Meaning
Lamed, the ox-goad, links Severity to the centre of the Tree and keeps the self moving towards balance. With Justice, trump XI, and Libra, the scales, the Golden Dawn made it the path of fair judgement. In our own words, it is the path of weighing honestly, accepting consequences and making adjustments. It is a picture of balance.
The letter
Lamed is the twelfth letter, worth 30. Its traditional gloss is an ox-goad, the stick that drives a team, and scholars read the name as a goad. The Sefer Yetzirah counts it among the twelve simple letters and gives it Libra in every version we read; the Golden Dawn kept the sign. Lévi put the Hanged Man on Lamed.
Justice XI, Justice VIII, and Adjustment
The Marseille decks number Justice VIII and Strength XI. The Golden Dawn gave Justice to Lamed, with Libra, and Strength to Teth, with Leo, then switched the two numbers so that the cards would follow the letters and the zodiac; Pamela Colman Smith's deck of 1909 printed Justice as XI. The reason was that fit with the signs, nothing more. Crowley's Thoth deck keeps the card on this path, renames it Adjustment and numbers it VIII. Our chart always matches a card by its trump, so a reader of the Marseille or Thoth deck finds the same path here.
On the Tree
On Kircher's tree the path runs diagonally from Geburah, on the viewer's left, to Tiphareth at the centre; it mirrors path 20, Yod, from Chesed on the right. On the Gra and Ari trees of Jewish Kabbalah the simple letters lie on the diagonals as well, though not in this order, and there is no tarot. The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom calls it "the Faithful Intelligence", in Westcott's English.
The sample person on the system page, born on 19 January 1989, has Justice as their personality card, so this is the solid path on their tree. That placing is our own combination of Greer's birth cards and 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.
- Sign
- Libra: the same in every version of the Sefer Yetzirah we read, kept by the Golden Dawn sourced
- Thoth variant (Crowley, 1944)
- In Crowley's Thoth deck: Adjustment, numbered VIII, on this same path (the Marseille decks number Justice VIII too) sourced
- On the Jewish trees
- The Gra and Ari trees put the simple letters on the diagonal paths, so Lamed need not be here sourced
- Birth card on this path
- Marked when a person's personality or soul card is Justice (Greer's method on the Golden Dawn's table) our construction
- Our keywords
- Balance, accountability, fair judgement our construction
How the schools read it
- Sefer Yetzirah (2nd to 9th century)
- One of the twelve simple letters, with the sign Libra.
- Lévi and the French school (1854 to 1856)
- XII The Hanged Man on Lamed.
- The Golden Dawn (1888; *777*, 1909)
- XI Justice, with the sign Libra.
- Crowley's Thoth deck (1944)
- Adjustment, numbered VIII.
- EsoTerrier
- Weighing honestly: accepting consequences and making the adjustments that balance asks for.
Claims about it
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Path 22 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 22 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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Strength VIII and Justice XI were a geometric necessity.
falseWhat the record shows: The reason was the zodiac: with Strength on Leo and Justice on Libra, the card numbers were switched to follow the signs' order. 777 still prints XI and VIII on the same paths.
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In Crowley's Thoth deck this card keeps its number and only changes its name.
falseWhat the record shows: The Thoth deck numbers Lust XI and Adjustment VIII, the Marseille numbers, on the same paths as ours.
