Book "T" (edited) The 36 Pips

Fulgour

A version of BOOK "T" was published 1951 by Israel Regardie,
(claiming it was based on a non-existent 1921 Crowley text).

Decide for yourself if it was composed after the Tarot of 1909.
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*** WANDS ***

The Lord of Dominion, Two of Wands

Strength, domination, harmony of rule and of justice. Boldness, courage, fierceness, shamelessness, revenge, resolution, generous, proud, sensitive, ambitious, refined, restless, turbulent, sagacious withal, yet unforgiving and obstinate. Influence over others, authority, power, dominion.

The Lord of Established Strength, Three of Wands

Established force, strength, realization of hope. Completion of labour. Success after struggle. Pride, nobility, wealth, power, conceit. Rude self-assumption and insolence. Generosity, obstinacy, etc. Pride, arrogance, self-assertion.

The Lord of Perfected Work, Four of Wands

Perfection or completion of a thing built up with trouble and labour. Rest after labour, subtlety, cleverness, beauty, mirth, success in completion. Reasoning faculty, conclusions drawn from previous knowledge. Unreadiness, unreliable and unsteady through over-anxiety and hurriedness of action. Graceful in manner, at times insincere, etc. Settlement, arrangement, completion.

The Lord of Strife, Five of Wands

Violent strife and boldness, rashness, cruelty, violence, lust, desire, prodigality and generosity; depending on whether the card is well or ill dignified. Quarrelling and fighting.

The Lord of Victory, Six of Wands

Victory after strife: Love: pleasure gained by labour: carefulness, sociability and avoiding of strife, yet victory therein: also insolence, and pride of riches and success, etc. The whole dependent on the dignity. Gain.

The Lord of Valour, Seven of Wands

Possible victory, depending on the energy and courage exercised; valour; opposition, obstacles and difficulties, yet courage to meet them; quarrelling, ignorance, pretence, and wrangling, and threatening; also victory in small and unimportant things: and influence upon subordinates. Opposition, yet courage.

The Lord of Swiftness, Eight of Wands

Too much force applied too suddenly. Very rapid rush, but quickly passed and expended. Violent, but not lasting. Swiftness, rapidity, courage, boldness, confidence, freedom, warfare, violence; love of open air, field-sports, gardens and meadows. Generous, subtle, eloquent, yet somewhat untrustworthy; rapacious, insolent, oppressive. Theft and robbery. According to dignity. Hasty communications and messages; swiftness.

The Lord of Great Strength, Nine of Wands

Tremendous and steady force that cannot be shaken. Herculean strength, yet sometimes scientifically applied. Great success, but with strife and energy. Victory, preceded by apprehension and fear. Health good, and recovery not in doubt. Generous, questioning and curious; fond of external appearances: intractable, obstinate. Strength, power, health, recovery from sickness.

The Lord of Oppression, Ten of Wands

Cruel and overbearing force and energy, but applied only to material and selfish ends. Sometimes shows failure in a matter, and the opposition too strong to be controlled; arising from the person's too great selfishness at the beginning. Ill-will, levity, lying, malice, slander, envy, obstinacy; swiftness in evil and deceit, if ill dignified. Also generosity, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice, when well dignified. Cruelty, malice, revenge, injustice.

*** CUPS ***

The Lord of Love, Two of Cups

Harmony of masculine and feminine united. Harmony, pleasure, mirth, subtlety: but if ill dignified --- folly, dissipation, waste, silly actions. Marriage, love, pleasure.

The Lord of Abundance, Three of Cups

Abundance, plenty, success, pleasure, sensuality, passive success, good luck and fortune; love, gladness, kindness, liberality. Plenty, hospitality, eating and drinking, pleasure, dancing, new clothes, merriment.

The Lord of Blended Pleasure, Four of Cups

Success or pleasure approaching their end. A stationary period in happiness, which may, or may not, continue. It does not mean love and marriage so much as the previous symbol. It is too passive a symbol to represent perfectly complete happiness. Swiftness, hunting and pursuing. Acquisition by contention: injustice sometimes; some drawbacks to pleasure implied. Receiving pleasure or kindness from others, but some discomfort therewith.

