Tunnels of Set
The twenty-two paths of the Dark Tree
After Kenneth Grant · Nightside of Eden, 1977
The ten Qliphoth are the shells themselves, static nodes of the Dark Tree, each with its own quality of distortion, while the Tunnels of Set are the paths between them. There are twenty-two of them, answering to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the twenty-two Major Arcana of the Tarot, and together they form a system of routes through the night side of being.
Kenneth Grant drew the map in Nightside of Eden (1977), the volume that opens the second Typhonian trilogy, working from the automatic writing and sigilic work of Austin Osman Spare, from Crowley, and from his own magical experience. The names are not his. Crowley had given them in Liber CCXXXI (Liber Arcanorum) long before, and Grant built his system of tunnels on top of them. Each name belongs to a being that inhabits the tunnel or guards it. They are not demons in the usual sense, because what they do is pass: they are principles of passage, forces acting in the space between states.
The Zohar and the Lurianic tradition discuss the Qliphoth themselves in detail, while the tunnels are scarcely present in classical Kabbalistic literature at all. They belong predominantly to the Western magical tradition of the 20th century. The descriptions given below are the archive's own reconstruction: the cartography comes from Grant, the names from Crowley, and the readings themselves are derived from the pair of Qliphoth and the corresponding Arcanum.
Overview table
| Letter | Tunnel & Entity | Arcanum | Path |
|---|---|---|---|
| א | AmprodiasAleph · 1 | The Fool (0) | Thaumiel — Ghagiel |
| ב | BaratchialBeth · 2 | The Magician (I) | Thaumiel — Sathariel |
| ג | GargophiasGimel · 3 | The High Priestess (II) | Thaumiel — Thagirion |
| ד | DagdagielDaleth · 4 | The Empress (III) | Ghagiel — Sathariel |
| ה | HemethterithHeh · 5 | The Emperor (IV) | Ghagiel — Thagirion |
| ו | UriensVav · 6 | The Hierophant (V) | Ghagiel — Gha'agsheblah |
| ז | ZamradielZayin · 7 | The Lovers (VI) | Sathariel — Thagirion |
| ח | CharacithCheth · 8 | The Chariot (VII) | Sathariel — Golachab |
| ט | TemphiothTeth · 9 | Strength (VIII) | Gha'agsheblah — Golachab |
| י | YamatuYod · 10 | The Hermit (IX) | Gha'agsheblah — Thagirion |
| כ | KurgasiaxKaph · 20 | The Wheel (X) | Gha'agsheblah — Harab Serapel |
| ל | LafcursiaxLamed · 30 | Justice (XI) | Golachab — Thagirion |
| מ | MalkunofatMem · 40 | The Hanged Man (XII) | Golachab — Samael |
| נ | NiantielNun · 50 | Death (XIII) | Thagirion — Harab Serapel |
| ס | SaksaksalimSamekh · 60 | Temperance (XIV) | Thagirion — Gamaliel |
| ע | A'ano'ninAyin · 70 | The Devil (XV) | Thagirion — Samael |
| פ | ParfaxitasPeh · 80 | The Tower (XVI) | Harab Serapel — Samael |
| צ | TzuflifuTzaddi · 90 | The Star (XVII) | Harab Serapel — Gamaliel |
| ק | QulielfiQoph · 100 | The Moon (XVIII) | Harab Serapel — Nehemoth |
| ר | RaflifuResh · 200 | The Sun (XIX) | Samael — Gamaliel |
| ש | ShalicuShin · 300 | Judgement (XX) | Samael — Nehemoth |
| ת | ThantifaxathTav · 400 | The World (XXI) | Gamaliel — Nehemoth |
Tunnel descriptions
11 · א Aleph — Amprodias
The first tunnel joins the highest point of the Dark Tree to the first obstacle. The being that lives in it, Amprodias, has no fixed nature, like the Fool who stands outside the numbering of the Arcana. Aleph signifies the ox, the primal force, which here moves sideways, toward obstruction, where the bright Tree would carry it upward toward unity. The tunnel of Amprodias is the space of the first step in the dark: a leap in which there is no ground beneath the feet and no knowledge of where one is falling.
