Waite on the Star

Parzival

Waite's book on the RWS indicates that the Star is "Binah," the Great Mother. Are Chokmah and Kether also given card-images in this deck? If not, why not? Why not the highest three on the Kabbalah Tree represented?
 

Abrac

Hi Frank. In the Golden Dawn system, the 10 Sephiroth are represented by the minor arcana 1-10, Aces corresponding to Kether and so on down. And the majors correspond to the paths. Maybe the first three Sephiroth should be represented by majors but I don't know of any system that does.

Waite had a particular interest in the Shekinah and saw The Star as the Shekinah above. In his comment on The High Priestess he wrote:

"According to Kabalism, there is a Shekinah both above and below. In the superior world it is called Binah, the Supernal Understanding which reflects to the emanations that are beneath. In the lower world it is Malkuth--that world being, for this purpose, understood as a blessed Kingdom that with which it is made blessed being the Indwelling Glory."

Waite's special interest in the Shekinah seems even more evident when you consider the Ace of Cups. In the GD's Book-T, The Tarot, for the Ace of Cups it says:

"From it rises a fountain of clear and glistening water: and sprays falling on all sides into clear calm water below, in which grow Lotuses and Water-lilies. The great Letter of the Supernal Mother (i.e., the first Heh in YHVH) is traced in the spray of the Fountain.

In the GD system, Y=Wands; H=Cups; V=Swords; H=Pentacles. Book-T calls the first H the "Supernal Mother." This could shed additional light on why Waite singled out the Ace of Cups to put the upside down "M" on. It could stand for Mother (Latin-Mater) or The Great Mystery, of which Waite wrote elsewhere "from which we come and to which we will return."

Waite doesn't have anything to say about any of the other Sephiroth in The Pictorial Key as far as I can tell, just Binah and Malkuth.
 

Abrac

In Tarot of the Bohemians, Papus assigns the first ten trumps to the ten Sephiroth, but this doesn't match Waite, as it assigns The Empress to Binah not The Star.

It's interesting that Crowley also attaches The Star to Binah in his comments to the Ace of Swords:

"From his father, Chokmah, he is informed though the Path of Heh' (i.e., Binah- Abrac), the Great Mother, the Star, our Lady Nuit..."

This could be a little-known teaching from the Golden Dawn.

The GD also appears to assign the Aces to YHVH and through association Chokmah, Binah, Tiphareth, and Malkuth. When you read the description of each Ace in Book-T, mention is made of Yod for Wands, Heh for Cups, and Vau for Swords. No letter is mentioned for Pentacles but the final Heh can be inferred. This is also true of Crowley. If you read through his comments on his Aces, the same pattern emerges. I made an illustration that shows the GD correspondences of YHVH on the Tree of Life. (80KB)

Tree of Life
 

Teheuti

Abrac said:
Waite had a particular interest in the Shekinah and saw The Star as the Shekinah above. In his comment on The High Priestess he wrote:

"According to Kabalism, there is a Shekinah both above and below. In the superior world it is called Binah, the Supernal Understanding which reflects to the emanations that are beneath. In the lower world it is Malkuth--that world being, for this purpose, understood as a blessed Kingdom that with which it is made blessed being the Indwelling Glory."
That's how I understand it.
As noted the two He's in Yod-He-Vau-He are Malkuth (final He) and Binah. Yod is Chochmah and Vau is Tiphareth—when considering them as a family on the Tree.

The High Priestess is Isis Veiled. The Star is Isis Unveiled.
 

brightcrazystar

The Tip of Yod is in Chokmah, just as the word of Ra is in the mouth of Thoth.
The Two Hehs are Binah and Malkuth (and the path of Tau)
The Rest is Vav

The Major Arcanum model the UNION of Sephiroth.

What he should have said, and what he probably meant is:

But she is in reality the Great Mother in the Kabalistic Sephira Binah, which is supernal Understanding, who [is communicating] to the Sephiroth that are below in the measure that they can receive her influx.

The picture in the Rider Waite Smith deck is that Communication. It spans from Binah in the Briatic Creative World, and into the Formative World of Yetzirah. As the entirety of certain secrets in the G.D. were not printed by him, and even less at the time he wrote them, the least of which was their attributions to the tree of life.

Of great consideration in the study of this deck particularly, by Eliphas Levi, first Englished by A.E. Waite:

Star-groups are like points in geomancy or the figures of cartomancy.
They are a pretext for auto-magnetism, an instrument to fix and determine native intuition. Thus, a Kabalist, familiar with mystic hieroglyphics, will perceive signs in the stars which will not be discerned by a simple shepherd, but the shepherd, on his part, will observe combinations that will escape the Kabalist. Country people substitute a rake for the belt and sword of Orion, while a Kabalist recognizes in the same sign – considered as a whole – all the mysteries of Ezekiel, the Ten SEPHIROTH arranged in a triadic manner, a central triangle formed of four stars, then a line of three stars making the JOD, the two figures taken together expressing the mysteries of BERESHITH, and finally, four stars constituting the wheels of MERCAVAH, and completing the divine chariot.

This is important because Geomancy is critical to understanding much of what is never published about this deck and a completely different way it can be used that is as active, as the art of Divination is passive.