Meaning
Gimel makes the long crossing from the Crown straight down to the heart of the Tree. With the High Priestess, trump II, and the Moon, the Golden Dawn made it the path of inward, intuitive knowledge. In our own words, it is quiet knowing: insight that does not need to argue its case, and the patience of a long crossing. That is a reading, not a description of anyone's gifts.
The letter
Gimel is the third letter, worth 3. The traditional gloss is a camel, the beast that crosses the desert, and the Hermetic readings lean on it; scholars of the early alphabet read the name differently, as a throwing stick, with the camel as the later gloss. The Sefer Yetzirah makes Gimel a double letter with a planet, but in its short, long and Saadia versions the planet is Jupiter, in the Gra version Mars, and Kircher gives Venus. The Moon is the Golden Dawn's choice, printed in 777 in 1909.
Lévi put the Empress on Gimel; the Golden Dawn's shift of the Fool to Aleph moved every card one letter on. Crowley's Thoth deck calls the card simply the Priestess.
On the Tree
The path runs vertically down the Middle Pillar from Kether to Tiphareth, the longest line on the Tree. On the way it crosses the gap below the top three spheres that Hermetic writers call the Abyss, where some diagrams draw Da'at, Knowledge, as a dotted sphere. Da'at has no path and no trump, and some schools count it while others do not, so our tree leaves it out and names it only here. On the Jewish trees the doubles are on the verticals too, though not in this order, and there is no tarot. The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom calls it "the Uniting Intelligence".
The sample person on the system page has the High Priestess as their soul card, so this path is drawn dashed on their tree. Placing the card here is our own combination, Greer's birth cards on the Golden Dawn's table.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- The Golden Dawn's planet
- The Moon, in the order first printed in 777 (1909) sourced
- The Sefer Yetzirah's planet
- A planet, in other orders: the short, long and Saadia versions give Jupiter; the Gra version Mars; Kircher Venus disputed
- Thoth variant (Crowley, 1944)
- In Crowley's Thoth deck: The Priestess sourced
- Scholars' reading of the name
- Throwing stick (camel is the traditional gloss) disputed
- On the Jewish trees
- The Gra and Ari trees put the double letters on the vertical paths, so Gimel need not be here sourced
- Birth card on this path
- Marked when a person's personality or soul card is the High Priestess (Greer's method on the Golden Dawn's table) our construction
- Our keywords
- Inner knowing, stillness, the long crossing our construction
How the schools read it
- Sefer Yetzirah (2nd to 9th century)
- One of the seven double letters, with a planet: in its short, long and Saadia versions Jupiter.
- Lévi and the French school (1854 to 1856)
- III The Empress on Gimel.
- The Golden Dawn (1888; *777*, 1909)
- II The High Priestess, with the planet the Moon. The planet's order is the order's own.
- Crowley's Thoth deck (1944)
- The Priestess, the same card renamed.
- EsoTerrier
- Quiet knowing: insight that does not need to argue its case, and the long, unhurried crossing it takes to reach the centre.
Claims about it
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Path 13 and the attributions on this page are Kabbalah.
falseWhat the record shows: The Tree comes from Kabbalah, a Jewish mystical tradition, which has no tarot and its own ways of drawing and reading it. The tables here are the Hermetic Qabalah's, compiled by Agrippa, Mathers and the Golden Dawn.
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A birth card on Path 13 is the path a person is walking, or is tasked with, for life.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: No tradition gives anyone a path. Placing Greer's birth cards on the Golden Dawn's paths is our own combination, and the page reads the path, nothing more.
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The planet of Path 13's letter is the Sefer Yetzirah's own attribution.
falseWhat the record shows: The Sefer Yetzirah gives the double letters planets, but its versions run in other orders. This one is the Golden Dawn's, first printed in 777 in 1909.
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Da'at is an eleventh, hidden sphere, just below this part of the Tree.
disputedWhat the record shows: Counted by some schools and not by others; it has no path and no trump, so our tree leaves it out.
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The traditional gloss of Path 13's letter is what its name originally meant.
disputedWhat the record shows: The glosses are the ones the Hermetic tradition works with, and we show them. Scholars of the early alphabet read several names differently.
