Tarot Card Comparisons: The Thoth Tarot- Knight of Wands & The B.O.T.A. Tarot-King of Wands

THE COURT CARDS of Thoth Tarot and B.O.T.A Tarot: Thoth Knight of Wands & The B.O.T.A.-King of Wands

-Carl G. Jung

 

To many readers, the court cards often are the most confusing to read. This is because some authorities interpret them as people in a persons life, others as events and still others as both people and events. Many see the court cards as personality traits as well.There is a good reason for all of this confusion ; the reason being because people are nearly always involved in events that are like some aspect of themselves.  Since everything is of one energy and/or one mind, there is no obvious separation between what we experience in the environment and what we are on the inner level of self. It is a foolish attempt at best, when reading tarot, to try and divide the person from the event that is occurring. Such attempts at division could even be perilous. It pays to remember that events  often happen to us  because of ourselves rather then  in spite of ourselves. We are a Psychosomatic creation.

 

The Knight of Wands (King of wands) represents the spiritual evolutionary in all of us. This is the Will-to-be part of ourselves that is unwilling to edit, rehearse, or hold back any part of who we are.

The fiery rider of the unicorn horse is the symbol of vision and inspiration that has purpose and application. Positive male power that is dynamic and is in all of us---that's why we are alive! You are a personal vision of your fiery Spirit!

THE Qabalistic Thoth KNIGHT OF WANDS. (Kings in the Golden Dawn, Connolly, B.O.T.A. and Waite Deck) is often called "the fiery creative Father", for he is the concept of masculine-electric force.

There has been much confusion by Tarot readers, concerning the implied meanings of the Court cards and the Kings are no exception.  In the great text book: The Qabalistic Tarot (a text book of mystical philosophy) Robert Wang wrote:

This Hermetic Qabalah meaning may even confuse the issue more, unless the Tarot Reader understands that you cannot separate the Personality from the events that impose themselves upon it. This is "cause and effect", one cannot exist without the other.  For, spontaneous personalities, such as the archetype Knight of Wands, often receive spontaneous events.

The Knight of Wands is the motive force behind the Alchemical Fire or Primal Fire (he carries the same wand as the Ace of Wands to illustrate this point) on the Qabalistic Tree of Life. This is a fiery personality with great motivational ability. Now remember, trying to divide the person from the event is pure folly, so here we have a passionate personality going through a deep-core "Will to Force" event. Old perceptions are being destroyed as fuel on this fiery ambition, so that new extended and liberated  perspective gives birth to spiritual insight. You may call this positive male-power, as in electricity, that forms a  swift and occasionally violent personality with the capacity to accomplish long-term goals and handling extremely complex situations but is most often fierce, impetuous, impulsive and tends to act unpredictably. 

This "God Sex" is often a hard one to explain to the self-absorbed who think sexuality as "pleasing moment" of conquest and is also male dominated.
 

As before stated, the Upper Supernal Triangle can be compared to the Garden of Eden From here, the male and female polarities of impetus (electric) and reception (magnetic) balance against each other, forming the electromagnetic spectrum, evolving into increasing density as they develop  towards the lowest Sephira, Malkuth, on the Tree of Life.

In Qabalistic Tarot, the Sephrotic number Two symbolizes the union and balance of opposites that underlies all material existence. Because this equilibrium of opposites begins in Chokmah, Sephira #2- which is represented by the Thoth Tarot Knights, the Knights card is representative of the Primal Male force, for it is expressive in its nature.  This second Sephira is also called the Sephira of "Perfect Harmony".  While Kether is that which is the"Root" of impetus: Chokmah/Knights is the impetus for all manifestation. The Harmonic Union of opposites supplies that action as the coupling of Chokmah-Wisdom and Binah-Understanding. Binah is represented as Saturn, Time, which is the first womb of form (beginning and end) and Chokmah is represented as the sphere of the Zodiac.

