XIV - Temperance (RWS)

[TheLoracular]

I often associate Temperance & The Star together. The symbolism used for both of them is so similar. One of the best blog posts comparing/contrasting them that I ever read is here on Works of Literata. I agree with Temperance showing up more often when the topic is personal and more worldly than spiritual. It often comes up for me in readings about changing behavior, attitudes, or core beliefs about topics like racism, social justice, and politics. In my personal work, I lean heavily on Temperance as an ideal where I am drawing too opposing forces or desires into harmony or stability. That Delphic maxim of "Nothing To Excess" I take to heart and Temperance as a tarot card helps me visualize tempering myself into moderation.

The archangel, representing our own Best Selves, is grounded by keeping one foot on land, one in water. The alchemy of its work is all about making oneself into that Best Self. The white of the robe symbolizes purity of intent while the red wings are the passion and power of this actions. The orange triangle within a square had special symbolic significance for Waite & the Golden Dawn but I don't remember what exactly. Hopefully someone else does.

The cups being one of silver (moon, feminine, Yin) and one of gold (sun, masculine, Yang) is just another layer to this card being about bringing two opposing energies into synergy. The alchemical sun symbol on its forehead (where the third eye or ajna chakra is) represented to Waite both life and eternity (I think). The gravity-defying way the water flows is intentional and meant to express how magickal and mystical this act presented in Temperance is.

The path leading between mountains to a rising dawn always makes me imagine that is where the archangel is headed next once this alchemical ritual is done.

[A-M]

The orange triangle within a square had special symbolic significance for Waite & the Golden Dawn but I don't remember what exactly. Hopefully someone else does.

The triangle placed in a square, on the chest of the angel, probably represents fire (triangle) in earth (square).
In other words: the divine fire working in man.
Above this symbol is written - barely readable - in Hebrew letters: YHWH (God).

Hebrew name for God.png (2.38 KiB) Viewed 1902 times

https://www.anne-marie.eu/en/tarot-14-temperance/

[Parzival]

Temperance RWS is like a great book of wisdom in one page. I assume Waite designed it and Pamela Colman Smith depicted it. It has multiple angles of inspiration, including the ideals of moderation, combination, and transformation. The four Hebrew letters that A.M. showed in big, bold design are just above the golden triangle in the square, over the heart chakra, so that the triangle points to the Tetragrammaton, as if to say, "Transform Thyself from human nature into the Divine nature out of which all beings and things arise." But it's more complex!-- Just below the Triangle is the vibrating flow between the two cups. So, from below to Above: wave, triangle, Name. Possibly etheric force or life-force, or prana, or chi, then human heart reaching to the Divine, then spiritual Being. There is a triple transformation going on with this, not only sequentially but by combination, with the human heart as the middle between life-force below and and spiritual Being above. Much meditation on all this would lead to Self-realization and right action.

[Nemia]

In the RWS Temperance, there is no rainbow but the hint to the rainbow is nicely hidden in the flowers - Iris is the rainbow in Greek. In Hebrew, it's keshet, and kashat, the bowman/archer, is the Hebrew name of Sagittarius (sagitta is the arrow).

In the Thoth, you can see the arrow and the rainbow. In the RWS, the iris flowers hint to this connection between the archer in the sky, his arrow and the rainbow. I also like to think that the ancients called Sagittarius like that not only because you might see an archer in the constellation (not as clearly as in Orion but you can somehow shoehorn an archer into the constellation if you insist) but also because of the Milky Way.

The Milky is nowadays hardly visible because of the light pollution nearly everwhere, but until two generations ago, everybody could see that the most impressive part of the Milky Way is around Sagittarius. And the Milky Way, in a truly dark night, stretches from horizon to horizon, just like a bow or a rainbow.

I have no idea whether this hypothesis is worn out by facts but that's my association.

Rainbow means the meeting of light and water - light is Fire and Air - it's a marriage of opposites.


Another thing - the German mystic Johann Georg Gichtel wrote a book about the human state before and after spiritual rebirth (of course, he connected spiritual rebirth to Jesus Christ).

The dark person before illumination through Christ

And afterwards.



Is it possible that this illustration inspired Thoth's Temperance? I can't prove it but it's possible. (I found the Gichtel illustrations here, in German, not an academic resource).

But back to the Angel of Temperance in RWS. Emblems of the virtues usually used female figures to embody or symbolize them but by using a male archangel, there is again this mixing of feminine and masculine.

It's one of my favourite cards and one that I check before I decide to buy a new deck. It's filled to the gills with alchemical and mystical hints.

[Papageno]

let's bring Temperance into the 21st century and consider that this concept....the concept....not the card nor the imagery, also applies
to balance of perception.

this isn't to say that we have to ignore the neoclassic ideals of the Renaissance Mantegna or the hermetic philosophies of Waite, Crowley, Eastern philosophies et al......but in view of the many contemporary decks that attempt to rework or redefine the tarot in an attempt to make this venerable body of work more practical or accessible for a modern audience, I think it's very appropriate to move beyond....way beyond the rote meanings for all of the cards, especially the Major Arcana.

balance of perception.....people talk a great deal about their fear of certain cards, the suit of swords....the Tower, Death...what have you...it's also been suggested that certain cards of the ancient Visconti decks and their kin, were missing because they were purposely
removed as a result of superstitions associated with said cards.

However, if you carefully consider the various hypotheses put forth by any number of publishing houses and researchers, you find some serious gaps of logic. Certain cards deemed "unlucky" or "unfortunate" were only assigned such attributes by the Hermetic practitioners of the very early 20th century, not the philosophers of the Renaissance period.

thus, perception based on faulty scholarship, is skewed.

so what about the Tower and Death.....it's called Life.....and all that's been going on since waaaaaaaaay before humankind started being very clever and taking itself way too seriously, writing endless volumes of philosophical tomes about every blessed aspect of Life, scrying the stars, trying to interpret "signs" and all that stuff .....ya know what....Life is what it is.......if readers and sitters alike would try and achieve a more balanced perception of the tarot, both sides would benefit immensely.....I have grown very weary of the overstated histrionics and theatricality that permeates too many of the various practices associated with the tarot.....all this is just IMHO of course.