It may make it more clear to describe the two main systems, the Hebrew and the Pagan, as if they were (and had always been) concrete and separate.

The Hebrew system is straightforward and irreversible; it postulates Father and Mother from whose union issue Son and Daughter. There an end. It is only later philosophical speculation to derive the Father-Mother Dyad from a Unity manifest, and later still to seek the source of that Unity in Nothing. This is a concrete and limited scheme, crude, with its causeless Beginning and its sterile End.

The Pagan system is circular, self-generated, self-nourished, self-renewed. It is a wheel on whose rim are Father-Mother-Son-Daughter; they move about the motionless axis of Zero; they unite at will; they transform one into another; there is neither Beginning nor End to the Orbit; none is higher or lower than another. The Equation "Naught=Many =Two= One= All= Naught" is implicit in every mode of the being of the System.

Difficult as this is, at least one very desirable result has been attained: to explain why the Tarot has four Court cards, not three. It also explains why there are four suits. The four suits are named as follows: "Wands", attributed to Fire; "Cups", to Water; "Swords", to Air; and "Disks" ("Coins", or "Pan tael es"), to Earth. The student will notice this interplay and counterchange of the number 4. It is also important for him to notice that even in the tenfold arrangement, the number 4 takes its part. The Tree of Life can be divided into four planes: the number I corresponds to Fire; numbers 2 and 3, to Water; numbers 4 to 9, to Air; and the number 10 to Earth. This division corresponds to the analysis of Man. The number I is his spiritual essence, without quality or quantity; the numbers 2 and 3 represent his creative and transmissive powers, his virility and his intelligence; the numbers 4 to 9 describe his mental and moral qualities as concentrated in his human personality; the number 6, so to speak, is a concrete elaboration of the number I; and the number 10 corresponds to Earth, which is the physical vehicle of the previous nine numbers. The names of these parts of the soul are: I, Jechidah; 2 and 3, Chiah and Neschamah; 4 to 9, Ruach; and lastly 10; Nephesch.

These four planes correspond once more to the so-called "Four Worlds", to understand the nature of which one should refer, with all due reservations, to the Platonic system. The number I is Atziluth, the Archetypal World; but the number 2, as being the dynamic aspect of the number I, is the Practical attribution. The number 3 is Briah, the Creative World in which the Will of the Father takes shape through the Conception of the Mother, just as the spermatozoon, by fertilizing the ovum, makes possible the production of an image of its parents. The numbers 4 to 9 include Yetzirah, the Formative World, in which an intellectual image, an appreciable form of the idea, is produced; and this mental image becomes real and sensible in the number 10, Assiah, the Material World.

It is by going through all these confusing (and sometimes seemingly contradictory) attributions, with unwearying patience and persistent energy, that one comes at the end to a lucid understanding, to an understanding which is infinitely clearer than any intellectual interpretation could possibly be. This is a fundamental exercise in the way to initiation. If one were a shallow rationalist, it would be quite easy to pick holes in all these attributions and semi-philosophical hypotheses, or nearhypotheses; but it is also quite simple to prove by mathematics that it is impossible to hit a golf ball.

Hitherto, the main theme of this essay has been the Tree of Life, in its essence the Sephiroth. It is now proper to consider the relations of the Sephiroth with each other. (See diagram, right)

It will be noticed that twenty-two lines are employed to complete the structure of the Tree of Life. It will be explained in due course how it is that these correspond to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It will be remarked that in some respects the way in which these are joined up appears arbitrary. Notably, there is an equilateral triangle, which one would think would be a natural basis for the Operations of Philosophy, consisting of the numbers 1,4 and 5. But there are no lines joining 1 and 4, or 1 and 5. This is not an accident. Nowhere in the figure is there an erect equilateral triangle, although there are three equilateral triangles with the apex downwards. This is because of the original formula "Father, Mother, Son", which is three times repeated in a descending scale of simplicity and spirituality. The number 1 is above these triangles, because it is an integration of Zero and depends from the triple veil of the Negative.

Now the Sephiroth, which are emanations of the number 1, as already shown, are things-in-themselves, in almost the Kantian sense. The lines joining them are Forces of Nature, of a much less complete type; they are less abstruse, less abstract.

THE TWENTY-TWO KEYS, ATU, OR TRUMPS OF THE TAROT

Here now is an excellent example of the all-pervading doctrine of Equilibrium.