Kabbalah and Tarot Read online

  Kabbalah & Tarot:

  A Step-Up Guide

  Andrea Green

  © Andrea Green, 2015.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  About the Author

  Andrea Green is the pen-name of a tarot insider. Her first book, True Tarot Card Meanings went straight to #1 in Tarot books worldwide (Kindle and Print) where it has remained as the top-selling book for Tarot for over a year!

  She has spent many years reading and researching tarot and the esoteric arts and is dedicated to sharing the knowledge that she has accumulated over the years. She believes that there should be no mysteries in tarot and is dedicated to helping every person discover tarot for themselves.

  For this book she has worked with authors Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin, who both have extensive experience in Kabbalah from an academic, research and scholarly background in addition to three decades of practical experience.

  This book is a “step up” to the Magician’s Kabbalah, by Marcus Katz, which is a full book on how the Kabbalah and Tarot illustrate the spiritual and initiatory work of esotericism. The two books have been written to tie in together and this present book is designed to quickly introduce in a clear way all the ideas you will read in Magician’s Kabbalah and other good books on Kabbalah.

  More importantly, this book is designed to give clear and practical application of Kabbalah to everyday life and readings. I hope to show you how useful Kabbalah can be with Tarot and why it is worth your time and study.

  If you would also like to work more on your Tarot, you can get your free Guide to Tarot and Spreads, written by Andrea, available now from:

  www.mytarotcardmeanings.com

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Choosing Your Deck

  The History of Kabbalah & Tarot

  The Tree of Life

  Why is Kabbalah spelt Differently?

  Why are there Different Systems?

  What is Kabbalah?

  The Sephiroth

  Unlocking the Tree with Tarot

  Reading the Minor Cards with Kabbalah

  The TENS [Malkuth]

  The NINES [Yesod]

  The EIGHTS [Hod]

  The SEVENS [Netzach]

  The SIXES [Tiphareth]

  The FIVES [Geburah]

  The FOURS [Chesed]

  The THREES [Binah]

  The TWOS [Chockmah]

  The ACES [Kether]

  Reading the Court Cards with Kabbalah

  Reading With Kabbalah

  Reading Reversed Cards with Kabbalah

  Ten Spreads

  Kabbalistic Key Phrases

  The Four Worlds Method

  Conclusion

  Further Reading in Kabbalah

  Kindle Tarot Books & Series

  Gated Spreads Series

  Tarosophy KickStart Series

  Tarot Life Series

  Also in Print and Kindle

  Websites & Resources

  Introduction

  If you have started to use Tarot cards and begun to ask deeper questions with them, then Kabbalah is a subject that will help you answer these questions; questions about the very meaning of life itself, or how to make changes in life and have the whole universe working alongside you.

  However, it seems that many books make Tarot and Kabbalah a lot more difficult than they need to be for us absolute beginners. They dive straight into the whole history of Kabbalah, its roots in mystical Judaism, and before long you are knee-deep in the Sepher Yetzirah with your head spinning as you try and remember Hebrew characters, Gematria, and that “Chesed is Binah on a lower arc”.

  Mostly though, you wonder what any of this has to do with your actual everyday life.

  In this book, I provide a step-up guide to Kabbalah and Tarot that is intended to teach you decent Kabbalah – and Tarot – without having to dive in too deep. We will learn to paddle in the same pool as even the most ancient and learned of scholars, and with just a little splashing around, we will practice swimming before heading off to the deep end of the waters – if we want.

  Kabbalah is a complex and difficult subject, with deep and profound roots in Judaism, so we must not take it lightly – however, we can at least try to make it accessible and practical to encourage you to study it further.

  Your study in this book should lead to you seeing new things in the everyday world. I really do want to inspire you to study more Kabbalah and Tarot from a solid foundation. As you study and practice the methods in this little book, you will gain a new awareness of how Kabbalah works in your life.

  Further, you will begin to see how having such a structure that once seemed a bit frightening can open the way to lovely new experiences, and cross into the divine realms of understanding and wisdom. You may even come to experience how Kabbalah and Tarot connects us directly to the divine source.

  One thing you will learn for sure, that Kabbalah is buried in much more than you think – even those last two paragraphs are pure Kabbalah … and in the rest of this book, you will learn how to use the subject to create all sorts of things, like we just did:

  Your study in this book should lead to you seeing new things in the everyday world [Malkuth]. I want to inspire you to study more Kabbalah and Tarot, from a solid foundation [Yesod]. As you study [Hod] and practice [Netzach] the methods in this book, you will gain a new awareness [Tiphareth] of how Kabbalah works in your life.

  Further, you will begin to see how having such a structure that once seemed a bit frightening [Geburah] can open the way to lovely new experiences [Chesed], and cross into [Abyss] the divine realms of understanding [Binah] and wisdom [Chockmah]. You may even come to experience how Kabbalah and Tarot connects us directly to the divine source [Kether].

  I like Kabbalah because it helps me to fit things together easily, it is like slotting together the pieces of a jigsaw and bit by bit seeing the bigger picture that was meant to be displayed from the outset.

