Strength and Justice, please help.

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 12 Apr 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Jess	12 Apr 2005
Tonight I was doing a reading for myself, I'm still learning Tarot so I don't know a great deal. I'm using the Rider-Waite Deck and for the time being until I begin my Tarot learning course, I'm using a book I have called, 'The Art Of Tarot' by Liz Dean, published 2001. In there, Justice is roman numeral XI and Strength is number VIII but in my book, the numbers are the other way round. Justice being VIII and Strength being XI. Can anybody explain this? Thanks, Love Jess x

Emeraldgirl	12 Apr 2005
The swapping of Strength and Justice is quite common. I personally don't really put too much importance into it. Most of the books etc just kind of skim over it. Not really sure how this started but I go by the usual card meanings and my intuition and hope for the best I guess.

spoonbender	13 Apr 2005
The Golden Dawn switched the numbering of Justice and Strength because it suited them better that way, but the original ordering (as in the Tarot de Marseille) has Justice VIII and Strength XI. There are a lot of other things invented in Waite's deck, such as the numbering of the Fool, the naming of Arcanum XIII and the names "pentacles" and "wands". Spoon

Fudugazi	13 Apr 2005
8/VIII is the number of cosmic balance (4 + 4) - and therefore is thought more appropriate for Justice. 11/XI is a "new beginning" number - and seen to be appropriate to the "life-force" element present in the Strength card. Waite swapped round the numbers to suit his astrological correspondences, but there are other arguments to support his ordering, such as the 3x7 arrangement of the cards, with Strength being a "new beginning" of the second sequence. However, numerologically, his ordering does not make sense. There is an argument to say that Strength at 8 also suggests some sort of balance (the balance between force and inner strength). I am not convinced: if there is ONE card in the whole Trump sequence that shows balance - quite literally in the scales she holds - it is Justice; therefore I cannot see an other Major than Justice at number 8. If one does not use numbers (and many readers do not - it is optional, though very enriching to use them) - then might as well not put them on the cards and order the Trumps any which way (some deck creators have chosen that option). If numbers count, then the ordering should make sense numerologically. However, in terms of how it all started, we should have a look at the motivations of the first Tarot creators in including cards like Justice or Strength. Justice, Fortitude (Strength) and Temperance are three of the Cardinal virtues - and tarotists have puzzled a while over why the fourth virtue - Prudence - was absent from the cards. It might be one of the other Majors disguised, but more likely it was dropped to fit the evolving card-game. All this is very much in line with Renaissance philosophical beliefs, though which cardinal virtue was the most important was always a subject for debate (as was the relative importance of the various characters in the trumps): as a result, in Renaissance Italy there were many different orderings of the Majors before they settled into the pattern we know now as the Marseille ordering (though it predates the Tarot de Marseille). If one looks at how the game worked once the Trumps ordering had settled, we have: Fortitude trumps Justice and Temperance trumps them both. This ordering was the only one around until Waite re-ordered them. But by 1909, when Waite and Pamela Colman created their Tarot, the idea of "Cardinal Virtues" no longer meant what it had in 1440 and the Tarot had become an occult pursuit linked to other occult pursuits such as astrology and Kabbalah. So we are left with the numerological debate as to which card fits where.

Jess	13 Apr 2005
thanks guys :)

Skydancer	13 Apr 2005
Wow, Helvetica - great to read your posts ... as always!! :) And thanks to all from me, also. I have been purplexed by this rearranging as well. S:OS

The Strength and Justice, please help. thread was originally posted on 12 Apr 2005 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.