Sword and Wand-Air and Fire?
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Sometimes Swords are assigned to Air and sometimes to Fire, the same with Wands assigned to sometimes to Air and sometimes to Fire.
What is the reasoning?
I read this account, that the Golden Dawn attributed Swords to Fire and Wands to Air. But when Waite published his tarot he changed the attributions to not violate his GD oath of secrecy.
[hadowdb dot net/discussion/view/16953/attributions-of-wandsair-and-swordsfire]What do you think?
Thank you
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What do I think?
Swords are Air, and Wands are Fire, and anything else is a misprint or a blind.
But I can be like that.
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Use your intuition (which is largely what is supposed to be going on). You see artistic renditions of wands in drawings and movies and what do you see? Flames of will shooting forth. Swords? Swish swish swish the air.
If you want to create a new system, it is going to need to work within and without.
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Takamba's answer is better. He gives the "why."
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Crowley assigned fire to wands and air to swords.
Donald Michael Kraig assigned fire to swords and air to wands.
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@AliceKnewI said
"Crowley assigned fire to wands and air to swords.
Donald Michael Kraig assigned fire to swords and air to wands."
I believe you misunderstood Kraig. You may be referring to this:
"However, as I said, some of what Gardner did was a simplification of traditional magickal philosophy. One of these simplifications was the equating of the dagger with the sword. This is understandable as the sword does appear to be nothing more than a long dagger. And if you had only learned the LBRP, you might know that Me-chai-el bears a sword and stands to the South, the direction of the element Fire. Water, of course, would be associated with the Chalice, and Earth with the Pentacle. This leaves the wand to the element Air. And Rahfay-el, the Archangel of that element, does hold the caduceus wand. This all seems so logical."
But it doesn't end there. If it did end there, then we would say that Kraig is equating the elements fire and air with dagger and wand respectively, but wait.... there's more... next he says,
"Unfortunately for the above simplification, it is not correct to equate the purposes of any of the several wands used by a magician. The Fire wand is not the same as the Lotus wand, and neither are those the same as the wands carried by the initiatic officers of occult groups. They all have different functions even though they have the same basic shape. So too is the dagger different in design and function than the magickal sword.
If it helps to clear things in your mind, some people like to think of the dagger as being the tip of a spear which is thrown through the air.
The traditional AirDaggeris a simple, double-edged blade with a "T" shaped handle as shown below.
Since the Air Dagger should never have been used to cut living things,it should preferably be new, Under coat the handle and the ''T,'' but protect the blade from paint. Follow the instruction on the paint concerning the treatment of the wood and!or metal before applying the paint. Then paint the undercoated parts a bright yellow."
Here he clearly shows that the Dagger is an Air tool.
So, you stand corrected. Yes?
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I’ll just sound arrogant, so I’m limiting my comments to pointing back to what Takamba said the first time. That’s what I think.
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Thank you so much.
93 93/93
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Can someone explain basically why swords couldn't be earth, esp. as they include primarily earth minerals/metal?
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@christibrany said
"Can someone explain basically why swords couldn't be earth, esp. as they include primarily earth minerals/metal?"
Hmmm.... how shall I speak truth and be certain it won't become lie to the ear under-developed to such things? The sword unfortunately can cut both ways. Training in swordsmanship is required by the SCA swordsmith who along with my witness and touch crafted my first sword for me. He doesn't sell swords, he makes them and sells them only after you participate in three hours (three days, one hour each) training in handling the sword - because it litterally will cut both ways.
Symbols are indeed arbitrary. Create your own if you like. Test them out. See what happens. But the symbolism of the sword representing the mind (tarot) which includes reasoning, philosophy, law and order topics, opinions, facts, mentality, is a very good choice as is. The disk, or pentagram, is a great symbol for Earth because of the paten; the dish that holds the wafer of the Eucharist is the Bringing to Earth the Spirit Made Flesh. Oh, and coins are nothing but materialism. So there's that.
But as I said, it's all arbitrary. We chose them, they didn't arrive this way. Experiment as thou wilt and then observe the report.