Figures

Descending the tree of life from central unity, or better, from the first manifestation of metaphysical unity, are Kether (the crown), descending to the peripheral multiplicity of the manifested, and Malkhuth, the materialization of that energy. Thus a closed circuit is created (1 + 9 = 10) which implicitly contains the idea that this energy, once having attained its limits, returns to its original source (10 = 1 + 0 = 1).¹² Perpetually, the energies of the cosmos ascend and descend between sky and earth, from its finest quality to its most gross form. This process is realized in simultaneous fashion, which concretely includes the fact that it is effected in all things, or animate beings, and in distinct degrees or worlds. 

The idea that we should be able to be part of a gigantic, primordial human being, that we are a blood cell of this person (or that our solar system is this cell) is not foreign to the cabala. On the contrary, the latter is denominated Adam Cadmon, and its multiple dismemberment forms the universe, as is also the case with the Egyptian Osiris, the Dionysos Zagreus of the Greeks, and many other cosmogonic myths. That universe of models, numbers, letters, stars, members is only a manifest symbol of the immanifest, and the keys for making the transition from manifestation to immanifestation. 

The descent of the divine emanations concretized in cosmic creation is occurring at this moment, and the fact that the world is such or such a thing, for the modern mentality, or that in accord with our viewpoint we perceive this or that, is completely indifferent to the process of the universal creation, which is ongoing, even visualized from the horizontal viewpoint, and simultaneous, from the vertical projection. 

This laboratory, which is the world, has also been described as a broth, in which various energies cook-the more dense being solidified, and the more subtle being volatilized and seeking a space beyond the structures that have contained them. 

In the tree of life, three energies or principles constantly interact. One is active, the second passive, the third neutral. The active is opposed to the passive and the passive to the active, but they do not exclude each another. Rather, they are mutually complementary. The neutral energy is that point at which the active and the passive cease to be such. It is a latent energy that exists in all things, a genuine factor of equilibrium, and a vertical projection of the axis of the sky upon the horizontal plane of the earth. It is the invisible pillar, or axis, from which as a point of departure all things have been created, and to which all things return. It is a place of peace: struggle and imbalance have come to an end. 

This ongoing struggle and complementarity (yin and yang) to which the process of life, and the human being himself, are subjected is expressed in the cabala not only by the triple division of the model of the cosmic tree, to which we are referring, but also to the theory of the Tsim-Tsum.¹³ 

If the whole world were an exhalation, or a sound, or the emanation of light, it would also have this triple division, produced on four fields, or planes, or different "readings" of one fact or thing, if we may so speak: or, a vision of "parallel" or simultaneous worlds, or different states of a universal being. In that case there are four trees of life, or four different manners of seeing the same tree. One is the model of the cosmic tree visualized at the level of Atsiluth, the world of the primordial emanations of which nothing can be known from the plane of ordinary cognition. The second would be the diagram of the tree in the plane of creation (Beriyah), signed with the number four. The number four is always taken as the number of the first manifestation or first creation.¹⁴ The third is the diagram on the level of the cosmic formations (Yetsirah). These first three would be invisible, and would be included in the fourth, for, if truth be told, this last is but a manifestation of the first three, and corresponds to the cosmic manifestation in its physical, corporeal, or sensory degree. 

In turn, a cosmic model on a level of reading (or a tree visualized on one or another plane) would also include the possibility of three other planes or levels.¹⁵ Indeed, if each thing has nine reflections of itself, each sephirah would include a sephirotic tree within, and so with each sephirah limitlessly. This multiplication is not produced in the plane alone, but is volumetric, and projected in the six directions of space: north, east, south, west, zenith, and nadir, opposing themselves two to two as the faces of a cube, having Tifereth (splendor or beauty) as center or axis, the projection of the vertical in the horizontal, the neutral point or heart of the tree.¹⁶ 

In this same sense, we shall indicate that the model of the tree is in relief, since it admits three readings of itself, which, added to the vulgar or profane, will give us the idea of depth, beyond the plane.¹⁷ That, on the other hand, is what expresses the difference among four colors, and also among four hierarchies. The cosmic model symbolizes "in little" what the original is "in great," whence it is easy to infer that the manifest, the entire universe, has four readings or four hierarchized degrees of itself--as material, solidified existence is mere raiment, or form, or manner, which takes a current of energies as it "concretizes." Whence it can be observed that the Tarot, and its interrelation with the sephirotic, is something quite distinct-and in not so facile a manner-from that vision that frames it in a game, or in a predictive procedure, in the most literal sense applied to these words.¹⁸ With the tree of life of the cabala, the same thing occurs. And these mandalas, which gleam with the lights of the cosmos, completely ignore speculations of minor tone, inasmuch as the latter are steeped in a utilitarian character, where personal problems are always at issue. 

