As even the most casual observer is likely to note, the twenty-two picture cards of the Tarot Major Arcana possess an imagery of a unique psychological power that is strangely evocative of unexpected intuitions and glimpses of a world beyond the senses. Many a person upon purchasing a deck of Tarot cards has found himself unexplainably drawn to these pictures; and, after allowing their imagery to penetrate his consciousness, has experienced a veritable flooding of his mind and emotions by insights, feelings, and concepts of an unusual and fascinating character. Those who subsequently have availed themselves of one of the now quite numerous popular treatises on the Tarot have then learned that these twenty-two Trump cards have a certain relationship to the mysterious and venerable system of mystical lore known as the Kabbalah, and that the cards derive much of their symbolic meaning and evocative qualities from their position within the grand Kabbalistic design known as the Tree of Life.

The mysteries of the Kabbalah, much more than those of the Tarot, have been held in awe and reverence by large numbers of people over a very long period of time. The authoritative literature dealing with the Kabbalah has, until quite recently, been at once too abstruse, too technical, and too expensive for the ordinary reader; consequently, some students of the occult have tended to shy away from it altogether. In addition to these very practical obstacles to the study of the Kabbalah, there were and are numerous other reasons for the reluctance of many to become involved in its lore. More than any other system of mysticism, the Kabbalah appears to release with extreme speed and power various psychological forces from the unconscious of its students, and this fact has earned it a not entirely undeserved reputation of being somewhat hazardous. Further, considering the undisputable fact that numerous practitioners of magic, many of doubtful intentions and eccentric behavior, have attempted to utilize Kabballistic teachings for their purposes, it is easy to comprehend why many well-intentioned people, fearful of becoming involved with sorcery, have devoted their efforts to other, presumably less tainted, disciplines of mysticism.

During the last three decades of the twentieth century, the Western world experienced a phenomenal interest in all things mystical, magical, and occult. One of the fortunate by-products of this tidal wave has been the diminishing of apprehension on the part of students concerning the so-called dangers of practical occultism and applied mysticism. Perhaps in an era of world wars, hydrogen bombs, the increasingly real hazards of pollution, and all the additional facts bearing witness to the inhumanity of the age of science and reason, it has become easier for intelligent people of all ages to retreat from scientific rationalism and, in the course of this retreat, to be less fearful of magic with its often misunderstood but much publicized horrors. Indeed, the attitude toward magic has undergone a considerable liberalization; the more sensational practitioners are now generally regarded as no more than harmless enthusiasts or, at worst, flamboyant dabblers. While it is not our intention to debate the merits and dangers of the occult arts, there is certainly no reason in these days for shunning the Kabbalah as some sort of an occult plague.

Among people possessing a good measure of Kabbalistic learning, one frequently encounters those who seem rather to relish the abstruseness and so-called esotericism of the relevant literature; they continue to point out that the Kabbalah was and is not for the masses and should be reserved for the select few. In the ranks of these esotericists, we find both pious Jews and non-Jewish Kabbalists, all of whom are in accord when assuming that much prior training of character, intellect, and spirit are necessary before a student can profit from the Kabbalistic system. Whatever the merits of this attitude might have been in the past, their justification is small indeed now. Who would propose in all seriousness at present that before a man (and certainly a woman!) could study the Kabbalah, he ought to be married, forty years old, and have a full stomach? Such injunctions were perhaps suitable to the life-style of a seventeenth-century ghetto, but they are certainly unfitted to the conditions of the dweller in the megalopolis of twenty-first-century America or Europe. Not that the contention of the need for a certain level of readiness in such studies and practices is in itself without foundation! Far from it. Fools and knaves have ever found their ways into the sacred precincts of the mysteries, and many an initiate found himself impelled to drive them out, not unlike Jesus is reported to have done with the moneychangers in the temple.

