The twenty-two paths join the ten sephiroth on the Tree of Life, and each is assigned a Hebrew letter, a tarot trump and an astrological attribution. The paths appear in the Sefer Yetzirah's account of the thirty-two ways of wisdom, being the ten sephiroth plus the twenty-two letters; the correspondences to tarot cards are a Western esoteric addition standardised by the Golden Dawn in the nineteenth century. Different systems assign the cards to the paths differently.
Facts
Origins
Whose Classification This IsAssigning a tarot trump to each path is a Western esoteric addition, not a Kabbalistic one. It begins with Eliphas Levi in the 1850s, and the arrangement this atlas records is the Golden Dawn's, which differs from Levi's on twenty-one of the twenty-two paths. 2Tradition: Occult tarot: Lévi, then the Golden Dawn Whose Classification This IsThe thirty-two ways of wisdom - the ten sefirot and the twenty-two letters - are the Sefer Yetzirah's, and the letters on the paths are Jewish. 1Tradition: Jewish Kabbalah Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThe letters on the paths are Jewish; the tarot trumps on them are not. Attaching the two is the work of nineteenth-century French and English occultists and should not be read as a Kabbalistic doctrine. 2 Comparison
Cultural Origin Overview
Size of the Traditional SetTwenty-two paths, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet; with the ten sefirot they make the thirty-two ways of wisdom 1 Structure
StructureTwenty-two paths joining ten sephiroth. With the sephiroth they make the thirty-two ways of wisdom the Sefer Yetzirah counts: ten numbers and twenty-two letters. 1 Learn More
The Twenty-Two Paths
The twenty-two paths join the ten sephiroth on the Tree of Life, and each is assigned a Hebrew letter, a tarot trump and an astrological attribution, a planet, a sign or an element. Together with the ten sephiroth they make up the thirty-two "ways of wisdom" of the Sefer Yetzirah, which counts the ten numbers and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet as the thirty-two paths by which the world was formed.
Where the sephiroth are states, the paths are the connections between them, the routes of ascent and the relationships of the attributes, and in the Western esoteric tradition they became a framework for meditation, "path-working", and the mapping of the tarot.
Letter, trump and star
The Golden Dawn's system of attributions, which assigns each path a Hebrew letter, a tarot trump and an astrological factor, is the most influential arrangement, and it is what makes the Tree a master-key linking Kabbalah, tarot and astrology into one scheme. The exact assignments vary between authorities, notably in the placement of a few letters.
The atlas gives each path its sephiroth, its Hebrew letter, its tarot and astrological attributions, and its meaning. The sephiroth it joins, the Hebrew letters it carries, and the tarot trumps it corresponds to are each treated in their own categories.
All Tree of Life Paths
Filter Results22 entries
Sources
1. Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Formation)
2. A History of the Occult Tarot
Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett, Duckworth, 2002chs. 2 and 5View the Source 3. Wikipedia: Sefirot
WikipediaWikipedia lead section, Tree of Life Paths categoryQuote, Wikipedia lead section, Tree of Life Paths category
Sefirot are the ten emanations or creative attributes of God in Kabbalah.
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.