sorry guys in gold dawn the king was fire, ..which is the truth ?

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 13 May 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

HOLMES	13 May 2003
sorry for all my posts where i called the king air, which in turn may of misleaded others. in double checking the references the king is indeed fire, knight air, queen water and page earth. *lol i just had to change it again for i made the king air and knight fire agian. tarot and tree of life changed the king to kingdom sephiroth putting him in the earth category so i just assumed the air being the reversal of earth(or so i thought ) made the old king air. so in the the tarot tree of life, everday wisdom in the minor arcana, pages are emanation, , knights are creation queens are formation, and king are action. while in the golden dawn, the kings are emantion queens are creation knights are formation, and pages are action. which is the true ? hmm ? the old school or the arguements made by tarot and the tree of life, basicaly she changes them for some reasons. 1. the king should rule the kingdom. 2. the pages look like they just recieved the gifts from the aces in the rider system 3. the work of the world needs to be done by the most experience (again an arguement of the king for the kingdom ) 4.the knights in the act of creation give of themselves for the creation, and the queens form the baby for 9 months . now i am totally confused as i learned these both at the same time. i cant' see queens are air, and knights as water . despite the reasons. the old arguement i was using to go upwards to the number one is to use the golden dawn ,, and to outwards into the world is to use the tarot and tree of life is no longer valid for me , for the above mentione di can't see queens as air and knights as water. can you ?

Keslynn	13 May 2003
I mostly handle the courts as a set of characteristics rather than by elements of elements. I find that system requires too much thought whereas I can get "mastery, justice, orderliness, etc" directly from looking at a King instead of having to think "now what would the fire of air be like?" However, since you work within a system, I think it's best to pick the one that's more intuitive to you. If the king seems more like air to you, then use that. No sense in confusing yourself just to follow tradition, which is very fluid in tarot anyway (especially in regards to applying outside systems such as Qabalah). Which way of thinking about it convinces you most? Pick that one. :) Kes

Dark Inquisitor	14 May 2003
I always thought that knights were action because they were on horseback & usually moving . Except for the Knight of Pentacles who looks stuck , but could go somewhere if he made up his mind. Tarotphelia

jmd	14 May 2003
There are a number of factors to dis-entangle here. Firstly, let's forget about the courts generally for a while. On the Tree of Life, Malkut (translated as 'Kingdom') is usually associated with its other appelation as the 'Bride'. As such, she is at times correlated with the Princess/Page. With regards to the courts generally, again there are various correlations which have been made. Basically, these stem from non-Tarot considerations, but ones which relate to the elements and, often, to the tetragrammaton (ie, the Hebrew four-lettered name of God: YHVH). Even here, there are various traditions as to which letter corresponds to what element, but the best known is: Y od = Fire H eh = Water V av = Air H eh = Earth Given the activity of the Fire element, some decks replace the King with the Knight, and rename the Knight as Prince - which can, indeed, confuse. This doesn't really add much to what has been said. In terms of which are the 'true' correlations, then, it should be remembered that they are later additions to the deck. As court images, they are of Kings, Queens, Knights and Valets... and all which these imply.

Rusty Neon	14 May 2003
Also, I guess it's time to bring up (for those who on the Forum may not yet heard of it) the Golden Dawn reconstitution of the royal family. The GD orders the courts are Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess. The Queen is the _old_ King's wife; the Knight on horseback is the Queen's new consort; the Prince in the chariot is the old King's son; and the Princess is the Prince's consort (or is she the old King's daughter?). In the Golden Dawn's Enochian magic system (taken from Dee), the order of the four elements is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. And so that is the GD's elemental assignment order for the Tetragrammaton syllables as well. I'm speculating that the Golden Dawn switched the court order around to make Knight first, so that the active knights on horseback are the first listed element, fire. In contrast, the princes were placed on chariot. Thus, this brings us to Knight = Fire Queen = Water Prince = Air Princess = Earth In the 'Golden Dawn' decks of Wang and of the Ciceros, those four courts are redesignated as King (on horseback), Queen, Prince (on chariot) and Princess, respectively, and are Fire, Water, Air and Earth respectively. In the Thoth deck, those Kings are called Knights (horseback), with the rest of the court as Queen, Prince, Princess. However, Waite's RWS deck continues to have the kings on thrones, and the knights on horseback. 'Oftentimes', the RWS King (even though not on a horse) is equated to GD Knight and is therefore Fire, while the RWS Knight is equated to GD Prince and therefore Air. By some others, the RWS King is equated to GD Prince and therefore Air; and the RWS Knight (on horseback) is equated to GD Knight (on horseback) and therefore Fire. Corrections and precisions are appreciated. :) I can't get it all right in one typing session. P.S.: This has little to do with court/element correspondences, but I'd like to throw in the observation that some present day Tarot de Marseille French tarotists like to list the court figures in the slightly different order of Knight, King, Queen and Valet, though in that court the King (i.e., the old and current King) is still clearly in charge of the kingdom. Jodorowsky and Morel are two such authors.

The sorry guys in gold dawn the king was fire, ..which is the truth ? thread was originally posted on 13 May 2003 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.