Upon deeper reflection, one finds little if any reason for the kind of esotericism that engages in a deliberate obscuration and concealment of mystical knowledge. A system of authentic mysticism inevitably possesses its own ready-made defenses against any real intrusion into its mysteries by the unqualified or the malicious. These defenses or safeguards are all grounded in the absolutely basic tendency of every authentic system of the mysteries toward the diminishing of the human ego and the consequent increase of a Higher Self, which is totally impersonal, altruistic, and universally beneficent in nature and in activity. Thus we need not fear that the selfish, the greedy, and those hungering for satisfaction of the myriad desires of the human ego will gain additional power for the attainment of their objectives from the Kabbalah. If perchance they should as much as venture into the outer court of the temple of the mysteries of the Tree of Life, the limitations of their own personalities would compel them to withdraw in haste and disappointment. To the hoary admonition not to cast pearls before swine, we might answer that, given a choice, swine have always preferred a diet of corn to one of pearls! No one the least bit informed concerning the profusion of allegedly spiritual and occult systems could deny that today the choice is indeed great, and thus the metaphysical porcine will have little difficulty in locating the kind of feed appropriate to his tastes.

The Kabbalah is not only for the learned and the pious; it is for all of us. Like most other systems of genuine mysticism, it is like the ocean, wherein a small child can cool his feet in the shallows, while at the same time a deep-sea diver may penetrate to many fathoms in search of sunken treasure. It is no doubt true that in olden days the learned Rabbis, who guarded the Kabbalah as the most precious gem of their faith, insisted that only one proficient in the Torah, or Law, might be found worthy to touch the Kabbalah. It may be useful to realize that the divine law must, of necessity, be universal in character. Devotees of any faith, or of none, may master it and live in accordance with its precepts, thereby acquiring the qualifications of a Kabbalist. Learning of itself seldom leads to wisdom, which is an essential of the inward quest of the mystic. Similarly, conventional religiosity, with its frequent reliance on blind faith and rigid moral codes, cannot be properly regarded as the right preparatory training for the pursuit of mysticism. More often than not, such religious belief and practice becomes an end in itself instead of leading its devotee to a position of deeper insight and superior wisdom, not to speak of mystic union with the Divine Power.

There are other reasons why the Kabbalah should be considered uniquely suited to the needs, not only of the determined seeker after divine illumination, but also of the busy man and woman of the work-a-day world, as also of the occultist, mildly intrigued by true mystical pursuits. Many of the subjects with which metaphysical and occult studies bring us in contact are so far removed from the experiences and interests of everyday life that preoccupation with them leads the aspirant farther and farther away from the practical and legitimate concerns of living. While one feels drawn towards such occult theories by an attraction that increases in geometrical progression with the increase in knowledge, one remains yet conscious of a sense of unreality, or at least impracticality, while dealing with them. When, in so many books of this sort, one reads of the formation of the solar system, of the rounds and chains of planets and galaxies ensouled by Logoi and populated by diverse races of souls, or when one becomes immersed in accounts of mysterious master adepts directing the course of the world from the Himalayas or the Gobi Desert, one cannot but feel that, fascinating though such statements are as abstract studies or exercises in fantasy, they nevertheless associate themselves at best only indirectly with the life we are living at present.

No such objection, however, can be taken to our present subject: the system of the Kabbalah, as practically manifest in the Tarot Major Arcana. This system, especially when understood and practiced as a discipline of inward realization, is of the greatest and most evident usefulness and practicality imaginable. The universal glyph of the Tree of Life is a symbol of such general applicability that every conceivable fact, idea, and activity of life can readily be related to it and thus receive a degree of illumined meaning not ordinarily accessible to human thought. In addition, the Tree of Life, as illustrated by the Tarot Arcana, permits the individual consciousness to partake of a series of spiritual experiences, all so ordered on the basis of a superbly designed plan that they will gradually lead the soul from superficiality to profundity, from confusion to understanding; nay, even from humanity to divinity. It is not our intention here to discuss the justification for combining the two outwardly independent disciplines of the Kabbalah and the Tarot for the purpose of the expansion and deepening of soul awareness by way of meditation: this subject we shall mention in the course of the main text. Nevertheless, some general remarks might be in order:

