Golden Dawn Tree of Life

northsea

After reading various sources, including some threads on Aeclectic, and "the Demise of the Golden Dawn":

http://users.rcn.com/occult/occulus/thedemise_000.html


the Golden Dawn version of the tree of life (aka, Kircher version 2) looks fairly problematic to me, partly because it forgoes the balance of the Continental version (the Magician and High Priestess atop the pillars of mercy and severity, the Emperor and Empress meeting at Knowledge, etc.)

Any opinions? ...and/or facts?
 

bradford

From my perspective it's just silly to find significance in the linear sequence of an inferior 22 letter alphabet, and sillier still to transplant this mindlessly onto the 22 paths of the Tree in a top to bottom, left to right sequence. It shows no understanding whatsoever. I would much prefer to see the alphabet arranged geometrically using the 3+7+12 scales (mother, double, simple letters from the Sefer Yetzirah) and find an arrangement of these on the Tree that showed some balance, symmetry and meaning.
 

jmd

If one is going to use the Sefer Yetzirah as a basis for placing the letters in any order, then perhaps attention should also be paid to the statement therein that the letters are placed in a circle(s) (or sphere(s)).

Each depiction of the Tree upon which so-called 'paths' are included in some manner or other create an intrinsic tension with the literal description of the manner of letter arrangement within the text.

There are certainly wonderful reflections to be made from placing certain connections between the Sefirot in a 3 (horizontal), 7 (vertical), and 12 (diagonal) manner... but in my personal view, this does not take away from ways in which the Kircher version of the Tree may likewise be found interesting.

This is all part of the reason why I personally prefer to suggest that Tarot and Kabbalah are (initially at least) investigated totally independently of each other.
 

MikeTheAltarboy

/me points out that an alphabet cannot be "inferior" or "superior" unless several happen to be arranged vertically in relation to one another, then it's simply a statement of location.
 

bradford

Hi Mike-
This is what I'd call a superior alphabet. It covers the range of human speech instead of just one mid-eastern tribe. Apparently God doesn't know this one yet though. But with a little tuning it actually plots better onto the Tree than the Phoenecian-Hebrew-Greek alphabets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
 

northsea

Disregarding the alphabets for this thread (go ahead and use the international phonetic alphabet if you want), I was hoping there'd be some discussion about what appeals to some people about the Golden Dawn's version of the paths, particularly in relation to its predecessor, the Continental/Levi version (since I'm currently examining those two). I read on another thread that the Hierophant between Wisdom and Kindness was apt since that's the pillar of mercy. But even then, it's seeming unbalanced to me with the High Priestess assigned below Crown. This past week is the first time I've ever looked at the tarot-qabalah correlations, and I'm not sure they matter, but I'm taking a look for the time being...at the historical versions for now.
 

MikeTheAltarboy

northsea,

Sorry for being allowed to get off track. ;-)
I prefer the GD scheme because it makes more sense to me. It seems that *if* one is going to assign hebrew letters to the trumps, they should go in order (aleph=fool, beth = bataleur, etc.), and then a system of assigning those letters to the tree should have some cohesion. The GD system is one, though not the only one. In fact, I kinda prefer the Mothers (A, M, Sh) on the horizontals, the doubles (B,G,D,K,P,R,T) on the verticles, and the singles on the diagonals. But I haven't really tried laying my trumps out in different formations yet. Therefore, I won't say that I think the GD system is "right", (though I might well say others are wrong. ;-) however I find it *plausible*.

As to the article you refered to, "The Demise of the Golden Dawn," I do disagree with him. First, in regards to the planetary associations, he rearanges the planets from their "ancient" order in order to fix the *gender* assignments to the pillars. But he then forgoes the fact that mars is severe and venus is merciful. :) I don't like his implication that Emperor and Empress should cross at da'ath, because that implies that *sex* still matters above the abyss, rather than simply being *one symbol* we use below. (And I prefer the empress and priestess as being two faces of the Woman of the Apocalypse - The face of the divine crossing the abyss.) Even in the GD tree, there *are* balances, though they aren't the sort of balances he's looking for - opposites, primarily gender based. A cursory glance over them again didn't show me any that I felt were *unbalanced*.

I would almost say that it's better to find a system that "works" for you - and then figure out *why* it works, rather than trying to find a "perfect" system - because I don't think there is one. We're mixing card game with hebrew mysticism. The connections can be made - and they can be fruitful - but I don't think they're intrinsic.



In regards to the IPA, I don't understand what you're saying. It's certainly superior to the Hebrew script for purposes of linguistics, but it's over the top and and vastly inferior for writing any one language for normal purposes. Suppose we used it for english (and I presume you'd want things spelled phonetically). We would note that stops are aspirated initially, but not medially - but since there's no phonemic distinction it would be a needless complication. It would also make written comprehension almost impossible between dialects, since where British Recieved Pronunciation has a t, Americans have a flap, and Cockneys have a glottal stop. And how would you map it to the tree? There are over a hundred sounds, ignoring diacritics to modify tone, intonation, phonation, and articulations!
 

northsea

I appreciate your input on the Golden Dawn version, very helpful for my comparisons with the Continental. I think the Demise article tree-of-life chart displays the Continental/Levi version of Kircher's tree so I'm unclear as to what you mean when you say he switched it around. I agree that it's really just a matter of preference (just trying to figure out what I prefer). (I'll leave the alphabet debate to you and Bradford, preferably on another thread.)
 

northsea

jmd said:
There are certainly wonderful reflections to be made from placing certain connections between the Sefirot in a 3 (horizontal), 7 (vertical), and 12 (diagonal) manner... but in my personal view, this does not take away from ways in which the Kircher version of the Tree may likewise be found interesting.

I'll take another look at the tree diagram on your website to help understand the first sentence. I'm interested in the Kircher version because I'm trying to learn more about the two prevalent schools of tarot, Continental and Golden Dawn. My interest has turned from tarot theory to tarot history lately (though ultimately to enhance the theory).
 

jmd

The Tree on my website is not in fact the one I implied. The Tree I implied with reference to the three horizontals (etc) is one commonly given in a number of Jewish Kabbalistic texts (including Kaplan).

The one on my own site (rather incomplete at this stage as various other developments take precedence) is my own version, based partly on a mediaeval representation together with platonic solids.