elemental dignities

the small cards are in four suits, corresponding to the elements fire, water, air, and earth. fire and air are considered "active" or "masculine" elements, while water and earth are "passive" or "feminine."

the phrase "elemental dignities" refers to how adjacent cards "strengthen" or "weaken" one another, based on these elemental attributions. fire and water are "unfriendly," opposing one another, as are air and earth. all other combinations are "friendly."

in a sequence of three cards, the center card influences, and is influenced by, each of the cards flanking it. or not so much, if the flanking cards themselves are in opposition to one another.

however, says macgregor mathers in his "book t,"

[i]f the contrary element is only in one flanking card, then the other becomes a connecting card so that the [center card] is not weakened, but is modified by the influence of both cards and is, therefore, fairly strong.

so for example, we have seven pentacles flanked by two swords and nine wands. and let's say the position assignments are roughly past, present, and future, left to right.

the two and the nine, air and fire, are compatible, so each will influence the seven, the two negatively and the nine positively.

the two and the seven, each weakening the other, might suggest a lack of commitment to the project at hand. you sort of fell into it. possibly even an element of denial. the seven and nine, each supporting the other, might suggest at this point it is just a matter of sticking it out.

we might also note the two and the nine each represent a zodiacal decan to which the moon has been assigned, the two swords in the first decan of libra and the nine wands in the second decan of saggitarius.

the seven pentacles represents the third decan of taurus, to which saturn has been assigned. the moon is exalted in taurus, and saturn is exalted in libra.

so there would appear to be some kind of saturn and moon thing going on. saturn has generally to do with structure, self-control, boundaries, etc., while the moon has to do with the unconscious, reactivity, intuition, etc.

not to get too deep into astrology, which is certainly not my strength.

but again, we are looking for patterns. if you layer enough patterns one over another, a tableau can take on some of the character of a mandala.

jeremy sez

what can it possibly mean, "a skeptic's tarot"? does not tarot by its very nature require magical thinking?

you shuffle seventy-eight pieces of pasteboard and lay out a few at random, and from this you are supposed to learn something you did not otherwise already know? i think not.

okay, wait, hold for just a second.

you are a skeptic, yes? which means, what, you try to identify the unacknowledged premises in an argument, unpack them, assume if at all possible essentially nothing. but here, in objecting to the very idea of "a skeptic's tarot," you have assumed several premises.

one, that the result of your shuffling a deck of cards is necessarily a "random" ordering of the cards. two, that what you "learn" from contemplating a tableau of cards is something you did not "already know," in some sense. three, or two point one, that you "already know" what you "already know." four, probably something else i have not thought of.

so let us unpack at least these two or three.

let us accept that it might be possible to "randomize" a deck of cards through repeated shuffling, and that the resulting "order" might therefore be "meaningless." of course, even this assumes there can be such a thing as "meaning."

but might we not also, as skeptics, entertain the possibility, however remote, that in the act of shuffling you are in fact somehow unconsciously bringing certain cards forward? that some energy you cannot [yet] measure is at work in some process you cannot [yet] explain?

ah, the skeptic requires proof for, how you say, the "extraordinary" claim. double blind, statistical significance, etc. but let us suppose that for the moment, at least, we simply do not know how to go about measuring this, whatever it might be. because our existing, materialist frame of reference precludes it.

i will suggest to you that the "scientific" method is, yes, a way of "knowing" about cause and effect in the material world. but if the method begins by assuming an entirely material world, with no immaterial "causes," it will be unable to detect anything outside its range. you can only find what you are in some sense expecting to find.

but be all that as it may. just a thought experiment. i am not asking you to accept anything, but only to acknowledge at least in theory the limitations of a materialist dogma.

so let us just go ahead and suppose that shuffling actually does produce a more or less "random" ordering of the cards. what might the cards then "say" about something you do or do not "already know"?

of course, under this assumption any "meaning" one might attribute to an arrangement of cards would be a matter of projecting, whether consciously or not quite.

so you might say what i am proposing here is that you intentionally engage in an exercise of projecting "meaning" onto an array of cards you "know" to be "random." why would anyone want to do that?

