Allies for the Trump Cards

On Saturday I attended a presentation on James Wanless' Voyager Tarot, where it was mentioned that Wanless has designated certain of the Minor Arcana cards as "allies" to the Major Arcana. I just barely got the gist of it, but I had already been treating a few of the court cards as understudies or agents for trumps of a similar nature. For example, in one YR post I likened the King of Wands to the "little brother" of the Emperor because they had both appeared in different positions of the spread, and the latter suggested a less potent reincarnation of the former. Something similar happened with Justice and the Queen of Swords. I'm using the "pips-as-trumps" model for the small cards, but the courts are left out in the cold by that approach.

I was in the middle of building a chart with my ideas when I went to the presentation, and "allies" is a more succinct way to state it. Perhaps when I get my hands on the Voyager book next week I'll do some comparing and adjusting. Right now the chart is based on obvious matches, as above, those that "feel" right, and a few that had to go somewhere, so I made a SWAG at it based on a few correspondences (mainly elemental). Note that I'm not using the Golden Dawn alignment with the decans here, although some things do line up with that. I also added the Aces ("roots" of the elemental powers) as allies to the three elemental trumps (Fool, Hanged Man, and Judgement), with the Ace of Pentacles going to the World in a kind of "alpha-and-omega" arrangement. That left only the Wheel of Fortune and Temperance orphaned, so I just said they represent "evolutionary rather than revolutionary change" and assigned them the 6 of Wands (Victory/Jupiter in Leo/Tiphareth) and 9 of Wands (Strength/Moon in Sagittarius/Yesod), respectively. The 25th Path of Temperance joins these sephiroth on the Tree of Life, making a convenient correlation between the two Jupiter-ruled trumps. (Well, it sounded good at the time.)

If anyone has done a similar exercise or has seen it done by someone else, I'd like to hear your comments. Note that every one of the assignments has a reasoned basis for it, so at least consider what it might be before taking issue with any of them.

Barleywine said:

On Saturday I attended a presentation on James Wanless' Voyager Tarot, where it was mentioned that Wanless has designated certain of the Minor Arcana cards as "allies" to the Major Arcana. I just barely got the gist of it, but I had already been treating a few of the court cards as understudies or agents for trumps of a similar nature. For example, in one YR post I likened the King of Wands to the "little brother" of the Emperor because they had both appeared in different positions of the spread, and the latter suggested a less potent reincarnation of the former. Something similar happened with Justice and the Queen of Swords. I'm using the "pips-as-trumps" model for the small cards, but the courts are left out in the cold by that approach.

I was in the middle of building a chart with my ideas when I went to the presentation, and "allies" is a more succinct way to state it. Perhaps when I get my hands on the Voyager book next week I'll do some comparing and adjusting. Right now the chart is based on obvious matches, as above, those that "feel" right, and a few that had to go somewhere, so I made a SWAG at it based on a few correspondences (mainly elemental). Note that I'm not using the Golden Dawn alignment with the decans here, although some things do line up with that. I also added the Aces ("roots" of the elemental powers) as allies to the three elemental trumps (Fool, Hanged Man, and Judgement), with the Ace of Pentacles going to the World in a kind of "alpha-and-omega" arrangement. That left only the Wheel of Fortune and Temperance orphaned, so I just said they represent "evolutionary rather than revolutionary change" and assigned them the 6 of Wands (Victory/Jupiter in Leo/Tiphareth) and 9 of Wands (Strength/Moon in Sagittarius/Yesod), respectively. The 25th Path of Temperance joins these sephiroth on the Tree of Life, making a convenient correlation between the two Jupiter-ruled trumps. (Well, it sounded good at the time.)

If anyone has done a similar exercise or has seen it done by someone else, I'd like to hear your comments. Note that every one of the assignments has a reasoned basis for it, so at least consider what it might be before taking issue with any of them.

Click to expand...

This looks very interesting. As I'm at work now I'll have to get back to you when I have more time to work through the cards

Thank you!

Sincerely

-uraszz

"Allies" is a very good word. I feel when I see a spread with lots of Jupiter-related cards (including Chessed) that they support each other, a bit like in elemental dignities. Planetary dignities?