Ultimately Kether, the 1st Sephira, is "sexless" for the idea of a dual nature is not formed yet, it is however the " whirling force". Therefore, Chokmah is the idea of Maleness (Electric) and Binah is the idea of Femaleness (Magnetic), and the mating of the Three (Supernal Triangle) "whirls the Electromagnetic Spectrum" into "will to Force" and "Will to Form". Therefore, the Thoth Knights represent the Archetypal Yod (Divine Masculine Fire) Male Force, while the Binah-Queens, represent the Archetypal Divine Female, the Divine Heh (The Divine Feminine water). Theobjective comparison of this idea, can be seen on earth, as Mother Ocean is Impregnated by Father Sun.

On the Tree of Life, the Uppermost Sephira is Kether, Eheieh ("I Will Be..."), which sets the pattern for all below it. Like an electrical switch that is off, Kether is all potential, while Chokmah, "will to Force" is the electrical switch in the On position. Thus Chokmah/Knight is function while Kether is potential.   Kether is a "no-thing" while Chokmah is a form of the whirling force that is Kether's Will, and called Force. Therefore, Crowley, made his Kings, into Battle Kings or Knights, as they are Switched on and forceful, rather than sitting on a their royal ass on a throne anchored to earth.

Once again our sensual ideas of sexuality do not apply on this Higher Scale of Hermetic Communion.  Here Maleness is the vital outpouring of electrical energy that is organized, limited or formalized by the magnetic qualities of Female. Thus Yod is male and Heh is female, and the resulting offspring is Vau of the Divine Name, Yod-Heh-Vau-Heh, that is attributed to the six lower Sephiroth in which Tiphareth (Beauty) is central.

As you may note, there are many interchangeable symbols in the Qaballah that may make it seem more complicated than it is. The essential key is  that the Vital outpouring Energy (Knights), which in intercourse with an organizing force (Queens), produces something else. For example, red combined with blue, creates purple by the motion of the mixer (Kether). Therefore, opposites joined in balanced harmony, produce something greater than the parents.  This is not possible if exactly the same united with exactly the same, you would only get , exactly the same!

Therefore the Qabalistic Tree of Life originated in the opposition of Chokmah and Binah. However this is not static, any more than male-female union on earth is static, there is a constant back and forth motion of growth and movement as the "undercurrent" of the Whirling Force of Kether, which in the Thoth tarot is personified as the Knight of Wands. This"undercurrent" insures that when a change occurs in one Sephiroth, there is a natural balancing response in its opposite ( often shown as the figure eight). Therefore there is a continual exchange that could be compared to breathing, as the inhale/exhale action that powers Life.(Illustration from Robert Wang's Text book: THE QUABALISTIC TAROT.)

Chokmah is the State of Self, where we, begin as Force  and Binah is the State of Self-Awareness, that organizes Force into Form, i.e. into being, from a Divine State of Meditation. The dreamed is unaware of the dreamer as we dream ourselves "inside out" (we are infinite inward and limited outward), an ultimate fact of our Earthly existence. Thus, many of us are unaware that we are both the Master and the Masterpiece, the Transmitter and the Transmitted. Ideally our conscious identity and/or personality, should flow back and forth from Transmitter (I AM) and Transmitted (ME) acting as the"corporate manager" who supplies sympathetic resonance for  both the transmitting intelligence and the receiving intelligence. Once again, you can see that your only savior, is the union of an awakened subjective inner self saving the active-objective outer self from the delusion forced on it by "outward reflection".

From One "I" all identity becomes, so in actuality, we do not exist as separates, because many examples of "I" forms a fractal, in this case, the Universal Collective Unconscious. As different examples of Self-Awareness; of "I AM", we declare existence by stating "I AM ME" (Force and Form) becoming a Psyche/Soul  combination of Fiery Father (Electric Force) and Watery Mother, (Magnetic Form). Each of us a "self-vision" of the Divine, given the freedom to preform on our own because we invent identity through imagination. Therefore we set about defining that invisible principle of existence as a manifestation of imagined self-identity called "Me". Thus manifestation is a simple three word definition called, "I AM ME" of which we, who are the inheritors of the Divine Creative Mind (Imagination),  hold total freedom to define. Since I AM Not, is impossible, for what ever you define as not being, simply states, that it is you as you use the Force of Psyche to imagine it as a form and/or being, making "what is not" into formed "what is". Never forget, that you must identify something, therefore giving it form, to deny it exists.  Therefore it behooves us imaginative creators to understand that Passion to Create, of the Fiery Father, impregnates the Imagination (Womb of Form) creating a Self Reflection.   Time to rethink your fiery masculine-psyche power over the dream of you!

