The “Golden Dawn Swap” — Strength and Justice
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve written about the relocation of Strength and Justice before, but not in terms that stray so far from the beaten path. I have no clue what (if any) use I will make of this, but it’s an intriguing philosophical study. (The framework shown in the graphic could be used as a “reticle” to examine any pair of zodiacal trump cards that are separated by a single card of the same group; the associated pip and court cards would change according to the selection.)
At the end of the 19th Century, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (led by Samuel Liddell “MacGregor” Mathers) assigned astrological correspondences to all of the cards of the tarot using the Chaldean zodiac as their foundation. As part of this effort they decided that the traditional placement of Strength and Justice in the 22-card trump series must be swapped to agree with the natural progression of the zodiacal signs. The classical arrangement had Justice as the eighth trump and Strength (aka Fortitude) as the eleventh one; since there were no occult encumbrances on the cards at that time, there was no reason to question this sequencing until the Golden Dawn’s esoteric initiative singled out the twelve zodiacal trumps for special treatment.
Strength was given to Leo, the Hermit to Virgo, Justice to Libra and Death to Scorpio, so moving Strength to precede the Hermit and Justice to follow it made sense in their estimation. While I would prefer to honor the original order shown in the Tarot de Marseille (as did Aleister Crowley in the Thoth deck, although for different reasons), as a Hermetic scholar I can see that the Golden Dawn’s swap exhibits a good deal of metaphysical credibility when Death is added to the equation. Justice sitting at the beginning of the second half of the array suggests an impartial “summing up” and conceptual reboot of the developmental arc that culminated with the Hermit and entered a transitional phase with the non-zodiacal Wheel of Fortune. With the advent of Death, the capricious scales of Justice are stilled in preparation for a profound change of focus.
An argument can certainly be made for Strength as warden of the gateway to transpersonal advancement that was opened by the Wheel of Fortune, but its fiery enthusiasm would soon be dampened by the somber waters of Death. Furthermore, the segue isn’t nearly as elegant as the Justice/Death hand-off since that turnover (with the non-zodiacal Hanged Man as its pivot) describes a contemplative interlude (the “pause that refreshes” of the old Coca Cola slogan). Replacing Justice with Strength, on the other hand, could produce egotistical hijacking of the regenerative impulse via grandstanding, muscle-flexing and arm-twisting (unevolved Leo behavior), whereas following the Chariot, Strength would be more likely to build constructively on that card’s momentum in driving the Hermit to the pinnacle of the single-digit hemi-cycle. (Fire and Earth [Strength and the Hermit] and Air and Water [Justice and Death] conjoined are elementally supportive of one another, while Air and Earth [Justice and Hermit] and Fire and Water [Strength and Death] are mutually unfriendly in the extreme, further substantiating the Golden Dawn’s make-over.)
However, I’ve always felt that the separation of Strength and Justice by a more equivocal card (the Hermit) should be reconciled in some way. I decided to “build a bridge” between them using the zodiacal “decan” cards for Leo and Libra, and two court cards to act as “diplomatic attaches,” so to speak. Staying with the Golden Dawn model, I envisioned a coincident forward-and-backward flow that circumnavigates the Hermit: forward from Strength to Justice with the Fire cards and backward from Justice to Strength with the Air cards, the rationale for the latter being that the deliberations of justice are often predicated on the historical precedent of case law, the basis for much of its formal power (here represented by the weight of royal decree symbolized by Leo). This creates a circular, clockwise rotation of positive (Fire and Air) cards revolving around the negative pole of the Hermit (Earth) as shown in the image below, with Water (Death) waiting patiently for the inevitable spin-off.
Note that, technically, the court card associated with the first two decans of Leo should be the Page of Wands, but in keeping with the premise of a “diplomatic attache” shuttling between the trump cards, I decided to use a Queen as being more suitable to convey the feminine authority of Strength. The Queen of Wands I had previously characterized as the “little sister” of the mighty Woman in that trump, and her black cat is the domesticated version of the Lion. The Queen of Swords is the preeminent Libra court card and as such it has a strong connection to Justice, making it the perfect go-between to deliver the message. (See the table of “Trump Card Allies” at the bottom of the page.)
Strength applies the active male side — or animus — of its persona to set about communicating its expectations to Justice (5 of Wands [Saturn in Leo], 6 of Wands [Jupiter in Leo] and 7 of Wands [Mars in Leo]), while the Queen of Wands tactfully but no less insistently endeavors to facilitate. Justice invokes the uncompromising Air cards of the Libra suite (2 of Swords [Moon in Libra], 3 of Swords [Saturn in Libra] and 4 of Swords [Jupiter in Libra]), posing logical objections to Strength’s more unreasonable demands (it looks like a “shot across the bow” to me), with the Queen of Swords delivering the “master stroke.” I should mention that Fire and Air are highly cooperative elements, so — despite radically different positional tactics — a strategic accord is almost certain to result as long as each one cedes a bit of its dominion.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on November 12, 2023.
