Thoth vs Rider Court cards names and order

[LilySage]

Hello,

I am a bit confused as to the differences between the names and order of Court cards in the two decks.
For Thoth, the names are: Princess, Prince, Queen and Knight
For RWC: the names are: Page, King, Queen, Knight

What is the correct order of these?
Is the order for RWC:
1) Page, Knight, Queen and King
2) Page, King, Queen, Knight

I saw both versions online and am confused.
In case its the first order, which seems more intuitive to me, then would that mean that the Knight in RWC is actually a Prince for Thoth? And Knight for Thoth is actually a King for RWC.

But if the right order for RWC is the second one, then Knight is the more mature King? How is that even right? It makes more sense to me that a Queen and King are the more mature ones. King seems to me to be older than a Knight, so I would think it should go after.

I am kind of a newbie, so excuse me if my question is dumb...

 

[Aeric]

Those orders should actually be reversed, to reflect a story. Both decks are expressions of the same principles with different images. The Knight comes first. He is the wild, dashing, energetic foreigner from outside the kingdom, the Future King. He wins the hand of the royalty, besting all challengers, and becomes the new ruler. With his Queen he produces Prince and Princess, to reflect Father, Mother, Son, Daughter.

Thoth: Kn - Q - Pe - Ps
RW: Kn - Q - K - P

RWS was inspired by Golden Dawn, which uses the above order. But Waite chose to use card images from Marseille decks, where the King sits on a chair. The reason given is that the Knight brings his forceful, wild energy into the relationship with the Queen, hence why he rides a horse. He wins the Queen's hand, as before. His son becomes the new King, but because his power is inherited from his parents rather than created by him as daddy Knight had, he is "enthroned," trapped in a chair, his power more focused rather than erratic.

In older Golden Dawn decks, the King was placed in a chariot rather than on the throne, and though his card bore the title King, he was esoterically called Prince.

The Thoth deck opts to preserve the chariot and Prince title directly so it makes the allegory far less confusing. But as long as you remember: Wild Horseman is #1, Enclosed Man is #3, both fulfill it.

The Princess/Page is the last card because she represents the essence of the suit. She is the seed of the next family, the future Queen whose hand the next Knight will win, in a cycle. This is why other decks often depict Pages as young women, or very androgynous young men. The essence of the Page was originally meant to be feminine in occult thought.

The reverse, that the cycle begins with the Page who will train to be a Knight to one day become the King, was a later idea. The above orders were established first, since the Knight is meant to bring his wild energy into the kingdom from outside, a stranger in a strange land.

There was also an elemental pattern to go with the order:

Fire - Water - Air - Earth
Wands - Cups - Swords - Disks
Knight - Queen - Prince - Princess
Knight - Queen - King - Page

Therefore the Knight of Wands is Fire of Fire, Queen of Cups is Water of Water, Prince of Swords is Air of Air, and Princess of Disks Earth of Earth. Each of these four is the purest human representation of their element, and the other cards are different combinations of them (Prince/King of Cups = Air of Water, Queen of Disks = Water of Earth, etc.)

 

[gregory]

Waite is Page, Knight, Queen and King. Absolutely, no question.

The Thoth deck is a completely different system, and things are not as clear-cut. The order of the courts is sometimes seen as Princess, Prince, Queen and Knight. But opinions differ big time. Bill Butler's book, Dictionary of the Tarot gives these correspondences, which I happen to think make more sense.

RWS > Thoth

Page = Princess
Knight = Knight
Queen = Queen
King = Prince

But while you CAN sort of compare them as courts, as they are so very different, I would recommend that you just use the decks independently of each other. The Thoth does NOT read well if you try and force Waite meanings on to it, and they aren't what you could call exact correspondences.

Here is a very old thread about it.

Others differ - as you can already see; we cross posted !

 

[Richard]

Aeric is correct. Has no one ever read the section of PKT in which the choice of significator is explained? The Knight is the older male member of the court, the King is younger, etc. It is precisely the Golden Dawn ranking. No one has to accept this, but it is what Waite intended.

§7 AN ANCIENT CELTIC METHOD OF DIVINATION

.......A Knight should be chosen as the Significator if the subject of inquiry is a man of forty years old and upward; a King should be chosen for any male who is under that age, a Queen for a woman who is over forty years and a Page for any female of less age.

—A. E. Waite in PKT​

 

[Aeric]

Here's a really helpful fast visual comparison for Kings vs. Knights. Based on the original Golden Dawn descriptions, from which both decks sprang, look for the identical symbols in each one.

http://www.lelandra.com/tarotbook/courtcorres.htm

By this idea, Waite's Kings are #3, the equivalent of Thoth's Princes. Both sit in things.

 

[Aeric]

You can also think of it in terms of technology and civilization. We were riding horses before we invented chariots. Nomadic groups came before kingdoms with castles and armies.

The nomadic horseback rider came before the king/prince who sat in a throne or a chariot of advanced civilizations.

 

[Richard]

But while you CAN sort of compare them as courts, as they are so very different, I would recommend that you just use the decks independently of each other. The Thoth does NOT read well if you try and force Waite meanings on to it, and they aren't what you could call exact correspondences.......

I'm not so sure one should necessarily use the Waite meanings with either the Thoth or the Rider-Waite deck. After giving the divinatory meanings for the Trumps in PKT, Waite goes on to comment:

It will be seen that, except where there is an irresistible suggestion conveyed by the surface meaning, that which is extracted from the Trumps Major by the divinatory art is at once artificial and arbitrary, as it seems to me, in the highest degree. But of one order are the mysteries of light and of another are those of fantasy. The allocation of a fortune-telling aspect to these cards is the story of a prolonged impertinence.​

 

[Aeric]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt P - Kn - Q - K taken from the preservation of the trumping order of playing cards in secular games, like from the Marseille decks, with Knave/Jack/Page the lowest and King the highest?

Whereas the occult deck creators saw the Knight's story contained within the characters on the cards, and had to change the order to reflect esoteric patterns.

Secular moves from bottom to top, occult from top to bottom.

 

[Richard]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt P - Kn - Q - K taken from the preservation of the trumping order of playing cards in secular games, like from the Marseille decks, with Knave/Jack/Page the lowest and King the highest?.......

That is my understanding. In the PKT text, Waite discusses the court cards in the secular ordering of the Tarot de Marseille. Also, in the section on the Trumps, he places the Fool between Judgement and World, as did Eiphas Levi, although the assignment of the number 0 to the Fool places it as the beginning of the sequence. These little irregularities in PKT were convenient, as they directed attention to pre Golden Dawn Tarot, Golden Dawn being off limits.

However, he almost lets us in on a little secret by renumbering Justice and Strength, but he doesn't reveal the nature of the secret, although I believe it is, in fact, the first openly published deck to use the Golden Dawn numbering of the Trumps. It is not absolutely necessary to do this (for example, the Thoth doesn't), but it is a convenience if the decks were to be used by Golden Dawn initiates.

 

[LilySage]

Oh my goodness guys, I am so glad I joined the forum!!

I don't know if you noticed, but I just joined today, specifically to ask this question. And what a wealth of knowledge here! Thank you so much for your answers. I admit that I am still not quite grasping it though... Going to read all the threads now and drink in all the knowledge. Hopefully it will make it clearer...