Dodal, linked reproduction
Neuf de Bâtons
Jean Dodal’s Marseille pack · Lyon, 1701–1715.
Read the BnF catalogue record ↗Holding a line
Compare the relation between eight supporting forms and a ninth that stands apart.
Start with the pictures
Nine of Wands
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 181
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Dodal
Neuf de Bâtons
An upright baton occupies the centre of four crossed pairs. The diagonal rods form a dense symmetrical field on either side of it.
Smith
Nine of Wands
A bandaged figure grips one staff and looks sideways. Eight more staffs stand in a row behind.
Harris
Nine of Wands · 9
Eight diagonal arrow-like wands lie behind a larger central shaft. A solar disk appears at its upper end and a crescent-like form below, with flames between the shafts.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite emphasizes the ability to withstand opposition, accompanied by possible delay or suspension. The scene supplies an attitude of readiness rather than a promise that resistance will never be needed.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley calls this Strength and treats Yesod as restoring balance. He identifies the central arrow with Sun and Moon, relating the arrangement to the Moon in Sagittarius and stability through change.
What is doing the work of holding this scene together: a person, a boundary or an axis?
Write one thing you can point to in the image, one interpretation from a named author, and one inference of your own. Keeping the three separate gives you something useful to revisit.
Sources and image credits
The Dodal cards are one early-eighteenth-century Marseille witness. The black-and-white Smith plates come from the 1922 Rider reprint, whose title verso lists first publication in 1910. Colours in later editions can differ.
Foolmade supplies the linked Dodal reproductions. Its surrounding commentary is not the basis for our historical claims. These images are linked externally; the Smith illustration reuses the public-domain source scan with its full page context.
Harris’s paintings are linked on their host’s reference pages. Crowley’s text is the separately identified Thelemagick transcription of The Book of Thoth. Neither a modern reproduction nor a transcription replaces examination of the original artwork or edition.