Tarot is not Kabbalah (and a brief review of The Raziel Tarot)

Many tarot decks show Hebrew letters on the Major Arcana cards. This supposedly indicates a long-standing connection between Tarot and the Jewish mystical traditions of Kabbalah. In fact, however, the tarot cards were created in Renaissance Europe, a Christian culture. It was only their continued development in the European cultural milieu that eventually led to the grafting of a faux Jewish mysticism onto the tarot.

The origins of tarot are distinct from those of Kabbalah. However, from its beginnings, Christian culture has appropriated and altered some aspects of Judaism. For more information about the reasons for Renaissance Europe's interest in Kabbalah, read The Rape of Jewish Mysticism by Christian Theologians by Robert Wang.

By the the mid-19th century,  faux Kabbalah had become a part of Western occultism. Éliphas Lévi posited a link between the Major Arcana cards and paths on the Tree of Life. According to Donald Tyson, it was Golden Dawn founder, William Wynn Westcott, who attributed specific Hebrew letters to each of the Major Arcana cards of the tarot deck.

Earlier occultists had created a list of astrological correspondences to the cards. Relying on those correspondences and his own quirky translation of a 4th century, Jewish text, the Sefer Yetzirah, another Golden Dawn member, MacGregor Mathers determined additional correspondences between those astronomical symbols and the Hebrew letters. For example, earlier tarot occultists had associated The Empress card of the Major Arcana with planet Venus, so in Mathers's "translation" of Sefer Yetzirah, Venus is associated with the letter dalet; so he concluded that The Empress was also connected with the letter dalet.

Jewish Kabbalah is not an intrinsic part of tarot, but today, Jewish tarot writers such as Isabel Radow-Kleigman and Rachel Pollack, are bringing authentic Jewish ideas and Jewish spirituality to the tarot. I appreciate that, and I want to explore the possibilities that connecting the two traditions might offer. So, although I am doubtful that including Hebrew letters on the cards is a meaningful exercise, I am willing to explore the idea.

The first Hebrew letter, alef (א), is often ascribed to The Fool, the first card of the Major Arcana. The last Hebrew letter, tav (ת), is ascribed to The World, the last card of the Major Arcana.

However, for nearly 100 years before Westcott compiled his Hebrew letter correspondences, tarot cards had been printed with numbers on the Major Arcana cards. (French occultist Jean-Baptiste Alliette, aka Etteilla, numbered the Major Arcana cards in his 1789 occult deck.)

To maintain the practice of numbering the cards, The World would be ḳhaf-alef (כא), 21, not tav (ת), which is the number 400. As there is no zero in the Hebrew numbering system, The Fool would be left without a Hebrew letter. However, Wescott was probably unaware of the numerical values of the Hebrew letters.

The correspondences between astrological symbols and the Major Arcana cards does seem reasonable, since astrology was a significant part of the Renaissance culture in which tarot began. However, dragging Hebrew letters into that mix is problematic. It may be a step away from the intentions of earlier tarot designers. It is certainly leagues away from the intentions of the meditation teachers who composed the Sefer Yetzirah.

Although the Sefer Yetzirah was composed during a period of intense syncretism between various Mediterranean cultures, religions, and philosophies, there is no link between that text and the much later Renaissance European culture which produced the tarot.

Furthermore, it seems unlikely that teachers of the meditation techniques presented in the Sefer Yetzirah intended a literal connection between the letters, days, organs, planets, or other items mentioned in the text.

If literal correlation had been intended, each version of the text would link the same planets to the "double letters" (the BeGeD KeFeT letters), but in fact, different texts present different correspondences. For example, the letter dalet (ד) is linked to the Sun in one version of the text, to Mars in another, and to Venus in yet another version of the text.

Rabbi Jill Hammer teaches that the Sefer Yetzirah was intended to offer meditative practices, "not to inform." According to Rabbi Hammer, the focus of the Sefer Yetzirah is the creative power of the Hebrew language, and the goal of its meditative practices is contact with the Source of Creation.

