My Tarot usage has been pretty focused on the Thoth deck, and I've always felt that Crowley's inclusion of the Unicursal Hexagram card (like a Joker) was the 23rd Atu. It could be a glyph of the whole path from Fool to Universe (The Great Work), and/or it could be related to Daath, and/or it could be the mirror reflecting the Fool (the human user).
Daath seems to be the most logical starting point for Atu 23. If the 23rd card is between Daath and Kether, then the High Priestess is wholly below the Abyss - this cannot be right. If Atu 23 is from Tiphareth to Daath (and this is my intital hunch), then it only leads into the Abyss, which seems to lessen the transformative nature of the 23. However, if Atu 23 is taken as the Hexagram, then it may be fitting that it leads out of Tiphareth up to the Supernals - The center of the Hexagram is often considered coincident with Tiphareth (superimpose the Hexagram over the Tree). This also re-enforces the path of moving from the Heart (Christos, The Sun, The Angel)to the Abyss, by way of The Great Work (93).
But the above predicates that Daath is an "official" Sephiroth. I wonder why Crowley was reluctant to lend it such status, favoring instead to keep it as a hidden sphere (this may be appropriate to it's nature).
Perhaps it is also the nature of the 23rd Atu that it reside in the shadow of the Tree as well... |