AUTHOR’S NOTE: In presenting the seventh “Great Hermetic Principle” of Gender (as an active/passive mental polarity rather than a biological duality), The Kybalion describes the masculine principle as the domain of the Will, which is dynamic and energizing, and its feminine counterpart as uncommonly responsive and generative in that it welcomes the motivating impulse of the Will and clothes it in objective form. From a materialistic standpoint, this makes the feminine appear to be the catalyst for creation since it is the immediate source of manifestation, while the masculine is more detached in defining the underlying architecture of reality. But the masculine inseminates while the feminine gestates, so there is no real independence.

When I first encountered the Qabalistic Tree of Life, I recognized that Kether, the “Crown of Creation,” was far removed from the concept of polarity, while Chokmah, the Great Father, was masculine in orientation at the head of the Pillar of Mercy, and Binah, the Great Mother, was feminine, topping the Pillar of Severity. While I was aware that this was a logical extension of the alternating positive and negative emanation of the sephiroth, for a long time I could not grasp how the Divine Feminine could command the operation of masculine energies in the form of Mars and Mercury that lay below it on the pillar (at least the Father had an understudy, Jupiter, in his stable). Understanding that Binah (as Ama, the “Dark Mother”) was appointed the austere masculine energy of Saturn helped in this regard, as did recognizing that gender at this rarefied level of existence is only an abstraction, but it still didn’t feel quite right intuitively.

Shifting my focus to the tarot trumps situated on the paths descending from the three Supernal sephiroth provided some additional clarification. The masculine “Force of Will” embodied in the Magician (Intelligence) and the nascent self-awareness of the androgynous Fool (Originality) impart their influence to the sephiroth of Binah (Understanding ) and Chokmah (Wisdom) respectively, while the feminine “Creative Force” vested in the High Priestess (Imagination) plunges straight down the Middle Pillar and stimulates the Ego of the Sun in the sephira Tiphareth (Beauty/Harmony). So far, so good.

However, dropping below the Supernal Triad into the formative stages of materiality, the archetypal progression becomes murkier and seems to lose its way, which inspired me to create my own assignments for the trump cards on the 22 paths. This also caused me to rethink the above alignment as I did so.

I decided to relocate the Elemental trumps, the Fool (Air), the Hanged Man (Water) and Justice (Fire), to the horizontal paths so they can mediate between the Pillars of Mercy and Severity, thus freeing up the trumps previously dedicated to those paths for other purposes. I placed the seven Planetary trumps on the vertical paths and assigned the twelve Zodiacal trumps to the diagonal paths in descending order from top to bottom. (See the diagram below.)

Presaging my current endeavor, I engineered the insertion of the Magician/Mercury between Kether/Pluto and Tiphareth/Sun on the Middle Pillar to unite the two spheres via the God of Communication; the latter is the mythological “solar messenger,” while Pluto, with its elliptical orbit that treads on the outer fringes of the Solar System, can be considered the “cosmic messenger,” creating a compelling symbolic trinity in which Pluto hands off to Mercury who relays to Sol and vice versa. The Magician seems more comfortable in his “as above, so below” posture here.

I kicked off the Zodiacal trumps with the Emperor (Aries) as the secular arm of patriarchal authority joining the Primum Mobile (Kether) to the “All-Father” (Chokmah), followed by the Hierophant (Taurus) as the Emperor’s clerical accomplice connecting the “First Principles” of Kether to the “Spiritual Mother” (Binah). This completed the “re-imagined” trump-card associations for the paths of the Supernal Triad.

Next I depended feminine creative energies from the Supernal Father and Mother with the High Priestess/Moon linking the Father (Chokmah) to the sphere of paternal Jupiter (Chesed) since the Moon and Jupiter share a strong affinity via their mutual relation to Cancer (sitting diagonally in the Chariot next-door), and the maternal Empress/Venus connecting the Mother (Binah) to the sphere of Mars (Geburah) because Venus and Mars are astrological confidantes, with the diagonal path of the Lovers (which I had previously given to Venus) as their playground, even if Saturn is looking sternly over their shoulder.

In the next vertical pair, this feminine motif is replaced by masculine energies: the Tower/Mars conjoins the sphere of Mars to that of Mercury on the Pillar of Severity, suggesting a militaristic mindset that is all about strategies and tactics, and the Wheel of Fortune/Jupiter affiliates the sphere of Jupiter above with that of Venus below, together representing the Greater and Lesser Benefics of astrology on the Pillar of Mercy, with a double-dose of benevolent Jupiter prominent.

You can pursue the rest of these altered routes down the Tree on your own, but I think you will find that the astrological model hangs together somewhat better than the Golden Dawn’s seminal version. This isn’t a perfect system due to the alternating pattern of the sephiroth coupled with the uneven distribution of polarity among the trumps, but it seems to have more continuity than the mystical basis of the original. I’ve written several earlier essays that address these matters in much greater detail that you can find under Qabalistic Theory and Esoteric Tarot in the sidebar “Categories” menu.