Can someone explain these darn Thoth Courts?

Richard1

One Last Word in My Defense

I'm trying not fight a lost battle or flog a dead horse here, but I can't resist adding one more thing in my defense.
In the Pictorial Key, Waite shows the suits starting with Kings, but I don't buy this; he also places the Fool in between Judgment and the World, saying all the while that that's not where it belongs.
Closer to the real order, I think, is his section on choosing a significator (p. 299), where he says, "A Knight should be chosen as the Significator if the subject of inquiry is a man of forty years old and upward; a King should be chosen for any male who is under that age."
Rachel Pollack, though, says this in 78 Degrees, p. 277: "People who have read Waite's Pictorial Key will remember his confusing assignation of Knights to men above forty, and Kings to younger men. The system comes from the Golden Dawn Kabbalistic Tarot. In that deck the Knights represent Fire, and Fire, as we might expect from an order of magicians, stands at the head of the suits. Therefore the Golden Dawn Knights represent mature men. But the Golden Dawn deck (and Crowley's Thoth Tarot) does not contain Kings, or for that matter, Pages, at all; it uses Knight, Queen, Prince, and Princess. It makes sense for a Prince to represent a male younger than a Knight. It does not make sense for a King to do so, and most readers do not follow Waite's intstructions on this point, even when using his deck."
I suppose I can buy that, as well.
OK, I'll shut up about it now.
 

Kiama

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
 

jema

Re: One Last Word in My Defense

Richard said:
OK, I'll shut up about it now.
nooo, don't shut up. i enjoy hearing other views apart from my own set ways and i really appreciate this whole thread since i learnt a lot from it and it made me sit down and really question what i think and why i think that way. so i got good stuff in my journal now:)
 

Richard1

Eh, I think I'm with Kiama on this...although the way she worded it made me think...I think the problem here (for me, at least), is that Thoth is the deck I started on, and I didn't get RWS until months later, so that it was never a matter of getting the Thoth to fit RWS, but the reverse...
So tell you what...you burn your Thoth cards, I'll burn my RWS. Everbody's happy, and the Tarot Matriarchy reigns supreme!
 

purplelady

"Tis confusing!
However , this is the order I chose to put them in:

princess
knight
queen
prince

In other words, the princess is the page, the knight is the knight, the queen is the queen , and the prince is the king.

Take a look at the knight of cups, doesn't he remind you of the rider-waite page of cups just a little? Also, all the knights are just that -knights in armour on a horse etc. The princes all ride on opulent chariots which to me seems more kingly. At least that's how I used to read them. But now I can either chose to keep that or become even more confused!
Perhaps the Queen is a widow, or sovereign, the princess and prince are her children , and the knight serves her ?
 

Emily

I've enjoyed reading everyone's idea's of the Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess but I wouldn't be able to read them any other way now - I see the Knight as a Warrior King, all of them ready for battle or have been in battle and worthy companions of the Queen, followed by the Prince (Knight) and Princess (Page).
 

paradoxx

perhaps a new perspective (or a new card) is in order

adding an extra court card would be the best thing to do here. The fact is, without a king card, the suits seem incomplete, but i like the knights.

my preference for a modified court card system:

Jack and/or page-its alot to ask we add one more let alone three more cards to a suit but that adding up to 28 total courts (7 courts x 4 suits) but i wanted to add all potential candidates. but in relation to the family, perhaps this is a new born child, adopted child, cousin, or friend in relation to the rest of the interpretations.

princess-daughter
prince-son
Knight-guardian
Queen-mother
King-father

I relate Crowleys knight to being a king for certain readings. the word knight assigns a specific energy that is not always the highest court. But guardian is a good defnition for divniniation (since your guardian may not be your father).

The Knight may also be the Queens brother, therefore the prince and princesses uncle.

just as crowley made his interpretations, we must make our own, what others say are things we already knew, they just said it differently than we do.
 

Richard1

Hi, Paradoxx!
That's an interesting idea, and I've seen another deck (can't remember which one) that did that, except they added the "Mentor" card. The problem is that it turns it from a Jewish (or "Jewish"...Crowley's understanding of Kabbalah was, uh...innovative, let's say) Kabbalistic system into a Christian one, as the fifth card would necessarily correspond elementally to Spirit, and Kabbalistically to the Hebrew letter Shin, making the Divine Name YHShWH (Yeheshua, Jesus) rather than YHWH.
 

paradoxx

The only way to get around that is to denumerate the court cards and let the person who is working with them decide what goes where. That way no one can complain except for those who don't like to think too much.
 

Hedera

and I've seen another deck (can't remember which one) that did that, except they added the "Mentor" card.

Richard, perhaps you are thinking of the Parrott deck?
I have it, like it (weird, I know, I know....), used it a lot for a while, still go back to it sometimes, when Thoth feels a bit too harsh but I want something Thothy. Some of the minors are a bit primitive, and I don't quite get some of the Wand minors, but I love the majors and the courts. A very cheerful deck, lots of funny details. And I love the 8 of cups so much more than the thoth 8 of cups.

I considered leaving the mentor cards out (who needs *more* court cards??), but from the first spread they said such nice things to me, I decided to leave them in.

As for Thoth court cards in general (or any court card, for that matter); after reading this thread, I more or less gave up putting them in *any* order, I just sort of read 'em as I see 'em....;)

Actually, that's not quite true. In the Parrott deck, for instance, I see the Mentors as the things/experiences/lessons that cause you to mature from the prince/princess stage to the queen/knight stage.

The thing is, in readings it is rare that more than one court card shows up, so I can get away with not bothering about the relationship between the different court cards.