The Queen of Wands
The Queen of the Thrones of Flame
A Crowned Queen with long red-golden hair, seated upon
a Throne, with steady flames beneath. She wears a corslet
and buskins of scale-mail, which latter her robe discloses.
Her arms are almost bare. On cuirass and buskins are
leopard's heads winged, and the same symbol surmounteth
her crown. At her side is a couchant leopard on which her
hands rest. She bears a long wand with a very heavy conical
head. The face is beautiful and resolute.
Adaptability, steady force applied to an object, steady rule,
great attractive power, power of command, yet liked
notwithstanding. Kind and generous when not opposed.
If ill dignified, obstinate, revengeful, domineering, tyrannical,
and apt to turn against another without a cause.
She rules the heavens from above the last Decan of Pisces to
above the 20° of Aries: including thus a part of Andromeda.
Water of Fire
Queen of the Salamanders
• • •
“The Queen of Wands represents the watery part of Fire, its fluidity and colour.
Also, she rules in the Zodiac from the 21st degree of Pisces to the 20th degree
of Aries. Her crown is topped with the winged globe and rayed with flame. Her
long red golden hair flows down upon her armour of scaled mail. She is seated
upon a throne of flame, ordered into geometrical light by her material power.
Beneath the throne the surging flames are steady. She bears a wand in her left hand; but it is topped with a cone suggestive of the mysteries of Bacchus. She
is attended by a couchant leopard upon whose head she lays her hand. Her face
expresses the ecstasy of one whose mind is well in-drawn to the mystery borne
beneath her bosom.
The characteristics of the Queen are adaptability, persistent energy, calm authority which she knows how to use to enhance her attractiveness. She is kindly and generous, but impatient of opposition. She has immense capacity for friendship and for love, but always on her own initiative.
There is as much pride in this card as in the Knight, but it lacks the spontaneous nobility which excuses that error. It is not true pride, but selfcomplacent vanity and even snobbery.
The other side of her character is that she may have a tendency to brood, come to a wrong decision thereon, and react with great savagery. She may be easily deceived; then she is likely to shew herself stupid, obstinate, tyrannical. She may be quick to take offence, and harbour revenge without good cause. She might turn and snap at her best friends without intelligible excuse. Also, when she misses her bite, she breaks her jaw!
In the YI King, the watery part of Fire is represented by the 17th hexagram, Sui. It indicates reflection upon impulse, and the consequently even flow of action. There is great capacity for lucid conception and steady prosecution of work; but this is only at the bidding, and under the guidance, of some creative mind. There is a tendency to be fickle, even disloyal; the ideas which she obeys make no deep or permanent impression. She will "cleave to the little boy and let go the man of age and experience" or the reverse (lines 2 and 3) without realizing what she is doing. There is liability of fits of melancholy, which she seeks to cure by bouts of intoxication, or by panic-stricken outbursts of illconsidered fury.”
— Crowley, The Book of Thoth
The characteristics of the Queen are adaptability, persistent energy, calm authority which she knows how to use to enhance her attractiveness. She is kindly and generous, but impatient of opposition. She has immense capacity for friendship and for love, but always on her own initiative.
There is as much pride in this card as in the Knight, but it lacks the spontaneous nobility which excuses that error. It is not true pride, but selfcomplacent vanity and even snobbery.
The other side of her character is that she may have a tendency to brood, come to a wrong decision thereon, and react with great savagery. She may be easily deceived; then she is likely to shew herself stupid, obstinate, tyrannical. She may be quick to take offence, and harbour revenge without good cause. She might turn and snap at her best friends without intelligible excuse. Also, when she misses her bite, she breaks her jaw!
In the YI King, the watery part of Fire is represented by the 17th hexagram, Sui. It indicates reflection upon impulse, and the consequently even flow of action. There is great capacity for lucid conception and steady prosecution of work; but this is only at the bidding, and under the guidance, of some creative mind. There is a tendency to be fickle, even disloyal; the ideas which she obeys make no deep or permanent impression. She will "cleave to the little boy and let go the man of age and experience" or the reverse (lines 2 and 3) without realizing what she is doing. There is liability of fits of melancholy, which she seeks to cure by bouts of intoxication, or by panic-stricken outbursts of illconsidered fury.”
— Crowley, The Book of Thoth