Is there any Waite book actually explaining the RWS attributions?

Teheuti

Aeon418 said:
Have you never been boating? In my experience with boats you can't simply stamp your authority on the water. You have to work with the tide or the current, constantly correcting your course. To me this is a picture of how the mind and the scientific process work. We try to progress and move forwards in a given direction, but frequently find we've taken a wrong turn or drifted off course. If we're smart we acknowledge this fact and try to correct our course, at the same time (hopefully) learning from previous error. A mind that's incapable of this often ends up paddling in circles.

I get what you are saying, but Tiphareth (the Sixes) suggests a point of balance—no matter how temporary—a sigh of relief at an easing of the struggle. Success is an accomplishment—usually implying a favorable result. Also, 'success earned through effort,' seems to me to say that the work has been done, something has been achieved with an easing of prior stress. There can be adjustments, but they are more like the minute corrections made in steering when driving down a straight road. This card seems more like the success-phase following a prior error (the 5), so that, for the moment there is smooth sailing. Another rough patch appears in the 7. I would say that Swords as a whole are the trial and error.

In science, I'd say it's that point when all the 'chatter' and self-congratulations or blame fall away and what remains is 'just the facts.' It is being purely in the moment, with no 'stories' about what's going on. [This doesn't mean that a querent won't have all kinds of stories about what the people in the boat are doing and feeling!]

At it's ideal: the people in the boat may have gone through all kinds of hardships to get there, and casting off may even have been a problem but, for the moment, there is tremendous calm and relatively smooth sailing. The past is over, and the future has not yet presented itself. Things simply 'are'—and with that comes the potential for tremendous clarity—which is much more apparent in the Thoth deck than in the RWS—where the sadness and strain of the Swords is still all too apparent.

Aeon418

Teheuti said:
I get what you are saying, but Tiphareth (the Sixes) suggests a point of balance—no matter how temporary—a sigh of relief at an easing of the struggle.

Actually I agree with, but I'm also glad you included the word "temporary". It's the temporary balanced state that allows foward movement in the right direction. But it's a fleeting moment in a never ending work in progress.

Mercury in Aquarius.

Aquarius is that One Star in sight, the goal on the horizon. But Mercury is the Juggler. For a split second all the balls are in the air and a step forward can be made...... and then you have to start juggling like crazy again because Yetzirah/Swords never stands still for long.

Teheuti

Aeon418 said:
Actually I agree with, but I'm also glad you included the word "temporary". It's the temporary balanced state that allows foward movement in the right direction. But it's a fleeting moment in a never ending work in progress.

Mercury in Aquarius.

Aquarius is that One Star in sight, the goal on the horizon. But Mercury is the Juggler. For a split second all the balls are in the air and a step forward can be made...... and then you have to start juggling like crazy again because Yetzirah/Swords never stands still for long.

Beautiful analogy.

BTW, I like your signature quote from Crowley: "The vast majority of people who go to "fortune tellers" have nothing else in mind but the wish to obtain supernatural sanction for their follies." ~ Aleister Crowley

Aeon418

Teheuti, would I be right in saying that you see the 6 of Swords as primarily descriptive. A kind of snap-shot of the fully balanced "success" moment as it happens. But can't the card also be viewed in a prescriptive way too? Without it it seems like the journey/travel element is missing.

I do agree with you on the moment of success angle, but it just seems a bit static and one dimensional to me. I've always tended to see this card not just as an event, but as a process too. It's like there's a balanced marriage of motion and stillness in this card. And it just seems like this card is the perfect place for that to occur.

Teheuti

Aeon418 said:
But can't the card also be viewed in a prescriptive way too? Without it it seems like the journey/travel element is missing.

Definitely. I'm always reminded if the I-Ching advice: "It furthers one to cross the great water."

The RWS card also suggests helping someone else and/or letting someone else help you. My personal keyword for all the Sixes is ”reciprocity." There are reciprocal benefits for the people in the boat as well as a certain reciprocity between the two shores (near events or perspectives and far ones).

In readings, though, I am much more flexible about what a card means. I let clients tell me what they see in the image and which figure they would be if they were in the picture. In practice, the card can mean vastly different things at different times. For instance, I had a moment of fresh insight into the RWS card that I recorded on my blog:

http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/ferryman-in-the-six-of-swords/

Aeon418

Teheuti said:
My personal keyword for all the Sixes is ”reciprocity."

Makes me think of the Rosy Cross on the Thoth card.

On RWS card there's the placid and still water on the left of the boat. While on the right it's turbulent and choppy. That fits in nicely with Aquarius and Mercury. Aquarius/The Star has a kind of timeless and still quality about it, while Mercury is all rapid movement and activity. And this card being a 6 is the perfect place for a union of opposites.

