Aces, princesses, thrones?
I just posted my first introduction then found this! Exactly what I am working on. Yes, the justification seems to be that that a princess is the malkuth of the tree above, so the ace (kether) sits 'on' the princess as the treee overlaps. But I have discovered so much questionible theory in relation to Tarot attribution in this section of the Golden dawn book. For a start, the chapter is about "The Tree of Life, projected on to a sphere". Its basis is G.D. hermetic qabalah (as opposed to traditional jewish cabalah), yet it is actually a system mixing both, and its basic orientation (with 4 directions ) is to do with qabalistic bible refrences about the 4 faces of god (we seem to be getting a long way from the tarot here!) and then to top it off, it uses tarot cards as an analogy - mixed metaphors. I feel it is a bad sytem of attribution:
1) its central reference is a about The Tree of life and not the Tarot.
2) It clearly states that the 7 planetary and 3 elemental trumps are not included! (why not? because they dodnt fit in.) again it is about the Tree projecting on to a sphere and using mixed metaphores of the celestial heavens and tarot. How can one leave out 10 of the 22 MAJOR cards in a classification system?
3) its diagramas are very different from a normal celestial map, it talks about degrees from the ecliptic (not the celestial equator) which would make the devision lines snake up and down on the (standard) celestial sphere as the ecliptic does.
4) time and time again many authors (and our own logic ) tell us that court cards relate to character, human events and related episodes and energies, the Lords (and ladies) of the Major cards are celestial archons (archetypal spiritual beings and experiences). The more correct attribution of court cards should be around the terrestial globe and not the heavens. To link them as being 'beside the sephiroth' and fit them into a Tree in space on a varient model seems to be streching it a lot away from their common understanding ans usage.
5) decans (symbolsed by the minor arcana 2's -10's) are devisions of the ecliptic not devisions going from 45 degrees Sth. of ecliptic to Sth pole. [Although you can put them anywhere you want, if that's the case, is your justification, clear, simple, logical, scientific, modern, or is it convuluted, mixed, archaic and qabalistic?]
6) at a glance the maps and whole system are unbalanced and northern hemisphere biased (okay, okay, I'm a southerner, but that makes one aware of both, as nearly everything is biased towards north hemisphere, terrestraial and celestial and you have to work it 'down here')
7)the maps seem to be a throwback from the flat earth era.
Oh, I could go on and on ....
dont suppose that the Golden Dawn system is right just because it looks complex and you cant actually follow it all the way through(as Crowley said; "To be lucid is to be found out.")
Check Robert Wangs 'Qabalistic Tarot' he totally misquotes the G.D. references refereing to the 'earths magnetic poles' (which G.D. clearly and definatly does not, giving celestial co-ordinates and refereing to CELESTIAL poles), yet he has stumbled towards something
Ravenest.