Aleph Tarot Tree of Life Correspondences: The Magician & The Fool

Aleph Tarot Tree of Life Correspondences: RWS and TdM

In this comparative Tarot study, I’m exploring Aleph Tarot Tree of Life Correspondences through two different Tarot traditions: the Rider–Waite–Smith (RWS) system most English-speaking readers encounter first, and the Tarot de Marseille (TdM). You’ll see the spellings Cabalistic (Christian), Qabalistic (Hermetic), and Kabbalistic (Jewish) used according to historical and disciplinary context, rather than as competing labels.

A Series on the Hebrew Letters

This article also serves as the hub for a 22-part series examining Tarot Major Arcana correspondences for each Hebrew letter in turn. The aim is not to reduce these systems to a single “correct” map, but to place them side by side and observe how different assumptions about the Tree of Life shape the meaning of the cards.

Why RWS and TdM Diverge

Most modern Tarot teaching relies on Golden Dawn–derived correspondences, which dominate how Hebrew letters and Major Arcana are mapped onto the Tree of Life. In this system, Aleph corresponds to The Fool and is fixed to a specific path on a standardised Qabalistic Tree.

The Tarot de Marseille, read through a Sephardic Kabbalistic lens, takes another approach. Although the cards still occupy defined paths — The Fool (Tav) included — interpretation relies on the internal structure and numbering of the Tarot itself as it unfolds on the Tree.

A Personal Entry Point

For a long time, I had little interest in memorising Tree of Life correspondences. I understood the logic, but it stayed abstract. That shifted when I encountered The Tree of Life of Mary Magdalene by Michel Pérez Rizzi. His work opened up a Tarot de Marseille–centred, Kabbalistically informed way of engaging the Tree that made immediate sense to me in practice.

This series grows out of that encounter, while keeping its focus firmly on Tarot rather than on Magdalene teachings themselves. That said, for anyone interested in exploring the relationship between Mary Magdalene and the Tarot de Marseille, this is the most rigorous and illuminating book I’ve read on the subject, and one I recommend without hesitation.

Aleph in Jewish Kabbalistic Thought

Aleph (א) is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, yet it has no sound of its own. It carries breath rather than articulation. In Jewish Kabbalistic symbolism, Aleph signifies unity, living breath, and primordial potential.

A familiar contemplative image presents Aleph as two yods joined by a vav: an upper point, a lower point, and a connecting axis. This expresses the relationship between higher and lower worlds and the idea that life flows when those poles are in right relation.

As Lawrence Kushner writes:

“Aleph is the letter of fire — א ש Aysh.
A fire which flames but does not destroy.
That is how the Holy One gets your attention.
He shows you the primordial fire.”

This image of Aleph as contained fire is crucial. Not the fire that consumes, but the fire that reveals. Aleph arrests attention without destroying what it touches.

Classical Sephardic Kabbalah works deeply with Hebrew letters, divine names, and cosmology. However, it does not map Tarot trumps onto the Tree of Life. Any Tarot correspondence discussed alongside Sephardic ideas must therefore be understood as a modern, contemplative interpretation rather than a historical or rabbinic system.

Two Tarot Pathworking Trees

When Tarosophists work with the Tree of Life, they don’t always work with the same diagram — and that difference matters for Tarot pathworking.

Most modern occult Tarot systems use a standardised Qabalistic Tree of Life shaped by Hermetic traditions and developed most fully in Thoth-based Qabalah. In this model, practitioners fix the Tree’s geometry, assign Hebrew letters and Major Arcana to specific paths, and connect Malkuth to all three pillars via Yesod, Hod, and Netzach. This layout supports a consistent, systematised initiatory approach to Tarot correspondences and pathworking.

Other Cabalistic and Kabbalistic diagrammatic traditions arrange the Tree differently. In these Trees, designers omit direct paths from Hod and Netzach to Malkuth and place crossing diagonals between Chokmah–Geburah and Binah–Chesed instead. Other Cabalistic and Kabbalistic diagrammatic traditions arrange the Tree differently. In these Trees, designers omit direct paths from Hod and Netzach to Malkuth and place crossing diagonals between Chokmah–Geburah and Binah–Chesed instead. Descent into the world moves through Yesod as the primary mediating channel.

These differences are not merely visual. They determine the Tarot paths and set the point at which the pathworking begins.

In this series, I work with the Bahir version above.

Aleph in Hermetic Qabalah (RWS)

Golden Dawn–style Hermetic Qabalah assigns Aleph to The Fool and places it on the path between Kether and Chokmah. This correspondence dominates modern Tarot teaching and underpins most RWS-based approaches to Hebrew letters and the Tree of Life.

In this framework, Aleph marks the first movement of spirit. Consciousness steps out of undifferentiated source before form, identity, or responsibility take shape. The Fool moves without guarantee, trusting motion itself. He leaps before structure appears.

