Fulgour said:
Very fair question, and I hope I haven't given the impression that it's because I don't like VIII and XI that I cover them up on my Pamela Colman Smith Tarot decks.
The Golden Dawn fancied 1=0 for their mystical kabbalah magic, and that moved the order of the entire Tarot off by one.
According to whom?
And why should we accept their attributions rather than the GD system?
Fulgour said:
It's long been known that Arty Waite switched these two cards so that Leo would match Strength (big Lion) and Libra would match Justice (lady with Scales and a Sword). It almost makes sense, and really does no harm, but it wasn't ever necessary, and Waite himself was rather smug about his reasons for doing it ~ he said it "would not signify" for him to say (we were too stupid to get it I suppose). Baloney!
Firstly, it wasn't Waite that made this change, he was following the GD system. Secondly, if you are going to put quote marks around something you suggest Waite said, you really should be accurate. What he actually said was;
"For reasons which satisfy myself, this card has been interchanged with that of Justice, which is usually numbered eight. As the variation carries nothing with it which will signify to the reader, there is no cause for explanation."
Now if you believe that he was thinking that you were "too stupid to get it", nothing more remains to be said. However, most people who have read this book believe he was keeping the oaths he made during his GD initiation, and that this prevented him from revealing why the cards had been changed.
Fulgour said:
Since the first numbered Tarot cards were printed, the order was VIII Justice and XI Strength, and for all of it, Libra is The Queen of Swords and Leo is The King of Wands, and in the proper order of the Zodiac, Waite's switch would give us the autumnal equinox in August. I cover them up to just forget all about it.
This is just not true, but as someone else has corrected you, you can argue the point with them.
What does seem to be more of a problem is that you are insisting that there is only one correct attribution of Hebrew letters to Trumps, that there is only one correct attribution of astrological signs to cards, and, what is more you are foisting this 'correct' system on the Waite deck, which has its own well-documented system, and has no need of your 'corrections'.
If you are talking about Tarot in general, then it might be worth discussing, but if you are talking about Waite's Tarot specifically,(and in this forum, you should be) then there is no argument as to what the attributions are.
Vincent
