"It may be well to add that I am not to be included among those
who are satisfied that there is a valid correspondence between Hebrew
letters and Tarot Trump symbols."
    So says Waite concluding his Introduction to Knut Stenring's
translation of "The Book of Formation" (1923). He had also gone on
record as an opponent of the systematic assignment of the Hebrew
letters to the Tarot cards in his translation of Levi's
"Transendental Magic" when it was reissued with his annotations and
footnotes.(1) Gilbert, in "A. E. Waite, A Bibliography" (p. 107)
writes in reference to Levi's "Transcendental Magic", "His engaging
style has lead uncritical readers to overlook both his dogmatic
assertion of palpable falsehoods and his quite arbitrary attribution
of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet to the Tarot trumps. Waite was
well aware of these shortcomings but still felt that there was much of
value to be gained from <I>Transcendental Magic</I>".
    To Levi's "Without the Tarot the Magic of the ancients is a closed
book, and it is impossible to penetrate any of the great mysteries of
the Kabbalah.", Waite's note reads, "There is a sense in which this
statement represents the main thesis of Levi respecting the Secret
Tradition in Israel. It must be taken therefore as his serious and
considered view, but its sole foundation is that there are 22 Hebrew
letters and 22 Tarot Trumps Major. They belong to one another as much
and as little as the 22 chapters of the Apocalypse connect with
either."(2) Levi had extended the correspondence to include the 22
chapters of the Apocalypse, overlooking the fact that the division
into 22 chapters was imposed on the Apocalypse by later Christianity,
not its author. Waite assigns the same import to each- none at all.
Obviously, the majority of Transcendentalists did not agree. The
re-established French Martinists lead by Papus, Oswald Wirth and,
more significantly, Westcott, Mathers and the official Golden Dawn had
followed Levi (though in the modified form outlined in the Cypher
Manuscripts- generally agreed to be the product of Kenneth MacKenzie)
and systematically assigned the 22 letters to the Tarot. Waite was
once again the oddball.
   But Waite used the cards in correspondence to the letters as the
evidence of his original ritual material and the literal Shin on the
Fool card both seem to demonstrate. Even his remark in the PKT that of
Levi, "nearly every attribution is wrong" indicates pretty clearly
that some are correct. The question then is really at what points did
Waite differentiate from the others? The discussion is non-existant!
The prevailing and virtually universal view is that Waite was a good
little GD soldier and while following their system verbatim, used
"blinds" to obscure his true motives. In fact, those so-called blinds
are hints, intimations of his actual system (and lack of one), much
closer to Levi than the GD.
	The first and most common mistake Waite's misinterpreters make
(besides not reading much more of him than the PKT) is to approach the
question monolithically. There are, in fact, three facets to the
question- the numbering of the cards, the assignment of the cards to
the paths of the Tree of Life and the ordering for assignmet of
letters. The GD constructed a full system that incorporated all these
elements (and a good deal more) into a single set of correspondences,
which they handled monolithically. In fact, that system is so tightly
integrated, Crowley would later substanciate reordering the cards with
"Tzaddi is not the Star". Waite, on the other hand, was more critical,
argueing from the beginning that substance precluded happenstance or
expediency, but more likely wishing to hold to his preferred formula
for restoring the Lost Word. It is a personal view, but is seems that
the monolithic approach taken by the GD and adopted by nearly everyone
else, is really what obscures the issue. Their success, admittedly of
a high order, has so conditioned the modern to see the correspondences
one way, it has become more fashionable to use terms like "blinds"
than to examine critically.
    Taking the first of these three facets, we see that Waite used a
traditional numbering, startinging with the Fool as 0, but deviating
by swapping Strength and Justice. While this certainly must be seen as
nothing other than an endorsement of the numbering specified by the
Cypher Manuscripts, it has nothing to do with the letters. The swap of
Atus 8 and 11 is astrologically motivated, to bring the zodiacal
attributions of the majors into natural sequence. It does not provide
any insight into the question of the letters, one way or the other.
    The second is obvious, Waite adopting the GD's assignment of cards
to the paths. Note, though, that the assignment to the paths is based
on the order specified by the numbering. Again, there is no insight
here, one way or the other regarding the letters. The Fool, the first
in the series as cypher nought, zero, is assigned to the first Path,
the Path of Aleph. The Cypher Manuscripts surmised that this
established the Aleph on the card, and moved the card from its
traditional position between 20 and 21. But this is completely
arbitrary, supported only by the location of the card on the path and
the *intuitive* sense that the beauty of the GD's pathworking system
(and it is a thing of truth and beauty) provided the necessary
authority.
    And that brings us to the crux of the matter, the third facet.
    In the PKT, Waite states, as I've mentioned, that nearly all of
Levi's attribution of letters to cards are mistaken. This has to mean
that some are correct. Both systems order the cards, then assign the
letters based on the order. While Christian and Levi, for example,
place the 0 on the Fool in common with the GD, they order the card
