astrology Intro To Astrology In The Rws & Thoth

[Rose Lalonde]

That's as far as we've gotten in the mentorship section. We'll probably do another reading with no spread positions, just 3 or 5 cards laid out in a row. And then wrap it up! It went on longer than expected, but this fabulous student was interested and hard working!

 

Resources

 

To wrap up, here are a few resources, I mentioned while we were discussing things.

 

This page by Robert Palmer is a one page quick overview of the basics of Golden Dawn astrology in tarot.

 

For in depth information, skyscript.co.uk is a classical astrology site, so focuses on the same astrology the Golden Dawn included. 

 

Fortune's Wheelhouse podcasts look at esoteric symbols on the RWS and Thoth cards.
EDIT: They now have a book that includes the astrology covered here. -- Tarot Deciphered: Decoding Esoteric Symbolism. 

 

Tarot Correspondences by T. Susan Chang has tables that include pretty much everything we covered here.

 

And not a book (although there is a great companion book, Book M), but one more plug for the Tabula Mundi Tarot, in which the art is intended to illustrate the astrological connections between cards in a way that's very easy to remember. You can see that best in the 3 card grouping images on the old Kickstarter. 
EDIT: This deck has been reprinted in full size and mini, so is available in 2022.

 

DanielJUK mentioned on the forum that the modern astrology book The Only Astrology Book You Will Ever Need was uploaded by the author, so it's free to view online. This seems to be gone now, sadly.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Rose Lalonde
Updated resources for 2022

[Rose Lalonde]

If you waded through all of my posts and made it down here, Wow, hi!  ;D Maybe it's just you and me at this point.  :P I'm very open to comments, questions, or suggestions for improvement.

[Raggydoll]

Thank you!! This is so very awesome and I love that you’ve now made it available to everyone here. Your efforts are much appreciated  <3 ((

[Cookie]

Yes,thank you for this Rose Lalonde[/member] .  It always astounds me how the tarot, astrology, and the Qabbalah fit hand-in-glove with each other--although in theory .. the actual understanding is a lot harder, but seems to be a portal to higher thinking.

 

I've read some of it. Your correspondences are very interesting. Your exercises are very in vogue with me atm, and seem to evoke the abstract thinking & imagination that is the key to understanding the tarot and all.  I will certainly try some out.   

[Flaxen]

Amazing stuff! I’m sure many people will find this very useful. [emoji4]

[KaiNO]

Thank you very much  :) :thumbsup:  Really looking forward to dive into this  ^-^

[DanielJUK]

thank you so much Rose Lalonde[/member] for all the work you put into this here and for sharing as a resource for us all!  <3

 

saving this thread as a reference for me  :thumbsup:

[Luna]

I have only read through half of the first page, and wow!, Rose Lalonde, what a lot of work you put into this.  I will echo DanielJUK and thank you so much for all the work you put into this.  I'm also about to copy the pages out for my book where I keep important thoughts and information on card reading.  This is a wonderful resource and I'm thrilled to add it to my Shadow Book! 

 

T.Y.! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

edited to add: 

 

Okay, I've only read bits and pieces of things you typed up here, doing a quick run through of things.  Again, wow! you really did put a lot of work into this.  I have various books on this same subject that I've picked up over the years and I have also tried to incorporate it into my readings, though most of the times I do not do so.  However, I love this idea and I wanted to share with others that you can find these resources in books as well--but Rose really put the heart of it here and it is a wonderful resource to bookmark and save to check out and try to incorporate into your readings. 

 

Isn't it amazing and wonderful how so much can be seen in the cards?  They never cease to amaze me!

 

Rose, you are a gem here. :) <3

[Rose Lalonde]

Thanks all!  ;D

 

DanielJUK[/member] I forgot to put an @ sign in front of your username when I mentioned one of the online resources you pointed me to (The Only Astrology Book You will Ever Need) but thanks for that.

 

Luna[/member] yeah, I learned from books, and the only thing different for this was that I answered questions that came up and gave feedback on exercises... which is a bit lost when I just put the info posts up here without all the back and forth. But if anyone has questions or wants to post answers to an exercise, I figured I and other members like you could offer feedback if that's wanted.  :) Or they can PM me about going through these together in the mentor section if they want to hit it all.

