Geburah – IsleVue

The Five of Wands – A One Page Guide

November 28, 2019February 7, 2020 John Iacovelli Fire, Fives, Geburah, Leo, One Page Guide, Wands

The Five of Wands is a depiction of youthful competition and the battle of life. Waite’s divinatory meanings have a major difference in tone, though not of substance, versus the Golden Dawn’s; imitation fighting and strife vs. real. Saturn and the Sun in combination are the explanation for the difference in tone. There was a belief dating back to Mesopotamia that the planet Saturn was pre-cursor of the Sun. Saturn the “Sun-Star” may be a fragment of the story of the Golden Age. Saturn was the grandfather god who may have required child sacrifice; he presided over a (literally) darker planet, though the Earth provided such abundance that work was unnecessary. It is Saturn vs. the Sun, a past “imitation,” lesser Sun vs. today’s real, greater Sun. We have hopefully thrown light upon the RWS Five of Wands, but found nothing that challenges its accepted meanings in any way.

collage Five of Swords Achilles and Hector by Rafael Tegeo

Tarot

The Five of Swords – A One Page Guide

September 14, 2019February 7, 2020 John Iacovelli Air, Aquarius, British nationalism, Fives, Geburah, One Page Guide, Swords

The desolation and despair of the Five of Swords contains the seeds of recovery. Note, first, the difference between Waite’s and the Golden Dawn’s divinatory meanings. They’re both about loss, but the GD’s meanings are about personal losses, while Waite’s are communal. Waite has changed the focus and intensified the divinatory meanings. The astrological and planetary influences in particular suggest, through Ganymede, Saturn and Venus, the Trojan War. And the qabalistic influence brings us the fiery left hand of the Almighty. Waite’s state-oriented divinatory meanings of infamy and dishonor recall, possibly, the “traitors” of Homer’s Iliad: one who had a section of Hell named after him by Dante, and another who reputedly invented the game of dice! But the alternative, the hero, may be in plain sight, the “master in possession of the field.” Because for every Ganymede, swept up and buggered by the gods, or for every traitor slinking away by sea, there is an Odysseus, the most famous adventurer literature has ever known, or an Aeneas or a Brutus of Troy, the latter two having founded great empires. This article considers whether Waite and Colman Smith had Troy in mind when they designed the Five of Swords card.

Tarot

The Five of Cups – A One Page Guide

August 17, 2019February 7, 2020 John Iacovelli Cups, Fives, Geburah, Mars, One Page Guide, Scorpio, Water

The Five of Cups is the first case of a card that adjoins another previously diagrammed card. It shares nearly all the same astrological and elemental influences as its decan neighbor, the Six of Cups.This provides an opportunity to see their effects upon the divinatory meanings in relative isolation. We can in fact trace the differences between the two cards—mainly, Geburah, about judgment and limitation vs. Tiphareth, compassion and strength, respectively, but also in the exalted planets of each decan. But there is another difference—of grammar—between the two cards. The figure in the Five is the object of the meaning, whereas in other cards we normally see the subject. It remains to be seen where this will lead in the subsequent one page analyses of the minor arcana, but I suspect the journey will continue to be interesting. This has certainly been an eye opening exercise for me.

Tarot Fundamentals, though more expensive than most alternatives, is my recommendation as the single best book for beginners. It has the grounding you need in tarot history; it lists the astrological, elemental and qabalistic influences for every card; it provides excellent "how-to" essays on approaches such as intuition and the journey of the fool; and it provides illustrations of the renderings of eight decks for every card. The primary authors have continuing relationships with the Tarosophy Tarot Association, and this book is meant to be an encyclopedic volume of a good portion of their teachings.

Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination is the best history of the origin of tarot, bar none. The first two thirds of the book should be required reading for anyone who wishes to even begin to truly understand the major arcana. Robert M. Place does have his "hobby-horse"—alchemy—and he gives far too little emphasis to the Golden Dawn. But his explanation of how the symbols in the majors got there and what they mean is unparalleled. The last third of the book is a description of the RWS deck.

The Lo Scarabeo Tarot is the "go-to" deck I use when I have my own questions. (I use RWS for other people). It's an attempt to reconcile the Golden Dawn, Waite/Colman Smith and Thoth. It doesn't do it perfectly. It's gorgeous. It's not for everybody. But if Tarot "theory" is your cup of tea, it may be a good choice for you, too.

To be honest, Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot is more "cute" and "fun" than insightful, in my opinion. But it is great fun. It visually relates Pamela Coleman Smith's theatre work to the deck she drew.