Attribution of Cards to the Kircher Tree

Pelops

I have been working on a Kircher tree that starts with the premise of the mother letters coming from Kether, and here's what I've come up with:

http://x5.freeshare.us/115fs190483.png

I'd like to confirm that there are no glaring holes here that need addressing. My goal is to come up with a correspondance to the tree that personally works, but which makes also sense and is fairly reasonable.

I took the Filipe correspondences as a starting point (as a side note, I was really surprised how convinced I had become about the Filipe attributions of the letters to the cards (after jmd suggested it simply making sense) after I had placed them. The letterform-design correlation is so convincing at times (lammed, for example), that I was shocked).

My general approach was to take the Gra tree, in which the planets and zodiac were in undisturbed opposition on both pillars and the outer two horizontals (with Mercury down the Middle at Aleph, and Earth down the middle at Tav, sun and moon at two upper diagonals at Shin and Mem), and then to work through the fall where the oppositions in the zodiac move from being direct diagonal oppositions (in the gra tree) to slightly askew oppositions above tipharet and parallel oppositions below Tipharet, with the additional displacement of Saturn and Gemini with The Devil's descent.
The parts of the tree that particularly stand out for me:

-The Moon-sign and Sun-sign opposition out of Kether with Mercury in the center (Energy of Existence contained within the Energies of Life and Death) mirrored at the bottom with The Sun (Leo) and Moon (Cancer) Cards with the Fool in the middle (Actual Existence between the Actual Sun and Moon)
-The journey of the Mage to Hermit to Fool Down the center pillar.
-The general opposition of concepts throughout the entire tree (Sun/Moon; Emperor/Empress; Hierophant/Lovers; Chariot/Justice etc.)
-The downward transition from single persons (priestess, emperor, empress) to groups (hierophant. lovers) to situations and attributes arising in the middle third (chariot, justice, wheel, star (displaced), devil, temperance, strength) to results (hanged man (displaced), tower, sun, moon, fool).
-I feel that the astrological energies adequately match the energies portrayed in the cards.

Does this make enough sense?

-pelops
 

Fulgour

In medias res

Kether
___Binah SHIN Chokhmah
Gevurah ALEPH Chesed_
Tiferet
___Hod MEM Netzach
Yesod
Malkuth​
 

Pelops

Fulgour,

I am familiar with that attribution of letters to the tree, but when I explored correspondence of the cards in that context everything made less sense to me. If you could lend me a little more information on the version you site and why you prefer it, that would be helpful.

-pelops
 

Fulgour

Keep in mind that if you stretch the "Tree" from
Kether to Malkuth it would look like this...

O==O==O==O==O==O==O==O==O==O

And bear in mind that Kabbalah is an abstract
co-system if linked with Tarot...

Essentially Aleph-Mem-Shin form a Triadic Unity
along the lines of...

1 and Zero are the same thing until 2 is introduced,
but with the presence of 2 you automatically get 3.

Rather than a Tree of Life... I prefer a nice Apple ;)
 

Pelops

I agree,

however, I do feel that that triadic unity is presented at the point of emmanation at the crown. The world and death being representatives of that nothingness and everythingness, 1-aleph being the will that breaks them into 2-beth at which point the tree opens into actualities (3 and on) beneath Chokmah and binah.

I understand that veiwing the "tree" in different formats can offer insight, but as far as stretching the "tree" into a line, is there a reason I should consider this format more or less valid for any interpretation I were to make?
 

jmd

I must admit that as I first looked at the version of the glyph, trying to see, without reference to cards or letter, where the planets were placed, that what came to mind were two images from more alchemical tradition: the first one I have long valued (I wrote a paper using it to explain the first grade of SRIA around 15 years ago) included in the 17th century book titled Cabala by Michespacher; and the second the androgenous 'Rebis' also from the 17th century included in Materia Prima by Basilius Valentinus.

In each case what we have is this triplicity of Sun, Mercury, Moon at the top, followed by the other planets along the sides.

Problem is, though it appeared at first that perhaps this was being followed by Pelops in the above description, I quickly discovered it was not, and wondered if the positioning of the planets and zodiacal signs as suggested were perhaps a little too 'messy', even if they made sense in one form of interpretation.

I have uploaded, then, an alternative simply for consideration:
What I have not provided is a way to make further correlations between planet and letter.

Basically, what I seek is either simplicity or ease in a model. Of course, having said that, we are faced, with Tarot, with a sequence that often tends to defy this same simplicity that I espouse (unless, of course, one accepts that the 22 do indeed have a sequence governed by such an ordering sequence as the letter of the Alef-Beit).
 

Pelops

jmd,

Thanks for the suggestion.

I do agree with the importance of simplicity and ease of a model. However, given that the Kircher tree was developed from the Gra tree as a result of the need to explain an existence in an imperfect world, I would expect a model so derived to not be as straighforward and obvious as the Gra Model.

