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🔥 RWS Five of Wands — The Alchemy of Conflict

Visual Key:
The RWS 5 of Wands depicts five young men, each holding a wand aloft in mock or real combat. There is no bloodshed, yet the motion is chaotic, fiery, and impulsive. Every wand crosses another. No one leads. No one follows. It is the elemental Fire testing itself through resistance.

⚔️ Esoteric Meaning

This card belongs to the Fives, all of which correspond to Geburah—the 5th Sephirah on the Tree of Life, known as Severity, Strength, or Judgment.
Geburah is ruled by Mars, the Lord of Force and Action. Hence, in the Suit of Wands (Fire), this combination becomes the aggressive, catalytic heat that challenges form and tests willpower.

Whereas the Four of Wands (Chesed) represented harmony, order, and stability, the Five breaks that stability apart, injecting struggle, motion, and courage back into the system. The energy here is dynamic, not destructive—it is creative friction.

🔱 Hermetic Insight

Conflict is sacred in the Hermetic sense when it arises as the friction of transformation. The Five of Wands represents the moment when the aspirant’s individual Will meets opposition—external or internal—and must prove its authenticity.

In alchemy, this is the “Nigredo of Fire”, where the vessel boils and elements test one another until a purer form emerges.
 

Thus, this card is not about hostility, but purification through contest.

As Crowley would describe its Thoth equivalent (“Strife”), this is Fire turned against itself—the Will struggling to become conscious of its own power.

🌞 Psychological and Qabalistic Reflection

• Sephirah: Geburah (Mars)

• World: Atziluth (Archetypal Fire)

• Hebrew Letter Influence: Peh (in Thoth)—the mouth of assertion and command

• Astrological Attribution: Saturn in Leo — discipline and control imposed upon passionate vitality

• Elemental Formula: Fire of Fire — energy squared; pure dynamic assertiveness

Here, we see the microcosmic reflection of divine Fire testing the mortal self. The conflict represents the ego’s refinement by resistance. Through the contest of wills, the aspirant discovers the true Solar Will, separating it from reactive impulse.

✴️ Divinatory and Practical Meanings

Upright:

• Courage and self-assertion

• Standing one’s ground in the face of opposition

• Energetic competition or creative challenge

• The necessary heat that tempers the spirit

• Dynamic teamwork through friction

Reversed:

• Petty quarrels, confusion, or scattered effort

• Ego clashes that waste energy

• Internal conflict blocking creative flow

• Suppression of true Will due to fear or conformity

🜂 Hermetic Lesson

Fire cannot be known without resistance.
To master Will, one must meet opposition. The 5 of Wands reminds us that conflict is the crucible where personality burns away and purpose crystallizes. The adept does not flee the flame—he or she directs it.

The Five of Wands is a card of Willfulness, and therefore of both the glory and peril of self-assertion. The fiery Will here is untamed, unrefined, and eager to act—sometimes heroically, sometimes rashly. It is the raw, impulsive surge of the Solar principle seeking expression through the animal vehicle of the human form.

At its best, this energy is valiant, courageous, and self-defining. It is the moment when one’s creative flame breaks free from conformity and asserts its own rhythm of life. Yet, if undisciplined, that same flame can burn indiscriminately, consuming reason and empathy in its blaze. Hence, at its worst, the Five of Wands becomes tyrannical, combative, or destructively ambitious—a war of ego against ego, or worse, a war against one’s own Soul.

✴️ The Number Five — The Microcosmic Man

In the Hermetic Qabalah, the number Five is sacred to Geburah, the Sphere of Mars, and also to the Pentagram, symbol of the microcosm—the Homo sapiens, the thinking, acting human.

The Pentagram portrays Spirit ruling over the four elements, but in the reversed or imbalanced form, it shows the elements ruling over Spirit.
 

Thus, the Five of Wands symbolizes that tipping point where the human Will either asserts its Solar command over instinct—or falls prey to egoic reaction.

In this card, the Fire of Will meets the resistance of other Fires: conflicting desires, rival egos, or inner turmoil. This is the battlefield of the Lesser Will struggling to remember its origin in the Greater Will—the Divine Flame of Tiphareth.

⚔️ The Martial Principle in Fire

• Sephirah: Geburah (Severity)

• Astrology: Saturn in Leo (discipline upon passion)

• Title: Strife (in Thoth Tarot)

• Elemental Power: Fire of Fire — energy squared

• Symbol: The Pentagram — the Will incarnate

Here, the Martian energy tests the Solar Will through friction. Saturn in Leo is the challenge of structure meeting pride; it asks the aspirant to temper the lion-hearted fire with restraint and spiritual discipline.

Hence, the Five of Wands often manifests as testing—the proving of one’s strength, the clash of ideas or ambitions, or the friction needed to forge mastery. Without friction, the Will remains untested and weak; with too much friction, the Will turns destructive.

🜂 The Hermetic Lesson

This card is the trial by fire that every Magus must face.
It teaches that conflict is not inherently evil—it is the crucible through which the Soul tempers the personality.
But when the personality mistakes self-assertion for divine Will, the flame of Spirit descends into the smoke of tyranny.

