qabbalah court cards, referenced with the decanates

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 07 Oct 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

HOLMES	07 Oct 2003
qabalisticaly speaking.. the two are considered the king, and the three are the queens, and the sixes are the knight and the 9 are the pages, looking at the decanate pattern , and reasons given by lon milo ,, it would indicate by cross referencing the qabbalah , and the pratical decanates of the astrology you can get a defined system of understanding the tarot minors. also since the kings are fire, queens are water, knight are air, and pages are earth,, is it safe to say that the wands suit would be the suit of king, and he is the strongest there ? it would appear so ,, fire, fire and cups is the suit of the queen for she is the strongest there, water water swords the suit of the knights(princes) for he is the strongest there, air/air and pentacles is the suit of the pages, earth /earth that gives a further clue or hint at where the king is the weakest and strongest,.. and how the minors cards from the decanates system would be influenced in much the same way. an example would be, , kings would be weakest in the suit of cups, due to the elemental conflict. so the signs of seven of swords, eight of cups, and nine of cups can be considered in conflict already .. yet isn't the nine of cups the happiest time ? perhaps that gives a hint that we are enjoying the strenght of emotions too much as spiritual conflict occurs within . and two by defination of the qabbalah kings as two spheres, would be the strongest in wands, neutral in swords, somewhat neutral in pentacles, but weakest in two of cups.. yet people see two of cups as the closest to the lovers archtype as can be. the answer is ,, the two of cups is the queen of cups , intermixed with the king archtype, so we are really looking at the king , of fire, with the queen of water, water, what we get when we look at the two of cups is the old story of the fire elemental in love with the either the water elemental or the ice elemental, and only by miracle of the universe can they interealte. this post doens't take into account the signs, or planets just the qabbalah ,and the decanates assignment of the minors.

Thirteen	08 Oct 2003
Before we wander into numberology or connections to the minors and really start to confuse folk, let's emphasize WHY Kings are "2" and queens "3" (instead of Kings being, say, 4 which is the Emperor's card) in the QABALA (note that special emphasis there. Qabala is the aspect of the cards we're investagating here--a philosophical rather than purely emblematic aspect). The connection being made here refers to BRANCHES and SIDES of the tree. 1 is Kether the crown, the origin (the ace--thus making IT the strongest, not King or Queen). It's at the pinnacle, 2 is Chokmah, the MALE branch down and to the right of this center pinnacle and Binah (3rd branch down) is FEMALE branch down and to the left from this pinnacle. Thus Kings (Knights) rightly "rule" the male SIDE of the tree while Queens rule the female side of the tree. This, by the way, puts the King and Queen as EQUALS, as they rest on either side of the tree and connect directly into Kether. This would mean that even though one is "2" and the other "3" they weild equal power. Qabala is very yin and yang that way. In fact, though Wang certainly acknowledges the Queens as relating to the 3's (being able to give birth to that third person that makes up the family, the trinity) he notes that the "Four Duces symbolize the Powers of the King and Queen first uniting and initiating the Force but before the Prince and Princess are thoroughly brought into acton. Therefore do they generally imply the initiation and fecundation of a thing." 6 for Knights indicates the conjunction of Tiphareth which represents, yes, "The son" including "sacrificed gods"--it's located at a nexus straight down from Kether, directly between the male/female sides, and represents a vision of healing and redemption. This nexus is emblematic of that which unites. As the Knight/Prince unites his father/mother the King and Queen. He is the spiritual center. And it isn't 9 for page/princess; it's 10's. MALKUTH. Which rests at the exact opposite end of Kether. Think of a staff with a ball at the top, at the lower center and at the bottom. Kether is top, Knight is lower center, Princess/Page is bottom. This is the Earth on which we walk, or "Kether below." As above, so below. Though it is the most humble, it is also the most like the Godhead. Relating back to Judeo-Christian thought, if the Prince is the religion, the Princess is the rituals, the "supportive structure without which the religion would not function." Bride to the bridegroom. Hope that helps clarifying things.

HOLMES	08 Oct 2003
you are right , it is the page in the ten sephiroth, for the longest time i seen the page as the number nine, (i see numbers backward and so 6 upside down become nine, and my mind just related it to the nine sephiroth instead of the ten ) but for the rest of the stuff, i would say what i posted agrees with all the stuff you posted, (i didn't think of terms of right side male and left side female for the tree, but one being the source, two being the extensions of the source, and 3 being) the recieving or manifestion of the will of the number two great claifying :O) (i made the previous mistakes for a few post about king being air, when indeed they were fire and it is the knight who is the air quality ) so if pages are ten , and the ten of every suit is connected to another by the queen of other suit. the ten of any suit would have the influence of pages , qaballah connection, and queen, astrology style. (can you look at the decanates in the minors to see where i may of made mistakes thirteen ?)

Thirteen	08 Oct 2003
Quote: Originally posted by HOLMES can you look at the decanates in the minors to see where i may of made mistakes thirteen ? Ah. Well, if we're getting into decanates we've exhausted my astrological knowledge. They're far and away beyond my modest underatanding of astrology and the tarot. I'm not even quite sure how they might help in further understanding tarot--unless you're going by way of Crowley and seeing certain cards as having very particular astrological assignments (like Pisces in Venus--or is it vice versa)?

The qabbalah court cards, referenced with the decanates thread was originally posted on 07 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.