The Sefer Yetzirah is a meditation manual. It does not teach anything about tarot cards, which were created ten centuries after the Sefer Yetzirah was composed.

There is no authentic connection between the Sefer Yetzirah, or other Jewish Kabbalistic traditions, and the tarot. So, if we do wish to place Hebrew letters on the Major Arcana, we might first consider the attributions already given the cards by European occultists.

Four versions of the Sefer Yetzirah, as well as the Christian influenced Golden Dawn, agree as to the association of the simple letters to the constellations, and to the association of the mother letters to the three celestial elements of air, water, and fire. (See chart below.) So, for now, let's accept Westcott's further association of the Hebrew simple letters and mother letters with the tarot cards he attributed to those letters.

However, a difficulty arises connecting the double letters with celestial bodies. There are several different sets of correspondences between the Hebrew double letters and the seven planets. Section 4.8 in the chart shows correspondences in the Gra-Ari Version of the Sefer Yetzirah, in the Short and Long Versions of the Sefer Yetzirah, and in Donald Tyson's work.

Summary of attributions for Mother Letters, Double Letters, and Simple Letters

In the next few paragraphs, I'll show you how correspondences based on different versions of Sefer Yetzirah radically alter the traditional progression of the tarot Majors. Then I'll show you how the amended Golden Dawn more closely maintains the traditional progression of the cards as well as the order of the Hebrew letters.

Gra-Ari Version: If we relied on the correspondences from the Gra-Ari version (influenced by the later Zohar) of the Sefer Yetzirah, the result would be the following series of cards:

1 Priestess (Moon - Bet)
2 Tower (Mars - Gimmel)
3 Wheel (Sun - Dalet)
10 Empress (Venus - Kaf)
16 Magician (Mercury - Peh)
19 World (Saturn - Reish)
21 Sun (Jupiter - Tav)

In 19th Century occult thought, the High Priestess card was connected with the moon. In the Gra-Ari version of the Sefer Yetzirah, the moon is mentioned in connection to the letter bet. Thus, according to Wescott's rationale, the Hebrew letter bet should be associated with the High Priestess card of the tarot deck.

It muddies the waters further to point out that Tav is really the 23rd letter of the Hebrew alphabet, since Šin and Śin are different letters that form different Hebrew root words. In other words, is the Judgment card Šin or Śin, and why aren't there 23 Major Arcana cards? (And what about ghayin, the lost letter, that fell out of use?)

Short and Long Versions: If we used the correspondences of the Short Version or the Long Version of the Sefer Yetzirah, the result order of the first few Major Arcana cards would be as follows:

1 World (Saturn - Bet)
2 Sun (Jupiter - Gimmel)
3 Tower (Mars - Dalet)
10 Wheel (Sun - Kaf)
16 Empress (Venus - Peh)
19 Magician (Mercury - Reish)
21 Priestess (Moon - Tav)

In these versions of the Sefer Yetzirah, Saturn is mentioned in connection to the letter bet. In 19th Century occult thought, Saturn is connected to the World card. Thus, according to Wescott's rationale, the Hebrew letter bet should be associated with the World card of the tarot deck.

However, if we rely on Donald Tyson's amended Golden Dawn attributions, which he carefully considered, we would maintain the order of the double letters and something close to the order of the tarot majors, switching only the traditional positions of The Priestess and The Magician (and, among the simple letters, the positions of The Chariot and Temperance).

1 Priestess (Moon - Bet)
2 Magician (Mercury - Gimmel)
3 Empress (Venus - Dalet)
10 Wheel (Sun - Kaf)
16 Tower (Mars - Peh)
19 Sun (Jupiter - Reish)
21 World (Saturn - Tav)

The Fool as the
Biblical Yosef,
a fool and a visionary.

Any connection between the Hebrew letters and the cards is tenuous, so I see no compelling reason to make any changes to the correspondences presented by Donald Tyson. The appendix of his book, Portable Magic: Tarot is the Only Tool You Need, contains his rationale for the changes he made to the Golden Dawn system.

