Fire and wands (or "suits and elements")

Question: does anyone know who first linked wands with the element fire? Was it Waite or the Golden Dawn lot, or did happen further back?

Also, does anyone know when in history was the first attempt to link the suits with elements at all?

In general, on the matter of elements, etc, I just found this interesting read, and have spent the afternoon covering pages with untidy diagrams as a result:

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/JO-PE.txt

/dminoz

A lack of reply at this stage normally indicates that those of us who have references have not had a chance to yet consult them, and memories are not clearly trusted...

...so, putting myself in the above category, I post and will probably seek to alter the same later.

From memory, Book II of Paul Christian's History and Practice of Magic (published circa 1870) mentions of the 'ordeals' of the elements that he appears to relate to the suits - so if this is an instance, it clearly precedes both the GD (started 1888) or Waite.

E. Levi may also have made a connection, but honestly do not recall at the moment... and as for Etteilla, it is always possible, but have never read his book in full.

Also, does anyone know when in history was the first attempt to link the suits with elements at all?

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When in history was the first attempt to link the elements with suits?

I have reversed your question to answer you. The first attempt was made 4500 years ago in Hermopolis.
The Ogdoade people had in ther Book of Thoth four elements arranged as suits called:

the primeval waters
invincibility
infinity space
darkness

Elements are in later cultures and today something physically outside, but were in ther shamanic philosophy
too something inside. The primeval waters correspond to what we today name gens, invincibility to our ears, infinity space to our feelings and darkness to our eyes.

dminoz said:

Question: does anyone know who first linked wands with the element fire? Was it Waite or the Golden Dawn lot, or did happen further back?

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I don't know the answer to that.

Also, does anyone know when in history was the first attempt to link the suits with elements at all?

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The earliest I know of is 1582, in a book by Jean Gosselin. Michael Hurst gives my translation of the relevant part at his site.

The order is:
Tiles (Diamonds)=Earth
Clovers (Clubs)=Water
Hearts=Air
Pikes (Spades)=Fire

The reasoning is this (which I quote from Michael's site because I wrote most of it) -

"A book by Gosselin (La Signification de l’ancien jeu des chartes pythagorique) associates the four suits with the four elements, in a 52-card French-suited deck. (One Tarot author noted that the term “Pythagorean” in the title is an example of the inflated manner in which the label was used at the time. It was slapped on to anything concerned with numbers to add a false patina of age and wisdom, and cards had numbers.) Franco Pratesi summarized the attributions as follows:

“Firstly, it will be seen, that in a common pack of cards there are four types of characters: which are Tiles, Clovers, Hearts and Pikes. These show us the four Elements, of which all natural things are composed…
— The Tiles, [Diamonds] which are depicted on the cards, signify the earth: for just as the earth sustains all heavy things, so the tiles are used to bear the heavy things placed on top of them.
— The Clovers, [Clubs] which are depicted on the cards, represent water: for the reason that the clover is an herb that flourishes in moist places, and is nourished by means of the water that makes it grow.
— The Hearts, which are depicted on the cards, signifies to us air: since our hearts could not live without air.
— The Pikes, [Spades] which are depicted on the cards, represents to us fire: for just as fire is the most penetrating of the Elements, so the Pikes are very penetrating weapons of war; and with each of the above-said characters are marked thirteen cards in a deck, which gives the sum of fifty-two cards.”
(From a TarotL post by Ross Caldwell; quoted from Franco Pratesi in Jean-Marie Lhôte, Dictionnaire des jeux de Société, note 18 page 652.)

http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Fragments/1540-1739.html , s.v. 1582

Ross

The order is:
Tiles (Diamonds)=Earth
Clovers (Clubs)=Water
Hearts=Air
Pikes (Spades)=Fire

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Wow. And that's from 1582. In his latest book, Robert Place says Levi was the first to relate the elements to the suits, but he seems have been thinking of the more 'normal' tarot suits, not this clovers, pikes and tiles business.

I suppose the upshot of it all is that since they all seem to have such different ideas, anyone's guess/system is as good as anyone else's guess/system. My thinking (for today, anyway...) is that if Levi had anything to do it, I'll forget about it. He was a bit (well, ok, a lot) full of mumbo for my liking. Set him and Alistair Crowley adrift in a boat together, I think, and see if they can find Atlantis.

I've got a slightly different take on the question, though: disregarding the notion of elements, are there any early attempts to correlate the tarot suits with particular qualities or spheres of action or influence?

For example, we hear a lot about swords being related to the intellect, and rational thought. Did that start wiith our friend Levi, or does this sort of attribution to suits have an earlier origin?

dminoz said:

Set him and Alistair Crowley adrift in a boat together, I think, and see if they can find Atlantis.

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LOL you made my day!

You guys are mean. I like both of them!