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The “Restored” Tree of Life &
The Kingdom Within Tarot Deck
Anyone who has studied Qabalah prior to working with The Kingdom Within Tarot will quickly recognize that the Paths on these Major Arcana cards do not correspond to the traditional Paths as they are generally taught by many metaphysical texts at present.
Almost all contemporary Qabalah and Tarot books are based on the Paths as introduced by a sixteenth century Jesuit philosopher named Athanasius Kircher (although Kircher’s planetary attributions to each Sephirah differ considerably from those that are popularly taught today) and further developed by such famous occultists as S.L. Macgregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley.
However, before Kircher’s Tree of Life became the common model in the West, there were two alternative placements of the Paths by renowned Jewish mystics, one suggested by Rabbi Luria and the second proposed by Rabbi Eliyahu. Even today, Jewish Kabbalists do not utilize Kircher’s model.
In addition, there are two other famous French models whose principle advocates were Papus and Oswald Wirth, as well as an alternate system based upon Jacob’s Ladder which was developed by one faction of the Golden Dawn; some Tarot historians suggest that Arthur Edward Waite had this final system in mind when he and Pamela Colman-Smith created their popular tarot deck.
My purpose in this brief history lesson of the Paths is neither to challenge Kircher’s model, nor to suggest a return to an earlier model; I merely point out that Qabalah is neither a dogmatic religion nor a set of strict laws which must be followed in order to attain enlightenment. Instead, it is a spiritual discipline with room for considerable creativity, and there are many equally viable substitutes to the Paths as they are commonly taught today.
What Makes This Deck Different
The Paths of The Kingdom Within Tarot are distinctive in that they are based upon The Restored Tree of Life as put forth by Aleister Crowley’s star initiate, Charles Stansfield Jones (who wrote under the pen name Frater [meaning “brother” in Latin] Achad [AChD means “unity” or “one” in Hebrew]) from his two ground-breaking manuscripts: Q.B.L. (or The Bride’s Reception) and The Egyptian Revival (or The Ever-Coming Son in The Light of The Tarot.) Both may be found on the Internet for the curious scholar; neither is currently copyrighted material.
After achieving high distinction within Crowley’s organization for his revolutionary epiphanies and insights into the Tree of Life, Achad (whom Crowley dubbed his "spiritual son") found himself asking a rather obvious question: If Qabalah teaches that the serpent of wisdom ascends the tree, how can the Paths begin at the top and descend? He began the radical exploration of reordering the paths so that they began at the bottom rather than the top.
Among other vital discoveries that I will discuss in a few paragraphs, he found that the pictorial symbolism of the Paths gained substantial importance when placed from the bottom to the top of the Tree, and that the Tree itself gained a universal significance as the reordering of the Paths created the imagery of the Caduceus, the Ankh, and the Holy Grail (along with the already recognized Cross of Elements and the Star of David).
Achad eventually proposed his altered Paths, a reordering that in Q.B.L. he called the “Third Order” and suspected to be “the reconstruction of the Original Qabalistic Plan… which may help Humanity to regain the Crown [of Kether] more easily than of yore.” These “new” Paths were received by his contemporaries with great accolades and excitement, except for the contradicting opinion of one very important person: Master Therion (Aleister Crowley) himself.
Although Crowley admitted the “brilliance” of the altered Tree, he was unwilling to embrace it, as its acceptance would demand a complete restructuring of the initiatory steps of his Order. Achad, however, stated in Q.B.L. that, “it suggests that there was an Absolute Reason in the Primitive Universal Tradition, though this became Lost to view as time went on” and in The Egyptian Revival he asserted that, “If this ‘New’ arrangement is correct, it will prove itself to be so in the minds of those who study it in an unbiased manner.”
So What Does Egyptian Mythology Have to do with Qabalah?
According to Frater Achad, when the Sephiroth Malkuth (the four-colored circle at the bottom of the Qabalistic Tree of Life) and Kether (the white circle at the top) are united in the Sephirah Tiphereth (the yellow circle in the middle), then Ra-Hoor-Khuit (the active aspect of the Egyptian god Horus, the tangible projection of Hadit in the physical universe) takes his throne as the “Ever-coming Holy Son” of the Kingdom Within, resurrecting the fallen individual.