Since astrology is not part of my practice, I am not at all concerned with the astrological correspondences of the cards. It would be more interesting to consider other associations from Sefer Yetzirah, such the pairs of qualities associated with Double Letters, the months and tribes associated with Simple Letters, the elements associated with the Mother Letters, as well as the meanings of the letters' names.

For example, these are meanings of the Double Letters:

• Bet - house
• Gimmel - camel
• Dalet - door
• Kaf - palm or sole
• Peh - mouth
• Reish - poverty
• Tav - sign

These are pairs of qualities associated with the Double Letters:

• Bet - Wisdom and Folly
• Gimmel - Wealth and Poverty
• Dalet - Seed and Desolation
• Kaf - Life and Death
• Peh - Dominance and Subjugation
• Reish - Peace and War
• Tav - Grace and Ugliness

The Raziel Tarot: If you are interested in obtaining a tarot deck created specifically with Jewish ideas in mind, consider obtaining the majors-only deck, The Raziel Tarot, by tarot greats, Robert Place and Rachel Pollack. (Sefer Raziel is a Jewish Kabbalistic text; some portions of it are of slightly greater antiquity than the Sefer Yetzirah.)

In the Raziel deck, Hebrew letters appear on the following Marjor Arcana cards:

• א appears on The Fool
• מ appears on The Empress (the Golden Dawn placed it on The Hanged Man)
• The mother letters, אמש, appear on The Lovers and on Temperance
• the root צדק appears on Justice
• a portion of the word שָׁלוֹם appears on Strength
• the letters י and ב appear on the pillars Boaz and Yachin of The High Priestess, and the garment worn by her contains numerous letters, including some final forms

The Raziel Tarot shows only two of the mother letters: Alef (א) for air and Mem (מ) for water. Pollack and Place did not chose to include the penultimate letter, Šin/Śin (ש), which is associated with creative fire. I wonder which Major Arcana card could be linked reasonably with the third mother letter ש. What do you think?

The Empress as Miriam the Prophet, whose life
included many events associated with water.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicators and the Court Cards

Tarot court cards, sometimes known as "people cards," can represent situations, current attitudes, attitudes one should develop, or actions to take. They can also point to actual people, revealing a particular aspect of a person's character. 

In this series, I am focusing the court cards as representations of actual people. I want to emphasize that I don't believe in "typecasting." You cannot truly know someone without giving time and attention to get to know them. The MBTI can help us understand some ways we approach life and interact with others and tarot cards can point to certain characteristics or talents. However, we must be truly be present to one another. As my revered spiritual teacher says, "When we look into each other's eyes, let us remember that we are looking into the eyes of God."

To better understand the personalities of the court cards, I turned to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Like the tarot court cards, the MBTI categories do not describe a person entirely, but outline "differing psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions."

I have a fondness for tidy, organized systems that purport to explain things comprehensively. This inclination of many tarot students explains why Kabbalah, astrology, runes, and other systems have been grafted onto tarot, with varying degrees of practical success.

Similarly, I turned to the MBTI, a system in which I'm not fully conversant with and noticed a superficial similarity to the tarot court: there are 16 Myers-Briggs personality types and 16 court cards.

However, the vast difference between the two systems quickly became apparent. Despite this, I persevered and came up with a set of correspondences for testing.

The first difficulty was that tarot court cards have two characteristics (rank and suit), while the Myers-Briggs personality types have four pairs of characteristics. The MBTI pairs of characteristics are:

Attitudes: Extraversion (E) / Introversion (I)
Information-gathering functions: Sensing (S) / iNtuiting (N)
Decision-making functions: Thinking (T) / Feeling (F)
Lifestyles: Judging (J) / Perceiving (P)

(Judging relies mostly on the info gathering function, S or N, and Perceiving relies mostly on the decision making function T or F.)

The permutations of those 4 sets of characteristics results in sixteen psychological types, each designated by four letters.

One organized method of arranging all sixteen types is shown in the image below. The SJs are in the top left quadrant. Moving clockwise around the circle, the NJs are next, then the SPs and the NPs.

