Fives

The RWS Five of Wands depicts five young men play-fighting or sparring. It may not be the most transparent of Colman Smith’s illustrations. Perhaps a more up-to-date version might show five suburban parents accosting a Little League umpire with baseball bats and murderous intent because their kids’ team lost. But Colman Smith’s illustration may tell us something about how she and Waite felt about the fives. Geburah, the emanation for the fives, was seen by Waite and his contemporaries as signifying a struggle against circumstance or an opposing force, at a time when the outcome is not certain. Yet Waite’s contemporaries were one-dimensional in their interpretations of the Five of Wands. Waite’s genius was to turn a monolithic interpretation into a complex one.