Why is High Priestess Moon? - Qabbalah Basics and French School

28 Mar, 2026

An Introduction to the Hebrew Letter Associations

That concludes our brief look at all the writers in the period we are interested in. There are other writers with their own decks, but they are not as influential. So let’s not add more complications to this list, even if their own takes on astrological correspondences baffle me even more.

And just like we have all this correspondence building up into a nice pile. Now, what document does the hard work of connecting these two layers - astrology and Hebrew lettering?

Well, it’s called Sefer Yetzirah. One of the oldest texts we have belongs to the school of Jewish mysticism. Dating is inconsistent but scholarly agreement lies somewhere between 3rd - 10th century AD. Christian thinkers encountered it during the Renaissance and absorbed it into Christian Cabalah and magic grimoires. This would later become Hermetic, or Occult Qaballah. Westcott, Eliphas and Papus call Sefer Yetzirah explicitly in their works.

Sefer Yetzirah is a rather short Hebrew text, deeply poetic. The main focus is on the creation of letters by God, and how he used them to further create the world. 3 letters are mother letters, because they represent the core elements of fire, air and water used to fashion all others, 7 are dual because of the possibility of two pronunciations, and 12 are simple letters. Mother letters are usually assigned elements, as we said, dual letters planets and simple letters the zodiac signs. It’s a mystical document that to Christian mind can evoke the phrase “In the beginning was a word”, which was one of the reasons Christians jumped on it like “Holy moly, we can take this!”

It also contains an account of the so-called Sefirot (Emanations is one translation) - the actual matrix through which God interacts with the world. There are ten of them and If you arrange the 10 Sefirot into three columns, and put paths between them, you get the now very famous Tree of Life imagery. Below is such an image with paths marked as well. (Source: Oedipi Aegyptiaci by Athanasius Kircher) (hey that’s also the guy from the Isiac Table huh. weird)

The ten Sefirot are below:

1. Keter, the Divine Crown

2. Hokhmah, Wisdom

3. Binah, Understanding

4. Hesed, Mercy

5. Din, Justice

6. Tif'eret, Beauty

7. Nezah, Eternity

8. Hod, Glory

9. Yesod, Foundation

10. Shekhinah, God's Presence in the World

(Source: Jewish Virtual Library Site) (Mind you, this is just one interpretation and there are more traditions)

Some of them are transliterated differently in the Anglosphere because they were thrust into public knowledge through esoteric, rather than Jewish sources. The descriptive word for their essence is also translated differently, on occasion.

1. Kether, the Crown.

2. Chokmah, Wisdom

3. Binah, Understanding

4. Chesed, Mercy or Love or Gedulah, Greatness or Magnificence

5. Geburah, strength or fortitude; or DIN, Deen, Justice

6. Tiphareth, Beauty or Mildness

7. Netzach, or Firmness and Victory

8. Hod, Splendour

9. Yesod, the Foundation or Basis

10. Malkuth, the Kingdom

(Source: Hermetic Golden Dawn Site)

A lot of material here became a cornerstone of Western esoteric thought. This manuscript has issues, however, which is to say it’s not singular but plural. Manuscripts. There are many versions, some differing significantly and then elaborated on in many ways through specific commentaries. The association between letters and astrology isn’t always clear, for example! Even the shape of the Tree of Life or the idea of paths marked by the letters is explored differently by different people! (Mind you, many of these ideas did exist in commentaries, or in different forms over many traditions and writers.)

Tetragrammaton is also worth mentioning here - YHWH was a recurring magical element in esoteric works. A big part of Kabbalah is working with and analysing letters, working with their number correspondences, finding hidden meanings in text through these layers. Knowing the literal name of God, and speaking it correctly, was understood as a source of magical power. Trying to pronounce it outside of its sacred context is considered taboo in Jewish faith - one can argue that esotericists were wildly misunderstanding and exploiting something they didn’t understand. Explanation of the origin of this practice and its likely significance can be found online on the Jewish Encyclopedia website. YHWH is just one of many names associated with God and a lot of ink was spilled over the many Divine names - they too were seen as their own “spells” by magicians. Deep analysis of Tetragrammaton’s constituent letters - yod, heh, vau, second heh - appear in both Jewish sources and derivative practices.

