Which 10 is 'higher'?

jillkite

From the teaching i was given (Rider Waite) and my own feeling, i always considered the 10 of Cups to be the 'highest' 10, symbolising emotional fulfillment and spiritual connection, with an attitude of gratitude.

Exchanging with a tarot friend, who is much more inclined towards the Thoth, he proposed that the 10 of Pentactles is the 'highest' 10. Hmmmm, food for thought, there is also emotional happiness present in that card.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

i am not a student of the Kabbalah, but perhaps someone with that knowledge has a perspective based in that tradition? (simple as possible explanation please!!)

many thanks to anyone who feels to share their thoughts or feelings regarding this.
 

Zephyros

You're both wrong. :)

The order of the suits is Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles, and there are very specific reasons for why this is so. By this, the Ten of Wands is the highest Ten, but the Ace of Wands is highest overall (higher than the Trumps). Each element begins with the seed of the Ace, and as it goes down the element is diluted. So the Ace of Wands depicts force in its purest form, and the Ten shows force as oppression and servitude. I'm explaining this simplistically, but there it is.

Probably a lot more information than you want, but...

http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=201798
 

jillkite

interesting perspective as in the RW the 10 of Wands doesn't look too great - overload, overwhelm.
the 10's of pents and cups look much more positive just going by the imagery?
i will check out the thread you mentioned.
thanks for the reply :)
 

Hemera

Interesting subject. I was just researching this the other day. I was not thinking about the Tens, though, but the Aces. And that led me to thinking about the suits in general.

From the Jungian perspective I´d say you are right. The Feeling function (Cups) is in some ways the "highest" in Jungian typology. Thinking (Swords) and Sensate (Pentacles) functions are easier to attain and use -but to be a balanced human being one needs the balance of all four functions. I seem to remember that particularly Jungian analysts M-L von Franz and James Hollis have been writing about the difficulty of learning to use the Feeling function in a *mature* way. Many people achieve this only later in life, if at all.
Anyway, I have personally come to the conclusion that the Cups are -for me - in some way the highest suit.

I wouldn´t go as far as to say, however, that any person thinking differently than me would be wrong.
 

rwcarter

As this is the Rider-Waite-Smith forum, the assumption is that the question concerns the RWS system. The answer could be different in the Marseilles, Thoth and Golden Dawn systems not to mention the system of any specific deck.

I'm far from an expert on the PKT, but I don't believe Waite ever actually says anything about why the suits are ordered in the way they are. The PKT starts with the King Wands and ends with the Ace Pentacles. An assumption could be made that Wands are the highest suit if you think Waite is working his way down (especially since he starts with the King and not the Ace). But he could just as easily be working his way up, making the Pentacles the highest suit. He could also have an unspoken reason (not revealing his oaths and all) for the ordering of the cards and/or the ordering in the book could be yet another blind that he introduces. So there may be no definitive answer.
 

ravenest

Interesting subject. I was just researching this the other day. I was not thinking about the Tens, though, but the Aces. And that led me to thinking about the suits in general.

From the Jungian perspective I´d say you are right. The Feeling function (Cups) is in some ways the "highest" in Jungian typology. Thinking (Swords) and Sensate (Pentacles) functions are easier to attain and use -but to be a balanced human being one needs the balance of all four functions.

:thumbsup:

I seem to remember that particularly Jungian analysts M-L von Franz and James Hollis have been writing about the difficulty of learning to use the Feeling function in a *mature* way. Many people achieve this only later in life, if at all.

Agreed, hence it is not the highest but, perhaps for some, the most difficult .

Anyway, I have personally come to the conclusion that the Cups are -for me - in some way the highest suit.

For some it may be the STRONGEST ... I suppose it depends on what 'highest ' means ?

The original concept was seen as a concentric arrangement ... not a lineal up and down one ( a modern 'mistake') eg. would we see a seed as higher than a tree ? A seed/ace contains, in unexpressed 'form' , the potentials of its manifestation and stages of growth 'within' its information matrix.

http://asclepiosalus.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/fabricius-fludd-natura-mirror-q75-1111x1200.jpg

The 'mind' is just as 'troublesome' if untrained or unregulated, like the emotions can be.

'Emotional smarts' are just as important as mental ones.
 

ravenest

As this is the Rider-Waite-Smith forum, the assumption is that the question concerns the RWS system. The answer could be different in the Marseilles, Thoth and Golden Dawn systems not to mention the system of any specific deck.

I'm far from an expert on the PKT, but I don't believe Waite ever actually says anything about why the suits are ordered in the way they are. The PKT starts with the King Wands and ends with the Ace Pentacles. An assumption could be made that Wands are the highest suit if you think Waite is working his way down (especially since he starts with the King and not the Ace). But he could just as easily be working his way up, making the Pentacles the highest suit. He could also have an unspoken reason (not revealing his oaths and all) for the ordering of the cards and/or the ordering in the book could be yet another blind that he introduces. So there may be no definitive answer.

But we will always end up there with RW deck ... because of what you outlined. If Waite was keeping GD secrets, they are no longer secret ... we can find out what was behind the system by looking at the GD system and Kabbalah and the arrangement of the 4 worlds (and the roots of those concepts in Kabbalah, Neoplatonism and Hermetics).

Or we just see RW as a hodge-podge that can mean ... whatever it was that Waite meant ... if anyone can decipher that, or 'no definitive' answer (again, due to the reasons you outlined above)
 

Zephyros

When there is a lack of information we go to the source. Book T isn't specific to the Thoth, it is relevant to all Golden Dawn decks (that consistency is a great part of their strength). Some things can't be answered in an RWS-specific way, like the ordering of the Courts. This is because Waite doesn't use a system for their ordering, he just lied, so his ordering can not only not be taken as a general authority, it can't even be counted on for his own deck. The reason for that is that although the PKT says one thing, the cards say another (salamanders, etc.).

If we do go strictly by the RWS/PKT, then the four worlds get all messed up anyway, as they would seemingly start with Air/Yetzirah, an absurdity in itself. The specificity of Golden Dawn symbolism means that even if a text says one thing, the cards read very clearly what and where they are (which is, after all, the whole point). Despite the PKT, Waite did not deviate in use of GD symbolic language on the cards, which is a great strength of the RWS; it can be analyzed independently and accurately without the PKT (it may actually be more advantageous if one does this).
 

ravenest

Yes, the mistake seems to come from the Neoplatonic concept of Pneuma as air ... where it is actually 'breath' meaning spirit. Spirit comes first, the most rarefied, then fire and water as polarities of this 'spirit', together they make 'air' on a lower plane.

Some even saw it as ether (space) , air (lower space, or atmosphere), fire ( it rises up, but dependant on a base - fuel or out of a volcano, etc , then earth (the mountain and land) and lastly water (it sinks to the lowest level) - But this is a physical observation using literalist interpretations.

Some however will always think Waite (or even anyone who published a book) is going to have more 'validity' than some 'dumb poster' on the internet ;) ... even if they have no idea what he was on about. or research him , and come to the conclusion that they CANT really have an idea what he was on about (due to his deliberate obfuscation).
 

Zephyros

Well, we can also look at it another, more "mystical" way. The suit of Cups, as per its attributes and placement in the Tetragrammaton is both the basic structure of the universe (Heh primary, the the mother), as well as the more specific experience (Heh secondary, the bride) as well as the surrounding vacuum (the three negative veils, Tolkein's Encircling Seas). So from that angle, Hemera is absolutely correct; Cups may not be highest, but they are Everything.

Amazing thing, Kabbalah. Done right, almost any idea can be justified in quite a beautiful way.