Since dimensions are descriptions of spatial terms, our life dream has specific dimensions as that is our best frame of reference. The Tree of Life is how the Qaballah describes these dimensional frames of reference as being a downward flowing evolution of Chokmah (energy) thru various levels of Self Dream called Sephiroth.

To make this a simple analogy, we are first a "particle  and or point in time", usually called a "seed atom of psyche", created by I AM (existence). Other "thoughts" that are sympathetic with this seed, gather around it forming a collective of "self conceived Am's" , combining individual "points in time", forming a "place" and therefore, dreaming our own existence (Eheieh) and forming our own dimension! Therefore, each of us is a Universe to ourselves!  One could say, that we are all collectively bubbles of Psyche (Souls) in the metaphorical effervescent Ocean of The Divine Collective Unconscious, living as a dimensional I AM ME. You could say we are what is known as God/I AM-looking into a  sparkling mirror created by whirling motion and realizing an image from the combination of spirals.... One could sling metaphor's forever, and not really define one's self, as combinations often produce heretofore unseen potentials. Hence I AM ME, is a constant changing transformation of Self.

This process of Macrocoscmic dreaming towards a more condensed and sensual dream self, Microcosmic image, is a state of Self-Awareness called the "fall", but it really is a "down sizing" the Ocean of  The Divine Collective Unconscious into Bubbles of individual fractal components (Souls), that causes us to "lessen" and/or give dimension (places in time) to our self concepts enabling a  more sensual and interactive I AM ME; all of which is necessary for evolutionary discernment of identity.

This "Bubbling" is a type of fragmentation of identity from the Collective; an "individual", which believing it is separate from the collective, looses sight of its own Collective of Divinity and must "reclaim" all the data we left behind on its "downward" journey into Sensual-Self Identity. You may say that in manifestation, Malkuth, we are to become a Lucid dreamer, rather than a "sleeping one".

The goal here is to get the inner dreamer and the outer-dreamed to cooperate with each other and thus the dreamed-Self than begins to get control over its life happenstances as "Will to Force" (consciousness) and "Will to Form" (Imagination/unconsciousness) work in sympathy with each other. This is a truly extraordinary experience  and is the making of a Magi where the Union of Dreamer and Dream has no veils between them, and we can have anything at all, but often require very little as we no longer experience the " wanton need" of the disconnected. One Loves, without need to love or be loved; One creates without fear or need of result. One wants nothing at all because one becomes I AM Me rather than "I seek Me". Once one  discerns what does matter and what does not ("No-Thing Matters"), One goes about the Great Work of "As above, so below", a place where the bubbles are not separate, but a collective of effervescence in the Ocean of the Divine Mind.

 

The Kingdom of Heaven, is all around you, and it is built from the attraction of opposites. To understand this powerful attraction we really have to re-think sexuality and understand the attraction of Chokmah and Binah; of the electric and the magnetic.The Universe is created by this often overwhelming technical activity of Union.

 As Stated: The Thoth Knights are the Kings, in many other decks: to Crowley, a king siting on a throne did not depict the Active power of a King that represents Chokmah. Thus, he calls them Knights, which are Kings, Armored, on  mighty-chargers, undaunted by battle.  The Knights represent Yod forces in each suit. The Yod is the Radix, and/or Father and commencement of Material Forces. All other forces  are implied here, and as ideas they develop and commence in the Knight. As if volcanic, the Force of the Knight is swift, violent action, that also moves on swiftly. Thus the effects of this force soon pass away.

The B.O.T.A.  Tarot, depicts the King of Wands (Thoth Knight), in the traditional medieval fashion of Authoritarian sitting on his throne of authority.  The salamander tapestry behind him, implies the element of fire and his mastery of it. He is the fiery "conscious" of creation.

In his hand is the Wand and he is dressed in the reds of this suite of Fire.  The blue field behind him, signifies the Water of his consort the Great Mother Unconscious, of which he is never without, for the Unconscious is the vessel of the conscious. 

To the Astrologer, the Knight of Wands rules in the zodiac from 21 degrees Scorpio to 20 degrees Sagittarius.

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