The cabala, the Tarot, the cosmic model of the wheel, are only vehicles of knowledge. And although knowledge is expressed through them (for our realization), they themselves are not the knowledge. They are the bridge,¹⁹the passage, the bark that bears us from one space to another space; but they are never an object of adoration or devotion in the sense that these terms are given today. 

Once our mount has borne us to the terminus of the journey, we take our leave of it, with all gratitude and tenderness, however good a mount it be, since the function of our vehicle has been fulfilled at the finalization of our route. It is not possible to take the relative for absolute, however much it may have been inculcated in us to do so in this world of enormous minutiae, of anecdotes and "historical fact," always "transcendental" for what we call "our life." We take the brilliant, polished surfaces for what things are in themselves. This superficiality prevents us from seeing that the body is the garment of the soul. And that this latter is but the attire of the spirit. 

Coming back to the greater arcana of the Tarot-in its relation with the cabalistic model of the tree-let us indicate that the successive series numbered one through twenty one, with the inclusion of the "wild card" (zero ) can be ordered in the following manner: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, arriving at the completed cycle of the series, descending by the tree of life, from Kether to Malkhuth,²⁰ or, in the cosmic model of the wheel, from the initial virtual point to the multiplicity of the points of the periphery. And returning from the limit of the series, or plane, to the center or original unity. Which would give us, in the case of the greater arcana, the following round-trip series, of descent and ascent, through the tree of life: 

To each arcanum of the Tarot, then, would correspond a sephirah: "the conjurer" (number one) to Kether (number one), and so on to the tenth, an arcanum precisely called the "Wheel of Fortune," identified with Malkhuth, sephirah number ten. In the ascent, the route would now begin from below, in inverse form, and to Malkhuth would correspond, in the same way, card eleven, "the force." Yesod, which on the route of descent will be equivalated with card nine, "the Hermit", would also coincide with the twelve, "the Unsettled," and so on in succession. Two cards would remain outside the tree of life, which would be the zero and the twenty-one,²¹ and would symbolize the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the point of equilibrium and union-and fission-between what is properly called vertical and the plane of its horizontal reflection. This emergence from the cosmos, beyond Kether-in Kether as  

'Ayin, for the Cabala-and reintegration with the world, is symbolized by the arcanum twenty-one,²² and, when all is said and done, is the goal that these Hermetic vehicles render possible, as they describe movement from the viewpoint of immobility.²³ 

In the diagram of the Cabala, each sephirah has one aspect luminous and another dark. One faces Kether, and the other Malkhuth. The entire tree could be visualized in this way, having as its center Tiphereth, the surface of the waters. This would be tantamount to being precisely the opposition (and complementarity) of the flying and the creeping. Just so, each sephirah of the active column must have something of the passivity of that which opposes it, and vice versa, for this to be possible.²⁴ As we know, Far Eastern tradition expresses it by saying that in every energy yin there is a yang, and in every yang a yin. In the Tarot, this is manifested by the "beneficent" or "maleficent" sense a given card can have. It is also manifested by whether the cards come face up or face down with respect to the one consulting the oracle. Medieval alchemy called this process dissolution and coagulation (solve et coagula), the former being expansive or centrifugal (ad extra), and the latter being contractive or centripetal (ad intra). The union or complementation of these opposites-in the center or axis of the wheel, the place where all oppositions are resolved-constitutes the alchemical hermaphroditic, or primordial androgynous. 

