Archetypes on the Tree of Life: The Tarot as Pathwork by Madonna Compton

Archetypes on the Tree of Life is a dense spiritual text exploring the Tree of Life through the use of Tarot cards.

It’s kind of funny- I think my favorite part of this book wasn’t actually the book at all but instead the brief introduction which was written by Hans Nintzel. Nintzel was a student of the western mysteries who describes himself as “living down the street from Israel Regardie.” As I used the writings of Israel Regardie to do my own explorations into the Tree of Life, I found my mind blown right there. How cool would that have been, to have lived on the occult teacher’s own street? Too cool.

Here’s what Nintzel had to say that was so compelling:
As Qabalah evolved, it was discovered that, using this glyph or map called the Tree of Life, one could move around the geography of the consciousness, so to speak, contacting or balancing various personal energies by contemplating various aspects of the God energy using myths, legends, visions, and dreams, represented by the archetypes of the Tarot.”pg 4

I have yet to see a more concise description of what pathworking is than that. Now why Nintzel didn’t write his own book, I simply don’t know. Being the librarian that I am, I did a bit of digging into his background and it seems that he was a prolific lecturer and a translator of alchemical texts, but didn’t write his own. Disappointing. Here’s a link that I found of works that he helped to bring to the US which were listed in his obituary: https://www.alchemywebsite.com/rams.html

As for Compton’s 300 or so page contribution, I found myself to be disappointed. Archetypes on the Tree of Life is in the main, rather obscure Qabalistic/Kaballistic theory. It reads almost exactly like Regardie’s Garden of Pomegranates or Fortune’s The Mystical Qabalah. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have some gems of interest, but mostly it’s slow going and not as accessible as the publisher (Llewellyn) promised it to be in the page where it described the goals of its Spiritual Perspectives Series.

Compton’s most interesting point has nothing to do with traditional pathworking but is instead a hypothesis that she and her meditation partner have constructed about potential alternate paths across Daath. They’ve chosen a five pointed star to create the paths, but I would perhaps lean more towards a six pointed star, which still sort of works. The six pointed star is a combination of an upwards and downwards facing triangle, an ancient alchemical symbol for self actualization. Though, admittedly, the five pointed star has definite Tiphareth associations… and so the debate continues I suppose. 🙂 Anyway, if you’re interested in Compton’s theory, turn to page 304 to save yourself some time digging through the other stuff.

If you enjoyed this book, may I recommend reading either of the two books I mentioned earlier: The Garden of Pomegranates by Israel Regardie or The Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune. If you want more examples of modern pathworking, see my book: https://thelightcongress.com

Thanks for reading!

• The Ballad of a Small Player: a Metaphysical Movie Review
• Otherwhere: A Field Guide to Nonphysical Reality for the Out-Of-Body Traveler by Kurt Leland
• Psychic Dreamwalking: Explorations at the Edge of Self by Michelle Belanger
• Archetypes on the Tree of Life: The Tarot as Pathwork by Madonna Compton
• The Goddess and the Shaman: The Art & Science of Magical Healing by J.A. Kent