between 20 and 21, thus their Magician is Aleph and their Fool, Shin.
The GD, enamored of the functionality discovered in the assignment of
the cards to the paths, felt warrented in rearranging the ordering.
Since the correspondences modified by the GD's reordering begin at the
first card, there is but one common correspondence between Levi and
the GD. If, as Waite says, *some*, or more than one, of Levi's are
correct, then *none* of the GD's are correct, outside the possibility
of the one common assignment, The World.
    The discussions of the cards in the PKT is ordered with the Fool
between 20 and 21 and there is a Shin (and flames!) on the Fool card.
It is obvious, for Waite, as far as the letters can be assigned to the
cards, the letter attributions follow the order reflected in Christian
and Levi, and later Papus and Wirth. The Fool is Shin, but, on the
basis of his ritual materials, add to it the GD's innovation, it lies
on the Path of Aleph.
    An argument from silence deserves a quick mention here. Waite
never uses language that directly associates letter and card in the
manner of Crowley's "Tzaddi in not the Star". His language is always
of the manner "<card> lies on the path of <letter>".
    But only *some* of Levi's attributions are correct (the Fool/Shin
obviously one). There are a few other cards that Waite may have put
letters to. For example, in "Shadows of Life and Thought" (pp. 190-
191), Waite writes, "Now, there are twenty-two Trumps Major arranged,
more or less, in a sequence but subject to certain variations as the
packs differ respecting time and place of origin. There are also
twenty-two Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, and it occurred to Eliphas
Levi that it was desirable to effect a marriage betwwen the Letters
and Cards. It seems impossible to make a combination of this kind,
however arbitrary, and not find some accidents in its favour; and
there is better authority in Kabbalism than Eliphas Levi ever produced
in writing to connect The Hebrew letter Beth with the so-called Pope
Joan or Soveriegn Priestess of the Tarot." In the article "The Great
Symbols of the Tarot"(3) he writes, "It is to be noticed further that
Levi allocated meanings to each letter individually of the Hebrew
alphabet, but they are his own irresponsible invention, except in two
or three very obvious cases- e.g., that <I>Beth</I>, the second
letter, corresponds to the duad, <I>Ghimel</I> to the triad, and
<I>Daleth</I> to the tetrad."
    Other possibilities occur from more arcane sources. For example,
the French Martinists traditionally configured the left hand falling
figure to suggest its letter, the Ayin. Though the RWS seems to uphold
this tradition (compare the RWS Tower to Wirth's), it cannot be
asserted definitively.
    But correspondence does not apply comprehensively. Waite, using as
an example the only card on which he himself puts the literal
character (and did I mention the flames?), remarks "The folly of the
whole comparison is illustrated best by the Card which is called Fool
and is not numbered in the series; the cipher Nought being usually
placed against it. In Levi's arrangement it corresponds to the letter
Shin, the number of which is 300. But wherever it is placed in the
series the correspondence between Trumps Major and the Hebrew Alphabet
is ipso facto destroyed."(4) So, for Waite, while it is possible to
place letters against the cards, they cannot be applied wholesale, as
Levi and the GD do, and even when justified, only within the specific
parameters of that justification. Just because Waite had reason to put
the Shin on the card, he does not include all the letter baggage (as
the numerology) in the application.
    So why did Waite put the Shin on the Fool? "...in a rather early
and important High Degree of the philosophical kind, now almost
unknown, the Master-Builder of the Third Degree rises as Christ, and
so completes the dismembered Divine Name, by insertion of the Hebrew
letter Shin, this producing <B>Yeheshua</B>- the restoration of the
Lost Word in the Christian Degrees of Masonry."(5) For Waite, the Fool
is the undegenerate spirit of man (did I mention the flames?), wearing
The Word like a garment. This theme is common with Waite, appearing in
nearly all his hermetic works.
    All that remains is to ask where the Air went. If the Fool is Shin
and the element of fire (still a Mother letter and an element), a
simple substitution makes the Last Judgement Resh and Air. If one were
to make the Hanged Man Air and move Water to LJ, the elements are now
in order. However, the rationale for assignment of element, planet and
sign is tenuous enough in places that without Waite's explicit
instruction, many combinations are plausible.
    Say, isn't that lady on LJ a Resh? Resh, Shin (the boy), Ayin
(pops), "wickedness". Shin...?! Must be a blind. :)

***
1. In "The Pictorial Key to the Tarot" (1910), Waite says only that
"nearly every attribution is wrong." (p. 161)

2. "Transcendental Magic", New and revised edition; Rider. There is a
great confusion of TM texts. The first edition, without annotation, is
pagenated differently than the New edition, with annotation.
Subsequent to the New edition (specifically, the fourth edition), the
TM was again reformatted, tipped in plates in earlier versions were
incorporated into the pagenation and it was reset in new type. All
(actually, all *I've* seen) of the modern paperback versions (i.e.
Samual Weiser) are reprints of the 4th, so I use it here. p. 383.

3. "The Occult Review", Vol. XLIII, No. 1; Jan. 1926. You can see the
article in full at http://adepti.com -misc. writings.

4. ibid.

5. "Some Deeper Aspects of Masonic Symbolism" in "The Builder", Vol.
II, No. 6; 1916, June.  You can see the articles in full at
http://adepti.com -misc. writings.