Alternate Relationship Between Thoth & Traditional Court Cards

Alternate Relationship Between Thoth & Traditional Court Cards?

I am pretty much new to the Thoth deck and a novice tarot reader in general. I just ordered a Thoth deck because I'm very drawn to it and have been reading up on it and familiarising myself with the imagery and links with the qabalah.

I have been thinking about the court cards. It seems that most places associate the traditional King with Knight, and the traditional Knight with Prince.

However, while doing my original studies of the card meanings, I came to learn that King represents air, and Knight represents fire. Well, according to the descriptions of the Thoth deck, the Knight is the fire of fire, (knight of wands called the Lord of the Flame and Lightning, king of wands the Prince of the Chariot of Fire).

So then therefore, in regards to the traditional elemental assocaitions, the King is actually the Prince and the Knight is still the Knight. But the Knight is "higher" in the hierarchy also according to this description from the Book Of Thoth:

The Knights are the most sublime, original, active part of the Energy of the Element. Their action is swift and violent, but transient. In the element of Fire, e.g. the Knight corresponds to the Lightning flash.
...
The Queens are the complements to the Knights. They receive, ferment, and transmit the original Energy of their Knight. Quick to receive that Energy, they are also fitted to endure for the period of their function; but they are not the final product. They represent the second stage in the process whose fourth and last stage is material realisation.

The Prince is the Son of the Queen (The old King's daughter) by the Knight who won her: he is represented therefore as in a chariot, going forth to carry out the combined Energy of his parents. He is the active issue of their union, and it's manifestation. His action is consequently more enduring than that of his forebears.

The Princess represents the ultimate issue of the original Energy in its completion, its crystallisation, its materialisation. They also represent the counterbalancing, the reabsorption of Energy.

No sooner has the Princess made her appearance than the Prince wins her in marriage, and she is set upon the throne of her Mother. She thus awakens the Old King, who therupon becomes a young Knight, and so renews the cycle. The Princess is not only the perfect Maiden, but owing to the death of the Prince (concurrent with the appearance of the Princess), the forsaken and lamenting Widow.

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Also found this on wiki:

In Bill Butler's "Dictionary of the Tarot" published by Schocken books in 1975 he forms a relationship between the court cards that is different and when relating back to the traditional tarot seems to suggest different meanings and should be documented here. In his book the chart would be shown as follows:
Traditional Court Card Name Thoth Deck Court Card Name
Page Princess
Knight Knight
Queen Queen
King Prince

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So now I am wondering, should I read the Prince card in the Thoth deck as if he were a king, or as if he were a knight? As the elemental associations seem to be more in favour of the traditional knight. Or does the traditional knight meanings simply replace the traditional king meaning and vice versa?

Which way do you do it? Is it okay to choose the meaning intuitively?

I was having trouble with the court meanings before and this hasn't helped much, hehe...


Also I tried to do a search on the forum to see if this had been covered before, looked through about 10 pages and then tried using the search function and it kept giving me an error

The Thoth elemental attributions and the Golden Dawn elemental attrtibutions are identical.

Crowley has only changed the name of traditional King to Knight, and traditional Knight to Prince. He puts the Kings-Knights on horses, and the Princes (former Knights) in chariots.

This has to do with his doctrines about the YHWH formula combined with the Knight-errant/Parsival doctrine about the Holy Graal.

The discrepancies between the courts in different decks can be confusing, I know what you mean. The Golden Dawn titles for what are Princes in the Thoth is King, which can be confusing, while Waite chooses to call his Princesses Pages. The essence is the same, however, and is more easily remembered through the Tetragrammaton; Yod is the Father and the fiery or active part of the element; Heh the Mother and watery or receptive; Vau the Son and airy or intellectual part; and Heh final is the Daughter and is earthy.

I wouldn't recommend going on the courts intuitively ("making them up") as more than in other decks they are essential to understanding the backbone of the deck, and it is worth taking your time with to understand. You can do anything you want, but it all boils down to how and why you study, and what you want to get out of it.

