Strength or Justice

Those of you who are familiar with the Lifetime card system devised by Angeles Arriens and promoted by Mary Greer will eventually confront this dilemma if you have not already.

If you get the numbers 8 or 11 as your year card you will have to choose between Strength and Justice. This is because the French traditions of Tarot assigned number 8 tin the Major Arcana to Justice and the Godden Dawn tradition assigned number 8 to Strength. This meant that number 11 had to filled by Strength or Justice respectively in the two separate traditions.

There are different views about this. One of them is that the Golden Dawn felt there were problems with the alignment of the Marseilles sequence with the Hebrew alphabet and its astrological attributions (Mary Greer: Tarot Constellations Appendix A). Angeles Arriens herself felt that once Strength and Justice were both back to back. This view is supported by the Rosenwald collection of Tarot cards dating back to the 16th century in which both Strength and Justice are numbered 8.

People are probably going to argue about this and will have a chance to do so in this thread.

The poll is being posted at the request of Jumptothemoonyea and Sunchariot who are facing the dilemma right now and would appreciate any information which will help them make a decision.

I have not done a poll for a long time and hope this works.

The number eight associated with the Virtue of Justitia precedes the earliest Tarot cards found - and is said to be associated with Justice from ancient Greek times.

The question becomes not, of course, whether eight or eleven have other connections with Justice, but also which (if either) fits the sequence, as Moongold has also indicated.

It really makes no sense to put Justice anywhere but at number 8. In all symbolic numerology systems (that's from the European, to the Chinese, to the Japanese, to the Indian, the African, the Inca, etc., from Ancient to Modern times) the number 8 - the double of 4 (the square, stable number) is the number of cosmic balance and by extension, of justice. In just about any culture you can think of, the number 8 is the cosmic regulator, what adjusts and stabilises the Universe, as well as completing it. Shiva has eight forms, which keeps the universe in balance. There are 8 trigrams to the I-ching - again, a symbol of the golden mean, of perfect balance. The Dogons see 8 as the number of the first human beings (all hermaphrodites, though 4 are mainly male and 4 mainly female) - he eighth is the master of the WORD, which is one of the attributes of Justice.

In Christian cosmogony, 8 is the number of the Resurrection (7 days, and the 8th is resurrection) and therefore the day when we will go before Justice.

Pythagoras and the gnostics ascribed 8 to central balance - and linked it to Justice.

The Golden Dawn saw fit to reinvent all that, but their system in nonsensical.

I admit that I am no expert in Tarot history, but I voted for 8 for strength and 11 for justice, since the first decks I aquired were RWS.

Granted, though, this shifting really doesn't confuse me as much as card images not following the basic meanings, but rather been given some alien meanings, or that the basic element of cards have been shifted for the fun of it, as in some Lo Scarabeo decks, and a couple of others as well.

I should like to hear from those who think Justice is 11 and Strength 8, what, beyond force of habit (the use of a RWS deck and clones), justifies such an attribution.

I learnt with RWS, but very quickly switched those two cards back because the way Waite had ordered them made no sense at all to me. But if there is a sense to you: what is it?

I voted for Justice 8 and Strength 11 - even though the decks I use are based on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck I prefer the earlier numbering of these 2 cards, numeroloically it makes more sense to me to have them this way round. I usually just switch the numbers round in my head.

Love

Sulis xx

Helvetica wrote:I should like to hear from those who think Justice is 11 and Strength 8, what, beyond force of habit (the use of a RWS deck and clones), justifies such an attribution.

I learnt with RWS, but very quickly switched those two cards back because the way Waite had ordered them made no sense at all to me. But if there is a sense to you: what is it?

Waite's system is based on mapping the Fool and the 21 trumps to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the Sepher Yetzirah associates each Hebrew letter with an astrological sign, planet, or element, such that the 9th letter (8th trump) is Leo and the 10th letter (11th trump) is Libra. He swapped Strength and Justice so the iconography of the cards would match the astrological correspondences better. It's as simple as that. As far as I know, there is no other good reason to have Justice as 11 and Strength as 8.

In The Witches Tarot...

Strenght is VIII
Justice is X
The Wheel of Fortune is XI

1. Aleph ~ Air

2. Beth ~ a planet
3. Gimmel ~ a planet
4. Daleth ~ a planet

5. Heh ~ Aries
6. Waw ~ Taurus
7. Zayin ~ Gemini

8. Heth ~ Cancer
9. Teth ~ Leo
10. Yodh ~ Virgo

11. Kaph ~ a planet
12. Lamedh ~ Libra
13. Mem ~ Water

14. Nun ~ Scorpio
15. Samekh ~ Sagittarius
16. Ayin ~ Capricorn

17. Peh ~ a planet
18. Tsade ~ Aquarius
19. Qoph ~ Pisces

20. Res ~ a planet
21. Shin ~ Fire
22. Tav ~ a planet

I have chosen to work with decks using the Golden Dawn traditions, and voted accordingly. I can see the arguments in either direction, and am not as passionate about numbers/numerology as I am visual symbols. The astrological correspondences are slightly more meaningful to me, and strength with Leo seems to be an ideal fit.

There are many paths through life, and most are of our own choosing, so to accept one or another sequence of yearly themes is just another of those choices we make.

ambermoon