As my starting point I used the Gra model to map out the zodiac, and focused more on oppositions and rulerships than elements, keeping in mind a simplicity and straigtforwardness of design given the following oppositional zodiac:

http://x5.freeshare.us/116fs168223.png

and extrapolating the following gra tree:

http://x5.freeshare.us/116fs170676.png

Now the Kircher tree with the attributions originally posted above exhibits first the fall (which creates daat and is also the overthrowing of Saturn born of Uranus, by Jupiter):

http://x5.freeshare.us/116fs17079.png

And then the reversal in polarity below Tipharet as another consequence of the fall, resulting in the following:

http://x5.freeshare.us/116fs170856.png

So, although I agree with the importance of simplicity in a model, as the Kircher came into existence as an explanation of a complication, I would expect that particular model to be more complex than the simplified core from which it is derived.

Beyond that, at the point where Saturn falls in the original image posted, there are some notable connections: The diagonal where the fall takes place corresponds with the card The Devil; also, Temperance is above The Star, which is notable in that the women on both cards are performing the same function (pouring water), but the woman above appears to be angelic, and the woman below is not (in itself suggesting a fall), which is perhaps even compounded on the opposite side where you have The Tower below The Devil, again suggesting a fall.

I am curious about the placing of Neptune and Uranus in your own suggestion. What is the reasoning for Uranus being at the top and Neptune being below?

-pelops
 

venicebard

Pelops said:
I am familiar with [Fulgour’s] attribution of letters to the tree, but when I explored correspondence of the cards in that context everything made less sense to me.
Putting the three mothers on the horizontal paths like that stems from Sefer Yetzirah’s placing shin on top (‘head’), mem on the bottom (‘belly’), and alef in the middle (trunk bridging these two, which is why the magician’s table in the Cary Sheet is shaped like a bridge).

You will find that blood—to which mem as the element water corresponds—is a much better ally while still in one’s body—VI L’Amoureux—than it tends to be once it has drained therefrom (as in trump XIII). And shin the tooth (a lightning-bolt in Greek, as well as runic) makes more sense as XVI LaMaisonDieu (where it is being ‘crowned’?) than as the world itself (XXI LeMonde).

Seriously, the issue of the paths is an open question in many respects, but that of letter-trump correspondence, as far as I am concerned, no longer is. Bardic correspondences, on which trumps are based—clearly so, meaning without the usual stretching of symbols to their breaking point—give the letters’ numerical order (beginning with zero, LeMat) as: cheyt-alef-heh-zayin-ayin-beyt-mem-peh-samekh-kaf-gimel-tav-dalet-nun-lamedh-reysh-shin-vav-qof-yod-tzaddi-teyt [corresponding to bardic H-A-E-I-O-B-M-P-(F)-K-G-T-D-N-L-R-S-U-Q-II-St-(AA)]. This has the distinct advantage of assigning trump XIII to the N (nun) of negation and newness and D’s (dalet’s) oak of midsummer sacrifice to XII LePendu (The Hanged Man), and so on, with unerring symbolic accuracy, as opposed to mere laudable defensibility.

When considering your allocation of letters to paths, therefore, you might try this order (since it was demonstrably that of tarot’s very design). Also, it might help you to have in hand the original order of simples about the round or zodiac, beginning with aries-the-head: samekh (head-shaped), tzaddi (throat in breathing, in its final form when swallowing), cheyt (shoulders), vav (breast, its old Semitic form), ayin (in old Semitic a circle, symbolizing leo the heart or center), qof (womb—in old Semitic, fruit), teyt (the loins, or one’s legs folded beneath one when meditating), heh (the organ of arousal, being added to Abraham’s name to signify circumcision), zayin (thigh, or the terminal filament of the spine), yod (knee, or mid-spine), lamedh ([ankles, or] spine opposite the shoulders—in square Hebrew, arms swinging while walking seen from above), nun (feet, or back of the neck). Note the last four refer to stations on both the closed zodiac (returning up the spine to the head) and the broken-and-extended one (continuing down the legs to the feet), the former being active only when meditating.

Just thought I’d ‘stir the cauldron’ a bit.
 

Pelops

Venicebard,

Please allow me some time to work through the information. I've been very interested in your bardic angle, and I'm glad you posted.

4 questions:

1) With the hebrew correspondence to the bardic, do you also challenge the hebrew numerical system also, or does the correspondence support it, or are there no numerical values to the bardic alphabet with which it could conflict?

2) With what deck or combination of decks does the symbolic correspondence between bardic and the trumps make itself most evident?

3) Specifically, I consider lammedh and trump XII of the Marseilles deck to have an uncanny resemblence, and lammedh being attributed to trump XIV as you suggest has much less of one. So a third question: how is your case supported in this specific example?

4) Do you have a centralized web page with this information?

While I await a reply, I'll delve into your suggestions and consider them.

Thanks

-pelops
 

jmd

With regards to Uranus and Neptune, I personally would not include them, but did so to be consistent with the model presented.

I therefore took the Michespacher image as a basis, and Uranus coincided more with the Phoenix, and Neptune with the lower positioned King and Queen. As a consequence, however, there also appeared to be a better fit with the surrounding astrological signs.