Atziluth Tarot: The World of Emanation, Fire and the Suit of Wands

Atziluth tarot is the tarot read at its root. In the Kabbalah, Atziluth is the first and highest of the four worlds, the world of emanation, where nothing is yet separate from its divine source. In the Golden Dawn and the Thoth Tarot it belongs to the suit of Wands, to the element of Fire and to the Knights. This article explains what Atziluth means, why Fire and Will belong to it, and how a reader can use it to find the deepest layer of any card.

It is the first of four articles on the four Kabbalistic worlds and their suits, after our introduction to Tarot and Kabbalah: How the 22 Trumps Became the Hebrew Letters.

What Atziluth means

The Kabbalah describes reality as four worlds, one inside the other, through which the divine light descends. A classic proof text comes from the prophet Isaiah (43:7): "for my glory I have created him, I have formed him, yea, I have made him". Three verbs name three worlds: bara, created, is Briah; yatzar, formed, is Yetzirah; asah, made, is Assiah. Before all three stands the glory itself. That is Atziluth.

The word comes from the Hebrew root atzel, "beside" or "near". Atziluth is the world that is still beside God, with no gap between the source and what flows from it. Later Kabbalists say that in Atziluth even the ten sefirot are pure divinity, like light that has not yet left the lamp. The beings of this world are not angels or forms but the divine names themselves, one for each sefirah.

The four worlds also follow the four letters of the divine name, YHVH. Atziluth is the first letter, Yod, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet: a single point from which every other letter is drawn. On the Tree of Life it is linked with Chokmah, wisdom, the first flash of force.

Fire, Wands and the Knights

The Golden Dawn gave each world a suit, and the logic is consistent all the way down.

• Element: Fire, the first and most active of the four.
• Suit: Wands, the rods of will and energy.
• Letter: Yod, the seed point.
• Court card: the Knight, called the Father, who rides out at full speed.
• Part of the soul: Chayah, the "living" essence, which later Kabbalah places in Atziluth.

In the Thoth deck the purest image of this world is the Knight of Wands, the Fire of Fire: a rider in flame on a rearing black horse. He is not thinking or feeling yet. He is pure movement.

The Ace of Wands — Root of the Powers of Fire, the "Root of the Powers of Fire", stands above even the Knight. Crowley describes its great torch of flame as flames shaped like Yods, the letter of Atziluth. Every Ace is the Kether of its suit, but the Ace of Wands is the Kether of the highest world: the first spark of the entire deck.

The Golden Dawn's King scale: Atziluth in colour

A little-known key to the Thoth deck is colour. The Golden Dawn taught that every sefirah and every path has four colours, one for each world. The colours of Atziluth form the King scale. Briah has the Queen scale, Yetzirah the Prince scale and Assiah the Princess scale. Crowley tabulated all four in his book Liber 777, and Lady Frieda Harris drew on them when she painted the cards.

This means that Atziluth is present in the Thoth deck as light rather than as a figure. The King scale colours are the most abstract and radiant: they are the "root" colours of each force before it takes shape. When a card seems to glow from inside, it is often speaking in the colours of the first world.

Thelema: Crowley's doctrine of the first world

Here is a connection rarely made. Crowley's religious philosophy, Thelema, takes its name from the Greek for "will". Its central law, "Do what thou wilt", is often misread as permission to do whatever one likes. Crowley meant the opposite: to discover one's true Will, the deepest purpose that springs from the core of the self.

Read through the Kabbalah, that is an Atziluthic doctrine. The true Will is the self "beside" its source, before choices, feelings and plans divide it. It belongs to the world of Fire and to the suit of Wands. The Thoth Tarot, Crowley's major work on the cards, is in this sense a deck built from Atziluth down. Its first principle is not fate or chance but Will.

The trumps share this. The Fool, Aleph and Air, sits on the path between Kether and Chokmah, the very first motion from the crown into wisdom. In Atziluthic terms the Fool is the moment the Yod is born: pure potential becoming pure force.

Atziluth tarot in practice: reading a card at its root

Every card exists in all four worlds at once. A useful habit is to read it four times, starting from the top. The Atziluthic reading asks one question: what is the will here?

1. Take the card's number to its sefirah. A Six of any suit is Tiphareth, the heart. In Atziluth it is the will to be whole.
2. Ignore the outcome and the feeling. Atziluth knows nothing of results. Ask what impulse the card expresses before it becomes a plan or a mood.
3. Look for Fire in the spread. Wands, the Knights and the fiery trumps, the Emperor, Lust and Art, show where the querent's will is active.
4. Check the Aces. An Ace in a spread is a root breaking the surface. It often marks the true beginning of the question.

Take the The Hermit, Yod himself among the trumps, drawn for a question about leaving a job. Read in the lower worlds, it says retreat and reflection. Read in Atziluth, it says something stronger: the will to follow one's own light, even alone. The decision then is not "should I go?" but "what do I truly will?".

The highest world, close at hand

Atziluth can sound remote, a world of divine names and abstract light. Yet the Kabbalists who described it insisted on its nearness, as its very name says. The spark of Atziluth is present in every lower world, as the Yod is present in every Hebrew letter.

For a tarot reader that is the practical message. Behind every card there is a first impulse, a root of will. Finding it gives a reading its centre. The next article in this series descends one step, to Briah Tarot: The World of Creation, Water and the Suit of Cups, the world of creation and of the suit of Cups.