The grades · a cosmology wearing an org chart

0°=0 Neophyte · 1°=10 Zelator (Malkuth) · 2°=9 Theoricus (Yesod) · 3°=8 Practicus (Hod) · 4°=7 Philosophus (Netzach) · the Portal · then the Second Order: 5°=6 Adeptus Minor (Tiphareth) · 6°=5 Adeptus Major (Geburah) · 7°=4 Adeptus Exemptus (Chesed) · and the Third: 8°=3 Magister Templi · 9°=2 Magus · 10°=1 Ipsissimus.

Read one way it is an ascent through the Tree. Read the other way — and this is what the wing's ⋀ the grades model makes you see — it is the staff structure of a Victorian society: officers, regalia, dues, examinations, and a formal hierarchy of who may initiate whom. The sephirot are the paint; the ladder is the building.

The tradition on the far side of this annex transmits differently: through named teachers who taught named students, a chain of people rather than a ladder of ranks. Neither is contemptible. They are simply not the same object, and the second one wore the first one's clothes.