The Magical Tarot – The Knaves

Singing Down the Moon

by Madeline Montalban

Over-complication of the meaning of the Four Knaves of the Tarot has arisen over the past hundred years and the assigning of different meanings to them, according to whether or not they are reversed in a spread, has resulted in much confusion.

By ancient systems, the four Knaves represented “knavish tricks and intentions” in the matters of the suits they ruled.

Knave of Cups referred to love questions. Knave of Rods to commerce, Knave of Pentacles to money luck and Knave of Swords to enemies.

Only a brief explanation of each is necessary. Taking the Knaves in order, their meanings are: Cups, love trickery. Rods, commercial risks go awry. Pentacles, loss of money. Swords, evil plotting by a rival or enemy.

If you accept those meanings as they stand, you will see that the Knaves are warnings of knavish thoughts (or tricks) of others as they may affect your affairs. They are no more than that, so far as the predictive side of the Tarot is concerned.

But, in the ancient mysteries, they had a very different role assigned to them. They represented the four phases of the Moon in the following order: Knave of Cups, New Moon. Rods, First Quarter. Pentacles, Full Moon. Swords, Last Quarter.

When not to
Moreover, they were a kind of simple calendar of possible happenings that could occur on the actual days of the Moon phases.

Lovers’ meetings, for instance, should never be arranged on the day of the New Moon, as the Moon is then too near the Sun for it to be fortunate for the woman. Deceit could spoil the romance before the next New Moon comes round.

Equally, do not concern yourself with important commercial issues on the day of the First Quarter, or with money matters on the actual day of the Full Moon, or have dealings with your rivals and enemies on the day of the Last Quarter. If you do, say the ancients, you will regret it.

You can try this out for yourself to see just how much truth there is in it, for all these things have value according to how you have the patience to prove them. The reason for this belief is that the four phases of the Moon correspond to certain ancient Egyptian minor spirits, or sub-gods, who were given particular rule (or should we say misrule?) over the matters concerned on those particular days.

Clairvoyant aspect of the Moon depicted as “feeding” the Infant of Imagination

Unfortunately, there is so much confusion and contradiction over the names of these spirits that I am unable to give them, as they were held to be servants of the greater gods. However, Cups correspond to Hathor. Rods to Thoth, Pentacles to Amen-Ra and Swords to Set. So all who are keen on Egyptology can search out the names of the spirits or servants for themselves, and I hope that they have better luck than I had in doing so!

What I like about ancient Egyptian mythology is that, despite the efforts of archaeologists to knock the occultism and mystery out of it (since they look at it from quite a different angle) its lore persists. It is, in fact, a simple system of psychology expressed by Gods, Spirits and Powers, allied to natural phenomena (such as the phases of the Moon), which gives us an insight into human behaviour.

In our better thoughts and aspirations we can all be knights. In our lesser, we are all knaves. Sometimes our knavishness gets the upper hand and this, said the Egyptians, is when we come under the dominance of the illusory side of the Moon. According to them, it leads to deception in ourselves and in others.

Clear night needed
In fact, they had a whole glorious arcana of Moon lore that is fun to study and practise if your nerves are strong. I add that, because conjuring up Moon spirits of all kinds is quite easily done, but putting them back on their own plane afterwards is not quite so simple. The following may explain why.

Most of you have heard about “singing down the Moon” to enhance clairvoyance. All you need is a clear night, a bright moon (from the First Quarter to the Full Moon phase is best), a rocking-chair and solitude.

You place your rocking-chair in a secluded spot and sing to the Moon, rocking backwards and forwards as you do so. The rhythm of the rocking is an important part of the whole operation.

Then you sing to the Moon about those things you want her to tell about, making up the words as you go along. You keep on singing and looking at the Moon until you hear another voice, either singing in your head, or coming from somewhere that seems to be near. Don’t stop your singing, but let the other voice sing with you. You should then get the answer to your problem.

Some people get it in actual words. Others receive a vivid impression, and a third group (like myself) get it after the singing, perhaps the very same night, in a vivid dream.

Try it for yourself
Anybody can try this for themselves, but just how you get your rocking-chair and yourself to a secluded spot and out in the open is your problem . . . and you must “sing down the moon” while you are quite alone.

But there is a catch in it, which you may consider humorous or not. After the singing down, you may find that whenever you look at the Moon for some time afterwards you are apt to start singing yourself, or to hear another voice singing, either in your own head or coming from somewhere else.

I have never found a way to stop this and frankly I do not bother. Those who sing to the Moon must be prepared to have it sing back for some time. These Moon spirits (or your own subconscious mind, however you choose to regard it) are apt to be very talkative.

Me . . . I just listen. Sometimes it does not make sense, but then, do human beings always talk sense? These Moon entities always seem more than willing to communicate, and very often they have a great many useful hints to give.

Psychologists can explain it all away very simply, of course, and there is no need to quarrel with their opinions or to worry whether it is the Moon, or whether it is you who are advising yourself. The fact is that it works, and if friends say we have hypnotized ourselves into learning what we wanted to know let them say it. They are only using different words to express the same thing.
[Prediction, May 1965]