AUTHOR’S NOTE: Here I’m departing briefly from my usual two-pronged comparison of a Thoth card to the Golden Dawn’s original meaning by interjecting a few observations about the Waite-Smith version.

Although Aleister Crowley conformed to the Order’s description of “Lord of Strife” in his own title of “Strife” for the 5 of Wands, somewhere in his writing (I forget where and now I can’t find it) he mentioned that strife doesn’t necessarily have to mean antagonism; it could simply refer to “striving” or making a concerted effort to achieve a goal. This is a much more favorable interpretation than the typical stormy outlook for this card, and can open up a whole new avenue of expression in a reading.

I once had a client who was in a difficult situation at work, where four or five women were vying for a desirable supervisory position and the race had turned nasty. As you might suppose, the 5 of Wands showed up in the spread to flag the vitriolic environment surrounding the matter, an observation she admitted was accurate. Although at the time I had not yet discovered Crowley’s alternative insight, the scenario encompassed both “dirty tricks” and competitive “grandstanding” in equal measure.

Some aficionados of the Waite-Smith tarot consider the RWS 5 of Wands to show a “mock battle” between five young men who are engaged in lighthearted recreation or entertainment. I’ve never found this to be a particularly useful assumption in practical terms so I stick with the idea of heated disagreement taken to the point of open conflict, but it does have similarities to Crowley’s less-aggressive view of “striving” as a substitute for hostility, which was a surprising revelation coming from that normally acerbic student of human nature.

Still, Wands is a positive suit and (in French tarot author Joseph Maxwell’s view of the odd-numbered integers) Five is an active and constructive number that is seeking to regain equilibrium. Thus, there arises the notion of taking something that has grown apart and “making it whole again” through dedicated effort to heal the rift, the agencies for this restoration being the application of heat and pressure as in the act of forging, followed by tempering to impart a lasting stability and durability that emerge in the 6 of Wands.

My customary apology for the disruptive Fives is that they represent the virtue of “breaking eggs to make omelettes,” but Crowley leaps over even that well-reasoned position by suggesting an actual reuniting of the scattered fragments by striving to reconcile them. I may be too blasé about his intent in choosing the definition, but it strikes me that “heat and pressure” brought to bear on a sustained attempt at recovery is a compelling analogy for the marriage of fiery Wands with the “take-charge” Five in the pursuit of engineering a new paradigm. This is an intriguing point-of-view that I’m going to take to the bank” in future readings since it advises “Stay the course, don’t be disheartened by opposition and bear down hard.”