Symbolic traditions
The Tree of Life
The Tree of Life arranges ten sefirot, the divine attributes discussed in Kabbalah. Each gains meaning through its relationships with the others. Later Hermetic traditions connect this arrangement with planetary symbolism.
Start with a relationship
Select a name to read its meaning and a concrete teaching example. The numbers give the order used here; they do not rank people or assign a birth-date number.
Begin with Chesed, giving, and Gevurah, restraint. Their relationship makes the diagram easier to understand than memorising ten isolated keywords.
Spatial arrangement only. Lines and the separate system of 22 paths are omitted; this is not a complete path diagram.
Two traditions, different purposes
Jewish Kabbalah discusses the sefirot within a religious account of God and creation. Chabad's Two Systems of Ten Sefirot explains the tenfold order and its variants.
Hermetic Qabalah uses adapted correspondences in Western esoteric practice. The planetary table here follows S. L. MacGregor Mathers's The Kabbalah Unveiled, introduction, sections 53 and 54 (1887). It is a named historical system, not a universal Jewish teaching.
Why Da'at appears on some diagrams
Da'at means knowledge. Some Jewish enumerations include it while omitting Keter from the counted ten. Our diagram uses the sequence that includes Keter. Adding every name from different schemes would misrepresent the count.
The correspondence table
A correspondence associates symbols. It does not calculate a celestial position. The Sun and Moon appear alongside the five visible planets in this historical scheme.
| Sefirah | Meaning | Correspondence |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Keter | Crown | Primum mobile |
| 2. Chokhmah | Wisdom | Zodiac |
| 3. Binah | Understanding | Saturn |
| 4. Chesed | Kindness | Jupiter |
| 5. Gevurah | Strength | Mars |
| 6. Tiferet | Beauty | Sun |
| 7. Netzach | Victory | Venus |
| 8. Hod | Splendour | Mercury |
| 9. Yesod | Foundation | Moon |
| 10. Malkhut | Kingdom | Elements |
Primum mobile names the first moving sphere in an older cosmology. The zodiac entry means the whole zodiac; the elements entry refers to material expression. These are not additional natal planets.
Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are not assigned in this table. Modern assignments need their own named source. Sefirah is singular; sefirot is plural. Spellings such as Kether, Tiphareth and Malkuth are alternative transliterations.
Read one chart fact in two vocabularies
Suppose a calculated chart places the Moon in Libra in the first Placidus house. Astrology begins with that Moon position and its aspects. The Hermetic table associates the Moon with Yesod.
A Yesod comparison adds the theme of connection and foundation to that same Moon. It supplies no second measurement. It cannot confirm the house, prove a personality trait or resolve an uncertain birth time.
Keep the chart's facts available while comparing meanings. Read the Yesod example or check how Astriel calculates a chart.
Sources and reading approach
Names and counting variants follow the Chabad reference. Its Sefirot chapter gives the religious context behind the faculty descriptions. Mathers supplies the historical planetary table, not an astronomical model.
The everyday examples are original Astriel analogies. They help compare concepts; they are not traditional quotations or personalised assessments.
Reviewed 20 September 2026.