The Case Against Paul Case’s Tarot/Qabalah/Astrology

At my Facebook page (L Ron Gardner), on October 11, I posted an article entitled “Ken Wilber and the Enneagram.” In my article, I stated that despite my deep and wide reading, I hadn’t come across an impressive Kabbalah book – meaning one that explicates and elaborates the “two Kabbalahs (mystical-ecstatic and theurgical-theosophical) to my satisfaction.

In response to my lament,  poster Robert Wilkinson suggested that I read “The Tarot, the Key to the Wisdom of the Ages,” by Paul Case -- and so I did; and now I’m ready to review it.

The legendary, late Dr. Paul Case (1884- 1954) is considered an occult genius by many, but I’m not one of the many. In short, I simply do not agree with his exegesis of the Kabbalah and his correlations of it with the Tarot Major Arcana.

First off, Case does not account for Da’at, the “invisible” 11^th sephirah; and without such an accounting, the Kabbalah does not make sense to me. In reality, Da’at correlates wth the planet Neptune, and forms a dyad with Kether, which correlates with Pluto. This mystical dyad (which can be likened to Siva-Shakti (the nondual Self in Hinduism), means that Kether-Pluto and Neptune-Da’at, ultimately, represent a single sephirah, thus maintaining the integtity of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life as a ten-component “Structure.”

Secondly, Case does not understand that the Kabbalistic Tree of Life does not pertain to the cosmos, creation as a whole, but to our solar system. In fact, I’m not aware of any exegetes of the Kabbalah who point this out. And why they don’t befuddles me, because clearly the sephirot represent the planets of our solar system.

I reject Case’s descriptions of the four worlds or planes, which he attempts to explain within a quasi-Platonian/Jungian framework. Unbeknownst to Case, the four worlds, or planes, correlate, respectively, with the divine, causal, subtle, and gross dimensions of Existence. In other words, Case is clueless about the four worlds, reducing them to Platonian/Jungian dimensions.

Moreover, Case errs with his attributions to the four worlds. For example, he correlates the element fire with the divine world (or dimension) of existence (which he terms the archetypal world). This world is uncreated and does not correlate with any element. Anyone who has studied Kashmir Shaivism cosmology and the emanational continuum of the tattvas (the constituent principles of Existence) knows that the four elements (fire, water, air, and earth) do not emerge in creation until after (and from) the Akasha, the etheric matrix. No astute metaphysiciam would accept the assignment of each of the four elements to one of the four worlds.

It is debatable whether the Tarot Major Arcana truly correlate with the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. If the Major Arcana don’t correlate with the Tree of Life, then all speculations pertaining to their specific associations with the ten Sephirot and twenty-two paths of creation are fanciful. But if they do in fact correlate, Case’s correlations hardly match mine. Because this is just a book review and not a book, I won’t venture into a lengthy comparison between my correlations and Case’s, but I will mention a few to illustrate our differences.

Case correlates The Fool card with the planet Uranus. In my opinion, it is The Tower, which he associates Mars, that best correlates with Uranus. To my mind, The Fool is a perfect astrological match with Aries. Case thinks The Magician matches with Mercury. I don’t; I think Pluto is the Magician.

In addition to disagreeing with many of Case’s Tarot/Astrology matches I also disagree with many other Major Arcana associations of his regarding Paths on the Tree, Power/Aspect of Consciousness, Human Faculty, et al.

In summary, this text, though a bit better than what I’ve read from the other Golden Dawn-influenced occultists (such as Crowley, Fortune, and DuQuette), can best be classified as Qabalah Qrapola. Eventually, I’ll write my own book on the Kabbalah, because I can’t find anyone else who groks the Kabbalah on the level that I do.