sway

this is what is going on when i lay out the solitaire.

i try to minimize my commitment to any particular line of play until the issue is forced. i want to build some end sequences. until i get some kings down, i have to weave these into one another. there are some cards you want to get out early because there is another you will have to bury.

try to get a four onto a ten seven and keep it there. but if it is raining threes, play it and hope to be able to bury another. and so on, through fifty-two cards.

and then another hand, and then another. but just three.

as each hand is ending some recurring pattern in the play or some aspect of how the last few cards fall will echo as a narrative.

for example, today. after the first hand, which was successful, i heard "four holding onto two, looking for six." so i wrote it down. and after the second hand it was "eight wands withheld." and after the third hand i wrote "forced to choose the seven [wands], at the expense of seven pentacles."

and i left a few lines between each of these phrases, to go back and insert interpretations of these observations.

under "four holding onto two," i noted "trying to preserve the sense of having just started," and for "looking for six," i wrote "reacting to the perceptions of others." after "eight wands withheld," i put "cannot let go of the rough and tumble, the need for excitement." for "forced to choose the seven [wands]," i wrote "each asserting precedence (or is it just me)," and for "at the expense of seven pentacles," i put "indecision."

and then i wrote a narrative based on this, which read,

i feel i am trying to be open to seeing L. in ever new ways. but there are many habits of behavior and communication between us. many center around my neuroses. not also hers? who is to say.

 

how to drop the neuroses.

 

again, i think the exercise is to take each day anew as much as you can. even in the awareness you can't quite. identify your triggers and ride them out instead of reacting. to the extent you can. and then keep trying to raise the bar.

 

the cards say maybe it's you. can you give it up? why seven pentacles? is it like an addiction?

 

in suares' system seven would be lovers rather than chariot. discernment within rather than control without.

 

maybe it is a fear of material success. self-sabotage, which actually L. has mentioned, though it is a meme i have recounted to her many times. but apparently she has adopted the view.

 

nine, breaking off versus enduring or complacency.

king clubs blocking jack spades

and then i sit and reflect on how this particular narrative emerged. it is a meditative practice, reminding me how my thoughts arise and how this chatter shapes what i imagine is going on. we are telling ourselves these stories all the time.

by identifying these patterns, we can see them for what they are and maybe begin to free ourselves from their sway.

seven spades, six clubs

i am a liar.

i am not certain i have been a liar all my life, but i have been a liar for as long as i can clearly remember.

like anyone else, i have constructed a narrative explaining myself to myself. and in this narrative, i became a liar because i knew i did not deserve the high opinion others had of me. i did not want others to see the selfish, weak, slothful, even depraved person i inwardly knew myself to be.

i probably was a liar before the event i will describe here, but the event figures large in my personal mythology.

when i was i guess six years old, first grade in a public elementary school in 1950s suburbia, some other boy and i were throwing rocks at the edge of the playground. the game was to throw the rock as nearly straight up as possible and, i dunno, watch it fall or something. i don't remember who the other kid was.

one of my throws went wrong. i knew immediately the rock left my hand it would fall not where we where playing, by the fence, but somewhere on the playground among the other kids.

so i assumed the attitude of someone who had nothing to do with it, put my hands in my pockets, and began walking away from the fence.

the rock came down. it struck a teacher in the head, and she fell to the ground. miss w., second grade. tall, thin, angular, with a mass of curly dark hair. i had what i guess you would call a crush on her.

i don't remember what happened next. she was pretty badly injured, i guess. probably they herded us all inside. probably an ambulance was called, etc.

what i do remember is some days later, or maybe it was later that same day, standing with the other fifteen or so kids in my class, all lined up in the classroom facing the teacher, mrs. r., who was asking for a confession. there was a roaring in my ears, and i could see only directly in front of me.

if she had asked us one by one, i don't think i could have stayed silent.

brief note on attributions

so what i get when i look deeper into the hebrew letter attributions from the qabala is that mathers and crowley and case probably got it wrong.

