Can someone explain these darn Thoth Courts?

wizzle

Thanks Rusty

Thanks for the additional insight Rusty. I'm not much up on Golden Dawn thinking. The decan thing adds even more subtulty to these rich and subtle cards. Can you recommend some on-line resources for Golden Dawn 101?
 

Rusty Neon

For more detail, below is a link to the text of _Book T_, which is one of the main tarot manuscripts of the Golden Dawn. Book T gives details of the GD's astrological correspondences for the minor arcana and those correspondences were adopted by Crowley for the Thoth deck.

http://www.tarot.org.il/Library/Mathers/Book-T.html
 

wizzle

After a little study

Rusty,

Thanks again for the links.

After a little study, I decided I was a better astrologer than taro-ist. I have a few comments about the Golden Dawn stuff...

1. Back when I was studying astrology decans were confined strictly to their elements. The first decan of Aires is aires/aires, the second aires/leo, the third aires/sag. So on for the rest of the elements. Just start with the sign and then go on to the next sign with that element for the second decan and to the third for the third decan. Piece O cake. I admit this was a zillion years ago and based on Allen Leo's books but I doubt the stars have changed all that much.
2. The "decans" as presented for each court card are do-able for me but have nothing to do with classical asto decans. It's just the last 10 degrees of the preceeding sign with the rest of the court card attributes in the first 20 degrees of the astro sign....aligned as per Liz Greene (see my previous thread).
 

MikeTheAltarboy

Confusion!

On the site www.supertarot.co.uk, it gives a zodiac sign for each of the court cards. Those given are consistant with what Crowley wrote on page 35 of The Book of Thoth (at least in my edition):
These cards have many manifestations in natural phenomena. Thus, the Knight of Wands has the attribution of Aries, and represents swift violence of onset, the lightning flash. But the airy part of Fire is sympathetic to Leo, the steady force of energy, the Sun. Lastly, in the watery part of Fire, the harmony is with Sagittarius, which shows the fading, spiritualized reflection or translucence of the image of Fire, and this suggests the Rainbow.
However, those aren't the signs assigned to the cards.
He goes on to say, on page 149:
...It might well be expected that the elemental attribution would harmonize with the Zodiacal attribution; but it is not so. For instance, one might anticipate that the fiery part of Fire would refer to the most active of the fiery signs, namely, Aries. On the contrary, it represents the last decan of Scorpio and the first two of Sagittarius, which is the watery part of Fire in the Zodiac, and the mildest influence.
?!?!?!!
Confusion!

I do agree with those who said the RWS knights are the same as the Thoth knights; and the RWS Kings are the Thoth princes. The knights on horses, are initial impetus; the kings, seated and stable, are the balanced child of the knight and queen.
 

lelandra

wizzle said:
Back when I was studying astrology decans were confined strictly to their elements. The first decan of Aires is aires/aires, the second aires/leo, the third aires/sag. So on for the rest of the elements. Just start with the sign and then go on to the next sign with that element for the second decan and to the third for the third decan. Piece O cake. I admit this was a zillion years ago and based on Allen Leo's books but I doubt the stars have changed all that much.

That's because the decans system used by the Golden Dawn is classically known as "faces". To the extent that "the stars changed" they did so before Allen Leo :) Faces were used in talisman making during the renaissance era.

Here is an excellent site with renaissance era quotations and illustrations:
http://www.tarot.org.il/Decans/
Here's an article that goes into the historical usage:
http://www.skyscript.co.uk/heritage/egyptians2.html
From Christopher Warnock's site (he has a correspondence course in rennaisance astrology):
http://www.renaissanceastrology.com/chartweek1-20-03.html
This post by tyagi lays out the confusions in a fairly detailed way:
http://www.luckymojo.com/esoteric/occultism/divination/ny200401tarotandastrology.txt

I make no guarantees that all this will do anything other than just muddy things more :)

Lelandra (Joan Cole)
 

kwaw

wizzle said:
1. Back when I was studying astrology decans were confined strictly to their elements. The first decan of Aires is aires/aires, the second aires/leo, the third aires/sag. So on for the rest of the elements. Just start with the sign and then go on to the next sign with that element for the second decan and to the third for the third decan. Piece O cake. I admit this was a zillion years ago and based on Allen Leo's books but I doubt the stars have changed all that much.

