Personal Court Cards: A Crowleyan Perspective
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m currently reading the court-card section of Michael Snuffin’s Thoth Companion and came across the observation that Aleister Crowley chose the Prince of Wands as his personal court card due to its association with Leo, the sign on his astrological Ascendant, accompanied by the Queen of Swords to symbolize his Sun sign of Libra. (There is no mention of Crowley’s Moon-sign court card, which may be because he didn’t want to closely identify with the Moon’s insidious nature; for the record, his Moon was in the last decan of mystical Pisces, which would exaggerate that vulnerability and perhaps highlight his drug addiction, but it would also present him with the first Mars decan of the imperious Queen of Wands for his lunar signature, a somewhat irascible, overbearing emphasis that would not be out-of-character). This caused me to look at my own personal court cards in the same light.
I have the last decan of Scorpio rising in my rectified birth chart, which gives me the Thoth Knight of Wands as my ascending court card. Snuffin relates the Knights (as the fiery expression of their element) to assertive self-projection, and the sign on the Ascendant indicates how we present ourselves to the world and, concurrently, how other’s see us. Although I can be resolutely forthright when the situation demands it, more often I convey the secretive, reclusive and inscrutable side of Scorpio in my public dealing. Because I don’t reveal much I’ve never been an “easy read” for the people I encounter, and I prefer it that way most of the time. (Interestingly, my original [unrectified] horoscope that ran afoul of post-War timezone irregularities had early degrees of Sagittarius rising, which was most definitely not a good fit since the majority of Sagittarius-rising types are temperamentally open and unguarded, but it would still deliver the Knight of Wands as my personal court card.)
Here are Snuffin’s descriptive keywords for this card (obviously inspired by Crowley’s text in the Book of Thoth):
“Active, aggressive, angry, assertive, competitive, confident, dynamic, impulsive, initiating, irritable, narrow-minded, pioneering, short-tempered, violent. A leader.”
My natal Sun is in the first decan of Cancer, yielding the Queen of Cups as my solar court card. For decades I’ve used the Knight of Cups as my Significator since Crowley talked a great deal about the crab of Cancer in the card’s imagery, but in retrospect there are many aspects of the Queen’s “moral characteristics” that make more sense to me. In Snuffin’s view (modified by my own experience), the patience that is a trademark of the Queens manifests here as calm and collected self-control, and the Queen of Cups in Cancer is a completely harmonious union that squares nicely with the Scorpio Ascendant (although not so well with the Knight of Wands, who may feel outmaneuvered).
Snuffin’s keywords for this card are: “Calm, compassionate, emotional, inattentive, intuitive, maternal, observant, passive, receptive, sensitive, spiritual, sympathetic, understanding, unrealistic, unreliable.”
My natal Moon is in the first decan of Capricorn, which means that the Queen of Disks is my lunar court card. The customary restraint of the Queen is overlaid with a strong, armor-like shell of reserve that renders her nearly impregnable to emotional turmoil (or at least she is very good at hiding her soft underbelly). This unflappable defensive posture is a perfect complement to the urge for self-preservation that is a noteworthy quality of the Queen of Cups and also of Scorpio rising (although the latter, with its traditional Mars rulership, partakes more of the aphorism “The best defense is a good offense”). Although I have a powerful Cardinal emphasis in my chart that typically signifies an “action-oriented” personality, the elementally-compatible Queens create a buffer against overreaction; if anything I can be slow to pull the trigger and have to invoke the precipitous Knight of Wands to make anything happen. Unfortunately, it can make me seem intemperate when I’m normally anything but.
Snuffin’s keywords are: “Ambitious, cautious, conservative, determined, fertile, industrious, solitary, materialistic, reserved, serious, uncompromising, virile.”
It’s tempting to perform this exercise for all of the classical planets to create a kind of autobiographical character study in court cards. In fact I already did that to a certain extent with my “astro-tarot mandala,” although I didn’t complete a detailed analysis. But the Ascendant, Sun and Moon are the fundamental “building blocks” of the astrological personality to which the rest of the planets add nuance, so it may be best to limit the others to their decanic associations. The existence of planetary conjunctions (of which I have several in my own chart) tends to collapse the profile into fewer court cards, and an individual with a “stellium” of planets (four or more) in one sign may come across as something of a “one-note theme.” Then there is the matter of the multi-sign Princesses, but I have an idea for another essay on that subject so I’m going to leave it for now.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on March 8, 2024.
