Waite's Knight Kings - Dark & Fair

What are we to make of Waite's designations here...
Is he following Thoth with the King-Knight switch?

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 a Queen for a woman who is over forty years and a Page for any female of less age.

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But maybe he simply made another typo since he says:

The four Court Cards in Wands represent very fair people, with yellow or auburn hair, fair complexion and blue eyes.

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All very good, but he had earlier written of the King:

The physical and emotional nature to which this card is attributed is dark, ardent, lithe, animated, impassioned, noble.

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And further of this same King of Wands...

Dark man, friendly, countryman, generally married, honest and conscientious.

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But then here, the Knight of Wands...

A dark young man, friendly.

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Now if fair is dark and dark is fair, with Kings and Knights
both here and there, should we alas e'en wish to care.

All quotes: The Key to the Tarot (1910) by A.E. Waite
none of the many errors of which were edited in 1911.

Your age, Madam?

...a Queen for a woman who is over forty years
and a Page for any female of less age.

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This may prove once and for all that Waite was never
a Tarot card reader ~ or failed immediately forever.

Fulgour said:

What are we to make of Waite's designations here...
Is he following Thoth with the King-Knight switch?

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It makes more sense to me to think that it was Waite who made the switch (from the GD tradition towards the Marseille) and not Crowley. (The dates would exclude Waite following the Thoth's example) The Thoth courts are virtually identical to the GD in many regards, with the name change being a more superficial adjustment. Either way both Waite, Crowley and the GD materials seem to give seniority to the guy with the horse, so there is some agreement.

Of course the rest of Waite's argument is a little bit jumbled I wonder if this is due to his taking information from various sources without much editing or discrimination? It makes it clear that he had no personal preference in this regard at least.

...a Queen for a woman who is over forty years
and a Page for any female of less age.

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Although this one makes sense to me (if your gonna pick a date of birth as the deciding factor). Also it affirms Waite is roughly equating the Pages in the RWS deck to the Princesses in the GD.

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 a Queen for a woman who is over forty years and a Page for any female of less age.

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The early decks by Rider-AGMuller have this on page one
of the LWB issued with those decks. Stywart R. Kippling's
USGames LWBs rephrase it entirely without the reference.

I just finnished that book last night. And I found it odd for that to be done.
I donno...it works either way.

Greetings Zargata

Zargata said:

I just finnished that book last night.

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Which of Waite's three (all very different) sets of attributions
for the Major Arcana did you find most genuinely convincing?

The Key to the Tarot (1910)
~ also known as ~
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911)

Page 12
Page 71
Page 283

Yeah mine is the 'The Pictorical Key to the Tarot' 2001 printing.
I thought the first one was to tell you the truth.

I have a book printed in 1930 by Thierens, with a forward by Waite. Waite either did not read the book and approved Thierens's information, or did read it and had changed his views in 1930. It is Astrological in Nature and heres what it says for the Wands King..
"Country gentleman,(maybe fair), man with good intentions and yet severe, honest and conscientious; may be a peasant or agriculturist. Eteilla calls him the father. Marriage, union." Thierens assigns the King of Wands to the House of Mars.
~Rosanne

Fulgour said:

Which of Waite's three (all very different) sets of attributions
for the Major Arcana did you find most genuinely convincing?
The Key to the Tarot (1910)
~ also known as ~
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911)
Page 12
Page 71
Page 283

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The two books are not exactly the same and the page numbers don't correspond in them.

Convincing of what? Waite collected ideas (including card meanings). He makes clear in various places that he doesn't think much of some of them (even though he records them), and that quite a few of the meanings taken from various sources contradict each other. When he wanted a fortune-telling or advice reading for himself he explains in his autobiography that he would go to certain people who were skilled in reading the cards intuitively (not according to "rules" in a book).

I think all of this has to be taken into account when reading his book, which is clearly a pastiche of materials with different sections having different intents. Just as Paul Christian and others have divided their meanings into different level concerns, so to, Waite divided his into what's veiled, what's behind the veil, and what's in the outer court.

As to different hair colorings, etc. - he's obviously deriving his descriptions from a variety of sources which can be tracked down and identified (see James Revak's tarot website for examples of this).

Also, Waite did not get inspiration from the Crowley/Harris Thoth deck. Check your dates!!! Waite's deck is not a true Golden Dawn deck, although he was clearly influenced by the Golden Dawn correspondences. In essence, he tried to create an amalgam. In my view, the paradoxes are some of the deck's greatest strengths. They help us not get locked in to any one system and leave us free to make our own decisions about how to see the cards.

Mary

I do know how to read Mr. Waite

I have "Waite, Waite, Waite..."

1918 de Laurence, Scott & Co., Chicago
1959 University Books, Inc., New York
1966 University Books, Inc., New York
1972 Rider & Company, Hutchinson Publishing Group, London
1993 Citadel Press, Carol Publishing Group, New York
and a few of those paperbacks, from Connecticut