every moment the door is open.
So the grade of Zelator is one of constant enquiry and work, which appears to be constructing something but is rather destroying it; depicted by The Blasted Tower. We can use the map to recognise what is activity, and what is cyclic repetition (habit), and engage in activities that, whilst based in rote learning or repetition, are aligned to the grade. This is why so much early practice is relatively simple and demands constant discipline – we are usurpring the natural state of the Zelator by sneaking in new constructs into the existing patterns and mistaken processing. These constructs can then be utilised to deliver the next stage and then removed from practice.
The Zelator will complain that they are getting nowhere – their patience will be tested, and they will grow restless and bored. They will become frustrated, and this frustration is the very fuel which powers the engine of change, if it is timed correctly by their initiator. We see much in the alchemical process of calcination that depicts this grade.[175] It is recommended in the OED that students work with the Tree of the Dawn for several years, establishing its patterns in their awareness, so that when later experiences at the Adept grade upturn this model, the Tree of the Sanctuary opens itself up. In re-learning a new system of correspondences at that stage, the initiate maintains some congruency with their experience, without being lost. The maps relate to real (albeit magical or mystical) experience and their utility is not without cause.
The Tree of the Sanctuary
In what we here call the mystical Tree of the Sanctuary, originally developed by A.E. Waite for his Fellowship of the Rosy Cross (FRC), we see an alternate pattern of correspondences. Here the three lower paths are illustrated by The Tower, The World (as per the Tree of the Dawn) and The Star.
In the mystical perspective, our journey is accompanied by the presence of the Shekinah, a term for the presence of God, usually denoted as feminine. Whilst this presence has no form, it is depicted here as the woman – and elsewhere in the Waite-Trinick Tarot images. The World is the feminine expression of the divine, to which is our primary relationship. In a sense, this path is that of the place of paganism in our system. Whilst appearing at the commencement of our journey, it is never relegated, constantly reminding us of our relationship to Nature herself as an exemplar of the divine. It is the relationship that supports the whole of the Tree of the Sanctuary.
The path of The Tower shows that we realise we have built an entirely false construct to this point, as we step from the magical way to the mystical appreciation. The lightning flash destroys our attachments; our three false selves (sense of self, sense of other, sense of relationship) are removed from their pinnacle, and replaced with a new vision.
That vision is depicted by The Star, whose waters bring the divine to Earth. In her light we now tread, using the ‘one star in sight’ as our primary beacon, guide, navigation, and measure. There becomes nothing else in life other than the service of this light.
These are the three images that light the way for the mystical experience, illustrated by this version of the Tree. In subsequent volumes we will explore these paths in detail.
A Map of the Spiritual Mountain in the Minors
When considering the spiritual levels of tarot, the rich tapestry of the Majors can provide all the archetypal fabric we require to describe any profound vista of the soul.[176] Toni Gilbert provides us a wonderful survey of the Majors for healing and spiritual growth in Messages from the Archetypes and briefly presents the Minor cards in two levels, an upper and a more ‘primitive’ enactment of their archetypal energies.[177] Madonna Compton deals exclusively with the Majors in her Archetypes on the Tree of Life: The Tarot as Pathwork.[178]
So what of the Minors? What do they have to tell us about our spiritual path?
From a Hermetic perspective, when arrayed on the Tree of Life, the Minor cards correspond with the four worlds and the 10 sephiroth - four levels of 10 descending (and ascending) energies. They run from the Ace down to the 10, in each number descending from the Wands, through the Cups, Swords and finally to the Pentacles. These are the four worlds of kabbalah, whose names are given here purely for reference:
Wands
Atziuluth
World of Emanation
Cups
Briah
World of Creation
Swords
Yetzirah
World of Formation
Pentacles
Assiah
World of Action
Students of Tarosophy will recognize these four worlds as the four levels of tarot card interpretation: literal (Assiah), symbolic (Yetzirah), extended (Briah), and secret (Atziluth).
We can also give the names of the sephiroth and their numbers which provide a key phrase together with the world (suit) in which that number sits, informing the nature of the card. This was expressly utilised in the tarot of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley.
10. Malkuth – Kingdom
9. Yesod – Foundation
8. Hod – Glory
7. Netzach – Splendor
6. Tiphareth – Beauty
5. Geburah – Strength
4. Chesed – Mercy
3. Binah – Understanding
2. Chockmah – Wisdom
1. Kether – Crown
So this allows us to see, through correspondence, that the 6 of Pentacles is the ‘Beauty of Action’ which gives a far deeper interpretation of that card in a reading. In taking these higher meanings, we can more easily apply them to even the most mundane of situations which are their lower reflection. Another example might be the 3 of Swords, which here is now the ‘Understanding of Formation’, showing how that card depicts the painful realisation that whatever is formed, is separate.
