Courts and Elements revisited

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 17 Oct 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Macavity	17 Oct 2003
I'm sure many are aware that Thoth Court Card names are "different". And just as many understand the reasoning behind such things? Yet, prompted by a posting on another group, I thought I'd throw this one in for comment (or not). It gives a new slant on things and might even "worry" someone else... as it did me, for a while. }) The discussion starts with an observation that Thoth courts have CLEAR (Crowley defined!) attributes for Qabalistic and Elemental assignments: Knights (Yod, "Fire of..."), Queens (Heh, "Water of...2), Princes (Vau, "Air of..."), Princess (Heh, "Earth of...") etc., in their respective suites. With me so far? Let the fun begin... Take the MALE courts from the Thoth and RWS decks and compare them. Now, allowing for a certain "handedness", it SEEMS that the best symbolism match (compare what they are holding) is indeed Knight with Knight and King with Prince (Yeah, yeah, replace the throne with a Chariot... or Four! ). Interesting though? And perhaps not quite as I had assumed, without sight of the cards. Doubtless there was some common denominator ("Book T" maybe?) behind all this, as an existing design source for both Crowley and Waite... Speculation: Not merely did Crowley swap the names for the knights and the kings/princes, he also swapped much of their symbolism too. "So what", you say? Well, if you're going to use elements (e.g. dignities) with decks other than Thoth, you might consider ALSO swapping elemental (and astrological?) attributes as well. Thus the RWS Kings become "Air of..." and RWS knights "Fire of..." in their respective suites. Now there's a odd notion? ;) Macavity P.S. On second thoughts, I might just leave things as they were (My Knights ARE Kings, period!) Sometimes Tarot makes things like... particle physics seem downright EASY in comparison! :laugh:

Kiama	17 Oct 2003
Thanks for this post Macavity! I must admit I usually find it very easy and useful to apply Crowley's elemental system to the Court Cards of the RWS-based Robin Wood, except when it comes to the Knight of Swords: In Crowley's deck the Knight of Swords is the same as the RWS King of Swords, but the meanings, if we use the elemental system Crowley has, are swapped, and this really ruins it all for me. :( It makes the King (RWS) into the Knight (RWS) that is seen as the lightning bolt, the person who cannot stand still, who is always flitting from one thing to another... To me, the King of Swords (RWS) is not like that. But otherwise, I have begun to find Crowley's system extremely useful, and it got me to thinking about the Courts as a whole, which led me to try to work out what things in common all the Queens have, all the Kings have, all the Knights have, and all the Pages have... Because of this I came up with my own system (that I mentioned in an earlier thread) which I use on top of Crowley's. :D It works. :D:D:D Kiama

Macavity	18 Oct 2003
Thanks for the reply Kiama. Indeed the original debate was prompted by the Kate Warwick-Smith book on court cards. I think the general concensus is that using the "crossing" of Qabalistic and Suite assignments is a great way of generating keywords for the courts. I think the slight quibble was over using e.g. the Thoth Knight and RWS King on the same page to illustrate "fire of" etc. And it's a valid observation, in retrospect. I'm glad somone else sees what I (we) meant! ;) I must admit I haven't done too many comparitive exercises on the Courts (though quite a bit on everything else) so it's been illuminating - As indeed your comments regarding some other deck specific issues. It continues to surprise me just how alike many of these same-rank courts are, but with notable exceptions... like the Thoth Prince of Swords? I still reckon this was one of Frieda's Friday afternoon jobs! :D Ah, I sensed we'd (partly) been here before, so I will read e.g. http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17617 with renewed interest! :) Best, Macavity

The Courts and Elements revisited thread was originally posted on 17 Oct 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.