mixed elemental dignities court cards

Richard

Excellent reasoning, closrapexa. Thank you!
 

Richard

.....The cards themselves do, in fact, show this correctly; it is only in the PKT where Waite both lies outright and lies by omission.
I would rather call it subterfuge.
 

MR GREEN

So do I go with Knights = fire Queens = water Kings=air Pages=earth. And Wands=fire Cups=water Swords=air Coins=earth. From the above then it seems like Crowley's system makes more sense even if I am using the RWS deck..
 

Zephyros

So do I go with Knights = fire Queens = water Kings=air Pages=earth. And Wands=fire Cups=water Swords=air Coins=earth. From the above then it seems like Crowley's system makes more sense even if I am using the RWS deck..

Yes, except it isn't Crowley's system, any more than Waite's is a system in the first place. Crowley presented the original Golden Dawn doctrine on the matter, because he just didn't see himself bound to the old oaths of secrecy. There are several reasons for this, some making sense, others a bit less.

Waite, on the other hand, did take them very seriously. He couldn't not have Courts in his deck, so he allowed himself, as LRichard put it, a bit of subterfuge. In the context of the RWS, this is understandable, since its aims were far less ambitious than the Thoth. In the big scheme of things, people were supposed to pick up the RWS as a simple fortune-telling deck, and he didn't anticipate deep study. He may not have thought anyone would be interested in such things. Today the RWS is iconic and is dissected ad nauseum, but he couldn't have anticipated that that was what would happen.

The question could be asked, though, why the Courts? There are many GD secrets strewn throughout the deck, and they are displayed plainly, even in the ordering of the Trumps. So why?

In any case, how this manifests in the meanings themselves is interesting. The Knight is the force of his suit, he is blustery and lacks sophistication. All he wants is to hurl his spear and rest. The King (Thoth Prince) is the more sophisticated one, having the action of his father tempered by the passivity of his mother. The idea of the Prince/King being immature certainly has merit, but it manifests in pride, snobbishness, etc. I'm generalizing, of course, but that's the general idea. Element of element is a small part of the Courts' picture, and is quite limited in its application.
 

MR GREEN

Thanks for the information. Its like learning a language you get the basics, but only when you find out the (whys) do you rely start to get the feel for what is being said...
 

ravenest

'Everyone' wants to put the King first , its our patriarchal conditioning IMO.

In that context it works KIng is supreme and Queen and Knight are subsidiary to him, the page is an extension of them on a 'lower' plane / function.

In AN 'elemental' arrangement it works with Air as King ... as 'Air' - or more correctly pneuma (πνεῦμα) - is the primal element and from it are derived the obvious polarity of fire and water ( the Knight and the Queen ) ... but from this TRIANGULAR relationship of forces (that are actually more like the 3 'gunas' ) 'earth' or 'the manifest' is a result - the image is the three points or sides of a triangle as the three forces and the triangle itself is the manifestation or earth .

But in the tarot it is a '4-square' formula; the actual formula of the courts and the suits is based on a manifestation of fire joining with water, air joining with earth, the interplay of active and passive on two levels - YHVH. So here, in the Tarot, it appears the order should be fire , water, air, earth. And the image is of a square.

Maintaining that and calling the first Court a King doesnt really work , IMO , unless we give the King the fiery qualities
 

Eremita90

As far as I understand the system, but I absolutely welcome corrections, it's not that Court Cards have two elements: it's just that each element has some qualities in common with the others. Fire of Water does not mean, as I understand it, Fire and Water, but that part of Water that has a fiery quality. In this case, the Knight/King of Cups, says Crowley, is the power of Water to solve things. So when it comes to EDs I do not take the "secondary" element into consideration.
 

tigerlilybug

'Everyone' wants to put the King first , its our patriarchal conditioning IMO.

In that context it works KIng is supreme and Queen and Knight are subsidiary to him, the page is an extension of them on a 'lower' plane / function.

In AN 'elemental' arrangement it works with Air as King ... as 'Air' - or more correctly pneuma (πνεῦμα) - is the primal element and from it are derived the obvious polarity of fire and water ( the Knight and the Queen ) ... but from this TRIANGULAR relationship of forces (that are actually more like the 3 'gunas' ) 'earth' or 'the manifest' is a result - the image is the three points or sides of a triangle as the three forces and the triangle itself is the manifestation or earth .

But in the tarot it is a '4-square' formula; the actual formula of the courts and the suits is based on a manifestation of fire joining with water, air joining with earth, the interplay of active and passive on two levels - YHVH. So here, in the Tarot, it appears the order should be fire , water, air, earth. And the image is of a square.

Maintaining that and calling the first Court a King doesnt really work , IMO , unless we give the King the fiery qualities

This is why I've decided to adopt the King as fire which I learned through Tarot Decoded because I see the King as the first court and consort to the Queen. For me Knight as fire just doesn't fit the family dynamic I picture in tarot. Although I'm in no way saying one way is right and the other isn't. I believe it has been stated that Waite did not explicitly state the elemental dignities which leaves it open for interpretation. Whatever works best for each of us IMO is the best choice.
 

ravenest

As far as I understand the system, but I absolutely welcome corrections, it's not that Court Cards have two elements: it's just that each element has some qualities in common with the others. Fire of Water does not mean, as I understand it, Fire and Water, but that part of Water that has a fiery quality. In this case, the Knight/King of Cups, says Crowley, is the power of Water to solve things. So when it comes to EDs I do not take the "secondary" element into consideration.

Yes, that is an important distinction and, when we extend the theory into other areas it can cause confusion to mispercieve it.

Eg. We 'feel' anger ... feelings are attributed to water and the 'emotional body', and anger relates to heat / fire. So anger is not in the fire realm of 'inspiration' or 'individuation' but it is a 'fiery' and overheated aspect of our feelings : the fiery part of water.

Also with fire ... one thing it can relate to is inspiration ... it can come from 'above' (spirit) , in a flash like lightening (fire of fire) it can come from methodically working something out (airy part of fire) or even from a dream (water of fire) or from a learning experience (earth of fire) .
 

ravenest

This is why I've decided to adopt the King as fire which I learned through Tarot Decoded because I see the King as the first court and consort to the Queen. For me Knight as fire just doesn't fit the family dynamic I picture in tarot. Although I'm in no way saying one way is right and the other isn't. I believe it has been stated that Waite did not explicitly state the elemental dignities which leaves it open for interpretation. Whatever works best for each of us IMO is the best choice.

yes ... I think the energy pattern needs to be consistent , there is much less occult import * in the naming of the courts titles.

* meaning , it wont matter much within tarot itself but when learning, translating and applying the Hermetic concepts within tarot to other areas and fields, it is important to have a system that is consistent in its application in those other fields.