You can now go through the 40 Minors yourself and see how this generates meaning for the cards from these key words.
In this schema we commence with the Ace of Wands at t
he very highest level of divinity, descending all the way down through 40 gates to the 10 of Pentacles, the grossest matter.
And here is the Hermetic mystery enshrined more than ever – that ‘as above, so below’. In kabbalah it is said that ‘Kether is in Malkuth, and Malkuth is in Kether’, and in alchemy, “the heaven is in the earth, but after an earthly manner; and that the earth is in the heaven, but after a heavenly manner.”[179]
So the Ace of Wands is the ‘creative beginning’ of pure spirit and the 10 of Wands is the card of ‘great financial stability’ and final manifestation.[180] The 40 gates of the Minors are arrayed between these poles. Out of interest, in the extremes of this arrangement, when we see the upper world of the Wands in the lowest sephirah, the 10, there is “Ruin of all plans and projects. Complete disruption and failure.”[181] The highest Ace in the lowest world, Pentacles, is better dignified, for in it we see the “lilies of spiritual thought”[182] growing in its garden. Some suits (worlds) support a better dignity to different ranges of number (energy) in the context of this mapping.
In using this map of 40 gates, we can plot a spiritual path up the flanks of Mount Carmel (see The Interior Castle or The Mansions by St. Theresa, and The Mystical Doctrine of St. John of the Cross), commencing our ascent with the 10 of Pentacles and aiming our vision on the Ace of Wands. We will first sketch out some of the significant points of this path by looking at the four 10s as our starting position, and then take a more detailed trip up the entire Tree in the highest world, the Wands. Firstly, we will summarise the entire journey.
10 of Pentacles: It ends, as it began, in a garden. In our everyday experience, we are furtherest, yet closest to the light. As it is said, “The light shineth in the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not.” This card shows our sleeping state – and yet from this we can awaken, it is a full circle. The Gnostics say, “One by one, we are taken out of the world.”
There is also a secret teaching embedded in this card as depicted by Waite and Colman-Smith. The young child looking back out at us is he who grows up to be The Fool. He clutches at the dog that will accompany him on his entire spiritual journey. It is his first (and last) attachment – faith.[183] Whether you have faith in your family, friends, material wealth, or wisdom, it is all the same in the Abyss – nothing. The child takes a white rose from this garden of matter in the 10 of Pentacles and at last gives it to heaven in the final card of the journey, The Fool. As Waite says in describing The Fool, this is a cyclic process: “The sun, which shines behind him, knows whence he came, whither he is going, and how he will return by another path after many days.”[184]
10 of Swords: Our next step is that of realisation of our intellectual attachments, and how these pin our body to the ground of matter. These too will have to be transcended in the Great Work. The card shows us how these inner voices fixate us and provide a mantra of attachment even in our most inner environment. There will be pain removing these inner voices, as many of them have been there for a long time.
10 of Cups: The illusion of happiness in attachment – we see here on closer examination that it is only a stage set; a fiction. Some day that curtain will be drawn up, and nothing will be saved. The Sufis say, “You only truly possess what you would not lose in a shipwreck.” It will take a great force of will to see through this façade.
10 of Wands: Here we see the highest expression of energy in the lowest world. We struggle constantly in a world of duality to meet our own expectations, values and standards. We are always working towards some goal or another, blindly and valiantly. Yet this is not the answer – the 10 must become the 1; those Wands must be pulled together and bound into one true thing, held not by ourselves but by the divine.
Here is the short-cut of initiation and mystical insight; that all that we fight is our false sense of self and all that arises from that mistake. Only we can lay our own burden down and release ourselves. As Da Free John simply says, “Avoiding relationship?”[185]
We will now provide key concepts for the remaining cards in the spiritual ascent journey, demonstrating how they show a progressive development of the soul. Again, we know not if this were intended, nor does it particularly matter – we read the design as it is read. Those who study the initiatory system through kabbalah will recognise the grade system experiences in these descriptions.
9 of Pentacles: The garden of security is now revealed. Do we take off and fly or live in the uncomfortable knowledge that there is simply more than this to our lives?
