The Tree Amid the Garden: the “Minor” Arcana of Tarot

The Tarot system, called upon to chart consciousness’ passage through stages of development, the steps of Initiation, is divided into two separate “maps” describing 1) the “ideal,” perfected state of an already realized system — the Major Arcana, and 2) the system’s development toward that perfection — the Minor Arcana.

We have already discussed how the Major Arcana includes two analogous sephirotic Trees, conventionally corresponding to the “Affirming” and the “Affirmed” states of the system, the Macro- or Psychocosm. It is precisely the “ideal,” “skeletal” structure of the Major Arcana that is most often regarded as the source of the “universal knowledge” embedded in Tarot itself. Nevertheless, the dynamic aspect of the system — the processes taking place in and through it — is also of great importance, both theoretically and practically. If the Major Arcana views the system in an abstract “metaphysical space,” in its fullness and perfection, the Minor Arcana describe cross-sections of the system in the concrete, manifested world, as articulated by the Tetraktis and the system of Primordial Elements. Therefore the system of the Major Arcana is tenfold in structure, while the Minor is fourfold. Thus the Minor Arcana is represented by four sephirotic Trees, one in each “slice” of being — the “element” — Air, Water, Fire, and Earth, plus the aggregate of the “reflections” of all the Primordial Elements within it. Alongside this “horizontal,” element-oriented description of the Minor Arcana, there is also its “vertical” interpretation, which relates the “suits” to the kabbalistic “levels” of reality — namely, the worlds of Emanation, Creation, Realization, and Manifestation. Both interpretations have their uses and can be employed to describe two kinds of movement — “vertical” and “horizontal” — occurring within and around the system. Note that in “horizontal” descriptions the correspondence of the “suits” to the “elements” is ambiguous: while Cups are generally associated with Water, and Sickles with Earth, Wands and Swords are variously assigned to Air and Fire or vice versa. The reason for this ambiguity lies in differing understandings of the Masculine principle itself: some schools and lineages emphasize its expansiveness, while others emphasize its active side. If one holds that the Primary impulse — the Yod of the Tetragrammaton — is the “dividing” activity of primordial homogeneity, an erect phallic activity piercing the depths of the “primordial ovum,” then it is of course logical to ascribe Fire to that principle and to correlate Wands with that element, leaving Air to Swords and to the letter Vav. If, however, one takes Spirit as the primary activity — the Spirit who “breathes where it wills,” “hovers over the waters” — then Yod and Wands correspond to the element Air, and the fiery destruction falls to Swords. In the “vertical” interpretation such ambiguities generally do not arise: Wands are confidently attributed to the Atziluth’s power, Cups to the Divine Will of Briah, Swords to the Struggle of Yetzirah, and Sickles to the Assertion of Assiah. In the same way, the mutual correspondences of the “court” representatives across the suits are established: Kings correspond to Wands, Queens to Cups, Knights to Swords, and Pages to Sickles. In other words, the King is in a sense the Wand of each suit, the Queen its Cup, and similarly the Knight most fully expresses the principle of Swords, while the Page expresses that of Sickles in each of the suits. Clearly, each suit is most fully expressed in its corresponding court card — the Principle of Wands is most essentially expressed by the King of Wands, the Queen of Cups is the essence of that suit, and so on. Note that in newer decks the Page is sometimes replaced by a “Princess” card, which, in the authors’ view, allows a balancing of dualities in the “court” section — producing two “masculine” cards, King and Knight, and two “feminine” ones, Queen and Princess. Nevertheless, the traditional figure of the Page, ungendered, reflects secondary passivity, the receptive field in its own peculiar neutral key, which, in our view, more accurately corresponds to the Tetragrammaton process. Besides the figure (court) cards, which express the essence of a given suit “in itself” and its reflections of other suits, the Minor Arcana also includes the numbered cards, corresponding to sephirotic manifestations in the cross-section of a given principle/this world. At the same time, the “lower” Arcana also correspond to planetary forces — the “secondary causations” — while the three highest correspond to the primary ternary. Thus the Ace expresses Keter, the synthesis of each suit; the Two — the introduction of polarity into it; the Three — neutralization through outward manifestation; the Four — the principle of Power (Jupiter); the Five — Assertion (Mars); the Six — Harmony (the Sun); the Seven — Victory (Mercury); the Eight — Manifestation (Venus); the Nine — Form (the Moon); and the Ten — Inner inertia (Earth). At the Ace stage the tree’s potential manifests; the Two — the possibility of its development; the Three — the appropriateness of that development; the Four — the possibility of its establishment in itself. The Fives — its self-assertion in opposition to others; the Sixes — finding inner balance; the Sevens — the ability to influence outwardly; the Eights — the capacity to receive influences; the Nines — the tree’s fullest manifestation; the Tens — the need for an external environment for its manifestation. In order to traverse the entire Way of Initiation — which the system of the Arcana is intended to facilitate and formalize — the student must first grasp the “static” aspect of the system’s existence: the “Major” Arcana; after mastering that, one may proceed to the study of the system’s dynamics — the “Minor” Arcana. And only by passing through these two doors, by considering the Tree in its “ideal” form, in its projection through the Worlds and its unfolding in the Elements, is it possible to attain that fullness of understanding for which the Great Chariot was created.