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?
That's how I understand it.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."
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.