Tuesday 12 June 2012

John Matthews | 8 Stag and 11 Woodward

THE STORY OF STRENGTH AND JUSTICE
One or two people have been asking why we chose to adopt the older ordering of the Major Arcana in the Wildwood Tarot, specifically in the placing of the Strength and Justice cards. Really this all goes back to good old A.E.Waite, who stamped his presence on so many of the more recent decks. Most modern tarot creators have chosen to follow this ordering of the Arcana, placing Strength at #8 and Justice #11. In fact Waite was much criticised for this, many tarots users feeling he had upset the divine ordering of the cards which had previously followed both a numerical and astrological order. Aleister Crowley, in his Thoth deck, chose to restore the original order – since when individual tarot creators have made their own choice which order the cards would follow.