QabbalisticCabbage said:

So now I am wondering, should I read the Prince card in the Thoth deck as if he were a king, or as if he were a knight?

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Read it as a (Thoth) Prince; an energy of, 'going forth to carry out the combined Energy of his parents. He is the active issue of their union, and it's manifestation. His action is consequently more enduring' .

hmm okay i think i am starting to understand better now.

the book i was learning about the elemental attributions was "the tarot workbook" by Emily Peach, i'm not sure which system she bases her meanings on.

closrapexa said:

The essence is the same, however, and is more easily remembered through the Tetragrammaton; Yod is the Father and the fiery or active part of the element; Heh the Mother and watery or receptive; Vau the Son and airy or intellectual part; and Heh final is the Daughter and is earthy.

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thank you, i will try to keep this in mind and read more about it

I'd agree with you. The only way that makes sense IMO is if the guy on the horse is the guy on the horse, and the guy sitting down is the guy sitting down. Although I've seen people equate the RWS King to the Thoth Knight, it's illogical to me. Also contradicts Crowley's Qabalah reference, and the astrology relationships as drawn on the images of both decks.

Maybe this is useful http://www.lelandra.com/tarotbook/courtcorres.htm

Wow, hasn't that been an eye-opener! I never for the life of me thought not to equate the standard order with the standard order!

Of Knights and Kings - an old story.

A Knight is on a mission for his young King. A most beautiful woman is ‘redeemed’ (okay then … captured) and since she is so beautiful it is assumed she must be reserved for the King alone and taken back to the kingdom.

At night the Knight (who can’t help himself – as they say ) sneaks into her tent and attempts to seduce her. During foreplay a lion rips through the tent wall and attacks them. The Knight, now naked, takes up his sword and fights with the lion, still maintaining his erection (the Knight’s, that is). He kills the lion and returns to the woman, still with an erection and covered in lion’s blood. Now she is more than compliant.

They return home, she is presented to the King and they marry. On their wedding night the King is nervous and loses his erection when a mouse runs across the floor. The woman is disgusted with him and makes a comment to the effect of; “What sort of man are you? When your Knight took me he didn’t let an attacking lion scare him.”

The Knight and the executioner are summoned before the court. The King asks if it is true and the Knight says it is and lays his head on the chopping block. But the King declares the Knight is the true man and should be King and the King lays his head on the chopping block.

The Knight refuses and says that the King is the real King as he was prepared to give up his life so the people would get a better ruler while he himself was acting in passion and impetuously without thought for the future and the good of the people and since the King was still young he would mature into a worthy man and still be a good King.

The King forgives the Knight and the woman.

{Apologies to Rumi.}

Since the RWS Kings are sitting on thrones, it is natural to think of them as positioned opposite the Queens on the Tree, which would place them at Chokmah, and then they would inherit the attribute Fire (Yod) rather than Air.

Otherwise Kings = Princes (Air) and Knights = Knights (Fire) seems right. I don't see any neat solution of the problem. Somehow it really seems as if the Courts at Sephiroth 2 and 3 should be consorts. Having an RWS Knight at 2 feels like some Lancelot-Guinevere hanky-panky is going on.

ETA. Good tale, ravenest.

Unless .... it always WAS the Queen running the show - you know how women are - sneaky, playing dumb and coy all the time while subtly manipulating the male - playing on our 'weaknesses'.

And since Binah seems to be doing most of the formulation, triangulation and fecundation and Chokmah is little more than a hollow tube and a concept-focus point ... why have a King anyway?

All you really need (in this New Aeon) is a Queen and a Knight to get out there and make sure her will is done in the world (and a potential next in line at Tiphareth ... we will call him a Prince if it makes him feel better ... and a Princess to eventually replace the Queen - although Knights 'cycle through' a LOT quicker ... I told you they were sneaky).

That way the Prince can redeem the daughter, she takes the throne of the Mother, knights the Prince and sends him off to valiantly venture forth for her ( with a bit of Lancelot-Guinevere hanky-panky on the side).

Works fine.

- Now I'm going to hunker down and prepare for the onslaught of Feminists, Male Liberationists and Kabbalists.