 

I'm going to be away from the forum in December until Christmas, but will check in to see if anyone came by while I'm gone.  :)

 

[Luna]

Many thanks again, Rose Lalonde.  You are a very sweet lady.  :thumbsup:  I only saw this post today as I've not been on for awhile.  I keep telling myself I'm going to make up the index cards, mark my cards, etc. and give it a go again, but haven't yet started.  Perhaps after the Christmas holidays and after all the Christmas decor is put away.  lol!

 

I just might take you up on asking you for help via PM if I do run into any issues.  Thank you again and Happy Holidays!  X/

[Eric13]

This is exactly what I now want to start learning and practicing, bending astrology and tarot reading, perfect, thank you this is a lot of work and detail.

[Rose Lalonde]

Thanks Joe[/member] .  :)  Hope it's helpful.

[Guest]

that was pretty cool, i will have to read it again later. pretty solid for the most part though it felt like it was drifting in sections G and H. I am fairly certain that sidereal time is being used for their astrology and that is why the courts are not aligned with the proper decans. Sidereal is always slipping further and further away, in some time those courts will be two decans off, and then one day the wrong zodiac altogether. does that mean we keep changing the reading of the cards or do we stick with the dates that Crowley put in libre 777 for ever?

 

i am always amazed at how popular theses decks are in the west, yet by and large the people using these decks prescribe to modern western astrology. I think this incompatibility is the foundation of a large part of the confusion about card meanings.

 

[Rose Lalonde]

Thanks for stopping by, whatsawhosit[/member]! I managed to miss your response so I'm pretty late. I think some of the confusion with RWS courts has to do with Waite's choice to make them look like the TdM rather than the GD courts, but yes using sidereal or modern planets or other approaches that differ from what went into creating the deck we're working with can cause a bit of a disconnect from what we see in the art. (Personally I stick close to Crowley, so my answer to your rhetorical question is 777 forever! :D ;) as you could probably tell, but after saying, "Here's what the GD did," I'm done. I'm not trying to say "Here's what you should do," to anyone.)

[Guest]

i'm re-reading it again, it is quite good. :)

 

do you have any plans for this piece? or is it just for us?

 

i've spent so little time with the RWS...i think I read too many of Waite's books first.

 

I personally think and am fairly certain if one is not practicing magic specific to the GD it does not matter which card is where or what is assigned. So long as all the cards are present. That sidereal thing is a long standing argument for astrologers as well. These decks were created as they were discovering the new planets. Crowley in particular clung to the old ways for sure and I think the differences we see are their disagreements as the occult world shifted.

[tarotlovely]

This is really amazing, thank you so much! I've been looking to incorporate astrology into my tarot practice but none of the guides I found really explained the correspondences, so thank you for your hard work delineating all of this!

[Rose Lalonde]

I've updated the resources post above. It was over 3 years old, so needed a little fix. 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by Rose Lalonde

[Jes]

On 11/24/2018 at 4:45 PM, Rose Lalonde said:

Astrology Exercise I: Aces and Pages

 

Sure thing. With the exception of the roommate exercise, I'm making these things up as I go, so we'll see how well I do with Aces and Pages, which as you said are a bit different. I generally just read them in terms of their GD Qabalistic significance since I often read with the Thoth where they're Princesses, but I've brainstormed some other possibilities below.

 

You may not find all of these to be helpful, and if you don't, that's fine too! Just have fun experimenting with them.

 

1) Imagine you're missing a ring, and you think you lost it at one of these places:

[Note: We found this one tricky since geographic locations for each Ace/Page are 1/4 of the earth. ymmv. This is a question I'd prefer to explore with Lenormand, but we're playing around with possibilities.]

 

Your office to the east of home

A friend's house out of town to the south east

A shopping center to the south

A park to the south west

A doctor's office to the west

A café to the north

 

Based on where your own home is in the world and the geographical locations listed in post 10, for each of these locations, figure out which direction each Ace/Page is from your country. Then decide which one would indicate the ring could be found.

 

If you see conflicting information between the type of place mentioned and the compass direction, choose whichever seems like the best match to you. There's no set answer.

 

 

2) Imagine that this week you're doing a reading for a sitter who's asking when they'll begin a romantic relationship. Based on the three cards below, what date range would you give them? Can you narrow the date range down by looking at the card art and also at the speed indicated by the cards?

 

It may be helpful to refer to the attached chart of dates. I had trouble finding one that gives dates and RWS titles and fixed sign correspondences for Kings. So I've just attached the Thoth wheel I use from online, and have left Knights and Kings out of this question, so you don't have to sort out any differences.

