About the Tree of Life app
Philosopher's Garden: The Tree of Life is first in a series of contemplative games charting the strange landscapes of symbolism and mythology. You can navigate the 32 paths of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life in immersive 3D, exploring the various symbols, attributions, sounds, colors and meditations for each. Approach a tree in the garden and it will drop a fruit for you to collect, and reveal a symbol; your task is to place these symbols on paths to which they correspond. If you need a hint, enter the temple or the pool.
The correspondence of the Kabbalah and Tarot was first put forth in print by the French magician Eliphas Levi in the mid-ninteenth century, and later formalized by an organization called The Golden Dawn. Many have speculated that esoteric Judaism, Gnosticism and Hermeticism may have influenced the unknown authors of the tarot, which first appeared in the Middle Ages, although there is no proof of this. But to generations of esoteric students, the proof of the value of the system is clear: it Just Works.
Whatever it's real or imagined origins, this symbolic environment illustrates a pattern of emanations from God at the highest, most abstract level, down to Man at the most concrete. The 10 Sephiroth represent stable waypoints through which the Divine descends into manifestation. The 22 paths are like roads we can use to travel between these cities, back upwards towards the ultimate source.
The correspondences used are roughly those of the Golden Dawn. The meditations for paths 11-32, those for the major arcana, are used with permission of Rt. Rev. Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller of Ecclesia Gnostica, taken from his excellent primer on the subject, now titled The Fool's Pilgrimage. The tarot images used are reproductions of the original Rider-Waite-Smith deck first published in 1909, and are in the public domain (more info here).
Many more correspondences could be added for each path (Godnames, Angels, Astrologics, Spiritual Experiences, Magical Weapons, Plants, Animals, Minerals, Perfumes, etc, etc...), and I look forward doing so in future updates. Ultimately, each path and sephiroth, as well as each major and minor arcana of the tarot, will be an immersive 3D environment (here's an early example for the 29th path).
Please sign up and leave your comments and suggestions, and perhaps join in fruitful discussions. Enjoy!