AUTHOR’S NOTE: After re-reading the Sepher Yetzirah and some of its modern commentary for the first time in several decades, I decided to rework the correspondences for the trump cards on the paths of the Qabalistic Tree of Life to align them with my renewed (some will say “skewed”) awareness.

During a discussion on one of the tarot sites, we were debating the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’s placement of the Major Arcana on the Tree, and all agreed that the Order’s arrangement was largely forced (something I had always felt to be true and now had my opinion seconded). One contributor mentioned the writing of Aryeh Kaplan, noting that there was an established hierarchy for the Hebrew letters and their astrological associations on the paths before the Golden Dawn entered the picture at the end of the 19th Century. Following up on that observation, I looked at both the “Ari” Tree of Isaac Luria and the “Gra” Tree of Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman in relation to the Golden Dawn’s version that was apparently based on the Kircher Tree.

The three “mother” letters (representing the Primal Elements of Air, Water and Fire) were formerly assigned to the three horizontal paths; the classical “planets,” Sun through Saturn, were linked to the seven vertical paths; and the twelve zodiacal signs were distributed among the remaining diagonal paths, for a total of 22.

Regarding the three primary elements, the Sepher Yetzirah describes their creation as Spirit having first been transformed into Air (Aleph), then Air into Water (Mem), and finally Water into Fire (Shin), so I chose to place Aleph (and its modern trump card the Fool) on the topmost horizontal “rung” (retaining some of the essence of the Golden Dawn’s thinking), Mem (and the Hanged Man) on the middle rung; and Shin (and Judgement) on the bottom rung. Although this differs from the historical design, it echoes their position in the numerical sequence of trumps while also keeping them in the same region of the Tree that they occupy in the Golden Dawn model.

The seven planets and their related trump cards fell into place neatly by suspending them from the sephira of the same number: Mercury (and the Magician) descends from Kether, the first emanation; the Moon (and the High Priestess) from Chokmah, the second; Venus (and the Empress) from Binah, the third; Jupiter (and the Wheel of Fortune) from Chesed, the fourth; Mars (and the Tower) from Geburah, the fifth; the Sun (and its eponymous card, the Sun) from Tiphareth, the sixth; and Saturn (and the World) from Yesod, the ninth. (Saturn is an outlier in the pattern but has a strong astrological connection to the Moon of Yesod, so it works here).

That left the zodiacal trump cards to puzzle out, Their exact attribution to the remaining paths is not revealed in the Sepher Yetzirah, so I figured I would keep them in the natural order of the signs from top-to-bottom, beginning with the Emperor (Aries) on the 11th path and ending with the Moon (Pisces) on the 29th path. I also worked them from right-to-left and than back in the other direction as I came down the Tree, creating a pleasing zodiacal and numerical symmetry between the opposite pillars. A couple of them agree with the Golden Dawn’s placement but I wasn’t aiming for that because I was constrained by having to keep the (diagonal) zodiacal trumps separate from the (vertical) planetary trumps.

I wasn’t able to easily fit the names of the signs into the graphic table, so I will list them here. (Note that I retained the Golden Dawn’s naming conventions rather than using the earlier “Continental” version or Aleister Crowley’s later one.)

Emperor (Heh) – Aries
Hierophant (Vav) – Taurus
Lovers (Zayin) – Gemini
Chariot (Cheth) – Cancer
Justice (Lamed) – Libra
Hermit (Yod) – Virgo
Strength (Teth) – Leo
Death (Nun) – Scorpio
Temperance (Samekh) – Sagittarius
Devil (Ayin) – Capricorn
Star (Tzaddi) – Aquarius
Moon (Qoph) – Pisces

I will have to experiment with this before I buy into its radical revisionism, but it seems like a reasonable start.