 

For your purposes here, RWS Pages are the chart's Princesses. The other cards below have the same name in the chart. For example, the Queen of Cups is on the chart as Queen of Cups, etc.

 

World ~ Page of Wands ~ 4 of Swords

8 of Wands ~ Ace of Cups ~ Page of Swords

Ace of Pentacles ~ Queen of Cups ~ 4 of Cups

 

 

3) For this one, I don't want you to write an answer down for each one. We're just getting a general sense of whether these combinations are helpful overall. Lay out the cards as listed below and ask yourself whether or not you see a meaningful connection between them and the Pages and Aces.

 

After doing this in all of the ways below, just sum up in a couple of sentences whether or not you find either way of looking at Pages and Aces helpful in some way.

 

A) Although the GD connected them with geographical place, lay out the majors that correspond to the signs associated with their part of the sky as listed below (these are the signs from post 10). If you'd like, you can also pull the 9 related minors for each, but it's not required. Look at the cards below in terms of how they reflect astrology, but also just look at art on the cards and anything that strikes you visually.

 

Page and Ace of Wands: Chariot, Strength, Hermit

Page and Ace of Cups: Justice, Death, Temperance

Page and Ace of Swords: Devil, Star, Moon

Page and Ace of Pentacles: Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers

 

B) Let's look at your Kenner book's astrological correspondences that relate to the suit's element. These are pretty widely accepted. Again, lay out the Page and Ace alongside the majors that correspond to the same signs, and ask yourself whether you find a connection between them meaningful. (Again you can lay out the 9 related minors if you want to, but it's not required.) Look at how they reflect astrology, but also take time to just look at the art on the cards and anything that strike you visually.

 

Page and Ace of Wands: Emperor, Strength, Temperance

Page and Ace of Cups: Chariot, Death, Moon

Page and Ace of Swords: Justice, Star, Lovers

Page and Ace of Pentacles: Devil, Hierophant, Hermit

 

(Note that in both A and B, the Ace and Page center on the fixed sign of their own element. In the GD and Thoth decks, this would be the same sign as the Prince. In Kenner's correspondences for the RWS, these fixed signs correspond to the King.)

 

 

4) What, if anything, does it mean to you that the Ace and Page correspond to geographical spaces (GD correspondences) or with the widest range of zodiac signs of any cards in the deck (Kenner's correspondences)?

Hi, may I know if this table is accurate for use and how is it derived? 

[Rose Lalonde]

@Jes Hi, these are the Golden Dawn correspondences from Book T. You can read it here. (The dates are based on when the zodiac signs and their decans fall during the year.) 

 

(Robert Wang has this round chart in his book, The Qabalistic Tarot, where he compares the RWS and Thoth decks. I mention him, because that's the first place I saw the information consolidated in a circle, instead of in columns or just listed with each card description.)

 

There are many ways that people have assigned astrology to tarot. ( @_R_ just posted a page of several here.)  If you're reading with a deck that's not based on Golden Dawn correspondences (like Tarot of the Holy Light, Journey Into Egypt, or many others), these correspondences will not apply.

[Guest]

Somehow these posts remind me of that lovely quote from the great J. P.  Morgan himself:

 

Quote

Millionaires don't use Astrology, billionaires do.

 

Curious to see how tarostrology would work for financial readings. 

[Andrea_Luna]

THANK YOU SO MUCH i struck gold

 

[alethian]

This is a great resource for studying Tarot and Astrology. Meticulous prepared with useful and rich info.

Many thanks.

[Misterei]

On 6/9/2023 at 3:50 PM, Akhilleus said:

Curious to see how tarostrology would work for financial readings. 

Deleted. Off topic. DM me if interested.

Edited April 14, 2024 by Misterei

[Rose Lalonde]

On 4/13/2024 at 10:45 PM, alethian said:

This is a great resource for studying Tarot and Astrology. Meticulous prepared with useful and rich info.

Many thanks.

Glad it's of use. Thanks. 🙂 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2024 by Rose Lalonde
Deleted a separate quote that was deleted by the OP

[DanielJUK]

As this thread is meant as a reference thread for study, let's keep this one strictly on the topic of this resource 🙂 

It's absolutely fine to start other thread discussions on other astrology topics and other methods and associations but it would take this thread off-topic

 

Thanks everyone