The Decanic Meanings Vs. the RWS Images

The thing that sparks me to make this thread is a situation I keep having with one of the cards in the Rider Waite Smith deck.

The card in question is the 6 of Swords.

The first deck I bought was the RWS. This was before I found out about the meaning of the decans that the Golden Dawn used to set up the Tarot. So like everyone else I learned to read the cards by taking meaning from the images and what I picked up from them.

To ME the Six of Swords image always seemed to indicate some sort of sad journey. This is because to ME the focal point of the card is the mother and child sort of slumped in the boat. This plus the dim colors on the card seem to indicate something saddening. Maybe thats the wrong way of looking at it but thats just how I saw it. Since Swords=Air/Mind this would be sad mental thinking or sad mental thinking. It seemed to me the boat was headed away from something saddening or trying to move through a sad time.

Once I learned about the true decan meanings that the Golden Dawn intended
thanks to this forum I began to see what was really up.

The decanic meaning of the Six of Swords is The Lord of Earned Success which includes the attribution of Mercury in Aquarius. This meaning would imply good results after working towards them. The RWS image in my opinion doesnt really match up to the decanic meaning. Maybe others on here will feel that it does. But the meaning I would get from the card is different from the decan meaning. Mercury the planet of Communication in Aquarius the mental sign would indeed imply good results. Airy Aquarius may not be perfectly suited for Mercury but it does indeed work thus the label "Lord Earned Success".

I remember reading where Scion said that the Thoth is a better representation
of what the GD intended than the RWS. I think the 6 of Swords is a example of this.

Does anyone else have any other cards in the RWS where they have noticed this as well? I have noticed others as well that seem to be confusing when compared to the decanic meaning. I suppose Waite must have done some of these things on purpose. Not to mention that Pamela Coleman Smith did her drawings based off what she understood of what Waite was trying to convey.

Maybe we can get a good discussion going on this subject matter.

The 6 of Swords is one I have also struggled with. I read that Waite was more influenced by Etteilla's meanings than Crowley was. Even Mathers in his "The Tarot: A Short Treatis on Reading Cards" uses "envoy, messenger, voyage, travel" (Etteilla) to describe the 6 of Swords rather than the decans.

A good source for comparison of meanings from Etteilla, Mathers, Golden Dawn, and Waite is Huson's Mystical Origins of the Tarot. It would be nice if this book had also discussed the Thoth meanings. I would like to know more about how Crowley applied his own ideas to develop his meanings from the Golden Dawn meanings. It's rather hard to understand from the Book of Thoth how Crowley melded everything together but it seems he made much more use of Kabbalah.

I got tired of trying to nut out the RW and just used Thoth. IMO Thoth tends to avoid the 'fortune telling meaning'. In my time as a public reader I found some wanted the 'inner stuff'. They could hear a rave on the ... I'll say 'hermetic meaning' (but thats wrong) and draw their own conclusions to how it applied to them. others would look at me blank, so Id say ... you could be about to go on a long journey (or whatever). and they would be happy.

I found more and more people wanted, in public readings, this fortune telling stuff, so I eventually stopped doing it and now only read for friends who have a bit more insight into themselves.

Perhaps one benefeit of the deck is that these outer meanings can be seen in visual form.

I can relate the journey thing to the decan ... but I'm stretching it a bit.

One of the GD meanings is "success after anxiety or trouble"; that sort of fits the picture from the RWS six of swords.
Even the way the GD teaches, the swords usually indicate some sort of negative energies; so the harmony of the six is a "lighter" or "milder" card than most of the rest of the suit.
Just remember that the decans are balanced by the sephirotic/planetary and elemental attributes, so sometimes the decans alone don't make much sense.

t.town.troy said:

One of the GD meanings is "success after anxiety or trouble"; that sort of fits the picture from the RWS six of swords.
Even the way the GD teaches, the swords usually indicate some sort of negative energies; so the harmony of the six is a "lighter" or "milder" card than most of the rest of the suit.
Just remember that the decans are balanced by the sephirotic/planetary and elemental attributes, so sometimes the decans alone don't make much sense.

Click to expand...

I see your point. I never really connected with that image to see that I only saw something sad. Since the swords represented Air I always interpreted that as a sad state of mind.

The decanic meaning however gave me a much idea of what that card was originally suppossed to convey. It just goes to show that you need to research deeper than just using images if you want further clarification about a card like I did.

Sometimes I forget to think... I said "success after anxiety and trouble" (which could include sadness) because I usually interpret the 6 of swords that way, but I just dusted off Regardies' GD and for the six of swords it says "labour, work, journey by water". Heh, sometimes the most obvious answer is right there, in the cards as it were. I guess labour and work would be the boatman working to ferry the troubled ones.
Now back to the decans... I don't know astrology too well, so I could be all wrong. But I think that Aquarius is watery Air and Mercury is exalted in Aquarius, so the best part of intellect being expressed to move away from the sadness, by water, in this card.
I am a little puzzled by a few of the RWS minors too; how about the seven of swords? How does that apply to the decan, or even the differing interpretations?

t.town.troy said:

Now back to the decans... I don't know astrology too well, so I could be all wrong. But I think that Aquarius is watery Air and Mercury is exalted in Aquarius,

Click to expand...

Aquarius is an Air sign.

The card is assigned to the second decan of Aquarius, which is ruled by Mercury.

Mercury is exalted in its own sign of Virgo (at 15 degrees to be exact).

Illustration here:

http://www.astrologycom.com/exalt.html

Wickipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exaltation_(astrology)

t.town.troy said:

I am a little puzzled by a few of the RWS minors too; how about the seven of swords? How does that apply to the decan, or even the differing interpretations?

Click to expand...

The decanic meaning is The Lord of Unstable Effort.

The corresponding astrological information is The Moon in Aquarius.

Aquarius is a air sign. The Moon is the planet of change,fecundation,psychic and emotional energy. Air signs tend to shallow out the emotional effect of the Moon. Earth signs stabilize the moons effect while Fire signs would intensify the emotions of the moon.

Since Air signs lessen the emotional effects of the Moon perphaps that is why the artwork on the RWS shows him holding 5 Swords and while leaving behind 2 of them. Perhaps that is what the artwork was intended to try to represent for the meaning of the card.

Thanks
I guess I see Aquarius as 'watery' Air since it is the "waterbearer".
I must have been off in la-la land with the exaltation thing(I though I had read that Mercury was exalted in Aquarius somewhere).
With the 7 of swords picture, I guess that the guys' hat bothers me!
I saw the 7sw decan as "not the right timing, wait and reflect or meditate"; and again, could be all wrong.

t.town.troy said:

Thanks
I guess I see Aquarius as 'watery' Air since it is the "waterbearer".
I must have been off in la-la land with the exaltation thing(I though I had read that Mercury was exalted in Aquarius somewhere).
With the 7 of swords picture, I guess that the guys' hat bothers me!
I saw the 7sw decan as "not the right timing, wait and reflect or meditate"; and again, could be all wrong.

Click to expand...

Have you ever seen a list of the decanic meanings that the Golden Dawn used to set up the pips. Its in Book T which is in Regardies Golden Dawn book as well as being on the internet. Crowley also put the list in his 777 book.