Influence of Golden Dawn court cards on Waite's deck

This is an expansion of a post I sent to TarotL on Dec 2001, which in itself is a followup on another post I made to the list earlier that month. It received no responses at the time, but I still think it might be of interest.

The influences I've found are -

• Book T uses the association of Wands-Fire-Salamanders. Salamanders appear on Waite's court cards of the suit of wands.

  The Golden Dawn associations are clear throughout the court cards, as example butterflies & clouds in the swords courts symbolizing air, and earth & water appearing significantly in the pentacles & cups courts.

• The Golden Dawn prince of wands is seated in a chariot pulled by a lion and has lion head ornaments (reasonable, considering the prince of wand rules the first two decans of Leo). Book T shows that the Golden Dawn prince is the traditional king - and Waite's king of wands features lions on the seat's back, and a lion's head on a chain.

  

• The G.D. queen of swords has a winged child's head ornaments, per Book T, and Waite's queen of swords has a winged child's head on the chair.

• The Golden Dawn queen of wands has a leopard at her feet and leopard's head ornaments. The Waite card features a leopard's head cuirass, two leopards on the back of the seat, and two leopards on the sides of the seat, though those could arguably be lions. I think the sunflower is a hint to the sun, the ruler of Leo.

  

• The Golden Dawn prince of swords carries a sickle in his hand, is seated in a chariot carried by fairies, and "bears as a crest a winged angelic head". Waite's king of swords has a similar crest, and fairies and sickles are featured on the seat's back.

• The Golden Dawn's prince of pentacles is seated in a chariot carried by a bull and features bull head ornaments, as called for by book T (the card rules the first two decans of Taurus according to the G.D.), and Waite's king of pentacles features five bull heads around the throne.

• Book T calls for hexagrams on the king of pentacles has. Book T has retitled the traditional knight king, and Waite's knight features david shields.

  

• The Golden Dawn's queen of pentacles features a goat and goat ornaments, as called for by book T (the card rules the first two decans of capricorn according to the G.D.), and Waite's queen of pentacles features goat heads on the side of the seat.

I think it's clear that even though Waite fell back onto the traditional court cards titles, possibly to keep his oath of secrecy, the courts in his deck were influenced by the Golden Dawn's deck.

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