(Note: David Kiersey divided the sixteen pairs  differently than Isabel Briggs Myers had. In Kiersey's system, two sets are SJs and SPs, based on the second and fourth letters, and the other two sets are NFs and NTs, based on the second and third letters).

In attempting to assign court cards to the sixteen types, I decided to rely on the information-gathering function and the decision-making function to narrow down the possible suits associated with each type.

Here's how I assigned the tarot suits to the MBTI functions:

Sensing = Pentacles
iNtuiting = Wands
Thinking = Swords
Feeling = Cups

Thus, a type that includes both Sensing and Feeling could be represented by a Pentacle or by a Cup. While a type that includes both Sensing and Thinking could be represented by a Pentacle or a Sword. 

Attitudes (E/I) and Lifestyles (J/P) can correspond to any suit or rank, as shown in the chart below. Dividing the sixteen types into four categories, I assigned one card of each rank to that categoryand ensured that each group includes three of the four suits.

Although I did not understand why Kiersey divided the sixteen types as he did, I decided to keep his system in mind, and made sure that each of his four categories also contain one card of each rank. (As a result, his NF and NT categories contain only two suits each.)

Sensing-Judging Cards: 

ESFJ, ISFJ, ESTJ, ISTJ

E S F J (Caregiver) King of Cups 
I S F J (Nurturer) Queen of Pentacles 
E S T J (Guardian) Knight of Pentacles  
I S T J (Duty-fulfiller) Page of Swords 

Kiersey labelled the SJs melancholic or depressive. 

iNtuitive-Judging Cards:

ENFJ, INFJ, ENTJ, INTJ

E N F J (Giver) Page of Cups  
I N F J (Protector) King of Wands
E N T J (Executive) Knight of Wands  
I N T J (Scientist) Queen of Swords

In occult literature, kings are associated with the element of fire and thus to intuition. In my system of correspondences, only the King of Wands is aligned with an iNtuitive function.

The first two types in this group belong to Keirsey's NT category, which he labelled insensitive. The second two belong to his NF category, which he labelled over-sensitive. Taking his system into consideration affected which cards I assigned to the NJ and the NP cards.

Sensing-Perceiving Cards:

ESFP, ISFP, ESTP, ISTP

E S F P (Performer) Queen of Cups 
I S F P (Artist) King of Pentacles  
E S T P (Doer) Page of Pentacles  
I S T P (Mechanic) Knight of Swords

Occult literature associates Pages with the element of earth (sensing), Knights with the element of air (thinking), and Queens with the element of water (feeling). In my system, only the Page of Pentacles, the Knight of Swords, and the Queen of Cups are aligned with their proper function.

Kiersey labelled the SPs hypomanic, excitable.
 
iNtuitive Perceiver Cards:

ENFP, INFP, ENTP, INTP

E N F P (Inspirer) Knight of Cups
I N F P (Idealist) Queen of Wands 
E N T P (Visionary) Page of Wands  
I N T P (Thinker) King of Swords  

The first two types belong to Keirey's NF category, which he labelled over-sensitive. The second two belong to his NT category, insensitive.

*       *       *       *

This method of analysis, connecting tarot with another system, may not be the most fruitful use of tarot, which is, most importantly, a visual tool for harnessing intuition and exploring experiences. However, this was a fun puzzle. I haven't achieved a reliable, scientific chart or even a set of poetic correspondences to stimulate my imagination, but it was an enjoyable mental exercise.

There were several cards that I hoped would align with particular personality types: Page of Pentacles with the ISFJ type, King of Wands with the Counsellor (INFJ), and a few others. Less than half the time, I got what I wanted.

 Fully exploring these assignments will require more time studying the Myers-Briggs categories with the court cards in mind. I wonder if studying the MBTI lead to new insights into the cards.

EDIT: You can read about my conclusions about using these two systems in tandem at the end of my Page of Wands post.

Esoteric Tarot

I've begun studying the occult aspects of tarot. In anticipation upcoming posts, I will try to explain the tarot attributions I'll be relying on.