This mapping matters because it sets the tone for how many readers approach both the Fool and Aleph: as an opening impulse, before balance, discernment, or ethical constraint. It is the map most readers already know.

Aleph, The Magician, and a TdM Way of Reading the Tree

The Sephardic-informed TdM offers a different way of reading Aleph, one that shifts the emphasis from origination to calibration.

In this approach, Aleph corresponds to The Magician and traverses the path between Chesed and Geburah. Crucially, this does not place the Magician at one of the entry points of the Tree. Entry still occurs at the sephira Malkuth, where the Magician pairs with Strength (1 and 10+1) as embodied force first comes into play. The Magician’s own path sits higher up, where power demands conscious measure rather than raw expression.

In the Tarot de Marseille system used here, The Fool (Tav) enters the Tree from a different place altogether, traversing the path between Malkuth and Yesod. This marks the Fool not as an emanative principle but as a liminal figure, moving between lived reality and the imaginal foundation that gives it coherence. The Fool does not initiate structure; he crosses thresholds.

On the path between Chesed (mercy) and Geburah (severity), Aleph does not describe the first breath of creation or the first step into the world. It names the moment when expansive force meets necessary restraint. Breath gathers. Intention sharpens. Power moves from potential into responsibility.

The Magician occupies this interior threshold. He does not transcend the system, and he does not act blindly. He learns when to apply force, when to hold back, and how to work within limits. This is discernment: the ethical handling of elemental power.

This is the Aleph I recognise most readily. Not innocence leaping into the unknown, but awareness poised between mercy and severity, tools in hand, asking not just how to begin, but how to begin in harmony.

Major Arcana and Hebrew Letters

What follows is a reference map, not a demand for memorisation. Each entry lists the Hebrew letter, followed by the TdM correspondence and its path, with the classical Hermetic correspondence beneath it. Path details will be explored fully in the individual posts.

Aleph (א)

TdM: The Magician — Chesed to Geburah
RWS / Hermetic: The Fool — Kether to Chokmah

Beth (ב)

TdM: The High Priestess — Chokmah to Chesed
RWS / Hermetic: The Magician

Gimel (ג)

TdM: The Empress — Binah to Geburah
RWS / Hermetic: The High Priestess

Dalet (ד)

TdM: The Emperor — Kether to Tipheret
RWS / Hermetic: The Empress

Hei (ה)

TdM: The Hierophant / Pope — Kether to Chokmah
RWS / Hermetic: The Emperor

Vau (ו)

TdM: The Lover — Kether to Binah
RWS / Hermetic: The Hierophant

Zain (ז)

TdM: The Chariot — Chokmah to Geburah
RWS / Hermetic: The Lovers

Chet (ח)

TdM: Justice — Tipheret to Chesed
RWS / Hermetic: The Chariot

Tet (ט)

TdM: The Hermit — Chokmah to Tipheret
RWS / Hermetic: Strength

Yod (י)

TdM: Wheel of Fortune — Tipheret to Netzach
RWS / Hermetic: The Hermit

Khaf (כ)

TdM: Strength — Chesed to Netzach
RWS / Hermetic: Wheel of Fortune

Lamed (ל)

TdM: The Hanged Man — Hod to Yesod
RWS / Hermetic: Justice

Mem (מ)

TdM: XIII (The Arcanum without a Name) — Hod to Netzach
RWS / Hermetic: The Hanged Man

Nun (נ)

TdM: Temperance — Netzach to Yesod
RWS / Hermetic: Death

Samekh (ס)

TdM: The Devil — Tipheret to Hod
RWS / Hermetic: Temperance

Ayin (ע)

TdM: The Tower (Maison Dieu) — Binah to Tipheret
RWS / Hermetic: The Devil

Peh (פ)

TdM: The Star — Geburah to Hod
RWS / Hermetic: The Tower

Tzadi (צ)

TdM: The Moon — Geburah to Tipheret
RWS / Hermetic: The Star

Qof (ק)

TdM: The Sun — Binah to Chesed
RWS / Hermetic: The Moon

Resh (ר)

TdM: Judgment — Tipheret to Yesod
RWS / Hermetic: The Sun

Shin (ש)

TdM: The World — Binah to Chokmah
RWS / Hermetic: Judgement

Tav (ת)

TdM: The Fool — Yesod to Malkuth
RWS / Hermetic: The World

The Aleph Tarot correspondences make it clear how much Tarot meaning depends on structure. The Fool and the Magician aren’t competing interpretations; they emerge from different ways of working the Tree.

This post sets the tone for the series that follows. I explore each letter the same way, placing familiar Golden Dawn–derived correspondences alongside a Tarot de Marseille reading that works with a different Tree geometry and a different set of assumptions.

The point of these comparative Tarot essays isn’t to replace one map with another, but to notice what comes into focus — and what drops away — when the structure changes.