The Lord of Loss in Pleasure, Five of Cups

Death, or end of pleasure: disappointment, sorrow and loss in those things from which pleasure is expected. Sadness, treachery, deceit; ill-will, detraction; charity and kindness ill requited; all kinds of anxieties and troubles from unsuspected and unexpected sources. Disappointment in love, marriage broken off, unkindness of a friend; loss of friendship.

The Lord of Pleasure, Six of Cups

Commencement of steady increase, gain and pleasure; but commencement only. Also affront, detection, knowledge, and in some instances contention and strife arising from unwarranted self-assertion and vanity. Sometimes thankless and presumptuous; sometimes amiable and patient. According to dignity as usual. Beginning of wish, happiness, success, or enjoyment.

The Lord of Illusionary Success, Seven of Cups

Possible victory, but neutralized by the supineness of the person: illusionary success, deception in the moment of apparent victory. Lying, error, promises unfulfilled. Drunkenness, wrath, vanity. Lust, fornication, violence against women, selfish dissipation, deception in love and friendship. Often success gained, but not followed up. Modified as usual by dignity. Lying, promises unfulfilled; illusion, deception, error; slight success at outset, not retained.

The Lord of Abandoned Success, Eight of Cups

Temporary success, but without further results. Thing thrown aside as soon as gained. Not lasting, even in the matter in hand. Indolence in success. Journeying from place to place. Misery and repining without cause. Seeking after riches. Instability. Success abandoned; decline of interest.

The Lord of Material Happiness, Nine of Cups

Complete and perfect realization of pleasure and happiness, almost perfect; self-praise, vanity, conceit, much talking of self, yet kind and lovable, and may be self-denying therewith. High-minded, not easily satisfied with small and limited ideas. Apt to be maligned through too much self-assumption. A good and generous, but sometimes foolish nature. Complete success, pleasure and happiness, wishes fulfilled.

The Lord of Perfected Success, Ten of Cups

Permanent and lasting success and happiness, because inspired from above. Not so sensual as "Lord of Material Happiness," yet almost more truly happy. Pleasure, dissipation, debauchery, quietness, peacemaking. Kindness, pity, generosity, wantonness, waste, etc., according to dignity. Matter settled: complete good fortune.

*** SWORDS ***

The Lord of Peace Restored, Two of Swords

Contradictory characters in the same nature, strength through suffering; pleasure after pain. Sacrifice and trouble, yet strength arising therefrom, as though the pain itself had brought forth beauty. Arrangement, peace restored; truce; truth and untruth; sorrow and sympathy. Aid to the weak; arrangement; justice, unselfishness; also a tendency to repetition of affronts on being pardoned; injury when meaning well; given to petitions; also a want of tact, and asking question of little moment; talkative. Quarrel made up, yet still some tension in relations: actions sometimes selfish, sometimes unselfish.

The Lord of Sorrow, Three of Swords

Disruption, interruption, separation, quarrelling; sowing of discord and strife, mischief-making, sorrow and tears; yet mirth in Platonic pleasures; singing, faithfulness in promises, honesty in money transactions, selfish and dissipated, yet sometimes generous: deceitful in words and repetitions; the whole according to dignity. Unhappiness, sorrow, and tears.

The Lord of Rest from Strife, Four of Swords

Rest from sorrow; yet after and through it. Peace from and after war. Relaxation of anxiety. Quietness, rest, ease and plenty, yet after struggle. Goods of this life; abundance; modified by dignity as is usual. Convalescence, recovery from sickness; change for the better.

The Lord of Defeat, Five of Swords

Contest finished and decided against the person; failure, defeat, anxiety, trouble, poverty, avarice, grieving after gain, laborious, unresting; loss and vileness of nature; malicious, slanderous, lying, spiteful and tale-bearing. A busybody and separator of friends, hating to see peace and love between others. Cruel, yet cowardly, thankless and unreliable. Clever and quick in thought and speech. Feelings of pity easily roused, but unenduring. Defeat, loss, malice, spite, slander, evil-speaking.

