The use of the Tarot fitted in nicely with the poem’s themes of the Fisher King and the Grail myths. A.E. Waite, a Grail obsessive, had worked numerous Arthurian figures and symbols into the highly popular 1910 Waite Smith Tarot deck. Along with the grail iconography Waite added aspects of the Christian Cabala and Hebrew Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Rosicrucianism and ancient Egyptian symbology into the deck [11]. This was done as part of a ambitious synthesis of the various occult traditions, a task undertaken by the grandly self-titled Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a group in which A.E. Waite was a key member. The Waite Smith Tarot was the first deck to have the 22 cards of the major arcana and the 4 suits, each of 14 of the minor arcana cards fully illustrated, a companion guidebook The pictorial key to the Tarot was published alongside the deck with full explanations of the cards.
From the mid-nineteenth century onward the 22 cards of the major arcana had become increasingly associated with the concept of pathways and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet within the Kabbalist ‘tree of life’ and ‘by 1890 Kabbalistic teaching was integral to Tarot design’ [12]. As a body of knowledge the Kabbalah has its origins in Hebrew oral tradition, scriptures and Jewish rabbinical writing. Its early history is unclear, but it developed further between the 7th and 18th centuries. Its formative texts include the Zohar and Sefer Yetzirah. A key point in its development was the writing of Etz Ha-Chaim, “The Tree of Life” by Chaim Vital in the 1590s, based on the teachings of Rabbi Isaac Luria. The concept of the tree of life entered a variety of Western esoteric traditions, being taken up by the Golden Dawn and their Hermetic Qabalah.
Allusions to the components and structures of the tree of life with its alphabetised pathways and the use of kabbalistic allegory has a long tradition in Jewish and European literature.
Consisting of ten interconnected sefira (plural sefirot), the tree of life is arranged vertically into three columns or pillars: the left hand pillar, the pillar of mercy, representing the principles of benevolence; the right hand pillar, the pillar of severity, power and strict justice; while the central pillar, representing harmony and the ideal balance of mercy and justice, uniting and balancing the two sides. Each of the sefirot has an associated vice and virtue and like a snakes and ladders board, the vices and virtues form gateways and trapdoors between the sefirot.
Though each sefira is as important as the rest, the tree is arranged hierarchically into the four overlapping worlds of the Kabbalah, a ladder from the physical to the metaphysical, a ladder that one may both ascend and descend, a ladder made up of the 22 pathways.
The ten sefirot of the tree of life may have had their origins as representations of the metaphysical but they can be used as templates for personality traits, states of mind, or the developmental ages of man and are in some ways similar to Jungian archetypes. These templates are subtler than cartoon stereotypes or the motions of type-cast character actors, coming from a deep tradition influencing literary culture as well folk and pop psychology.
Each of the 22 pathways is associated with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The names of the letters have literal meanings e.g. the word aleph, the name of the Hebrew character ? also has the literal meaning of ‘ox’. Each of the 22 pathways is also associated with one of the 22 Tarot cards of the Major Arcana. In the tarot tradition these have a recognized set of attributes and symbolic and mythic associations and cards will often have links and relationships to other cards in the deck. Though the cards often represent characters they should not be seen solely in those terms, rather they present situations or dilemmas within a plot, situations that the protagonists must overcome, being integral rather than part of a parallel narrative structure. The cards, like panels from a graphic novel are dealt, interpreted and stitched into a storyboard.
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For a detailed reference on each of the Major and Minor Arcana, access our Resources link here.
Grand Temple of Horus Behdety 