The Four of Disks
The Lord of Earthly Power
A Hand holding a branch of a rose tree, but without
flowers or buds, save that in the centre is one fully blown
white rose. Pentacles are disposed as on the points of a
square; a rose in its centre. Symbols of the Sun and Capricorn above and
below to represent the Decan.
Assured material gain: success, rank, dominion, earthy power, completed but leading to nothing beyond. Prejudicial, covetous, suspicious, careful and orderly, but discontented. Little enterprise or originality. According to dignity as usual.
Chesed ofה final (Gain of money or influence: a present).
Herein doכוקיה and מנדאל bear rule.
• • •Assured material gain: success, rank, dominion, earthy power, completed but leading to nothing beyond. Prejudicial, covetous, suspicious, careful and orderly, but discontented. Little enterprise or originality. According to dignity as usual.
Chesed of
Herein do
“The Four, Chesed, shows the establishment of the Universe in three dimensions, that is, below the Abyss. The generating idea is exhibited in its full material sense. The card is ruled by the Sun in Capricornus, the Sign in which he is reborn. The disks are very large and solid; the suggestion of the card is that of a fortress. This represents Law and Order, maintained by constant authority and vigilance. The disks themselves are square; revolution is very opposite to the card; and they contain the signs of the Four Elements. For all that, they revolve; defence is valid only when violently active. So far as it appears stationary, it is the “dead centre” of the engineer; and Capricornus is the point at which the Sun “turns again Northward”.
The background is of deep azure, flecked yellow, suggesting a moat; but beyond this is a pattern of green and indigo to represent the guarded fields whose security is assured by the fortress. In the Yi King, Sol in Capricornus is represented by the Second Hexagram, Khwan, which is the Female Principle. Compare the English word Queen, Anglo-Saxon Cwen, old Mercian Kwoen. Cognate are Icelandic Kvan, Gothic Kwens, woman. The Indo Germanic type is g(w)eni and the Sanskrit root GwEN. Note also Cwm, coombe, and agnate words, meaning an enclosed valley, usually with water running from it. Womb - possibly a softened form?
Compare also the innumerable words, derived from the root Gas, Which imply an enclosed and fortified space. Case, castle, chest, cyst, chaste, incest and so on.
The primary radicle in all this class of words is the guttural. Observe the Hebrew attributions: Gimel, the moon; Cheth, Cancer, the house of the moon; Kaph, the Wheel; Qoph, the Moon, XVIII, Guttur, the throat. Sounds so made suggest the other throat; one is the channel of respiration and nutrition, the other of reproduction and elimination.”
— Crowley, The Book of Thoth