Therefore, the Five of Wands is both a warning and a call to mastery:

“Let the flame serve the Soul—not the ego.”

(Rivalry, Conflict, Challenge, and Shadow Struggle)

The Archeon Tarot – Five of Wands portrays not a visible battle, but a felt one. The image evokes a psychic duel, an unseen adversary moving within the dim light of consciousness. Though we cannot see him, we sense his nearness — the dark presence that lurks within our own shadow. Here, conflict is not simply outer competition, but inner opposition — the resistance of the lower self against the rising current of Will.

This card reveals the energetic friction that arises whenever one strives to bring Light into form. The enemy is often the inner saboteur, the tangle of fear, doubt, or inertia that emerges precisely when the Soul pushes toward a breakthrough. Hence, the Archeon Five of Wands becomes a mirror of inner combat, where the aspirant must conquer not others, but the phantoms of their own subconscious.

Through focused intention and persistence, the querent is called to pierce through the interference, to direct Fire with consciousness until the opposing currents dissolve. The card speaks of rivalry, conflict, challenge, and resistance—but also of the tremendous spiritual power that awakens when the Fire of the Soul meets its own shadow.

🔄 Reversed

When reversed, the energy of struggle has been transmuted. The fires of conflict cool into clarity, triumph, and relief. What was once opposition becomes alignment; the shadow that once stood as adversary now serves as fuel for ascension.
Thus, the reversed Archeon Five of Wands signifies achievement, victory, and the transcendence of inner division. The Will has found its center — and the Light of the Soul shines unobstructed through the once-resisting form.

🜂 Hermetic Note

“He who conquers others is strong.
He who conquers himself is mighty.” — Lao Tzu

The Archeon Five of Wands perfectly captures this Hermetic truth.
Whereas the RWS card shows conflict externalized — the human struggle for power, recognition, or control — the Archeon internalizes that same fire, turning it inward into a psychological initiation. Here, the battlefield is the psyche itself, and the victory is the awakening of the Solar Self through self-mastery.

[Do you have questions about tarot or hermetic magick, as EliChatGPT and get quick answers.]

• There is a 5 day, 5-week or 5-month period in the querent's life consisting of quarreling, fighting, and violent strife or contest.
• Because of this volcanic energy, there is also boldness, rashness, and a certain amount of cruelty.
• Lust, desire, prodigality, and generosity are also possible.
• In such a fiery card, more so than many others, it really depends on which position the card is sitting and whether it is ill or well dignified.

If ill dignified by surrounding cards or reversed, it implies:

• There is soon to be, or is now being, quarreling, argument, and fighting in their immediate environment, which is deeply passionate and usually means in a relationship, be it family, or lover.
• Recklessness. 
• Rash actions.
• If the 5 of Wands lands in the position of "finds you" (Celtic Cross) and/or the significator position, it usually means that the querent is in internal Strife over a situation and is unable to decide. Where the cards fall, tells all!

Thank you for your interest, comments, and supportive donations. May you live long and prosper.

🔥 Thoth Master Class

Western Hermetic Qabalah & Tarot

Private One-on-One Esoteric Training with Magus Eli

This Isn’t a Tarot Class. This Is a Soul Activation.

Step into the current of Living Light.
The Thoth Master Class is a one-on-one initiatory experience that fuses Hermetic wisdom, Qabalistic structure, and the archetypal genius of the Thoth Tarot — all personally guided by Magus Eli, master teacher and Solar Self awakener.

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🌞 What Makes This Class a True Initiation?

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🜂 What You'll Learn (and Embody):

• The entire architecture of the Thoth Tarot: Major Arcana, Minor Arcana, and Court Cards through a Hermetic lens

• The Western Hermetic Qabalah: 10 Sephiroth, 22 Paths, and the Four Qabalistic Worlds

• How to use Tarot as a portal to meditative pathworking and astral temple building

• Rituals, spreads, and practices that bring gnosis, guidance, and transformation

• How to build your personal mystical system, rooted in self-authority and Divine resonance

📚 What You’ll Need to Begin:

• The Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy by Robert Wang

• A Thoth Tarot deck (Crowley-Harris edition preferred)

• A Book of Shadows or personal journal

• A desire to know thyself through the Solar Flame

🌟 Is This Class for You?

Yes — if you are:

• A beginner with a soul-call to the Thoth deck, but no formal training

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• Anyone craving one-on-one spiritual mentorship in the Western Esoteric Tradition

✉️ How to Begin Your Journey

Email eli@elitarotstrickingly.com
to schedule your personal resonance mapping session and secure your first class.

🌞 Final Invocation

Awaken the archetypes within.
Speak the language of stars.
Enter the radiant mysteries of the Thoth Tarot.
Begin your Master Class.
Begin your Return.

💠 Investment in the Self — Not in Gold

At The Tarot of Eli, money is never the gatekeeper of gnosis.

These teachings are offered on a sliding scale, because every soul ready to walk the Path deserves a guide. You are not buying a class — you are answering the call of your Soul.

If you feel the fire of this journey within, reach out. Let’s find a way that works for your means. No sincere aspirant will be turned away for lack of coin.

🕊️ The true currency of this Master Class is your will to become who you truly are.

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