The Twenty Two Paths

The Tree of Life has ten spheres and twenty two lines joining them, and the tarot tradition puts one Major Arcana card on each line. This page gives you every path, its Hebrew letter, the two spheres it joins and its card. It is the page I wish every reader was handed early, with the whole table in one place.

What a path is

A path joins two spheres. That is all it is, and that is everything.

A sphere is a state. Chesed is generosity, Geburah is discipline, Tiphareth is the balanced heart. A path is the movement between two states, the road you walk to get from one to the other and the experience of walking it. The card on the path is a picture of that experience.

The tradition numbers the paths 11 to 32, carrying on from the ten spheres, so when a book talks about the thirty two paths of wisdom it means the ten spheres and the twenty two lines together.

The Hebrew letters in plain words

The Hebrew alphabet has twenty two letters, and each one is also a number, which is why the tradition could tie them to the twenty two Majors and why Kabbalah numerology works at all.

The letters fall into three families. Three are called the mother letters, Aleph, Mem and Shin, and the tradition ties them to air, water and fire. Seven are called the double letters, because each has two sounds, and the tradition ties them to the seven classical planets. Twelve are called the simple letters and go to the twelve signs of the zodiac. Three, seven and twelve, and that is the whole alphabet accounted for.

You do not need to read Hebrew for any of this. The card beside each letter will do the remembering for you.

The paths from Kether

Three paths leave the Crown.

Path 11, Aleph, runs from Kether to Chokmah and carries The Fool. The first step out of nothing into force, taken without looking. Path 12, Beth, runs from Kether to Binah and carries The Magician, the first step out of nothing into form, taken with every tool laid out. Path 13, Gimel, runs from Kether straight down the middle pillar to Tiphareth and carries The High Priestess. It is the longest road on the Tree and it crosses the abyss.

The paths from Chokmah

Path 14, Daleth, runs across the top of the Tree from Chokmah to Binah and carries The Empress. Force meeting form and making something fertile. Path 15, Heh, runs from Chokmah to Tiphareth and carries The Emperor. Path 16, Vav, runs down the right hand pillar from Chokmah to Chesed and carries The Hierophant, raw drive settling into a tradition that can hold it.

The paths from Binah

Path 17, Zayin, runs from Binah to Tiphareth and carries The Lovers, understanding choosing where to give its heart. Path 18, Cheth, runs down the left hand pillar from Binah to Geburah and carries The Chariot, form taking the reins and driving.

The paths from Chesed

Path 19, Teth, runs across the Tree from Chesed to Geburah and carries Strength. Mercy and Severity joined by the one card that holds a lion gently, which I have always thought was the tradition having a quiet laugh. Path 20, Yod, runs from Chesed to Tiphareth and carries The Hermit, generosity turning inward to find its centre. Path 21, Kaph, runs down the right hand pillar from Chesed to Netzach and carries The Wheel of Fortune, expansion turning into desire and luck.

The paths from Geburah

Path 22, Lamed, runs from Geburah to Tiphareth and carries Justice. The cut made fairly, with the heart in the room. Path 23, Mem, runs down the left hand pillar from Geburah to Hod and carries The Hanged Man, discipline that has to stop and hang still before it can think.

The paths from Tiphareth

Three paths lead down from the heart of the Tree.

Path 24, Nun, runs from Tiphareth to Netzach and carries Death, the heart letting something go so that feeling can move again. Path 25, Samekh, runs straight down the middle pillar from Tiphareth to Yesod and carries Temperance, the heart mixing itself into habit, the long patient blend. Path 26, Ayin, runs from Tiphareth to Hod and carries The Devil, the heart caught in the mind's chains.

The paths from Netzach

Path 27, Peh, runs across the bottom of the Tree from Netzach to Hod and carries The Tower. Path 28, Tzaddi, runs from Netzach to Yesod and carries The Star, desire settling into quiet hope. Path 29, Qoph, runs down from Netzach at the foot of the right hand pillar to Malkuth and carries The Moon, feeling arriving in the body by way of the dark.

The paths from Hod

Path 30, Resh, runs from Hod to Yesod and carries The Sun, the mind lit up and made simple again. Path 31, Shin, runs down from Hod at the foot of the left hand pillar to Malkuth and carries Judgement, the mind's verdict landing in the everyday world as a call.

The path from Yesod

One path remains. Path 32, Tav, runs straight down the middle pillar from Yesod to Malkuth and carries The World. Habit becoming life. The last step, the dance in the wreath, the whole Tree arriving on the ground.

A note on swapped pairs

Not every deck agrees. Older decks swap Strength and Justice, numbering Justice 8 and Strength 11, and one well known system swaps The Star and The Emperor on their paths. I follow the order above, which is the one the Western tarot tradition settled on in the nineteenth century and the one every card page on this site uses, so what you read here will match what you read there.

How to use a path with a card

When a Major turns up in a reading, find its path. Then ask what the card is moving between.

Take The High Priestess, on path 13 from Kether to Tiphareth. She sits on the long straight road down the middle, from the Crown to the heart, and she crosses the abyss to do it. When she appears I read her as something coming down from a place you cannot see into a place you can feel, and the veil behind her is the abyss itself. She is quiet because the road is long.

Take The Tower, on path 27 from Netzach to Hod. That is the path between feeling and thinking, across the bottom of the Tree, and the Tower is what happens when the two collide at speed. The feeling says one thing, the mind has built a story that says another, and the lightning strikes where they meet. Read on the path, the Tower becomes a correction, the moment your heart and your head finally stop lying to each other.

Try it with any Major. Find the two spheres, say what each one is in a single word, and ask how you get from one to the other.

Each card has its own page in The Major Arcana, and the sephirah pages list the paths that touch each sphere, so you can work from either end.

Which card has been turning up for you lately, and which two spheres is it walking between?

If you would like your own chart read, my readings are here.