The Lord of Earned Success, Six of Swords

Success after anxiety and trouble; self-esteem, beauty, conceit, but sometimes modesty therewith; dominance, patience, labour, etc. Labour, work, journey by water.

The Lord of Unstable Effort, Seven of Swords

Partial success. Yielding when victory is within grasp, as if the last reserves of strength were used up. Inclination to lose when on the point of gaining, through not continuing the effort. Love of abundance, fascinated by display, given to compliments, affronts and insolences, and to spy upon others. Inclined to betray confidences, not always intentionally. Rather vacillatory and unreliable. Journey by land: in character untrustworthy.

The Lord of Shortened Force, Eight of Swords

Too much force applied to small things: too much attention to detail at the expense of the principal and more important points. When ill dignified, these qualities produce malice, pettiness, and domineering characteristics. Patience in detail of study; great care in some things, counterbalanced by equal disorder in others. Impulsive; equally fond of giving or receiving money or presents; generous, clever, acute, selfish and without strong feeling of affection. Admires wisdom, yet applies it to small and unworthy objects. Narrow, restricted, petty, a prison.

The Lord of Despair and Cruelty, Nine of Swords

Despair, cruelty, pitilessness, malice, suffering, want, loss, misery. Burden, oppression, labour, subtlety and craft, dishonesty, lying and slander. Yet also obedience, faithfulness, patience, unselfishness, etc., according to dignity. Illness, suffering, malice, cruelty, pain.

The Lord of Ruin, Ten of Swords

Almost a worse symbol than the Nine of Swords. Undisciplined, warring force, complete disruption and failure. Ruin of all plans and projects. Disdain, insolence and impertinence, yet mirth and jollity therewith. A marplot, loving to overthrow the happiness of others; a repeater of things; given to much unprofitable speech, and of many words. Yet clever, eloquent, etc., according to dignity. Ruin, death, defeat, disruption.

*** PENTACLES ***

The Lord of Harmonious Change, Two of Pentacles

The harmony of change, alternation of gain and loss; weakness and strength; ever-changing occupation; wandering, discontented with any fixed condition of things; now elated, then melancholy; industrious, yet unreliable; fortunate through prudence of management, yet sometimes unaccountably foolish; alternatively talkative and suspicious. Kind, yet wavering and inconsistent. Fortunate in journeying. Argumentative. Pleasant change, visit to friends.

The Lord of Material Works, Three of Pentacles

Working and constructive force, building up, creation, erection; realization and increase of material things; gain in commercial transactions, rank; increase of substance, influence, cleverness in business, selfishness. Commencement of matters to be established later. Narrow and prejudiced. Keen in matters of gain; sometimes given to seeking after impossibilities. Business, paid employment, commercial transaction.

The Lord of Earthly Power, Four of Pentacles

Assured material gain: success, rank, dominion, earthy power, completed but leading to nothing beyond. Prejudicial, covetous, suspicious, careful and orderly, but discontented. Little enterprise or originality. According to dignity as usual. Gain of money or influence: a present.

The Lord of Material Trouble, Five Pentacles

Loss of money or position. Trouble about material things. Labour, toil, land cultivation; building, knowledge and acuteness of earthly things, poverty, carefulness, kindness; sometimes money regained after severe toil and labour. Unimaginative, harsh, stern, determined, obstinate. Loss of profession, loss of money, monetary anxiety.

The Lord of Material Success, Six of Pentacles

Success and gain in material undertakings. Power, influence, rank, nobility, rule over the people. Fortunate, successful, liberal and just. If ill dignified, may be purse-proud, insolent from excess, or prodigal. Success in material things, prosperity in business.

The Lord of Success Unfulfilled, Seven of Pentacles

Promises of success unfulfilled. Loss of apparently promising fortune. Hopes deceived and crushed. Disappointment, misery, slavery, necessity and baseness. A cultivator of land, and yet a loser thereby. Sometimes it denotes slight and isolated gains with no fruits resulting therefrom, and of no further account, though seeming to promise well. Unprofitable speculations and employments; little gain for much labour.