Who, exactly, is this “fallen individual”? It is not the physical body, the emotions, nor the mind, for all these cease. Tarot calls it the Fool, the Romans called it a person’s Genius or Juno, Neo-platonists called it the Augoeides, Gnostics called it the Daemon, Christians call it the Spirit, Occultists call it our True Will or Holy Guardian Angel, Scientology calls it the Thetan, Buddhism calls it the Buddha Within or the Watcher, the New Age movement often calls it the True Self.
It is the vital spark, the individuated life force, the static with no form, the center seat of consciousness, will, and perception. It exists apart from the realm of dualities (it is neither good nor evil, neither happy nor sad, neither male nor female).
For most of humanity, it is obscured and buried beneath layers and layers of avidyā, often mistaken for the personality or the ego; sometimes it is even confused with a glorified delusion of our own “true nature” or “higher self”, as though the individual we are today is somehow lacking or sinful and awaits unification with what we truly are to meant to be.
Actually, the True Self is what we truly are right now—both aside from, and including, our body, emotions, mind, culture, personality, experiences, conditioning, aberration, and trauma; for although these layers are not the essence of our True Self, they are its current state. In its restoration we discover our true sovereign state, our Kingdom Within. It is the process of this restoration that Crowley called the “Great Work”.
Using The Kingdom Within Tarot to Assist in Your "Great Work"
Frater Achad’s Restored Tree of Life reveals the blueprint of this vital restoration. It is a model of classification, a sort of enormous filing cabinet that catalogs and provides crucial insight into the various building blocks of existence. The Kingdom Within Tarot provides an image-based system for acquainting oneself with these building blocks.
In order to fully understand the Qabalistic Symbology of each card, it is essential to meditate upon each image of the Major Arcana cards. Their visual imagery has been carefully crafted to guide the spirit to recall through archetypal symbology the higher truths that imperfect words, with the inherent limitation of language, cannot express. (Chapter Seven of the book goes into greater depth about various methods that may assist this intuitive approach.)
In addition to this innate remembering, the following basic background will aid the reader in understanding the final section in the book under each Major Arcana card, entitled "Qabalistic Symbology".
Although students of Qabalah marvel at the genius of the Tree of Life as a basic model of existence, a detailed study of Kircher’s Paths often produces confusion and a lack of any practical application to their lives. For many, The Restored Tree of Life supplies a tangible, applicable alternative reordering of the Paths that, quite simply, makes sense.
With Achad’s new ordering of the Paths, each Major Arcana is united with its logical Sephirah. (For example, The Empress is united with Netzach, the sphere of Venus; The Tower is united with Geburah, the sphere of Mars; and The Magician is united with Hod, the sphere of Mercury.)
Also, the middle pillar is aligned so that the outer planets — the purest expressions of the elements — form a direct line leading from Malkuth to Kether, the Crown. (Malkuth represents Earth, The Fool (Uranus) represents Air, The Hanged Man (Neptune) represents Water, and The Judgment (Pluto) represents Fire.)
In the Qabalistic model of the cosmos, these four elements placed in this exact order create the Tetragrammaton (which literally means “the four letters”)—YHVH, the sacred name of the Hebrew God, often pronounced “Yahweh” or “Jehovah”—for the Hebrew letter Yod represents Fire, He is Water, Vau is Air, and the final Heh is Earth.
Restored for a New Era
The Paths of the Tree of Life have been rearranged for a new era (or, as Frater Achad would claim, they have been restored to the ancient order that was once lost) so that it is no longer a question of “climbing the tree of life” so much as “recognizing how all things have been working together for good so that the Source of All might become manifest in Matter, here on Earth, and the Kingdom… be established.” (Frater Achad, The Egyptian Revival.)
The Restored Tree of Life of The Kingdom Within Tarot are basically my own modernized paraphrase and condensation of the original conceptions and writings of Frater Achad; all credit is due him as originator of these ground-breaking ideas.
Return from the Restored Tree of Life Page to the Home Page.
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