Off-Centre: "XIV"

The Roman numeral XIV on the Colman Smith Temperance
card is off-centre such that it aligns with both the Triangle
on the breast of, and the split big toe and middle toe of
the angel Raphael's right foot (in the water)...

Since this card is attributed to Scorpio (opposite Taurus-Lovers)
it seems quite interesting, reflecting the exaltation of the Moon.

XIV Temperance : Pamela Colman Smith Tarot of 1909

Fulgour said:

Since this card is attributed to Scorpio (opposite Taurus-Lovers)
it seems quite interesting, reflecting the exaltation of the Moon.

Click to expand...

What system of attributions are you using? The Golden Dawn attribution, and hence the attribution implicit to the RWS deck's design features, for the XIV Temperance card is Sagittarius. In the GD assignments, Scorpio is XIII Death.

Joan Cole writes:

Not Merely a Golden Dawn Deck:


Two decks, the Waite-Smith (Rider Waite) and Thoth (Crowley-Harris) are included in this page, although the argument could be made that they don't really belong here. While both A.E. Waite and Aleister Crowley were initiated members of the Golden Dawn and exposed to Book "T", both decks were designed with a much more complicated agenda than mere adherence to Book "T". At this point, I am not convinced that either deck is merely a Golden Dawn deck. However, this is how they are generally considered. Both are Golden Dawn-influenced decks, but not purely Golden Dawn decks. At close examination, Waite often seems just as faithful to older traditions as to Book "T". He also alluded to a discomfort with making a Qabalistic correspondence with Tarot Trumps. The Book of Thoth is not a pure Golden Dawn deck either, as the Book of the Law is of great significance for understanding this deck.

http://www.advancenet.net/~jscole/tarotgoldendawn.htm

The V reversed ^ is the archetypal masculine symbol, the "blade," and the V, it's "equal opposite" is the archetype of the feminine, the "chalice."
When the two are joined harmony is restored.
This forms an X.
When lux the Latin word for "light" is spelled with the Greek letters ^, V, X the entire word can be summed up with the single letter X which came to be designated "truth."

Could those V's all matching up and in line with one another be telling us what this card is all about.
Restoring harmony, truth, and light to the world.

the fulfillment of completed unity

lark said:

Could those V's all matching up and in line with one another be telling us what this card is all about.
Restoring harmony, truth, and light to the world.

Click to expand...

Temperance is like the total energy we see in a magnet, the full scope
of positive and negative forces eternally combined into a unified whole.
Textbooks will offer a definition such as "prudently balancing duality" but
this card is much more than that. It represents the light in the darkness,
the spirit within the body, the combining as one of all our many aspects.
It cannot give you a yes or no answer, but Temperance says: You are loved.

Your reference to positive and negative forces combining into a unified whole brings to mind Margaret Starbird's comments on this subject. "The Holy Grail...is the missing piece of an ancient paradigm for wholeness. Long forgotten in Western civilization, there was a mandala honored in the oldest cultures of the world. It was based on the archetypal symbols of male and female, the masculine 'blade' and the female 'chalice' or Grail....Findings of archaeology testify to societies in which the gifts of women - nurturing, cherishing, and educating the young - were honored, where the 'blade' was used to till the soil rather than to intimidate, where life was held sacred, where arts and crafts flourished and creativity was cause for celebration....From their sacred Cosmic Dance of the Opposites, which symbolizes the interplay of the positive and negative forces of energy, harmony spreads into all aspects of...life...."

XIV TEMPERANCE : SCORPIO

Rusty Neon said:

What system of attributions are you using? The Golden Dawn attribution, and hence the attribution implicit to the RWS deck's design features, for the XIV Temperance card is Sagittarius. In the GD assignments, Scorpio is XIII Death.

Click to expand...

I'm pleased to see you have read Mr. Waite's opinion on this card, but
have you taken the time to form your own? Tarot is, after all, personal.
Consider the following:

XIV Temperance
NUN - Individualization, Transformation
It is the depths of each one, outward journey to seek its potential
at the bottom of oneself, its hidden talents, each one is born with a gift,
a characteristic to work, each one has to separate, show its difference.
It is the accomplished potentiality. Its ordinal Value east 14.
Corresponds to the sign of the Scorpion.

XV The Devil
SAMEKH - Passion, Instincts, Transcended Impulses. It makes it possible
to control its instincts, its blind passion. It is the ring, alliance, it is the
only closed Letter, it is absolute safety, peace, it is courage in the
difficult moments. Its ordinal Value is 15.
Corresponds to the sign of Sagittarius.


