thorhammer said:
similia: that puts them in odd spots on the Tree of Life, too, I've noticed. Studying the Navigators, I see that Turk has replaced the Emperor to be next to the Empress again; but in the Thoth, by moving the two, the Emperor is down the bottom among the more celestial entities and the Star is up the top, near Binah (?).
Yeah I guess it depends what aspect you focus on as to how you interpret it. I'm comfortable with the swap primarily because of the reasons I outlined previously. But the location of the paths don't worry me either. In the swapped version we have Chokmah (the father) connected to Tipareth (the Son) via Heh (The Star, the Mother Nuit). I think that is quite fine, happy family dynamic going on which is nice. Most of my understanding boils down to variations on the tetragrammaton anyway, so that suits me. Lots of folks here have far better understandings than me, but I'm not at a level yet where I'm thinking that way, and so I'm not loosing any sleep over it. The trumps are not in the order we're used to, but that is kind the purpose of a swap eh?
It also balances the sequential swap of Adjustment/Libra and Lust/Leo.
The Emperor (male) balancing between the very female spheres of Netzach/Venus and Yesod/Moon seems quite happy to me also. I imagine he's a bit happier using that fish hook to penetrate some nice lady spheres, than his previous position in an incestuous gay threesome
Though truth be told I'm a bit like Rosanne in that its my opinion that the tarot is not fundamentally qabalistic, personally I prefer to look at my tarot in that way despite that. No system is really better than another IMO, but each has its strengths and weaknesses. I choose to work with this method, as its part of a "package" that is appealing to me personally. I don't think I'm more "right" than anyone else, just happy where I am
When looking at this I'm not thinking "what is wrong with this picture" but rather "what can I learn from looking at it this way".