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The Tree of Life and the numbers
In the Golden Dawn system each number from Ace to Ten sits on one sphere of the Tree of Life. Learn the ten spheres and you can see why the numbered cards look as they do.
In this lesson you will
- Name the ten sephiroth of the Tree of Life and the card number each one holds.
- Explain a numbered card through its sephirah and its suit, in the Golden Dawn system.
- Tell the four worlds apart and link each one to a suit.
You know the arc of the numbers from The numbers, Ace to Ten, as one story: seed, choice, growth, all the way to completion. But why is every Five a struggle, in every suit? The people behind the Waite–Smith deck had an answer, and it is drawn as a tree.
Ten spheres, ten numbers
The Golden Dawn was an English esoteric order founded in 1888, and both Waite and Smith were members. In its system the numbered cards hang on the Tree of Life, a diagram from the Jewish mystical tradition of the Kabbalah as Christian occultists later reworked it. The Tree has ten spheres, called sephiroth (one sephirah), joined by twenty-two paths.
Each number from Ace to Ten sits on one sephirah. The Ace is the crown at the top, the Ten the kingdom at the root, and the numbers in between climb down the Tree step by step. So a card's number is also an address: it tells you where on the Tree that card's force is at work.
Warm up
A quick look back before the new material. Recalling helps you remember.
Warm-up
The Ten of Wands shows a figure bent under a bundle of ten heavy staves, walking toward a town. How does the number arc explain this card?
Warm-up
After the calm of the Fours, every Five shows a scene of strain: youths brandishing staves, spilled cups, swords lying on the ground, two figures in a snowstorm. What does this shared turn suggest when a Five appears?
Look first
Look at these two Pentacles cards side by side before reading on. What changes between the Five and the Six, and what stays the same?
Remember
- In the Golden Dawn system each number from Ace to Ten sits on one sephirah of the Tree of Life.
- In the Golden Dawn system the sephirah explains why a number looks alike across the suits: every Five strains, every Six finds balance.
- The suits are four worlds, from will (Wands) to matter (Pentacles); the Tree is one tradition's lens, not the card's meaning.
Sources: original VeilSoul text · Liber 777 (public domain) · VeilSoul card pages · A. E. Waite, 1911 (public domain)