9 of Swords: The constant shocks of life cannot be blanketed forever – and even if so, they lead to our death. No matter how painful, we must face the truth of our lives.
9 of Cups: Then we begin to see our own smugness and ego games, and in doing so start to be removed from them. A quiet change begins in our awareness as we constantly observe our own emotional state.
9 of Wands: We begin to realise what is valuable to us, how our wounds have made us stronger, and how the world provides these opportunities constantly. We hold fast to an uncomfortable truth.
8 of Pentacles: The Worker is hidden in the Workshop. We begin to conduct inner work and test our enquiries into the universe and ourself, from a higher perspective. We may explore alternative spiritualities – the secret is to work, consistently, patiently, and without pause. This is a card of service, as Jasmine Sim, a tarot reader in Singapore says: “We continue to perfect the art and then we can share it with others.”
8 of Swords: Until ultimately this begins to reveal what we know and what we don’t know. We begin to see that all the traps and distractions were only of our own making – we have been playing a game which has become real, because it has been going on so long.
8 of Cups: So we walk away. Eventually we must act on our changing perspective of the world. The inner light eclipses the outer and we often find in this stage that we make major lifestyle changes, move home, career, relationships – it is always a difficult step.
8 of Wands: And a new energy comes – clean, fresh and rapid. A higher connection starts to move us, we feel enthusiastic about our course, borne aloft as if on the wings of angels. We may not at this stage know where we are going, but we know for sure that we are going.
7 of Pentacles: In Netzach now, we begin to pass into a phase of contemplation. We look at Nature as an exemplar and learn through Her teaching. The spell of the sensuous calls us to unity; a slow alchemy begins to take place in this long waiting game.
7 of Swords: Like a ‘thief in the night’ our old ideas are becoming obsolete. Without any effort, they are taken from us, leaving only what is congruent to our own personal experience. This is the Venusian Netzach undoing of the Mercurian Hod.
7 of Cups: There is an emotional upset at this stage for it feels like everything is possible and everything is permitted. When we are undone, what do we see – everything unravelled. However, as always, the secret is what transmutation is being wrought on our self – the only thing that we cannot see. Here (in the Waite-Smith image) we become a shadow, and there is much at this time to be drawn from that shadow.
7 of Wands: Ultimately, this stage leads to an inner resolution – a stand. A statement that cannot be argued, from within, that enough is enough. We take our place for our role in the universe and fill out the job description. Then we wait.
6 of Pentacles: And wait and wait. A new equilibrium takes centre stage and we begin to balance our own books – our resources, energies; we align to our highest vision. We seek only harmony, a divine balancing act, without knowing against what we are being judged nor what waits for us below or at the end of the rope.
6 of Swords: The only thing we can now do is take ourselves away from the world. It has nothing left to offer us, so we travel – literally or metaphysically – to new horizons. This is often inexplicable and unexplainable to others. It may begin to feel as if what we think we are is actually steering the course – and this is true.
6 of Cups: Through this middle stage,
we are wed to our highest angel. It is like childhood, like widowhood, like a marriage, like death. It is the most significant stage of our spiritual progression and is called ‘the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel’.
6 of Wands: And after a long honeymoon, we make our way back to the city, back to the noise, back to the people and the places. However, we are fundamentally changed – we have been somewhere and make our return anew.
5 of Pentacles: What follows in the spiritual journey – as seen through the tarot and the initiatory system – is somewhat of a jolt. This is explained in my After the Angel: An Account of the Abramelin Working and many other mystical biographies. The 5 of Pentacles shows the banishment, the ejection, rejection, the excommunication of the self that is experienced at this stage following the ecstasy of the Angel. This is a dark night of the soul.
5 of Swords: Everything one thinks one knew is now stripped. Or flayed. “Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won’t let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they’re not punishing you, he said. They’re freeing your soul. So, if you’re frightened of dying and... and you’re holding on, you’ll see devils tearing your life away. But if you’ve made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.”[186]
5 of Cups: In the desolation of the Wastelands, only Chapel Perilous awaits across the bridge. It is time to decide what is real and what is not; to turn one’s back on the fictions of the former self and follow the current of Creation. This is the time of great despair.
5 of Wands: In one’s surrender to the Angel, and following from that event, values and spiritual concerns are utterly re-aligned, reformulated and re-established on a new system – a system not of oneself. The edifice of the self and all its relationships – the grand façade – is destroyed utterly and a new pattern of being arises. This equates to the grade of Adeptus Major in the WEIS.