One of the many explanations for the mysterious word Tarot is that it is taken from Egyptian words Tar, meaning “Path,” and Ro, Ros, and Rog, together meaning “The Royal Path of Life” or “The Royal Road.” Legend tells us that some time after the destruction of the mysteries of antiquity and prior to the onset of the Dark Ages, certain wise men gathered in Fez, in Morocco, and there designed or constructed what might be called a textbook in pictures, wherein they concentrated in symbolic form the occult teachings and mystical experiences that served as the inner content of the mysteries. It is more likely than not that this legend has little if any basis in fact. Nevertheless, it tells an important story. A picture is worth many thousands of words; and if the picture corresponds to the archetypal and primordial images resident within the unconscious of man, the study and contemplation of such a picture can indeed give rise to great transforming experiences within the psyche. This being in fact the case with the Tarot Arcana, it is obvious why, at all times, they have held so many people bound in their spell of wonder and mystery. The Kabbalah, with its great symbolic diagram of the Tree of Life, serves a similar, although more all-encompassing, purpose. Need we be amazed, therefore, that these two disciplines, Tarot and Kabbalah, have been combined to accomplish, or at least advance, the purpose to which they are both dedicated?

The Tarot and Kabbalah serve two main purposes. First, they preserve and transmit an esoteric philosophy, a teaching of a special nature. Second, they both evoke specific conscious and unconscious responses from the psyche of the student who has learned how to observe and meditate upon the symbols involved. It is this second common objective that has led to the combined use of Tarot and Kabbalah when employed for the purpose of meditation.

In the following pages, we are chiefly concerned with what in Kabbalistic terminology is called “path work,” or the travel of the individual consciousness upward on the Tree of Life, thus deepening its own contact with its true roots in divinity, or the world of the psychological archetypes, to use the terminology of C. G. Jung. The paths, twenty-two in number, are symbolized by the twenty-two picture cards of the Major Arcana, which can serve as illustrations or pictorial representations of the spiritual experiences represented by the paths. By meditating on the proper Tarot Arcanum, we thus may invoke into our personality, or bring into our conscious awareness, the experience represented by it, which in turn is analogous to the experience of the particular path on the Tree of Life. Since the purpose of the present manual is to aid the aspirant in his meditations on the cards and in experiencing the deeper realities attendant on such meditations, all descriptions of the Tree of Life, or of the Tarot deck, not directly related to this purpose have been omitted. For this reason, the ten sephiroth are described only briefly, but the paths connecting the sephiroth are treated in greater detail. Many other teachings connected with the Tree of Life, such as the Four Worlds, the Lightning Flash, the Abyss, the Kliphoth, and many others, are either not mentioned at all or referred to only within the context of the meditations on the spiritual experiences of the paths. While these omissions would be inexcusable in any work, no matter how elementary, purporting to deal with either the Tarot or the Kabbalah, it is the conviction of the writer that in a short handbook of Kabbalistic meditation on the Tarot Arcana most of the omitted material would have been confusing to the novice and, at the same time, redundant to the seasoned Kabbalist and Tarot student.

Perhaps among those who in this small book catch their first glimpse of the grandeur of the Kabbalah, there may be a few who will be led to penetrate more deeply into its philosophy, cosmology, psychology, and mysticism, facing its more abstruse problems with the student’s zeal and the neophyte’s ardor. Perchance it may even happen that some already learned in the profound secrets of the Kabbalah and well acquainted with the fascinating world of the Tarot will find some inspiration or stimulation within the pages that follow. Above all, however, one may hope that people in all walks of life and of every age group, religious persuasion, and philosophical orientation, possessing a degree of eagerness wherewith they can approach the fathomless mystery of their own inner being, might be substantially aided by the practice of guided meditation that the writer here presents. Until comparatively recently, occult and spiritual movements, as well as individual students, suffered greatly because of the lack of practical work within their chosen field of interest. Happily a new aeon, the Aquarian Age, is upon us, wherein active occultism, operative magic, and practical mysticism are replacing the textbook version of the mysteries that enthralled nineteenth- and early twentieth-century seekers. Occultism is changing in character, acquiring a quality of openness. Occult means hidden, and all things hidden can become plain and open to they who travel the Royal Road to the palace and temple of the kingly wisdom of the soul. May this handbook aid many while on that pilgrimage!