On the other hand, as we have already said, the forty lesser arcana are gathered in four packs, equal groups (or colors) numbered from one to ten. In these groups, the first, called clubs, begins with the number one of this suit and continues in series to ten. With the subsequent series, the same thing occurs: they go from one to ten in colors-or suits-which, as we know are clubs, bowls, spades, and coins; and in the French deck:  

trefoils, hearts, pikes, and squares or diamonds. They correspond to the ten sephiroth in the four worlds or planes, and give us the immediate idea of a three-dimensional quadruple diagram. Better, of four superimposed diagrams, emerging from the plane and forming a volumetric whole, a structured box that gives the image of a construction perfectly organized in its totality.²⁵ Likewise, to each denomination corresponds a sephirah, number one corresponding to Kether, number two to Hokhmah, and so on up to number ten, Malkhuth, where the series ends. To each color or suit there corresponds a world or plane of the tree: to clubs Atsiluth, to spades Beriyah, to bowls Yetsirah, and to coins Asiyah. 

Let us take an example. Suppose that we draw from the deck of cards a seven of clubs. By its denomination it will correspond to sephirah number seven, Netsah, and as such will have all of the attributes and energies referred to this cabalistic sephirah. But at the same time, its color or suit tells us that this deck refers to the plane in which this energy acts, in this case the plane or world of Yetsirah. This card then alludes to a concept²⁶ or to an energy denominated Netsah in Yetsirah, perfectly specific and distinct from the other thirty-nine symbols or cards of the whole, or deck of the lesser arcana. 

As has already been said at the beginning of the present considerations, there are four different trees, each one with its ten sephiroth, which, in the cosmic schema of the wheel, spread out, like the arms of a cross, toward the four cardinal points, with Kether the common central point.²⁷ 

This same idea is also represented as a prototypal tree (reflection of an archetype or universal idea), in which life has four readings or distinct colors, visualized in the plane diagram as successive, although they are actually simultaneous. That is, life is illustrated by the prototypal diagram of the tree, divided into four horizontal portions or levels. This quadruple division also refers to the human being, inasmuch as she is a miniature of the cosmos. And just as life has four readings-going from the most superficial, or external, to the deepest, or internal-so also this differentiation obtains in any expression subject to the limits of time and space, as a hierarchy (and thereby a succession), in which the highest would correspond to the origins and the lowest to the present. Actually, what happens is that certain vertical, simultaneous energies are transferred or translated into other, horizontal and successive, energies, and are sensibly manifested at the level of these latter. 

The macrocosmic model of the tree can likewise be equivalated to the microcosmic and human (recall the cabalistic version, in which the cosmos is a gigantic animal), and can be referred to the human being's physical structure. In this case, his head would be composed of the Sephiroth Kether, Hokhmah, and Binah-with the right eye and the left corresponding to these last two respectively, and likewise the hemispheres of the brain in its binary division. The trunk would be composed of Hesed, Din, and Tefireth, with the first two being the right and left arm, and the third the heart and solar plexus to the navel, as well as all of the organs contained in the thoracic cage.²⁸Netsah and Hod would be the right leg and hip and the left leg and hip. They would also be acting in the ventral zone and its internal organs, while the genitals would correspond to Yesod. Finally, Malkhuth, the sole sephirah of the plane of Asiyah, is related to the feet.²⁹ 

Besides this physical microcosmic analogy, the prototypal tree has macrocosmic and astral correspondences. In fact, each sephirah can be connected with a star (or god, for other traditions) in the universe, in a changing succession of energies, the greater part of which are invisible (or "angelic"), inasmuch as the only one to symbolize concretion or earth-procreating the divine receptivity-the manifest physical cosmos, is Malkhuth, the crystallization and solidification engendered by the passive energy, which is capable of receiving the whole vibration of life and materializing it. For our era, these astral corresondences can be drawn up in this manner: Saturn corresponds to Binah, Jupiter to Hesed, Mars to Din, the sun to Tifereth, Venus to Netsah, Mercury to Hod, and the moon to Yesod. This moves us into a close relationship with alchemy, since for alchemy the minerals with which it works are also the energies of the stars that have ripened in the bowels of the earth. 

It is very important to bring out that the model of the tree of life is inverted. Any "normal" tree has roots in the ground and its fruit in the air. The cosmic model of the sephirotic tree has its roots in the sky (Kether), and its fruits are the concretion of life in the earth (Malkhuth, the divine immanence), which makes us think that we, as manifest beings, are inverted vis-à-vis the emanations of the deity.³⁰ Further: this inversion, produced in the properly human plane through the senses, is on the other hand a key in the structure of the model of the universe. This is perfectly clear in the symbol of the star of David, or Solomon's Seal, which, as we know, consists of two equilateral triangles interlaced and opposed, shaping the typical symbol of analogy. At the same time, it must be noticed that the energies of the tree's sephiroth, by interacting and interrelating with one another, are what finally shape the cosmos, bringing it about that all things unfold in a perfect order, and arranging the heavenly and earthly bodies in harmonious movements. This universal equilibrium is actualized through the intermediary of the angelical energies called ophanim (wheels), and its spiral gravitations known as whirlwinds (galgalim). 

