Samekh and Temperance: The Tarot Overlay

This path is assigned the tarot trump Temperance, and the pairing is fitting: Temperance, the card of the angel blending and balancing, of moderation, tempering and the flowing exchange between vessels, answers to its zodiacal sign Sagittarius, the archer whose arrow this path is often said to represent, and to the letter Samekh, the support and the enclosing round. The Golden Dawn read Temperance as the alchemical mingling that steadies the aspirant on the path toward Tiphareth.

The mapping of letters to trumps descends from Eliphas Levi and the Golden Dawn of 1888, as recorded in Liber 777. The provenance must be kept clear. The path from Tiphareth to Yesod, the letter Samekh, and its attribution to Sagittarius are Jewish in origin, from the Sefer Yetzirah, whereas the correspondence to Temperance is Hermetic Qabalah, the modern Western esoteric adaptation, a magical overlay of 1888 distinct from Jewish Kabbalah.