Thoth Tarot court cards in the Mastering Divination course?

[Nyxifer]

So I’ve been learning the Thoth Tarot deck as prompted by EA’s Mastering Divination course, but I’m a little confused by the differences between EA’s explanation of the meaning of the court cards and the traditional descriptions via Crowley et al.

EA distinguishes them as follows:

Princess - the most immature of the elemental aspect. Possessing power, but not higher reason and clarity of judgment.

Prince - slightly more developed, but not much. Most often, simple more power is gained, but not much more maturity to accompany it. Often signifies an unrestrained yet powerful form of the element.

Knight - fully matured and fully empowered elemental nature, yet still subservient to impulses and dictations from the Queen (being the attachments of the Knight).

Queen - matured and wizened aspect of the element. In complete control of her power, and in no way controlled by it.

Which makes intuitive sense, but Crowley in his Book of Thoth writes:

The Qabalists, devising the Tarot, then proceeded to make pictures of these extremely abstract ideas of Father, Mother, Son and Daughter, and they called them King, Queen, Prince and Princess. It is confusing, but they were also called Knight, Queen, King and Princess. Sometimes, too, the Prince and Princess are called “Emperor” and “Empress”.

The reason for this confusion is connected with the doctrine of the Fool of the Tarot, the legendary Wanderer, who wins the King’s daughter, a legend which is connected with the old and exceedingly wise plan of choosing the successor to a king by his ability to win the princess from all competitors. (Frazer’s Golden Bough is the authority on this subject.)

It has been thought better, for the present pack, to adopt the term “Knight”, “Queen”, “Prince” and “Princess”, to represent the series Father, Mother, Son, Daughter, because the doctrine involved, which is extraordinarily complex and difficult, demands it. The Father is “Knight” because he is represented as riding on a horse.

Essentially (from what I can gather) Crowley intended the Knight of a suit to be the highest or final maturation of their element (equivalent to the King in the Rider-Waite deck) while EA puts the Queen in that position with the Knight under her. Now I realize there is no one true way to interpret Tarot cards as we all rely on our own personal intuition, but I am wondering if in doing it EA’s way one is potentially missing out on the intended symbolism built into the imagery of the cards.

Anyone familiar with the Thoth deck able to shed some light on this?

[Rav]

The best work to throw a glance on it you can find by Lon Milo Duquette

[Sabbatius]

The Minor Courts I have found pretty much to be “made up” by each particular author, school of thought and system. Not too many universal teachings except for suit.

[Nyxifer]

@Rav

The best work to throw a glance on it you can find by Lon Milo Duquette

Thank you, I actually picked up a copy of his Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot last week. Detailed and thorough to say the least.

@Sabbatius

The Minor Courts I have found pretty much to be “made up” by each particular author, school of thought and system. Not too many universal teachings except for suit.

I see your point. So, don’t bother with trying to force the cards to fit Qabalistic doctrine and just go with whatever meaning intuitively applies to them the best?

[Sabbatius]

@Nyxifer

I see your point. So, don’t bother with trying to force the cards to fit Qabalistic doctrine and just go with whatever meaning intuitively applies to them the best?

The Major Arcana fits nicely. The Minor Suits, not so much. Its up to you whether you find a place for Qabalistic application or not.

Amusing to say the least that Tarot was never used for Qabalistic purposes until the Golden Dawn, though some would argue the Rosicrucians found the purpose, invented the Tarot, raised Jesus from the dead or marketed the concepts of pyramid building to Imhotep.