Great One of the Night of Time

The matter itself. Synthesis, world, kingdom. Usually denotes actual subject of question, and therefore depends entirely on accompanying cards.

No. 78 of Book T's 78 titles · The Universe, Key 21 · letter ת Tau · Earth and Saturn

Read it on the 1912 page

Hebrew letter: ת (Tau, 'cross') — path 32 on the Tree of Life.

On the Tree: path 32 joins Yesod and Malkuth · see it on the map

Attribution: Saturn.

(Classical Golden Dawn / Book T attribution. Modern decks add an outer planet — Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto — to the three elemental trumps.)

A. E. Waite, a member of the Golden Dawn, in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911) · public domain · he describes the Rider-Waite-Smith picture of this card, not Book T's

As this final message of the Major Trumps is unchanged— and indeed unchangeable— in respect of its design, it has been partly described already regarding its deeper sense. It represents also the perfection and end of the Cosmos, the secret which is within it, the rapture of the universe when it understands itself in God. It is further the state of the soul in the consciousness of Divine Vision, reflected from the self-knowing spirit. But these meanings are without prejudice to that which I have said concerning it on the material side.

It has more than one message on the macrocosmic side and is, for example, the state of the restored world when the law of manifestation shall have been carried to the highest degree of natural perfection. But it is perhaps more especially a story of the past, referring to that day when all was declared to be good, when the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy. One of the worst explanations concerning it is that the figure symbolizes the Magus when he has reached the highest degree of initiation; another account says that it represents the absolute, which is ridiculous. The figure has been said to stand for Truth, which is, however, more properly allocated to the seventeenth card. Lastly, it has been called the Crown of the Magi.

Paul Foster Case, in An Introduction to the Study of the Tarot (New York, 1920), Chapter III, on the letter Tau · public domain in the US · the whole booklet

Cross: the Egyptian Tau was a tally for measuring the depth of the Nile, also a square for measuring right angles; among the Hebrews it was a sign of salvation (Ezek. ix. 4) ; in Freemasonry it is a “symbol of salvation from death, and of eternal life.”6 The palace of holiness in the midst, sustaining all things: the' “heavenly city”; the “temple”; a structure complete, whole and perfect, built four-square by the Master-Builder. Saturn: he who swallows his children; that which absorbs all things into itself; rules Aquarius (Tzaddi) by day, and Capricorn (Ayin) by night.

Power and Servitude: service is the secret of power; he who would rule Nature must obey her laws.

Administrative Intelligence: joins Yesod to Malkuth.