Tarot Journey with Leisa ReFalo

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)

He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a prototypical hero of romantic chivalry. He might almost be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart. Divinatory Meanings: Skill, bravery, capacity, defence, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance, ruin. There is therefore a sense in which the card signifies death, but it carries this meaning only in its proximity to other cards of fatality. Reversed: Imprudence, incapacity, extravagance.

4 Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana

Knight.–A soldier, man of arms, satellite, stipendiary; heroic action predicted for soldier. Reversed: Dispute with an imbecile person; for a woman, struggle with a rival, who will be conquered.

The Recurrence of Cards in Dealing

In the Natural Position: 4 Knights = serious matters; 3 Knights = lively debate; 2 Knights = intimacy.
Reversed: 4 Knights = alliance 3 Knights = a duel, or personal encounter; 2 Knights = susceptibility.

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]

Signification of the Four Series of Minor Arcana in the Divining Tarot

SWORDS. Transformation. Hatred. War.

KNIGHT. A young, dark man, an enemy. He is also a spy.

The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]

Meanings of the Cards

52. Knight of Swords.–A Soldier, a man whose profession is arms, Skillfulness, Capacity, Address, Promptitude; R. A conceited fool, Ingenuousness, Simplicity.

Additional Remarks

The following additional remarks may be serviceable to the to the inexperienced Cartomancer. They are chiefly taken from Etteilla.

The Court-Cards, and especially the Kings and Queens, may be taken to represent persons; in this case their additional meaning should not be read. The Swords represent very dark people; Pentacles, those not so dark; Cups, rather fair people; Wands or Sceptres, those much fairer, and so on. Many Wands together might signify feasting, many Cups lovemaking, Swords quarrelling and trouble, Coins or Pentacles money.

Where the mode of reading the cards requires that the person consulting should be represented, he should take one of the Kings to represent himself, according to his complexion. If a lady consults the cards, let her take one of the Queens; if she be rather fair, the Queen of Cups; if she be very fair, the Queen of Wands or Sceptres. If the inquirer be quite a youth or a boy, let him take one of the Knights; if a very young girl, let her take the Knave, etc. Etteilla’s plan was to take two of the Keys for Significators, that answering to the Pope for a man, that answering to the High Priestess for a woman; but I do not think this is so well. The worst of Etteilla’s system is that he so completely destroys the meanings of the Keys in his attempted rearrangement of them, as to make them practically useless for higher occult purposes.

Book "T" The Tarot

The Four Kings
THE Four Kings, or "Figures mounted on steeds," represent the Yodh forces of the Name in each Suit: the Radix, Father and commencement of Material Forces, a force in which all the others are implied, and of which they form the development and completion. A force swift and violent in its action, but whose effect soon passes away, and therefore symbolized by a Figure on a Steed riding swiftly, and clothed in complete Armour.

Therefore is the knowledge of the scale of the King so necessary for the commencement of all magical working.

But the Kings (Knights) sometime represent coming or going of a matter, according as they face.

XIII. The Lord of the Winds and the Breezes; The King of the Spirits of Air :
Knight of Swords

A WINGED Warrior with crowned Winged Helmet, mounted upon a brown steed. His general equipment is as that of the Knight of Wands, but he wears as a crest a winged six-pointed star, similar to those represented on the heads of Castor and Pollux the Dioscuri, the twins Gemini (a part of which constellation is included in his rule). He holds a drawn sword with the sigil of his scale upon its pommel. Beneath his horse’s feet are dark-driving stratus clouds.

He is active, clever, subtle, fierce, delicate, courageous, skilful, but inclined to domineer. Also to overvalue small things, unless well dignified.
If ill dignified, deceitful, tyrannical and crafty.

• Rules from 20 Degree Taurus to 20 Degree Gemini.
• Fire of Air
• King of the Sylphs and Sylphides.

Often the General signification of the Majority of a particular suit and of the particular signification of the either 3 of 4 cards of a sort in a reading:

• Majority of Pentacles Business, money, possessions.
• A Majority of Court Cards Society, meetings of many persons.
• 4 Kings (Knights) Swiftness, rapidity.
• 3 Kings (Knights) Unexpected meetings. Knights, in general, shew news.