This method, which though known about in medieval Western Astrology, is that used in Indian Astrology, it was popularised in the west in the late 19th and 20th century by the english theosophically influenced school of astrologers [leo, carter, et al].

In traditional western astrology the faces are ruled by planets, running in Chaldean order starting with Mars as ruler of the first face of Aries. If you know the Chaldean order then you can easily work out which planet rules which face if you remember Mars the ruler of Aries rules also the first face of Aries, ergo the second face must be the Sun [next planet in the chaldean order], third Venus, fourth [first face of Taurus] Mercury etc.

Another way of working it out is through the relation with the days of the week, that is Mars, which is Tuesday rules the first face of Aries, the next day Wednesday, ruled by Mercury, is the first face of Taurus, Thursday - Jupiter - first face of Gemini, Friday - Venus - first face of Cancer, etc until you get to Saturn - Saturday - first face of Pisces, then you jump to Sunday - Sun - Second face of Aries, Monday - Moon - second face of Taurus, round to Thursday - Jupiter second face of Pisces and then you jump with Friday - Venus - to third face of Aries, around the third faces of the zodiac again ending with Tuesday - Mars - third face of Pisces.

Of course astrologically speaking the fact that the first face of mars is ruled by Mars is not technically the same as Mars in Aries; although some, and I think Crowley among them, do often interpret the meaning of the face that way.

Kwaw
 

wizzle

Thanks very much for your links and discussions of the faces. I'm going to look into those after I've done about 30 books... wicca, qabala, high magick... on and on. Does it ever stop? So much to learn, so little time.

This thread was the one that got me interested in learning about the qabala, and I've only scratched the surface. I'm very grateful to ya'll who are more knowledgeable and are willing to share your thoughts and insights. Thanks again.
 

Shaymus

This is how I've settled in my feeble mind, the court cards in the Thoth deck:

Keep in mind all your associations you have about what the various elements (fire, water, air and earth) bring to the table. I think (at least in my mind) that I was onto something as for example, when I associated my significator according to my birthdate, I got Prince of Swords (I knew that already), and the Trump associated with my birthday week (or 10-12 days around it) was the Star and the pip card was the 6 of swords (science). And that freaked me out, cuz I am one, a scientist. Anyway, food for thought:

Knight of wands: strong in fire; lacks air/earth; and somewhat weak in water
Queen of wands: strong in fire; lacks air/earth; but somewhat stronger than the knight in water
Prince of wands: strong in fire; lacks earth; weak in air, but has some

Knight of cups: strong in water; lacks earth; weak in fire and air
Queen of cups: strong in water; lacks fire/earth; weak in air
Prince of cups: strong in water; lacks fire/earth; weak in air

Knight of swords: strong in air; lacks water; weak in fire/earth
Queen of swords: strong in air, lacks fire; weak in water/earth
Prince of swords: strong in air, lacks fire/water; weak in earth

Knight of disks: strong in earth; lacks water/air; weak in fire
Queen of disks: strong in earth; lacks air; weak in water
Prince of disks: strong in earth; lacks water/air; weak in fire

I put this list together from astrological correspondences found by looking at the date correspondences of the court cards and matching them with the trumps and the pip cards for the dates.

I have made a table of all of this, including the associations with the pip cards. If anyone wants it, I can email it to you. It is in microsoft word.

Happy readings.
Shaymus.
 

Shaymus

Oh, forgot to mention about the Princesses,

I think they have a little bit of everything (read Thoth), but some more than others.

happy readings
Shaymus