  It also provides a structure and a way of seeing things – particularly spiritual aspects of life – in the Tarot that might otherwise be less obvious.

  Finally, having Kabbalah with Tarot allows me to use Tarot as a language for not only self-discovery but to key into the divine processes that create the universe and to align myself to those patterns.

  I hope that this step-up book, the first of a series introducing subjects that are often seen as difficult, gives you more methods and understanding to use your Tarot, and encourages you to go further and explore the subject of Kabbalah with more confidence.

  In this book I’ve also given spreads and methods that are absolutely unique to my own work – you’ll not find these anywhere else unless they’ve been copied! I hope you enjoy them and look forward to hearing about your experiences.

  If you are totally new to Tarot, this book can be accompanied with the free spreads and keywords given in my free book at:

  www.mytarotcardmeanings.com

  I would also recommend my first book, True Tarot Card Meanings, as a further reference to each card, if you have not already got it.

  When you have become familiar and confident with the ideas and methods in this book, I have given a reading list for your further studies, starting with the book Magician’s Kabbalah by Marcus Katz, which is the ladder of which this present book is the first rung.

  If you have not already got a tarot deck to hand, let’s start by recommending a deck for yo
u that work best with Kabbalah in mind.

  Choosing Your Deck

  The best starter deck for Kabbalah readings is the Waite-Smith Tarot deck created by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman-Smith. Their deck, which was created and published in 1909, is easily the most recognizable tarot deck and also the best-selling. This is because it is ideal for beginners looking to learn tarot easily.

  There are several specific Kabbalah and Golden Dawn decks available, but I would ask readers to leave this until they study the Magician’s Kabbalah book which explains the various differences between these decks, otherwise it might lead to confusion.

  You can use any standard Tarot deck for this book, although the degree to which the images illustrate the Kabbalah may vary with each deck – so the ‘vanilla’ Waite-Smith is a good starter.

  I have put a card carousel on my site at:

  www.mytarotcardmeanings.com

  where you can go and look at some of the most popular versions of this deck, and other suitable decks. You will see also the Thoth Tarot deck by Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris, which I think should be on every tarot readers list of cards, as a stunning piece of art and based on Kabbalah.

  There is such a wide range of tarot out there, with more decks being created every month, so you will be sure to find the decks that work best for you! You can join the free Facebook group at the Tarot Association Facebook Group to keep up to date with all the latest decks and get advice and recommendations at any time.

  You can also join the Tarosophy Tarot Association and get a ten-hour video training course on Tarot, over 25 free magazines, and much more, including a free tarot deck sent to you every year. On that site you will also find a list of the fifty most recommended tarot decks as voted by thousands of readers.

  All the links to these resources can be found at the back of this book.

  The History of Kabbalah & Tarot

  As I want this to be a very practical book, I’ll save the detailed history for Marcus Katz to cover in Magician’s Kabbalah, but in the meantime here is a brief account just as background. If you are not interested in the ‘mystery of history’, then feel encouraged to skip ahead to the next section. I’ll keep it brief.

  The Tarot as we know it arose in the 15th Century in Italy – around the same time as the Gutenberg Bible became the first book to be printed in movable type. We presently have no record of anything other than dissimilar card games prior to that time. Whilst there are many methods of divination dating back to antiquity, the use of tarot for divination was comparatively recent. It began as a card game, became a family heirloom of choice, and only then finally became associated with fortune-telling and in parallel, western esotericism.

  There is also no historical connection between the tarot and gypsies of any description for much the same reason – there is no ancient history of tarot. The records of the various peoples known as gypsies providing fortune-telling are illustrated with playing cards, not tarot. It was not until the 1950’s that a fictional connection between gypsies, pyramids, owls, skulls and the tarot cards from 1910 (Waite-Smith) became popularized by marketing and advertising which then became fixed into a common contemporary misunderstanding.

  In the specific connection of Tarot and Kabbalah, the first written record referring to both Tarot and Kabbalah came through a piece of writing in Antoine Court de Gébelin’s Le Monde Primitif, which was published in 1781. A contributing author to these volumes of analysis of the ancient world, the Comte de Mellett, about who relatively little is known, wrote that there was a connection between the 22 Major cards of the tarot to the 22 Hebrew letters. It is this idea, published only a little over two hundred years ago, that gave rise to the connection between Kabbalah – the Jewish system of Mysticism – and Tarot cards.

  In Europe, the rise of a wave of esotericism took these ideas and wove them into the expanding awareness of Kabbalah, to create a synthesis of thought that has been called by one leading scholar of traditional Kabbalah, a very “creative misunderstanding”.

  It was actually Eliphas Levi (1810 – 1875) who can be seen first to use the Kabbalah as a universal map of esoteric thought, modeling not only the chapters of his books on the structure of the Hebrew letters – and hence Kabbalah and through correspondence, Tarot – but also much of his writing. There are sections in his works of text and poetry that deliberately and explicitly follow the sequence of Hebrew letters and their correspondences to both Tarot and Kabbalah.

