Tarot and Astrology: Enhance Your Readings With the Wisdom of the Zodiac

Onaorkal

Thank you for your opinion/review of the book, Barleywine :)

Since I already got the book (and for very cheap anyway), I will gladly read it and try to take in the information I find relevant. I know nothing of the Golden Dawn associations, so I won't be able to make a proper judgement myself, but I will keep in mind what you said.
 

Barleywine

It seems to me that changing things around causes tremendous confusion and a waste of time trying to reconcile the issues...so, in the interest of simplicity, I don't usually bother with too much technicality. The Knights, being the most energetic and mobile of the two, seem to fit with mutable energies and cadent houses, leaving the Kings to sit "stubbornly" on their "fixed" thrones in the fixed houses. I have no problem with putting the Knight primary with the Queen and letting the old King rule from retirement. But, I do not concern myself with the tetragammation....as I don't incorporate that into my personal practice with the tarot. Hence, I am unable to follow much of what you point to here in that regard.

Hopefully I at least satisfied your earlier curiosity as to why I see things differently. I've been using the Golden Dawn model since 1972; the Kings are seen as more "fiery" and energetic than the Knights since their role is to inseminate the Queens, thereby begetting the Princes and Princesses (Knights and Pages). it's a hierarchical "family" dynamic based on the Tree of Life. It follows the idea that the Kings are "Potential" - or potent - power (they are judicious and eminently capable rather than capricious and scattershot in their actions the way the Knights can often be); the Queens are "Brooding Power" (which I take to mean that they are contemplative, patient and implacable in wielding their power); the Knights are "Power in Action" (raw applied power without the inconvenient burden of conscience is another way to see it); and the Pages represent the power of "Reception and Transmission" (which seems to be aligned with the role of medieval pages at court, and why they're sometimes seen as messengers). The "active" Kings are probably behind the idea that they - and not the Knights - show the "coming or going" of something in a matter depending on which way they're facing in a spread.

As far as changing things around, the Golden Dawn model goes back to the end of the 19th century, so if anything they changed around the Ettiella/Papus "continental" set of correspondences, which seem to be the earliest esoteric version. Anything that came after (like Kenner's take) would be an alteration of the Golden Dawn prototype.