Can someone explain these darn Thoth Courts?

Hedera

Yes, I was, Rose, but thank you! :)

Unfortunately, some of the links to parts of the book don't work for me, so I can't read the whole thing. I sent them an email about this, and also about 2 of my cards which have a blue line running through them, but I didn't get a reply.

Anyway, what I would *really* like is a book by Ms Parrott, if she is still alive, about the symbolism in the deck. Some stuff is quite peculiar!
 

Cascade_Jon

Eww, can't say that I like the caveman artist quality of that deck! But, to each their own. I'll stick with RWS and Thoth for my money.
 

rom

jema said:
knight=fire
queen=water
prince=air
princess=earth

i find it easy to simply use those elements for the courts and think about the courts as Fire of Water for example = knight of cups.

but if you want to translate them to RWS cards it would be like this:

knight=king
queen=queen
prince=knight
princess=page

or at least that is how i use them:)

me too i believe this is the right way
but should remember these are translations [interpretations]
 

rom

Kiama said:
I have an excellent idea.

Each of us go get our Thoth decks.

Now, take out the Knights and Princes.

Now burn those cards.

Then, take plain cards to replace the burnt cards.

Draw on those plain cards YOUR new courts, whether you want to assign the Knights to Air or Fire (Its that damn 'is it fire or air'? debate again...! First we get it with the Wands, now with the Courts!!) is up to you.

Hey presto, a Thoth deck which isn't as confusing for everybody.

:D

Kiama

this is not an original idea
after the french revolution EMPEROR EMPRESS cards turnen out to be FATHER MOTHER cards while MAGUS and HIGH PRIESTESS turned to be Grandfather Grand mother cards [see in Cavendish book TAROT]
 

bagheera444

court card arrangements

Hi i'm new but decided to enter into the fray at this point .

i noticed the exchange of ideas about the arrangement of the court cards specifically the knights .

Crowley's move away from traditional tiltles from kings in RWS deck to his interpretation called knights .

I think he did this to express the universe as changing dynamic force the knight is virile creative- king is static established

the laws of marriage prevent you from marrying within your own clan to prevent inbreeding,etc . intuitively perhaps we were aware of this a long time ago

By providing a wide gene pool to improve the families lot the king would arrange marriages to ensure his daughter had the the best possilble chance of providing an heir

I think Crowley's uses history to explain how he thought the knights function was superior to that of the king hence his position in the thoth deck .

At first sight it would show the knight in a higher position to that of the king.traditionaly we believe the king as being that yod of tetragrammation

the knight would take the kingdom by force marry the daughter maybe kill the king ,but immediately is enthroned , the knight becomes the highest and so the cycle goes .

the knight provides the same function as the king in other decks the creator ,inseminator ,the originator as reflected in the arrangement with Queen ,prince princess to follow,its just that

crowley brings his own ideas to the tarot and switching between pack identities sometimes catches us off guard like talking english then switching to french.

formula of teragrammaton and other ideas on sub elements , court cards, as has been suggested by others might help to settle this down

hope this has helped

Bagheera
 

Leopard

Wow.... i'm still digesting all that thread... phew.... have taken my Thoth court cards out... studied the images and vibrations... and have come to my own view:

Knight
Queen
Prince
Princess

I came here for clarification not more confusion... lol. Must say you guys are good at doing my head in... ;)

Happy Travels!
Leopard
 

wizzle

knights are knights

delete
 

wizzle

knight of cups

As a follow-up to my previous post, I got seriously concerned about the K of cups (Thoth) fitting into the cardinal/fixed/mutable scheme since he had that dratted crab in his chalice. BUT, he also shows a peacock in the lower right of the card.

After surfing until 2 AM last night, I found that the peacock is assocated with Jupiter, old ruler of Pisces. Maybe this knight is just a little confused. Hey, that could BE the whole symbolism, no? A quest for ....."um.....ah......gee, these both look good." Or perhaps a new saying? "A crab in the cup is worth a peacock in the whatever."
 

Rusty Neon

wizzle said:
The Thoth deck is so tightly aligned with astrology for the pips and trumps, that I can't believe the court cards aren't as well. And I think Liz Greene cracked the code perfectly, i.e. kings/princes are the fixed signs, queens the cardinal signs and kights the mutable signs.

It's important to keep in mind that in the Golden Dawn system - which Crowley follows for the minor arcana - a King, Queen or Knight doesn't correspond to one single sign of the zodiac, but, rather, the last decan of one sign and the first two decans of the next sign in the circle. For example, the Queen of Wands corresponds to the last decan (the last 10 degrees) of Pisces and the first two decans (the first 20 degrees) of Aries. Thus, the Queen of Wands isn't just cardinal Fire (Aries) but, also, mutable Water (Pisces) in part.