  This usage inspired the founding members of the Golden Dawn in 1888, and in parallel, esotericists such as Aleister Crowley and A. E. Waite, who both immersed themselves in the symbolic synthesis of Tarot and Kabbalah as a map of the initiatory system, and designed it into their decks – and every deck that has modeled itself on their designs.

  So a creative misunderstanding is now hard-wired into many tarot decks whether their designers are aware of Kabbalah or otherwise. In further understanding Kabbalah, we can unlock many of the designs and symbolic intent of the first esoteric tarot decks, particularly with regard to the Initiatory System and as a Universal Map of Creation.

  So let’s now look at the Tree of Life itself and then get to reading some Tarot with Kabbalah, and reading Kabbalah with Tarot!

  The Tree of Life

  Before we look at the Tree of Life, which is the most recognized aspect of Kabbalah, and the main thing we will look at with regard to our Tarot, I just wanted to clear up the two most common questions by students – why is Kabbalah spelt in different ways, and why are there different and confusing systems in different books?

  Why is Kabbalah spelt Differently?

  There are no vowel letters in Hebrew, so the word ‘Kabbalah’ is a transliteration of four Hebrew letters, Qoph, Beth, Lamed and Heh, so can be spelt in English as sounded, variously, ‘Kabbalah’, ‘Qabalah’, ‘Cabbalah’, etc.

  The general usage by Jewish scholars is ‘Kabbalah’, (i.e. Moshe Idel and Gershom Scholem) which is the one I use. In general, although it is not a universal rule, the usage ‘Qabalah’ has often been adopted by occultists and New Age authors (i.e. Dion Fortune, Naomi Ozaniec, Gareth Knight, and R. J. Stewart), and ‘Cabbalah’ by the earlier Christian authors on the subject.

  Why are there Different Systems?

  There are several different ways of placing the Tarot cards on the Tree of Life and making other correspondences. I use in this step-up book the system developed by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a society of magicians who wrote and practiced at the turn of the last century.

  There are other ways of doing this, but I see each way as a different type of map of exactly the same area. The Golden Dawn version gives us a general and all-purpose map that is good for exploring the universe as a student, tarot reader or magician. You can read more about the other maps and how to use them in Magician’s Kabbalah.

  What is Kabbalah?

  The Kabbalah (a Hebrew word meaning "handed down” or “oral tradition”) is the term used to denote a general set of esoteric or mystical teachings originally held within Judaism, but later promulgated to a wider audience in the 12th century onwards through centers of learning such as Spain. It consists of a body of teachings and analysis dealing with the nature of the Universe, aspects of divinity, and the method of creation. From this set of teachings is derived the role of man in the revealed scheme of things.

  The Kabbalah and its teachings passed across into the magical philosophy primarily by transition through medieval Christian thinkers who saw in Kabbalah a model and validation for their own tradition. From the late fifteenth century Jewish converts to Christianity brought Kabbalistic views to the attention of other theologians.

  MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918) translated an essential work of Kabbalah in 1887 which was published as The Kabbalah Unveiled, and alongside already existing translations of the Sepher Yetzirah, this provided the Kabbalistic backbone of the Golden Dawn Society, from which issued many of the more recent occult Kabbalists, such as Dion Fortune (1
891-1946), who summarized the Sephiroth in her Mystical Kabbalah (1935) and Aleister Crowley (1898-1947). The mystic, author and Golden Dawn member, A. E. Waite also produced many works examining the secret tradition of Kabbalah

  The body of teaching has various traditions and groupings of belief, but most hold as their central model a diagram generally composed of ten circles joined by twenty-two lines, entitled the Otz Ch'im or "Tree of Life".

  These circles represent the ten concepts called Sephiroth, a Hebrew word meaning "numerical emanations", and are said to represent every aspect of existence. The lines connecting them are termed "paths" and are taken to represent the nature of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which (unlike English and similar languages) are also concepts and numbers equally. The Sephiroth are also seen as paths, and so the full Tree has thirty-two paths.

  I try and always refer to the Sephiroth using that same word, as I do not like to use the word “spheres” as it is lazy and limits my imagination. It could get me to think of them as actual or imaginary “spheres” when they are far more than that – they are “numerical emanations” of the divine which compose the entire universe, not just ten colored spheres!

  I will present several diagrams and tables below for your reference as we work through this book. You can spend time learning much of this by heart, and if you do so, allow time and practice and do not expect to learn it all overnight.

  ILLUS 1. Tree of Life with Major Arcana

  Illus 2. Tree of Life with Hebrew Letters (Transliterated)

  The Sephiroth

  The ten Sephiroth on the Tree of Life are seen as different emanations of the divine, working together with each other as the engine of all creation. They are said to be ineffable, and therefore unknown to us as human beings, they are ten faces of the divine. We should never try and “path-work” or creatively visualize into a Sephirah, because it tricks us into thinking we can directly perceive their nature, when we cannot.