Edit: Aquarius = Nuit. Mercury = Hadit. The Rosy Cross.

2nd Edit: Then again the Phallic Oar is penetrating the rather Aquarius shaped waves on the right of the boat. Maybe that's an RWS style Rosy Cross in disguise.

Aeon418

Teheuti said:
In science, I'd say it's that point when all the 'chatter' and self-congratulations or blame fall away and what remains is 'just the facts.' It is being purely in the moment, with no 'stories' about what's going on.

Again I agree with this, but only up to a point. This is Science in the sense of a discovery being made. It's the event at the end of a journey. But the journey that leads up to the discovery event is also Science. It's an event and a process at the same time.

Earlier in this thread I said that some of the confusion surrounding the Thoth and RWS 6 of Swords was to do with Crowley calling the card Science. But I think once you grasp the dual event/process angle the connection becomes a lot clearer and sheds more light on the RWS image.

And, as previously stated, this card is a 6. It's the perfect place for a marriage of opposites.

Rosy Cross.

Teheuti

I agree with the event/process idea. The RWS card is definitely a passage or transition. And science is also the scientific method which, as you say, is also a process, a way of getting to the result.

Regarding the meaning of the cards: We can get so caught up in what the correspondences and keywords mean that we forget the dynamism of the moment. Learning contradictory meanings can free us up to stay flexible to what is being conveyed in any individual situation. As Waite stated over and over again—such insights should supersede all the set meanings.

Regarding the process/event issue, it reminds me of what Crowley says about the 5 of Wands, which he named 'Strife'. In his book he tells us that it should really be another form of the word: 'striving'. So perhaps the 6 of Swords should be 'sciencing'?

Aeon418

Teheuti said:
I agree with the event/process idea. The RWS card is definitely a passage or transition. And science is also the scientific method which, as you say, is also a process, a way of getting to the result.

One of my key-phrases for this card is, living in the moment. It's both a "going" and a "being".

Others have mentioned that the RWS card seems to have a sombre or mournful tone to it. I agree. In one sense this card is almost a comment on the way many people live their lives. There is the baggage of the past on the shore they are leaving, while the opposite shore of the future is full of anxiety and fear. And yet the preoccupation with these two things means that we frequently miss the excitement of the boat ride. Live for now!

Flipping it around to the Science angle again. Science, in it's most idealistic sense, must be ready to ditch or amend old concepts and theories if the observations of the present reveal new facts. Likewise the hypothses that science relies upon to steer it's course into the future must always be in a fluid state. They are tentative guides that may be proven wrong at any moment by the observations of the present.

Teheuti said:
Regarding the meaning of the cards: We can get so caught up in what the correspondences and keywords mean that we forget the dynamism of the moment. Learning contradictory meanings can free us up to stay flexible to what is being conveyed in any individual situation. As Waite stated over and over again—such insights should supersede all the set meanings.

I'm in complete agreement with you.

But this thread was started by someone who wanted to understand why the RWS cards look the way they do. One thing that we can be fairly certain of is that the Golden Dawn correspondences did influence the design of the cards. It's not a coincidence that on the 6 of Swords there is a Father, a Mother, and a Child. (Rosy Cross again

) This card is Vav-Air, the Son who is the Ruach-Mind(Boat) that floats on the sea of the subconscious, guided by the Will.

I seem to remember us having a similar conversation before, and I stand behind what I said then regarding the Thoth deck. Interpretation is one thing, but there is deliberate intent and purpose behind the design of the cards.

Teheuti

Aeon418 said:
I seem to remember us having a similar conversation before, and I stand behind what I said then regarding the Thoth deck. Interpretation is one thing, but there is deliberate intent and purpose behind the design of the cards.

For sure with the GD-based decks, and Waite as much or more than anyone. But, Waite didn't write down every idea he had when creating the deck. He was clear that the images were to speak for themselves and that some people would be more gifted at interpreting their meaning. He allowed plenty of room for psychic insights in the moment, which he respected highly, as is clear from his autobiography.

For those who wanted to understand his references - the information is readily available in his other books.

It's probably why he didn't reveal the stories behind the suits, although he refers to them obliquely in The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal. Swords are the Hiram Abiff story from the Master Mason (Third Degree) ceremony. At the point in the story where the 6 of Swords comes, the three murderers of Hiram Abiff try to get away by boarding a boat to cross a water. The boatman refuses them and so they are unable to escape. With Six being Tiphareth (Beauty and in Christian Cabala the place of the sacrifice of Love), it is clear that they were not worthy to make the crossing.