Table of Contents

Tarot Reflections

  Jan. 15, 2003

Teresa Michelsen is certified as a CTM and serves as Secretary on the Board of the ATA. She can be reached via her email address, or through her website. Teresa's book, Designing Your Own Tarot Spreads, will be published soon by Llewellyn Worldwide.

Cards used as illustrations in this article remain copyright of their publisher, and are used by permission.

In this issue, we will answer a few questions that have come in, finishing up with an example reading.  Then … on to another topic next month! :)  Send your questions and ideas to me at secretary@ata-tarot.com . 

Q: How do court cards fit in to elemental dignities? Don’t they have more than one elemental association?

A: Yes, they do. How you choose to handle this is mostly up to you, but here are some ideas. Court cards have a primary elemental association determined by the suit (for example, Water for Cups), and a secondary elemental association determined by the rank (for example, Fire for Kings).  This makes the King of Cups both fire and water, which explains why he can lead from the heart, be compassionate while making firm decisions, and can be a good mediator or healer.

The percentage that you assign to each of the two elements is up to you.  In the original Golden Dawn approach, each element was composed of itself and minor parts of the other three elements.  Half the element was considered to be the primary element, and the other half was composed equally of all four elements.  So for example, Fire is really 5/8 fire, 1/8 earth, 1/8 water, and 1/8 air – each element containing small bits of the others.  These small bits are called the Earth aspect of Fire, the Water aspect of Fire, etc.  These small pieces are assigned to the rank of the court card, and the main elemental attribution comes from the suit.  So in the Golden Dawn system of elemental dignities, the main element you would use would be the suit, and the minor element (1/8 the effect) would come from the rank.  Court cards are sometimes referred to this way, for example, the Queen of Pentacles can be called Water of Earth.
 

On the other hand, modern systems of psychological typing such as Myers-Briggs have found that the four elements correspond well to the four basic personality types – Intuitive, Sensing, Thinking, and Feeling.  Along with four additional characteristics – Introvert/Extrovert and Judging/Perceiving, these eight attributes can be combined into 16 personality types – the same as the number of court cards.  These characteristics can be very easily used to develop personality profiles for the court cards.  When using this system, the two elemental attributes for each court card could have equal weight (although some people might be closer to one end or the other of any particular scale).  In this case, you would need to take into account both elements in determining how these cards would interact with those around them.  I tend to think of them as approximately 2/3 suit, 1/3 rank.

Q: Can I use reversals and dignities together?  How would that work?

A: It works very well, and the example reading below will show how it works, in detail.  The key to this approach is using reversals to determine the positive/negative aspects of the card, and elemental dignities to determine if the card is strengthened or weakened.  Reversals and elemental dignities must be assigned two different meanings in order to work well together, otherwise you may get contradictory results.  An example of a reading using reversals and dignities together is provided below.

For this reading, upright cards are defined as being the more positive aspects of any card (including successfully learning life lessons represented by the Trumps), and reversals are defined as the more negative aspects of the cards and/or having trouble with the aspects of life that the card represents.  Then the strengthening/weakening approach to elemental dignities will be added.  For the purposes of discussion, we will use the standard RWS association of elements to the suits – Fire/Rods, Air/Swords, Water/Cups, Earth/Pentacles.

Question: How can I become a better tarot reader?

Using a linear spread:

Card images from the Hanson Roberts Tarot Deck
Copyright (c) 1985 US Games Systems Inc.
Used with permission.

Position 1: What I already do well - Temperance, reversed
Position 2: What I need to work on - Queen of Cups
Position 3: External resources for improving - Knight of Swords
Position 4: Internal approaches for improving - Four of Rods
Position 5: Overall advice - Seven of Cups

Rather than doing a full interpretation, we will just look at the reversals and dignities.  Overall, there is only one reversal in the spread, which suggests a generally positive outlook for becoming a better tarot reader, and that the resources and approaches suggested by the spread are likely to be accessible and learned without undue difficulty (energies flowing freely).  The one reversal is in the position of areas in which this person is already doing well.  Since this is by definition a positive spread position, the reversal might be read less negatively than usual - perhaps something the reader actually does well but thinks she does poorly, and is therefore not allowing her full potential to shine through.  (This is an example of "positional dignities" – defining card positions as positive or negative and then modifying the meaning of the card accordingly).  As an example of upright meanings for the other cards, the Knight of Swords would be read as an intelligent mentor or acquaintance who could bring a burst of new ideas or enlightenment to the reader and rapidly cut away old and unproductive ways of thinking - as opposed to his more negative and destructive character traits that would appear if he were reversed.

Now, let's look at the dignities and add them in to the reading.  Temperance (fire) has a Cups card next to it (Water), weakening it strongly.  This would suggest that even though it is a trump, it should be given no more importance than the minor arcana cards in the reading, and we have already seen that the reversal is somewhat weakened by the card position.  These two cards are antagonistic, suggesting that what she already does well is in opposition to what she needs to learn to do better.  Perhaps the fire energies are more her natural strengths, and the water energies are harder for her.  She may be having difficulty learning to deal with the emotional aspects of tarot reading because she relies instead on her natural strengths in other areas.  This is also suggested by the last two cards in the reading.  However, Temperance requires a blending of fire and water, and that is probably the most important message for her from that card – she needs to learn to use these energies in more equal proportions and blend them together.

The QoC (water) has a weakening card to the left and a neutral card to the right.  That weakens it a little.  The Knight of Swords has a strengthening card to the right and a neutral card to the left, and is somewhat strengthened in the reading.  The Four of Rods has a strengthening card to the left and a weakening card to the right, and is therefore neutral.  Finally, the Seven of Cups is strongly weakened by the Four of Rods.  The strongest card in this reading (relatively speaking) is therefore the Knight of Swords, and this is where the reader should look first in becoming a better tarot reader.  This is the area where the reader is likely to get the most help - and he also supports the cards on either side - what she needs to improve and her own internal processes.  She should be aware of the fact that her natural abilities and intuitive approach to tarot revolve around fire energies, and it appears that this is making it harder for her to develop her emotional or nurturing side, which is needed to bring elemental balance to her tarot reading.  She can use Swords (intellect) to help bridge these elemental opposites, and should look for a mentor or discussion partner to help stimulate new ideas and ways of doing this.

There are a couple of things to notice about interpreting elemental dignities.  First, if a central card has a strengthening card on the left and a weakening card on the right, it will be neutral overall.  Yet it will be drawn to and supported by the card on the left, and will draw away from and be interfered with by the card on the right.  This type of analysis can provide great insights into the interactions in the situation being asked about.  Second, the overall elemental balance in the reading is important.  In this reading, there is no earth energy at all, so she may not be grounding herself adequately or paying attention to practical matters.  Also, there is a pattern of antagonism between water and fire, held together by the central strong Air card.  Third, the bridging function of elements is important in suggesting approaches and solutions.  As discussed above, this reading suggests that a person represented by the “Air of Air” Knight of Swords can assist in bridging her current fire abilities with her needed water abilities, perhaps finding ways to blend them and turning the Temperance card upright.  Whenever two incompatible elements interact in a reading, it is helpful to imagine what third element could help reconcile them and bring the warring elements into harmony by interposing itself in the middle.

Exercise #8.  Do your own reading using both reversals and dignities using the question and spread above.  Analyze the reversals and dignities that appear, as well as the other ways in which the elements interact in the reading.

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