And here it’s important to clarify my view on the matter - Christians were absolutely engaged in cultural appropriation from a culture and people they oppressed heavily. Hell the tree image above, I used because it served as a framework for Golden Dawn, but it is many stages removed from Jewish conceptions. Esoteric Qaballah is one more link in the chain of telephone games. Judaism is still practised today and study of Kabbalah is a restricted, observant Jewish practice. Some Jewish people heavily protest this appropriation - others are fine with sharing and discussing material.

I am not Jewish, nor am I an expert. I am someone who is trying to see what these esotericists are thinking. As such I apologise for the simplistic explanation focused on explaining esoteric Qabbalah.

For my comparisons with known versions of Sefer Yetzirah I’ve consulted a book called Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation in Theory and Practice by Aryeh Kaplan. It’s an incredibly fine work of scholarship. It claims:

If all the variants found in manuscripts are counted, there are literally dozens of different variants in the text of Sefer Yetzirah. No other Judaic text exists in so many versions. Some of these might have come from different schools, who, because these teachings were secret, did not communicate with each other. Different marginal notes and commentaries also apparently became incorporated into the text, producing different variants. Furthermore, if the text was preserved orally for a long time, variants in its ordering may have also developed. (Texts and Commentary)

Interrogating the French - Christian and Papus

Well, which of the versions we use to judge our authors? Which one did they use? Is this problem of different associations simply a case of using different manuscripts? In the curious writings of Christian Payne-Towler, I came across the mention of the GRA version as the one which has been referred to by the French and Spanish authors. Indeed it is also the version that Kaplan used as the base for his commentary in his book. The GRA version (created by Rabbi Eliahu, Gaon of Vilna) is the third in the generation of attempts to somehow centralize the text. To quote Kaplan:

Around 1550, Rabbi Moshe Cordevero, leader of the Safed school and the greatest Kabbalist of the day, sifted through the ten best manuscripts available, choosing the one most closely fitting the tradition of the Kabbalists.119 A generation later, the text was further refined by the Ari (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria), one of the greatest Kabbalists of all time. This text, known as the Ari Version, was published a number of times, usually as part of some other collection. It resembles the Short Version in many ways, but there are some very significant differences in assignment. In general, the Ari Version is the only one which is in agreement with the Zohar.

A number of variations were found even in this version, and a final edited text was finally produced by the Gra (Rabbi Eliahu. Gaon of Vilna) in the 18th century.120 This is known as the Gra-Ari Version, or simply, as the Gra Version. (Texts and Commentary)

It is also the only version, of those compared by Kaplan, to note beth as corresponding to the Moon, with the more common reading being Saturn by a huge margin. (Commentary on Chapter 4, verse 14)

Were Christian and Papus following a different version in their attribution, or did they also choose GRA? To explore that, I need to explain HOW Sefer Yetzirah does the hard work of assigning planets. And the answer is simply that not all versions do it. Double letters, those assigned planets, are usually covered in Chapter IV. In some versions we see the following verse at the end of the chapter:

And therefore he chose the seventh under heaven. Two stones build two houses: Three build six: Four seven hundred and twenty-seven: Five thousand and forty: And from this the number progresses into an indescribable and unheard of: and these are the stars in the World, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars: And these are the days in the year, the seven days of creation: and these are the gates in man, namely two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and a mouth. (Pistorius’ Ars Cabbalistica)

Even mentioning the planets by name is, once again, dependent on the version. However, their order in this verse is sometimes seen as explicit assignment, in the order of the double letters in the alphabet.

Some versions do have more verses at the end Chapter 4 which explicitly bind the letter and planet:

He made the letter Bet (ב) king over Wisdom/ And He bound a crown to it/ And He combined one with another/ And with them He formed/ The Moon in the Universe/ Sunday in the Year/ The right eye in the Soul,/ male and female.

(one paragraph for every double letter) (Sefer Yetzirah GRA version hosted on Sefaria website)

Papus has his own French translation of SY. Maybe his attributions in Tarot of Bohemians and his translations were separate projects. Unfortunately, finding the actual work released in 1887 is a Sisiphean task. Papus claims that it existed, that he translated it in 1887. However, the earliest source I can get is 1892 La Kabbale : (tradition secrète de l'occident). It’s a collection of various works by many authors on the Kabbalistic topics.

