The 25th Path is the Intelligence of probation or temptation. The Path of Samech… leads from Yesod to Tiphareth, from the Moon to the Sun, from the Personality to the Higher Self. It is among the most important and difficult Paths of the entire Tree… Key 14 is the beginning of an awareness of the Higher Self of Tiphareth.The Temperance card demonstrates not the experience itself, but how the experience is brought about, i.e., through an exchange and balance of opposites which can only be symbolically described… The process is one of bringing the Spirit into the body so that it tempers the consciousness, and is itself tempered by the consciousness, thus forming something new, something which is “more than the sum of its parts.”
Samech, meaning to verify or test, is the name of this path. Wrath is associated with this path and represents the anger of frustration from the unfulfilled desire of the Ego to reach and control higher levels.
Harmony, balance and unity must first be restored. On this Path, where the Moon of Yesod is joined with the Sun of Tiphereth on the central Pillar of Balance, and both receive energies directly from the Divine Source through Kether at the Crown of the Tree, all contraries are reconciled. So, body and spirit, human and divine, male and female, intuition and will, and all such (seeming) dualities are united and become part of the whole.
On this Path, too, the image of the bow is of great importance. It is the hunter's bow of the Moon Goddess, Diana; the starry bow of the Archer, Sagittarius, whose astrological path this is; the rainbow of the goddess Iris; and the rainbow of colours which mark the completion of an alchemical transmutation. Arrow and bow, potential energy and motive force, spirit and will, are no longer separate but connected halves of a potential whole, like the sperm and the egg which must merge before being animated by the Divine Spark of life. So, the arrow becomes a symbol of "directed Will" and the occult significance of this on this Path of Samekh, according to Crowley, is that the arrow, figuratively wielded by Sagittarius, pierces the rainbow represented by the Hebrew letters for the last three Paths on the Cabbalistic Tree and foreshadows "the light of Truth" Foreshadowing and foresight are part of the circling life-energies of this Path.
The symbolism which pervades the Traditional Tarot card for the Path of Temperance … The Rainbow Goddess, Iris, Heavenly messenger of both Zeus and Juno, is shown standing on Earth. In each hand she holds a golden cup (two symbols of Fire) between which Water flows through Air, in a continuous, magically suspended stream. Thus, she brings all four elements together and, at the same time, her body, her arms, the cups and the water, make a continuous circle which, like the Uroborus of Nature, contains All and Nothing.
This womb-shaped circle is seen again in the shape of the Hebrew letter for this Path, Samekh, which means 'prop' or 'support'; and one Cabbalistic meditation for this Path is 'The Womb protecting Life'. Also, the numbers associated with both the Tarot card of Temperance (fourteen) and the Cabbalistic Path of Samech (fifteen) figuratively demonstrate this Divine support: 14 shows the Divine (represented by 1) alongside the 4 of the elements and the material world; 15, shows the Divine beside the 5 of the pentagram which, for Cabbalists, commonly symbolizes Mankind (often the Cabbalists' pentagram shows Man spread eagle in its five-pointed star).
So, for the Cabbalistic journeyer on this Path of Temperance, Divine support is close at hand and there is the potential for creating new wholeness at the start of a new, interior journey. However, a second meditation for this Path, 'Self Control and Self Sacrifice', suggests the care which he or she must take to achieve a balance between the human and the Divine. Temperance is essential if the Divine energies which are shown to the traveller on this Path are to be well used.