The Lord of Prudence, Eight of Pentacles

Over-careful in small things at the expense of great: "Penny wise and pound foolish": gain of ready money in small sums; mean; avaricious; industrious; cultivation of land; hoarding, lacking in enterprise. Skill: prudence: cunning.

The Lord of Material Gain, Nine of Pentacles

Complete realization of material gain, good, riches; inheritance; covetous; treasuring of goods; and sometimes theft and knavery. The whole according to dignity. Inheritance, much increase of goods.

The Lord of Wealth, Ten of Pentacles

Completion of material gain and fortune; but nothing beyond: as it were, at the very pinnacle of success. Old age, slothfulness; great wealth, yet sometimes loss in part; heaviness; dullness of mind, yet clever and prosperous in money transactions. Riches and wealth.
 

Fulgour

We often hear reference made to BOOK T of the Golden Dawn.
For what it's worth, I thought I would supply a little bit of it. :)

But remember, Pamela Colman Smith's Tarot appeared in 1909,
and Book T was first published in 1912. Funny how that works.
 

Fulgour

hi wizzle

Watch out for "typos" in the text on that link...
like 9 of Swords Pisces Material Happiness Jupiter
and such ~ I think it's a copy of a copy etc. :)
 

RChMI

Hogd / Hogd

There was also an exoteric pamphlet entitled The Tarot put out publicly by Mathers, prior to the esoteric Book T, which was not intended for public consumption, but was revealed as a result of the 1904 schism. Many of the card's descriptions in the PKT are verbatim of that of the pamhlet, as well as the pictorial imagery of the cards following closely those descriptions of the pamphlet. Waite, having formed his own Order (Holy Order of the Golden Dawn,) used both the exoteric and many of the esoteric aspects of the Tarot from the G.·.D.·. (Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn) as the basis for his Order's exoteric Tarot content. Seeing as how his Oath of Secrecy to that Order was not really enforceably valid.
 

Rosanne

Thanks RChMI-I did not know that! Is that pamphlet available anywhere to see and read? ~Rosanne
 

Fulgour

Waite seemed to forget he copied most of Mathers' book:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktbib.htm
Key to the Tarot: Bibliography (see Entry XVI.)

The Tarot: Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune Telling,
and Method of Play. S. L. MacGregor Mathers, London 1888

"This booklet was designed to accompany a set of Tarot cards, and the current packs of the period were imported from abroad for the purpose. There is no pretence of original research, and the only personal opinion expressed by the writer or calling for notice here states that the Trumps Major are hieroglyphic symbols corresponding to the occult meanings of the Hebrew alphabet. Here the authority is Lévi, from whom is also derived the brief symbolism allocated to the twenty-two Keys. The divinatory meanings follow, and then the modes of operation. It is a mere sketch written in a pretentious manner and is negligible in all respects."

A.E.Waite aka Grand Orient
 

Fulgour

1951 ~ 42 years after 1909

I've been doing some research, and according to Roberto Wang,
in his book, An Introduction to the Golden Dawn Tarot (©1978)
1951 was the year Israel Regardie published the text of Book T.
 

kwaw

Fulgour said:
I've been doing some research, and according to Roberto Wang,
in his book, An Introduction to the Golden Dawn Tarot (©1978)
1951 was the year Israel Regardie published the text of Book T.

Book T was first written and privately circulated c. 1888.

A substantial portion was first made public by Aleister Crowley in the Equinox Vol I. No 8, p.143 onwards, published in September 1912.

Israel Regardie also published the text of Book T in vol.4 of the 'Golden Dawn' [in four volumes published 1937-1940].

Excerpts have also been published in Robert Wang’s "An Introduction to The Golden Dawn Tarot: Including the Original Documents on Tarot from the Order of the Golden Dawn with Explanatory Notes".

It is available online from a variety of sites, as is Equinox Vol.I no8 in which that published by Crowley in 1912 can be found.

As members of the GD and/or its offshoots Waite and Smith of course were not reliant on published versions, they had their own copies of the original manuscripts privately circulated within the order.

Kwaw