All the scientific, philosophical, or religious data of Kabbalah are taken from two fundamental books, the Zohar and the Sefer Yetzirah. The first of these books is very voluminous. It is translated into Latin in the Kabbala Denudata and into English in the Kabbala Unveiled by M. A. Matthers. We enclose the translation of the second of these works as we published it in 1887 with commentaries and notes. (La Kaballe 1892, Chapter VII, The Texts)

I am going to cautiously take it at its word. Papus begs for our understanding in his translation:

I ask the reader to forgive in advance any errors that may have crept into my work, to which I have added a bibliography allowing the researcher to consult the originals, and remarks that clarify, as far as possible, the most obscure passages of the text.

I won’t be nice. This translation doesn’t really have the same attributions as his Tarot of Bohemians released in 1889. Because there are no verses assigning planets explicitly, there is only that verse containing orders of planets. If we take that as the assignment, beth should be Sun There is more commentary in the 1903 version and he starts it like this:

The first, in France, we produced a translation with commentary of the Sefer Ietzirah , or Kabbalistic Book of Creation.

This translation was based on the texts we possessed at the time, which were incomplete.

Later, Mr. Mayer-Lambert, professor at the Rabbinical Seminary, produced a new translation, based on more complete Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts.

(La Cabbale : tradition secrète de l'Occident. 1903, Le Sepher Ietzirah, Attempt To Reconstruct The Text)

In this one, he pulls from Mayer Lambert to “unite” the texts (in fact, very likely, two separate versions), and get beth - Saturn, since Mayer Lambert HAD the version with the assignment verses. My question is, if he knew that beth is not Moon in his Sefer Yetzirath, why did he overwhelmingly trust Christian in Tarot of the Bohemians? Mind you, the translation is cited in that book, so it predates it.

For our continuous discussion of what the fuck happened, we need at least one more card to build some sort of history and get more data points. I chose The Empress, because well, it’s the next card, and honestly shares some problems with The High Priestess. I thought fine, this will point me in some direction and let me find one text as an anchor.

According to Kaplan, gimel corresponds to Jupiter, Mars (GRA only) and Sun. None of them, except Westcott, is even close to the correspondence we got. I can’t even logic myself to Venus, no matter how I twist the correspondences.

I am shocked, frankly! I thought I would come in here and say hey, one of you is wrong, which one is it? Why? Turns out they were all wrong! Now we have to contend with a question - what were they fucking thinking when assigning astrology and letters together?

Clearly our dear friend Christian is here to blame! He’s the first to combine them! Papus calls him out as inspiration!

We shall now study the Hebrew letters one by one, in determining successively —

1st. The hieroglyphic value of each one of them according to its origin (Fabre d'Olivet, Barrois) ;

2nd. Its symbolic value derived from this hieroglyphic (Fabre d'Olivet, Eliphas Levi, Christian)

3rd. Its astronomical value (Christian and the Sepher Yetzirah). (The Tarot of the Bohemians, Chapter IX., History Of The Symbolism Of The Tarot.)

Let’s circle back to Christian’s explanations, specifically in the very short brief where he assigned cards to the astrological concepts in his Horoscope section. In his test horoscope reading on Napoleon, he makes use of his technique to combine tarot meanings with astrology in a surprisingly coherent system. However I can’t figure out his method, as my astrology is weak, beyond basic theory. However I can read the Tarot associations, which were points of transmission for at least one other guy. Before that, here is his comment on why we are using Hebrew letters and Tarot cards with astrology, according to Christian:

The mystical theory of these occult powers would require long commentaries that would tire the reader. I must limit myself here to a practical demonstration, offering an amusing study which, although I know not what secret virtue, anterior and superior to all philosophy, sometimes rises to the level of the great prophecies of antiquity."

A classic dodge to make oneself look more mysterious.

The Empress made it seem dour, but let’s give the guy a benefit of the doubt and actually compare his associations and GRA version of SY.

Hey wait a fucking minute! Everything checks out… except for two weird switches!

The Empress was switched from Mars to Venus! And then The Emperor for Jupiter! Now I fully feel like…. Empress makes sense. No martial qualities, slap it on Strength instead, but the The Emperor - The World switch is weird! And again I don’t know why he did it, cause I don’t know why he created these correspondences!

