elemental associations for the courts

When I first heard of this, I sort of made up my own-- they made sense to me, but they didn't come from anywhere. I've since heard that the following associations seem to be the usual: pages/earth, knights/air, queens/water, and kings/fire. My initial associations placed knights with fire and kings with air. This still makes more sense to me, but I'd like to know the reasons for the more typical associations.

What elemantal associations, if any, do you make for the court cards? Why?

I go along with the suit dignities as I learned them (Wands=fire, Swords=air, Cups=water, Pentacles=earth.)

So, Page, Knight, Queen and King of Wands are fire, etc.

It seems to work out pretty well for me.

I go with the "standard" (which I guess would mean Golden Dawn) attributions for the courts. So although Wands is Fire, to use starrystarrynight's example, the Page Wands would be Earth of Fire, the Knight would be Air of Fire, the Queen would be Water of Fire and the King would be Fire of Fire.

Part of the confusion over the Knight might come from Knight being above the Queen in rank in the Thoth and below the Queen in rank in RWS-style decks. So the Knight Wands in Thoth would be Fire of Fire, but as stated above it's Air of Fire in RWS decks.

Rodney

No, it's not confusion because of the Thoth-- although I could certainly understand that happening. I just thought of the combinations differently when I first heard that they existed. I thought, well, a king would be wise and discerning, so they must be air. And a knight must be all active, passionate, and energetic, so fire. I suppose I can see that a king is sort of the ultimate with regards to will (fire), but I really can't come up with any other reasons for the knights/air, kings/fire thing. I suppose, more than anything, I'd like to know the reasons for the original correspondence. But I'd still like to hear other ideas and opinions.

I'm definitely one who believes that personalization of the tarot is a good thing. If kings as air makes sense to you, then that's what you should use, regardless of what anyone else says. Some of the elemental dignity rules didn't make sense to me, so I modified them for my use.

As for the original reasoning behind those selections, I guess you'd have to look in some Golden Dawn sourcebook.

Rodney

It's been a while (20 years or so!) since my Golden Dawn study period (I can still do a banishing rital of the pentagram - well... probably).

I think the "reason" for the attributions mostly has to do with the way that the Tarot was linked up to the Tree of Life in Hebrew Mysticism. There are the attributes of the numbers that align with the sephiroth, and the attributes of the Atu aligning with the paths between the sephiroth (Crowley went so far as to change the attributes because of the Stele of Revealing from the Book of the Law - he reversed strength and justice - but that's a whole 'nother ball of wax).

So, I'm sure someone else on this forum can fill in the blanks, but the court cards occupy spaces in the heavens (the circle of the zodiac) that align with a sign sequence. This is dependent on factors that, frankly, I don't quite understand. If you browse the Book of Thoth by Crowley it is explained in more detail (I don't have it in front of me at the moment).

Anyhoo - hope I haven't mucked this up too much.

alec...

rwcarter said:

So the Knight Wands in Thoth would be Fire of Fire, but as stated above it's Air of Fire in RWS decks.

Click to expand...

I would disagree with this, though some authors do not (e.g Wang). IMO The guy on horse is Fire, doesn't matter if he is called Knight or King or something else. The guy on Chariot or Throne is Air, as he takes on some qualities of the Queen and the Knight/King/horse-guy who are his parents. The signs of astrology as drawn on the RWS also make this clear.

The deck both the RWS and the Thoth is based on is the Golden Dawn deck, in which the King was the highest ranked court, and he rode on horseback. He is the Yod, and so is Fire whatever he is called. The RWS and Thoth played with that idea for different reasons, but didn't really change it.

This site compares the two decks and suggests the same idea.
http://www.lelandra.com/tarotbook/courtcorres.htm

If you look at a GD deck it is even more clear. jumaja28 I say you were right all along, so may as well carry on that way

Okay, I'm looking at the site you linked.. and now I'm confused. What you said makes sense with the Thoth deck, but not the RWS. I got it when you said that the guy on the horse is always fire. I would be inclined to agree. But the highest rank in the RWS is the king. He sits on the throne (air), and it can hardly be assumed that the "horse-guy" (knight) is the king's father. Also, while I am by no means a Kabbalist, shouldn't the Yod/fire guy be the highest ranking? Again, this doesn't work with the RWS. And what astrological symbols? Am I missing something? If you were trying to say that, going by the Thoth and the Golden Dawn tarots, knight/prince is air and king/knight is fire? Sure. But the does the RWS fit with this?

BTW: Like rwcarter, I'm all for people making their own associations. I'm not looking to change mine in order to conform, and I'm not looking for the "right" answer. I just want to understand the reasoning behind other people's associations.

Apologies. I just took another look at the site... and scrolled all the way down. I see that the author has rearranged RWS knights and kings, making them all line up (sort of). So now I get Similia's point (and I guess the Golden Dawn's?).

Just came across something interesting that may be of help. I'm going through the companion book to the Ancient Egyptian Tarot and have gotten to the Minor Arcana. In discussing the elements associated with the Minor Arcana, Barrett says that "Fire is regarded as the highest and most spiritual of the elements."

When discussing the dual application of the elements to the courts, he says, "the King of Wands is regarded as fire of fire. This means that in this card the associations of that element are at their strongest and most powerful. It suggests a person who is very active and energetic."

Understanding that what I'm about to say may not apply to Thoth-based decks, I think everyone so far agrees that from lowest to highest in the court ranks we have Page/Princess, Knight/Prince, Queen, and King.

So how one views the ranking of the elements seems to be the determining factor of whether the King or the Knight/Prince is fire or air. Is it earth (at the lowest end), air, water, fire (at the top end)? Or is it earth, fire, water, air? In the former case, we have the two sets of opposites next to each other - earth/air and water/fire. But in the latter case the only set of opposites that are next to each other is fire/water. If you look at the contrary elements as balancing each other instead of weakening each other, the first system is balanced, while the second system isn't.

I'm not saying either system is more right or wrong than the other, but just wanted to share the AHA! moment I just had about fire being associated with Kings instead of Knights/Princes.

Rodney