12 · ב Beth — Baratchial
Beth means house, though the houses Baratchial builds have no doors in them. The Magician on the bright Tree signifies will directed toward embodiment, and here the same will turns toward concealment. The tunnel runs between the highest conflict and the great hiding, and the intention moving along it goes out of sight instead of coming into manifestation. Baratchial is a master of vanishing and not of making.
13 · ג Gimel — Gargophias
Gimel names the camel, the animal that crosses the desert, and the tunnel of Gargophias crosses the Dark Tree along its central column, from the summit to the centre. On the bright Tree this path crosses the Abyss and joins Keter with Tiferet, while here it leads from the war of Thaumiel to the discord of Thagirion. Gargophias keeps the longest and darkest of the tunnels. The High Priestess brings silence to this path, and in that silence all meanings drown.
14 · ד Daleth — Dagdagiel
Daleth is a door, and this one opens sideways: the horizontal path in the upper triad of the Dark Tree joins two kinds of destruction of understanding, obstruction and concealment. Dagdagiel moves across the place where the Empress should have stood with her fertility, her growth and her life, and what stands there instead is a side corridor between two forms of darkness, a door leading from one dead end into another.
15 · ה Heh — Hemethterith
The letter Heh carries the sense of a window. The window of Hemethterith is looked through from above downward, because the force of obstacle travels from Ghagiel to Thagirion at the centre of the Dark Tree. Where the Emperor of the bright Tree establishes order and authority, that authority here is nothing but a continuous obstruction descending from above. The fifteenth tunnel is the fall of authority into discord.
16 · ו Vav — Uriens
Uriens passes between the obstruction of wisdom and destructive love, and he fastens the two together with a nail, because the nail is what the letter Vav is called. The Hierophant, inverted, does not transmit tradition; it uses tradition as an instrument of coercion. Uriens links two kinds of violence done to knowledge: the blockade of it, and the turning of it against those it should have loved.
17 · ז Zayin — Zamradiel
Zayin stands for the sword, and the sword is what opens the cache that Sathariel had sealed. What was concealed flows along Zamradiel's tunnel into the endless disputation of Thagirion. The Lovers on the Dark Tree bring two kinds of darkness into union, with no choice of paths on offer, and the hidden becomes the object of conflict the moment it comes out.
18 · ח Cheth — Characith
The Chariot moves down the left column of the Dark Tree, from concealment to fire, and Cheth, the letter of this path, is a fence. Characith is the passage where what was hidden comes to light through burning and not through revelation. Nothing is disclosed in it; everything is consumed. Discovery in the eighteenth tunnel goes by way of destruction.
19 · ט Teth — Temphioth
Teth takes its name from the serpent, and Temphioth joins two forms of destruction horizontally in the middle of the Tree: love-as-crushing with fire-without-aim. The Arcanum of Strength here unites two unrestrained forces, and reason tames neither of them. Temphioth carries excess itself, a principle that knows no moderation in love or in destruction.
20 · י Yod — Yamatu
The hand that Yod names holds nobody, and Yamatu descends alone from distorted love to the centre of discord. The Hermit on the Dark Tree bears isolation as a form of punishment and nothing of the wisdom of solitude, and the twentieth tunnel is a descent that leads nowhere, solitude moving through darkness toward greater darkness.
21 · כ Kaph — Kurgasiax
Kaph translates as the palm, and onto that palm the wheel comes down. Kurgasiax joins destructive love to the ravens of dispersion, and the Wheel of Fortune here is the endless rotation of destruction: what destroys through love above is scattered by ravens below. Kurgasiax is the mechanism of that transmission, a wheel that translates one form of destruction into another without stopping.
