Thoth courts X RWS Courts

[Aun]

I imagine this must be a repeating subject in this forum, but I'll bring it up once more.

It is very common to find this comparison between the Thoth and RWS court cards around:

RWS - THOTH
King - Knight
Queen - Queen
Knight - Prince
Page - Princess

I used to follow this scheme to help memorizing the cards, but the deeper I go on my court cards studies, the more I find it to be inaccurate.

As far as I can see, the RWS kings are out of the loop in the Thoth. According to the theory the Kings are mentioned only as the fathers of the Queens (passive part of their element), which married the Knights (active part of their element). The Princes are sons of the knight/Queen couples, therefore the manifestation of their energies. The Princesses represent the cristalization, materialization of their element.

From this perspective, I see a large gap between the two deck's court cards...

I'd like to hear your opinions.

[f. silvestris]

I don't think the two systems do connect. Waite's court cards seem a retreat back to the older decks from the Golden Dawn system. For what it's worth, the Princes tend to seem rather negative or warning cards when I get them in readings - they carry a suggestion of stagnated power, accomplishment followed by laziness. (Perhaps this is just the sort of thing that haunts Mr Silvestris as he slides into middle age.)

[TaranRavenfrost]

Hmm, Princes for Me always seem to be the male in a relationship, for some reason. Or they represent Masculine energy, in a younger form (like a teenager or a young man). Hmm, I like the idea of warnings though. I will have to look into the Thoth courts more.

[Rusty Neon]

RWS - THOTH/GD

King - Knight
Queen - Queen
Knight - Prince
Page - Princess

Golden Dawn Knights are on horses and GD Kings (a.k.a. GD Princes) are in chariots rather than on thrones.

The only way to reconcile the RWS courts with the Thoth/GD courts is one of the following:

(1) Pursuant to the approach of Robert Wang in his book _The Qabalistic Tarot_, look on the RWS King as a Thoth/GD Knight, and look on the RWS Knight as a Thoth/GD Prince despite that the figure on the horse is the RWS Knight rather than the RWS King and that no RWS court is in a chariot.

OR

(2) Notwithstanding the RWS card titles and pretending that the throne is a chariot, look on the RWS Knight as a Thoth/GD Knight, and look on the RWS King as a Thoth/GD Prince. This in effect is how the GD does it in its manuscript _Book T_. In _Book T_, the GD courts have the following mundane (non-esoteric) and esoteric names and ranked (highest to lowest): Knight (with esoteric title King), Queen (with esoteric title Queen), King (with esoteric title of Prince or Emperor), and Knave (with esoteric title Princess).

Personally, I find the approach taken by the Golden Dawn decks (the Wang deck and the Cicero deck) and the Gareth Knight deck less confusing than what Crowley did. In the GD and Gareth Knight decks, the card title of Knight is avoided altogether and instead the courts are titled King (figure on horse), Queen, Prince (figure in a chariot) and Princess.

[Vincent]

Originally posted by Aun

I'd like to hear your opinions.

There is a good explanation here;
http://www.llewellynjournal.com/article/387



Vincent

[lelandra]

I am also of the strong belief that
RWS Knight = Thoth Knight and RWS King = Thoth Prince

Unfortunately this is rarely the correspondence seen in print. For instance Mary Greer & Tom Tadfor Little's book insists on making Knights represent Air. (though at least there is a footnote that describes the correct [IMHO] attribution)

I have a longish rant here:
http://www.lelandra.com/tarotbook/courtcorres.htm

I think if you line the cards up side by side as I do on this webpage, it really removes all doubt as to how to correspond the courts. Visual proof.

Lelandra
(Joan Cole)

[Parzival]

For a self-educational exercise, I took out my Waite and Thoth miniatures, from the Tarot Kit,and I put the cup-courts of the Waite in a line over the Thoth cup-courts-- in random orders.
Then I tried to match Waite above to Thoth below. Clearly, knight above matched knight below, and queen matched queen.No other cards matched basic symbolic gestures : both knights ventured to seek and find, both queens inwardly dreamed or brooded.
This left me with Waite King over Thoth Prince. Both are above the great waters.Obviously, much variation in treatment.Finally, Waite Page, fish darting out of cup, was over Thoth Princess, turtle peaking out of shell.
As I look over the King-Queen-Knight-Page matching Prince-Queen-Knight-Princess, it makes visual/symbolic sense.Take a look for yourself and see what you see.

[Emily]

I had a little trouble when I first starting using the Thoth because of the absence of the King but in the end I had to go with my instinct and the way the cards looked and felt to me.

I do use the Thoth Knight as King - I feel he has the energy of the King,dynamic, suited in armour and riding, the Princes just don't have the same energy. Also I don't feel that the Queen would have a Prince as a consort, it would be a Knight.

[Parzival]

Yes, no correspondences work perfectly; I found it a worthwhile exercise, even so, to try visual- symbolic matches. I've added Via and Barrett's Ancient Egyptian under the rows of RWS and Thoth (all still cup- courts) to a total of 16 cards all over my computer desk. Prince-Queen-King-Princess through the four rows looks right for visual contemplation. Sea eagle, Ibis, Horse, Dolphin through the Thoths; Air,Water,Fire,Earth. But not a perfect set of correspondences, since subjective associations enter in too. Prince with Queen. King with Princess. Not quite right.

[lelandra]

It all depends on why you use the Tarot and what your methodology is. If you are only using the cards for divination/doing readings and are purely a "go with my instinct/intuition" and "the cards mean what I say they mean" kind of person, then just don't worry about the correspondences. It doesn't matter.

Waite, Colman Smith and Crowley were all members of the Golden Dawn at some point and very familiar with Book "T" and both decks partially implemented it - the Thoth more so than the RWS, in my opinion. Neither deck is completely Golden Dawn, but an understanding of both decks is improved IMMENSELY by understanding Book "T".
(you can read it here:
http://www.the-equinox.org/vol1/no8/eqi08016.html)

Book "T" is very clear about how to correspond traditionally suited decks to their court system. The Thoth deck is incredibly close to Book "T"'s description of the court cards. The RWS deck is less close, but still shows some small features if you line it up with RWS King=GD Prince and RWS Knight=GD King. And there's that comment in the Pictorial Key to the Tarot about Knights being for men over 40 and Kings for those younger when choosing a significator for the Celtic Cross.

If you have any interest in using any of the Golden Dawn correspondences, like the astrological sign, for instance, you need to line it up right. Not everyone uses correspondences, so if you're one of those people, it's a totally irrelevant and moot point how they line up. It's also perfectly valid to work out your own correspondences, no matter what the intent of the deck's designers might have been. There's nothing ancient or holy about the Golden Dawn correspondences as recorded in Crowley's book 777 - if you have another system you love, use that. But it's not what Crowley designed the deck around, nor what Harris painted.

Keep in mind that the RWS was painted before 1910, and the Thoth deck was painted around World War II, so correspondences in POSES might be based on inspiration from the RWS card showing up in Thoth. The intended correspondence may not go the other way, who knows - Waite did not write clearly about the occult intentions for that deck - just general public divinatory meanings and vague hints beyond that. Crowley did write very clearly (OK, maybe not so clearly - his style is pretty difficult ) about the intentions for the Thoth deck.

Lelandra
(Joan Cole)