But this inspired Papus, as the man himself admitted. His astrological assignments are the same too. But he says something weird!

But we are more surprised to find that the Sepher Yetzirah,6 an old book of the Kabbalah, which contains a study upon the formation of the Hebrew alphabet, arrives at a division of the letters which exactly corresponds within the astrological data contained in an old manuscript in the Vatican, upon which Christian 1 based his horoscopic works . (The Tarot of Bohemians, History Of The Symbolism Of The Tarot)

///

Now in studying the astrological manuscript published by Christian, we have discovered that the numbers attributed to the planets by the author of this manuscript exactly correspond with the double Hebrew letters. The numbers attributed to the twelve signs of the zodiac exactly correspond with the simple letters.

We considered that this absolute agreement between two documents of such different origin deserved our serious attention, and we have therefore given with each letter its astronomical correspondence. (The Tarot of Bohemians, The Symbolic Tarot)

WHAT fucking Vatican manuscript???

Well, Christian wrote a book before his History and Practice of Magic. Its title is L'homme rouge des Tuileries. It’s a weird fucking book, only in French, with almost no information available online. This doesn’t exactly aid my understanding. Some people say it’s just fiction, and a lot of it seems like narrative - however at times it works like an honest-to-god astrology manual! I needed to understand and so I picked up this book I didn’t even think I’d need to read. I’ll give a quick summary of chapters that lead to our mysterious Vatican paper.

A scholarly dude called Guyon Bonaventure is studying a lot of shit at the turn of the 19th century. Shit sucks, it’s-post Revolution after all. He is old, can’t afford food, so he starts telling fortunes. A guy comes by, and it’s Napoleon. They discuss math and fortune telling. Napoleon asks DUDE WHERE DID YOU GET THIS KNOWLEDGE? And so Guyon spins a tale of some Bishop called Rohan visiting a church on a secret mission to talk with Prior Lagny. Prior and his friend were making predictions about the King dying and so Rohan is like hey what’s all that about? Prior answered that, well, he got a cool papyrus from the Vatican (uh-oh):

It was covered, internally, with a Hebrew text interspersed with Egyptian words and a multitude of hieroglyphs. This volume was an antiquary discovered in the attic of the Vatican, and the Holy Father, Clement XIV, who apparently lacks the gift of tongues, although he bestows upon us the Holy Spirit, had the Abbot General of our order ask me to examine its contents, since the sworn interpreters of the Sacred College could not understand a thing. I hastened to obey. This volume, which it was not possible to decipher as easily as the Bishop of Senlis, my Orientalist mentor, would have done, was entitled, in French translation: THE GATES OF HERMES, OPENED BY RABBI SIMEON BAR-JOCHAI OF ALEXANDRIA.(L'homme rouge des Tuileries, Chapter IX)

Oh no.

Wrapped in this fictional narrative, like a hot dog sausage in a bun, rests Manuscript Of Master Guyon, Fragments Of A Lost Book. And this is actual astrology theory, if laundered through Egyptomania and Levi. It also contains descriptions of The Major cards, but this is almost exactly the content from History and Practice of Magic so I really don’t care to repeat it here (in fact, a lot of stuff here got recycled in his latter book).

Mind you, this … work blends legit methods with fiction, and then History and Practice of Magic claims to be well, History. So…Papus likely took a statement from the fictional part of this hybrid and was like, d’uh of course a manuscript from the Vatican. I have a new source! How did this happen? I will say the fictional part is a good read, even translated it has a lot of charm, I just wish Christian stuck to fiction.

Also, Rabbi Simeon Bar-Jochai… was not from Alexandria. He was born in Galilee and has lived in Palestine all his life. So, we are dealing with the forced kissing of Hermeticism and Jewish historical figures.

Papus even gives completely different Wirth-derived assignments in his Tarot of Bohemians and just doesn’t consider the implications! Oswald Wirth assigned astrological correspondences based on imagery of the card, and in his 1928 book he directly says “yea I think Sefer Yetzirah is not at the core of the Tarot”.

What the fuck is the actual source here? Excuse my skepticism regarding the Vatican papyrus, but I just don’t believe it!

Previous <|| Table of Content ||> Next

#essay #high_priestess_essay #long