22 · ל Lamed — Lafcursiax
Lamed is the ox-goad, an instrument of direction, and Lafcursiax uses it to drive the senseless fire of Golachab toward the central discord. Justice, inverted, hands down no judgement but an endless process without verdict, and this tunnel is the space of perpetual proceedings, where the fire of Golachab becomes the procedural hell of Thagirion.
23 · מ Mem — Malkunofat
Mem signifies water, and the water here puts the fire out only part of the way. Malkunofat carries the fire of Golachab to the poison of Samael, so that burning passes into poisoning. The Hanged Man on the Dark Tree is no willing sacrifice. He hangs by force. In the twenty-third tunnel destructive fire becomes intellectual poison, because physical destruction cools and turns mental.
24 · נ Nun — Niantiel
Nun marks the fish. Niantiel counts among the most significant tunnels. The Arcanum of Death on the Dark Tree carries the discord of Thagirion into the dispersion of the ravens. Death here works no transformation, as it does on the bright path. It is the end of harmony and the beginning of decay. Niantiel is the passage from central conflict to whatever that conflict finally falls apart into.
25 · ס Samekh — Saksaksalim
Samekh means support, and the support carries the central column of the Dark Tree further down, to where the discord of Thagirion flows through Saksaksalim into the impurity of Gamaliel. Temperance, inverted, mixes what ought to have stayed separate, and Saksaksalim is the principle of wrong combination, the joining of the incompatible, discord recast into defilement.
26 · ע Ayin — A'ano'nin
Ayin answers to the eye, and A'ano'nin is the tunnel of attachment and enslavement, where the Devil binds central discord to poisoned reason. The two Qliphoth are not merely joined here; they reinforce each other. Dispute descends into poison and poison rises into dispute. A'ano'nin closes into a loop with no exit. The seeing eye looks into nothing.
27 · פ Peh — Parfaxitas
Peh denotes the mouth, and Parfaxitas throws a horizontal bridge between the ravens of dispersion and the poison of reason. The Tower strikes with lightning, suddenly, destructively. On the Dark Tree that stroke is destruction as such, and it frees nobody from a false structure. The scattered and the poisoned meet in Parfaxitas, where the act is sudden breakage and nothing follows it.
28 · צ Tzaddi — Tzuflifu
Tzaddi names the fish-hook, and the hook drags the scattered force of the ravens toward the impure foundation. The Star on the bright Tree is hope and direction, while here the same star is a false beacon that shines and leads to defilement, and Tzuflifu is the tunnel of attraction to what ought to have repelled.
29 · ק Qoph — Qulielfi
Qoph is called the back of the skull. Qulielfi is among the most unsettling of the tunnels, because the Moon rules dreams, illusions and whatever stands between consciousness and the unconscious. Here she leads from the dispersion of the ravens straight to the whisperers of Nehemoth. Qulielfi is the passage from madness to the dark whisper, from daylight chaos to the night call. No tunnel lies closer to the surface of dreams.
30 · ר Resh — Raflifu
Resh points at the head, and the head carries the poisoned intellect of Samael down to the impure foundation of Gamaliel. The Sun, inverted, is a blinding light that burns out the capacity to see and lights nothing up. Raflifu is the poisoned mind that has found its channel, poison become part of the foundation. Brilliant, confident, completely blind.
31 · ש Shin — Shalicu
The tooth belongs to Shin, and Shalicu, the penultimate tunnel, carries the poison of reason straight into the dark whisper of Nehemoth. On the bright Tree the Arcanum of Judgement signifies awakening, resurrection, a summons, while here the same call sounds from the dark and summons downward instead of raising anyone from the grave. Shalicu is an announcement heard only in the depths, by someone who has nearly reached the bottom.
32 · ת Tav — Thantifaxath
Tav is called the cross, and the last tunnel joins the impure foundation to the dark floor of the Dark Tree. On the bright path the Arcanum of the World signifies completion, integration, the return to wholeness. Here it signifies none of that. Thantifaxath is the final step into a space from which there is no return. It is an end not in the sense of completion but in the sense that there is nothing beyond it. Nothing except the dark.