"L'Art Sacre des Lettres Hebraiques"
Les 22 Lettres
de l'Artiste Isabel



Planetary attributions, however, are an altogether different matter.
~Fulgour

Off-Centre XIV

Pertinent quotation, Peredur.Temperence, as Archetype, pertains to Harmony by way of blending of opposites or by way of transcendence of conflicting oppositions . The Grail was brought down to earth by angels who did not take sides in the war in Heaven.They and their Grail were neither light nor dark but centered between.Like the rippling stream between Temperence's vases.
Perceval/Parzival,who becomes Grail King, balances the spiritual devotion of his mother and the chivalric earthiness of his father. "Parzival" translates "through the middle/valley"-- he's poised perfectly beween opposite parental sides. So, Temperance is like Parzival finding his middle path. He's neither his devotional mother or his worldly father. He "tempers" their extremes: the epitome of Temperence.(Based on Wolfram's epic version.)

Re: XIV TEMPERANCE : SCORPIO

Fulgour said:

I'm pleased to see you have read Mr. Waite's opinion on this card,

Click to expand...

Seeing as the deck was his creation, it seems that reading reading his opinion about his deck, would be the least we could do.

Fulgour said:

but have you taken the time to form your own?
[/B]

Click to expand...

Yes, I have come to the opinion that A E Waite is probably the best source when it comes to his own deck.

Of course, other people may have differing opinions, but there is no reason why we should give any weight to those opinions simply because people have them. I may have the opinion that the Earth is flat, but simply having that opinion does not make it so, and in the light of much persuasive evidence that the Earth is not flat, my opinion may seem uninformed, and fatuous, to other people who study the Earth.

Fulgour said:

Tarot is, after all, personal.

Click to expand...

Then why do you say card XIV is attributed to Scorpio, when it could be attributed to any letter according to anyone's personal whim, or agenda?

We could have a different letter, sign, and planet depending on the date and time, or according to whether the day is sunny or overcast, or when my dog last cocked its leg at any particular lamp post.

However, it does not shed any light on why Waite created the ideas that Pamela Smith iconified, which to me, personally, seems more interesting than investigating a myriad of unfounded, and ill-informed theories.

Fulgour said:

Consider the following:
XIV Temperance
NUN - Individualization, Transformation.It is the depths of each one, outward journey to seek its potential at the bottom of oneself, its hidden talents, each o ne is born with a gift, a characteristic to work, each one has to separate, show its difference. It is the accomplished potentiality. Its ordinal Value east 14.
Corresponds to the sign of the Scorpion.

Click to expand...

No it doesn't, not in Waite's, and the Golden Dawn, system of attributions.

And although you keep posting Joan Cole saying that the Waite deck is not "merely a Golden Deck", there is no suggestion whatsoever that she believes Golden Dawn attributions and meanings do not apply to the RWS.

In fact she implies the exact opposite. She says of the RWS;

"Often follows Book "T" in subtle ways - such as carving figures in the throne of a court card. In fact, part of the genius of this deck is that the minor arcana very frequently manage to capture both the older divinatory meanings (summarized in Mathers' 1888 document on the Tarot) in their pictures and the Golden Dawn meanings. "
Joan Cole

The basic mistake you seem to have made is in believing that the ordinal numbers of the Hebrew letters correlate, or are in any way connected, with the Roman numerals of the Trumps. Even with your system they will not match up exactly, there is still the problem of which letter you will assign to Trump 0.

A problem that the Golden Dawn, and almost certainly Waite, solved quite neatly by putting the Fool as Zero at the beginning of the sequence, and assigning the first Trump to the first Hebrew letter.

This is not to say that it is the only system, or the correct system, for occult Tarot, but it is the correct sequence for this paricular deck, and symbolised accordingly, as intended by the author.


Vincent

I'm going to ignore the side chatter here and discuss the construction, or composition of the card, which IS the point of the post.

First, let’s look at the picture (art) using Christopher Tyler’s center line theory – yup – the center line bisects an eye…however…

The figure leans to our left…by shifting the roman numerals so that the last digit is centered on the center line of the card, which bisects the figures left eye (our right)…it reinforces (by shifting the balance) the shifting of the figure – the weight is on their right foot.

Notice the ‘void’ to the right of the last digit? Our eye tracks away – down – and then left…our eye unconsciously must describe an arc! Composition wise, this is not desirable. But it draws our attention to her feet.

It works.