The Qabalistic Tarot by Robert Wang -study tool

Hi All,

I was curious to know if many here use this book as a study tool for the various Golden Dawn based decks. I am finding it to contain a plethora of information that I hadn't even considered before. It never occured to me that the chariots of the princes of the suits are being pulled by the same symbols as we see in the four evangelists 'The World' card. Each time I open the book I discover something or a connection that I haven't pondered before.

Wang goes into some pretty deep obscure occult information much like 'The Book of Thoth' and I personally find this quite helpful. He doesn't skate over the more complex abstract Tarot issues like I feel many other authors do.

This book is illustrated with four decks and feature a picture of each for all 78 cards:

Thoth
Rider-Waite
Marseille
Golden Dawn

Wang talks about the A.C. deck as much as his own, maybe more. The RW and Marseille he doesn't go into much detail about unless they contain the proper Golden Dawn symbolism. Personally, I would take His deck and Marseille over the other two.

I am surprised by some of the extra divination/meditation information he gives at the close of this book. He is a refreshing mix of high intellectual and down to earth. I feel the book is quite like a rich chocolate as it can only be nibbled on. To much of this at one time could give someone a very bad headache I would think.

Anyone else reading this a bit at a time as kind of a Tarot holy book?


Freddie

P.S: LRichard turned me on to this book, so many thanks to him!

One of the best books I read on the subject, and is my go-to reference book. I'm glad like it, I studied it very closely and in-depth, paraphrasing nearly the whole thing.

Its been one of my reference books for some time ... although I can be critical of Wang as does make one or two wrong statements.

But overall a very good ref book.

Wang is my go to reference. The Minors section of the BoT also can be helpful, complemented by Case's The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages, which is a GD-ish interpretation of the Majors (slow reading and rather deep).

Tut tut ...( taps him with the Lamed )

You did it again ... its about Wang, not Cowley or Case !!!

ravenest said:

You did it again ... its about Wang, not Cowley or Case !!!

Click to expand...

OMG! You're right. Why do I keep veering OT like that? Aaaarrrggh! ETA: On second thought, you have no right to play moderator, so leave meta comments about my posts to the real experts.

Freddie said:

Wang talks about the A.C. deck as much as his own, maybe more. The RW and Marseille he doesn't go into much detail about unless they contain the proper Golden Dawn symbolism. Personally, I would take His deck and Marseille over the other two.

Click to expand...

I think the chief value of Wang's book lies not so much in the discussion of the individual decks, but in the way that each of the decks are shown to share a common foundation. While each deck might superficially appear to be going off on a different and distinct artistic tangent, there is still a shared qabalistic system that underpins them all. Get your head around the basic system and you can switch between any of the decks with ease. While there are some real differences between the decks, many of them amount to little more than variations on a theme.

The odd man out here of course is the TdM. But Wang's inclusion of a pre Golden Dawn pack serves to illustrate how any deck can be used and interpreted as a qabalistc Tarot.

Despite a few niggles overall I think it's a great book.

I agree, the comparison really helped me see the bigger picture when I was studying it, especially the RWS compared with the Thoth. The Marseilles discussions helped me see that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Especially exciting was a fresh look at the Ace of Cups.

However, whenever anyone says he is wrong in certain places, or that they have a few qualms with him, I feel like a dunce. I don't remember anything eyebrow-raising or misleading. I did see "quirks" but I attributed that to personal views. I don't remember them now, however.

Wangwrong ?

I suppose I shouldn't criticise his main mistake as ... although he clearly got it wrong when trying to explain something from the Thoth / GD system he actually backed up one of my 'outlandish ideas'

(Re; associating the 4 Princesses with the North Magnetic Pole instead of the North Celestial Pole).

Did Wang stuff up the Court cards?

There's an instruction to Golden Dawn members somewhere (I just spent half an hour looking for the damn thing without success. ) that tells members using a 'standard Tarot deck' to whip out their crayons and scrawl new names on the Court cards.

Traditional King becomes Golden Dawn Prince - Vav.

Traditional Knight becomes Golden Dawn King - Yod. (Crowley undid that one.)

Waite seems to have followed along, but in a typically confused way. Compare the designs of the RWS Knights with the Thoth Knights and the Golden Dawn Kings.
Also why do the RWS Kings feature Kerubic sign symbolism that is found on the Princes in the other decks? Did Wang miss this?