The association of Hebrew letters with Tarot's Major Arcana cards was made explicit by members of the Golden Dawn in the 19th century who relied on a Jewish Kabbalistic text, the Sefer Yetzirah.

In the Sefer Yetzirah the letters alef, mem, and shin are associated with celestial air, celestial water, and celestial fire. Seven of the Hebrew letters (the six begedkefet and one guttural) are associated with seven celestial bodies. The remaining letters are associated with twelve regions of the zodiac.

The Golden Dawn applied the zodiac signs (and thus, the single letters), in their natural order, to the Major Arcana cards in their numeric order. They did not do the same with the celestial bodies (and double letters) because the symbolism of the Majors in their traditional numeric order and the symbolism of the celestial bodies (in order of their apparent speed) do not align.

To place the first astrological planet, the Moon, on the first Double letter would result in the planet the Moon being linked with the Magician. The Moon is a feminine planet, whereas the Magician is a strongly masculine trump. Similarly, the second planet... Mercury, would fall on the trump the High Priestess. This also seems incorrect. Mercury is a masculine planet, and is associated with magic, but the High Priestess is a feminine trump and is associated with mystery.

So they put Mercury first and the Moon second. (He also inverted Strength and Justice to make the numeric order of the cards match the order of the zodiac signs.)

Donald Tyson found that this wasn't ideal and changed the sequence of the Major Arcana so that the celestial bodies assigned to them would be in order from fastest to slowest: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. In his system, The High Priestess is the first card after The Fool, The Magician is the second card, Temperance is the seventh card, and the Chariot is the fourteenth.

To my mind, the warlike Archer is a much more appropriate zodiac sign for a trump of war than the Crab, particularly since chariots were used as mobile platforms for archers during war. On the other hand, feminine and nurturing Cancer seems well suited to Temperance. There is a natural yin-yang balance in the glyph of Cancer itself, which resembles the symbolism on the traditional version of the trump Temperance of two vessels linked by a stream of liquid.

In the Golden Dawn system, the Wheel of Fortune is linked to Jupiter and The Sun to the sun. Tyson disagrees with those associations.

If the natural order of the planets is to be preserved, we must assign the astrological Sun to the trump the Wheel. And what could be a more perfect fit? The Sun is the great wheel of the heavens. It has been depicted in this way in the mythology of countless cultures. It is a good deal more appropriate, symbolically, than Jupiter.

When we come to the trump the Sun, which receives the astrological planet the Sun in the Golden Dawn correspondences, we must use another planet since the Sun has been linked to the Wheel of Fortune. The obvious choice is Jupiter, termed in astrology the Greater Fortune and renowned for its beneficence, and Jupiter falls here naturally in the order of planets.

Some critics may object that the most natural planet for the trump the Sun is surely the planet the Sun. Yet, if this is so, why is it that the planet the Moon is never assigned to the trump the Moon? It seems to me that either both Sun and Moon should be linked to the trumps that bear their names, or neither should be so linked. Since the astrological Moon has never been placed on the trump the Moon, I have no reluctance to associate the trump the Sun with the planet Jupiter.

Lacking any background in esoteric studies, I can only say that Tyson's system feels right.

Tyson's re-sequencing of the Majors slightly alters the "Tarot Tableau." The Tableau is an arrangement of the Majors in three rows of seven, with The Fool above. It is purported to illustrate different levels of consciousness. At one level of consciousness, you may be experiencing Temperance, but at a higher level of consciousness, you learn the lessons of The Chariot, and at a still higher level, the lessons of The World.

My meditations on the traditional Tarot Tableau have seldom yielded significant insights. Arranging the Tableau in Tyson's sequence was immediately illuminating. The Priestess, Strength, and The Devil each address the powers of the unconscious. The Magician, Hermit, and The Tower are about our world view.

The attributions in the table above are the ones I will rely on when studying the Major Arcana. Since the concepts connecting the letters and the cards are primarily astrological, I will have to learn a little about astrology at some point. Initially, however, I will focus on the meanings of the Hebrew letters.