When I sort my Thoth according to the planets and put them on the Tree of Life, the pattern never repeat themselves. Each planet seems to draw its own (incomplete) Tree of Life, and there are never two cards with the same decan planet in the same sephira. I'll have to do this exercise again; last time I did it I had the strong feeling that the cards are interconnected in undercurrents and couldn't put my finger on it. But yes, there are allies that strengthen each other, there are also enemies that weaken each other, and there are strong attractions-repulsions that bring a strong dynamic to the point of instability.

Nemia said:

"Allies" is a very good word. I feel when I see a spread with lots of Jupiter-related cards (including Chessed) that they support each other, a bit like in elemental dignities. Planetary dignities?

When I sort my Thoth according to the planets and put them on the Tree of Life, the pattern never repeat themselves. Each planet seems to draw its own (incomplete) Tree of Life, and there are never two cards with the same decan planet in the same sephira. I'll have to do this exercise again; last time I did it I had the strong feeling that the cards are interconnected in undercurrents and couldn't put my finger on it. But yes, there are allies that strengthen each other, there are also enemies that weaken each other, and there are strong attractions-repulsions that bring a strong dynamic to the point of instability.

Click to expand...

I see where you're coming from. I wanted to put the "Wheel" of Fortune with the "Wheel" of the Zodiac in Chokmah for obvious reasons, but Jupiter was already assigned to Chesed in the Golden Dawn system at a more fundamental level of expression, so I was "doubling" the Jupiter emphasis (but I do like the idea of WoF/Jupiter in Chokmah balancing Justice/Saturn in Binah across the Tree). So I decided to live with it until I come up with a better solution.

I had the choice of assigning Uranus to Chokmah (and the Wheel of Fortune) since some systems replace the zodiac with Uranus as the "planet of astrology," but that would have upset my mythology-based logic of having Uranus as Judgement precede Saturn (World) in the 22-card series of Trumps. I also wanted to stay with the seven traditional planets. The Wheel of Fortune with its incrementally positive emphasis seems to be comfortable on the Pillar of Mercy, and I was more interested in the overall modeling than strict qabalistic correctness. Come to think of it, maybe I should complete the swap and assign the zodiac as a whole to the Wheel of Fortune and leave Jupiter in Chesed as the sole instance of Jupiter; as a "royal" planet it goes well with the Emperor and Aries.

Oh, your table is very very interesting.

I find the associations Pluto/Fool and Judgment/Uranus unusual - I connect Uranus with Aquarius and that future-orientation, the foolhardy idealist etc, but I have to understand your point of view better. Hm, from a mythological point of view Pluto is the brother of Jupiter and Neptune too, so why is he so much earlier? Because of his (sometimes) association with Kether?

Hierophant and page of Pentacles? Hmm, I always see the pages as early stages of something, seeds - and the Hierophant gives out dried fruit, well preserved over centuries. Oh, I understand - now I see the priest and his young helpers. Yes, definitely allies.

Active, passive, mixed - that confuses me. I like to think cardinal, fixed, mutable, and I think of the cardo of a door (I even made a diagram once where you can see the three parts of a door hinge: the part fixed to the door frame that never moves, the mutable part of the swinging door, and the cardo, the hinge, around which everything revolves and it moves, too). So I have to wrap my head around your different categories.

In your list, the minors are perfect - 9 of Wands and Temperance is so obvious, 6 of Wands and the Wheel, too. I'm not sure about some of the court cards - I also like the concept of court cards "crossing borders" with their decans and find that concept very humanizing. But looking at the knights and queens, I'd agree with all of them.

I'm not sure that I can see Uranus with the Ace of Wands - Uranus is Air for me, while World and the Ace of Pentacles are perfect again.

With the court cards, it's more difficult. I have most problems with the Pages. They're weak allies to the very strong and fully developed majors. Well, they're pages, they carry the weapons and learn.

Sorry, I don't mean to make holes in your table, I just read it and find it extremely interesting and inspiring.

I see the cards with the same number as natural allies, cards with the same decan rulers...

Mars gets along well enough with Jupiter and the Sun, Venus with the Moon and Mercury. Jupiter gets along with everybody, Saturn with nobody, Mercury is a troublemaker (all his cards are on the pillar of severity iirc), Venus and Mars make drama together and are either strong allies or giving each other hell, Moon and Venus get along well, Sun and Jupiter too, that would be a rule of thumb for planetary dignities.

Thank you for a very interesting idea. If I didn't understand you at all, please disregard what I said. I understand that you had a reason for the changes you made and the decans which are important to me are not relevant here.

Apologies if I took your idea simply as jumping point for my own!!!!