Death

Correspondences

Number

XIII

Hebrew letter

נ Nun, “Fish” (value 50)

Attribution

♏︎ Scorpio

Golden Dawn title

The Child of the Great Transformers; the Lord of the Gate of Death

Thoth

Death

Marseille

L’Arcane sans nom (unnamed XIII)

Case’s key word

Transformation

Path on the Tree

The 24th path, joining Tiphareth and Netzach

The letter

Nun, the fish, is the swimmer in the waters of the unconscious: Joshua was “the son of Nun”, and Jesus’ disciples were fishers. Its ordinary value is 50 and its final form (ן) 700. The Talmud says the bent Nun (נ) is the faithful one who is bowed, and the straight final Nun the faithful one who is raised: humility and its reward. Case gives it the faculty of motion.

On the Tree

The 24th path joins Tiphareth to Netzach. It is one of the three paths that lead to Tiphareth from the Astral Triad, whose crossing in the Portal grade marks the entrance to the Inner Order. Death and rebirth are the price of that passage.

Death in the Waite deck

Smith’s Death is a skeleton in black armour on a white horse, carrying a black banner with a white five-petalled rose. A king lies dead under the hooves; a bishop pleads; a maiden turns away; a child offers flowers. Between two towers on the horizon the sun is rising. Case’s key word is transformation: Scorpio’s power, used for regeneration rather than decay.

Death in the Thoth deck

Harris painted a skeleton with the crown of Osiris sweeping a scythe through bubbles in which new forms are born; around him are the three beasts of Scorpio, the scorpion (the lowest form), the serpent (the middle) and the eagle (the highest), with a fish (Nun). Crowley stresses that the scythe cuts but the figures are dancing: death in this card is putrefaction in the alchemical sense, the black stage that precedes rebirth.

The unnamed card

In the Marseille deck trump XIII has no name: the skeleton harvests heads and hands from black earth. Players and later occultists called it l’arcane sans nom, the nameless arcanum.