Now, the incarnation of these cosmogonic cognitions, referred to other manners of space and time, and their apprehension, that is, the access to other worlds present in our ordinary world³¹-although in concealed form-is a task that can be performed with the model of the cabalistic tree and the Tarot, which have been designed for this purpose, in analogous correspondence with the cosmos. Teaching suggests study and meditation, as well as silence. It demands an internalization of the energies of the tree of life, expressed by the sephiroth, for the determination of certain divine attributes. It demands the application of the task realized with this tree of life to the everyday.³² This diagram is the model of all things, and accordingly, is present now and always. It is a legacy of the past for us, actualized in reliving the energies found to be contained in it, which is tantamount to arousing sleeping symbols that begin mysteriously to be discerned, to echo in one's interior, establishing a kind of "bridge" or axial vehicle, for passing from one space to another space, or from one world to another world. 

And it is by this same central axis, which binds together all of the planes or stages that have a being in themselves, that one will be connected with the supracosmic. By which we understand not only what is "beyond" the sephiroth of "cosmic construction," but also what overspills the model of the tree itself, symbolized by Kether, which in its more elevated acceptation is identical with 'Ayin, the absolute, nothingness.³³ Although this sephirah, in its lower aspect-if one may so speak-in being the first determination, is already conditioned by being.³⁴ 

This emergence from the cosmos is what alchemy proposes, working with the method of the transformations of the physico-symbolical virtues of life in their mineral aspect, in correspondence with the human being and his psyche.³⁵ 

The wizard accomplishes his work in the athanor, or alchemic furnace. This artifact is also a model of the universe, and its body consists of three superimposed horizontal levels, in the first of which the dense "matter" passes into the athanor, and in the last of which it emerges in the form of subtle gases through an upper orifice corresponding to the apex. In the symbolism of construction, the door of the temple or of the home fulfills this same function of means of passage, or of horizontal translation from a profane, or ordinary, space to another, sacred or significative, one.³⁶ Furthermore-as in the athanor-the emergence is through the vertical axis, symbolized in the temple by the altar, or ara, as a projection of the cupola in the plane. In the home, this is manifested by the fireplace or hearth, which is a way to the "outside," to another world or space "beyond" the one manifested by the cosmic, or constructive model. 

Ultimately, this athanor, temple, or hearth is but the symbolization of the human being herself, and a central reflection of the universal axis, by which, through distinct levels or planes, one goes from the most dense to the most subtle, from the most coarsely manifested-by a transmutation, refinement, or developmental process-to the most etheral, as with gases with respect to solidified material. From manifestation to the immanifest. So we have it described in the model of the tree of life, with its division corresponding to the horizontal planes of the athanor, in relation to the previously mentioned worlds of this cabalistic diagram. Again, in the constructive symbolism, in the figure of the pyramid or ziggurat, we note these superimposed planes from the base to the summit. On the other hand-and in conclusion-we must say that these levels or hierarchies are found expressed, in the plane representation of the cosmic model of the wheel, by four concentric circles around the original point, and that they are diverse stages going from movement to immobility or vice versa, depending on how the figure is read. 

It is not surprising, then, that alchemy, the cabala, the Tarot, numerology, astrology, construction, magic, and so on, should be found to be closely related. For indeed they shape cosmology and ontology, as supports of metaphysics, constituting a single science or art, bound in a single knowledge, whose experience, or incarnation, is obtained simultaneously with transmutation. 

In the movement of the wheel are joined central unity and peripheral totality. The immobile, with what circles and passes. The fire that burns not, with the wheel of the sun. And both elements-which in reality form a single, polarized element-are found in the human heart, and generate their images in order that that heart, working with the alternation of its rhythms, anticipating that alternation, adapting to it, realize the work of chemistry in the garden of its soul. The wheel, indeed, is the cognition of this dual principle experienced as synthetic or equally well as multiple, as certain or as illusory. It is the same being that joins these possibilities together.