King of Wands
Wands
How This Card Is Derived
Papus gives no separate description of this card. It is derived from his system: Wands is Yod (י), the active, originating principle, acting in Atziluth, the archetypal world; the King is Yod, the suit's active principle embodied — it originates. The meaning below is that combination read out, not a quotation from him.
Upright
The active term of the active suit, embodied — Yod within Yod, made a person. The King of Wands originates: he founds, he commits, and he does it before the case is complete, which is what founding requires. Papus's Yod does not consult. His authority comes from having started things that then existed, and the deck offers no stronger claim to it than that.
Reversed
Initiative with nothing behind it — a founder who starts a fourth venture rather than finish the first. Or command by force of conviction alone, which works exactly until it is wrong.
Correspondences
- Suit
- Wands — Yod (י), Atziluth, the archetypal world
- Suit principle
- the active, originating principle
- Rank
- King — Yod
- Rank role
- the suit's active principle embodied — it originates
In a Spread
At the commencement, the matter begins because one person decided to begin it. In opposition, a will that will not be deflected and cannot be waited out. At equilibrium he is the source everything else is drawing on. As the result: the matter resolves in the direction somebody chose at the very start.