Meaning
Hod is the sphere of the analysing mind: naming, ordering, learning and explaining. Its name means splendour; our old engine translated it as glory, and the usual English is Splendour. With Mercury as its sphere, the Hermetic writers set it opposite Netzach, and read the two as thought and feeling learning to work together. In our own words, Hod is thought that sorts and names, method and language, which need the warmth of Netzach to mean anything.
On the Tree
Hod stands at the foot of the Pillar of Severity, on the viewer's left, below Geburah; a mirrored diagram puts it on the right. Five paths meet here: Mem down from Geburah, the Hanged Man's path; Ayin from Tiphareth, the Devil's; Peh across from Netzach, the Tower's; Resh down to Yesod, the Sun's; and Shin down to Malkuth, the path of Judgement. Two of those letters, Mem and Shin, are mother letters, whose elements modern tables pair with Neptune and Pluto; the Golden Dawn did not. The sephirah itself takes no trump; the Golden Dawn gives it the four Eights.
The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom calls it "the Absolute or Perfect Intelligence" in Westcott's English.
The archangel the tables disagree on
Agrippa, 777, the Golden Dawn and Dion Fortune give Hod the archangel Michael and Tiphareth Raphael. Mathers' table of 1887 swaps them, and books that copy his table give Raphael here. Both are real readings inside the tradition; we follow the Golden Dawn and give the other on both pages. The divine name is Elohim Tzabaoth, "God of Hosts", and the choir the Beni Elohim, the Sons of God, written in Latin letters only.
Jewish Kabbalah, where the Tree comes from, reads Hod as splendour or majesty, the partner of Netzach, and links it with Aaron; Mercury and the archangels are the Hermetic Qabalah's.
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.
- Archangel
- Michael; variants: Raphael (Mathers 1887 and writers who copy his table) disputed
- Divine name (Latin letters only)
- Elohim Tzabaoth, “God of Hosts” sourced
- Angelic choir
- Beni Elohim, Sons of God (Archangels) sourced
- Tarot trumps
- None of its own: the trumps belong to the paths. The trumps of the paths that meet here are the Hanged Man, the Devil, the Tower, the Sun, Judgement. sourced
- Our keywords
- Thought, language, pattern our construction
How the schools read it
- Jewish Kabbalah
- Hod, splendour or majesty: the partner of Netzach below Gevurah; linked with Aaron.
- Agrippa (1533; English 1651)
- The divine name Elohim Tzabaoth, the archangel Michael, the Bene Elohim and the sphere of Mercury.
- The Golden Dawn (1888; *777*, 1909)
- Mercury (Kokab), the archangel Michael and the Beni Elohim, the Sons of God; the four Eights.
- Mathers (1887)
- His table gives the archangel Raphael here and Michael to Tiphareth.
- Fortune (1935)
- Follows the Golden Dawn, with Michael for Hod.
- EsoTerrier
- Thought that sorts and names: language, method and learning, which need Netzach's warmth to mean anything.
Claims about it
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Hod 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 belongs to the sephirah of its number, so card 8 belongs to Hod.
falseWhat the record shows: A category error in the Golden Dawn's scheme: the numbers 1 to 10 reach the sephiroth through the Minor Arcana, while the trumps belong to the 22 paths.
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Hod has a tarot suit, an element, a demon and an "intelligence" of its own.
falseWhat the record shows: So our old tables said, compiled from a modern web table. In the Golden Dawn every sephirah takes the four cards of its number in all four suits; the other columns had no source and were deleted on 11 October 2026.
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The archangel of Tiphareth is Michael and the archangel of Hod is Raphael.
disputedWhat the record shows: A real variant: Mathers' table of 1887 gives it. Agrippa, 777, the Golden Dawn and Fortune give Raphael to Tiphareth and Michael to Hod, as we do.
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Hod stands on the left of the Tree.
disputedWhat the record shows: Some diagrams mirror the Tree. Mathers, Kircher and the Golden Dawn draw the Pillar of Mercy on the viewer's right and the Pillar of Severity on the left, as we do.
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Hod's Intelligence title is part of the Sefer Yetzirah.
disputedWhat the record shows: The titles come from a separate short text, the Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom, first printed with the Sefer Yetzirah in 1642; its date and author are uncertain.