certainly their systems are arbitrary. the fool cannot be twenty-one therefore it is zero, but the hebrew letter is alef, which numerically is one. and then all the following cards are offset by one, until you get to the tens and hundreds, when the whole thing breaks down anyway.

and the planetary attributions are all out of sequence. and so on.

and what are the arabic numbers even for? back in the fourteenth century or whenever, the trumps were not numbered at all.

excellent discussion of all this on psyche.com explicating the work of carlo suares. if you want to go deep. and suares' explanation of the cube of space makes infinitely more sense to me than that given by case.

bottom line for me is to adopt the suares attributions and leave the majors unnumbered.

the knave of hearts

i had seen him there before, several times.

in his late fifties, i would have guessed, though quite fit. faded, soiled, torn jeans and often a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, on which he had written some slogan or other with a fabric pen. "what is self-awareness for" i remember was one.

and i had become familiar with his routine.

he would lock his ancient steel road bike to a signpost a few doors down, next to the distro box from which he bought the local paper. on his way into the cafe, he would sling a beat up canvas messenger bag onto a small table at the window. and by the time he got to the counter and said good morning to the barista, she had already begun grinding the beans for his espresso.

"morning, zach, bagel today." she would say, tamping the grounds. "morning, paige. yes, thanks, poppy seed if you got." or sometimes not.

he would read through the front section of the paper, local political gossip and bits and pieces of the national press feed, and then turn to the sudoku. as the week wore on and the puzzle got more difficult, this might occupy ten or fifteen minutes.

then, with a second espresso at his elbow, he would start in on the cards, some very severe form of solitaire. i once heard him call it "calculation." exactly three games.

the cards were very worn, the images nearly effaced, many with edges taped. sometimes he would stop after turning up a particular card and write for several minutes in a battered notebook.

today was not a bagel day. no paper either, for some reason. but the cards yes.

about halfway through the third game, a small, bearded man who had been watching from a nearby table said something to him in what i would guess was a russian accent, something about reading his future.

zach looked up i would have said surprised, but expressionless is actually more to the point. he turned up the four of spades and looked at it for a moment. then he looked directly at me.

"okay," he said finally, "let me finish this out." and the rest of the cards all fell into place.

zach invited the russian to sit across from him. he placed a small copper disc on the table. the russian picked it up and handed it back to him. zach shuffled seven times and handed the cards to the russian, telling him to mix them until he felt comfortable.

the russian pulled seven cards without being asked. zach took those, mixed them once, and started laying them face up on the table.

five of spades. "this is about looking out for yourself," zach said, "something in your head." seven of diamonds. "a decision you are putting off." and so on. i don't remember all of the cards.

the upshot was the russian needed to let go of some perceived injustice and embrace an unrecognized opportunity, or something like that. i was trying not to eavesdrop.

the russian sat silent for awhile, his finger tracing invisible lines from one card to another. abruptly he stood up, took zach's left hand in both of his, and quietly thanked him.

the russian left, and zach retrieved his empty cup to take it to the bus tray. i approached him.

"hey, can i ask what just happened here? it looked like you were reading cards to this guy."

zach gave me the same expressionless gaze he had given the russian. "have we met," he said. apologetic, i gave my name. "zach," he said, not extending a hand. across the room someone dropped a spoon.

"yes," he said, "i was reading."

"but i mean, how does that work. i was thinking maybe something like rorschach, but --"

"that is not an entirely inapt analogy," he said, "though it is very incomplete."

"-- but it was you offering interpretations to him, not him looking into inkblots."

zach gestured to an empty table. i offered to buy him another espresso, but he declined. we sat.

"the reading will inevitably be filtered through my individual personality, yes," he began, "but i try to minimize that. the interpretations i offered were very general. it was for him to fill in the details."

"but still this seems to suppose that the cards are coming up in some meaningful sequence."

"it is useful to allow that possibility," he said, "and engaging the querent in selecting the cards helps support the idea. but meaning could be read into any combination of cards."

"so i'm sorry, are you saying the reading you just gave was completely arbitrary?"

"no, actually i am not saying that. what he needed to hear would have turned up in whatever cards he drew."

"this is not making sense to me."

"you mean as a rational materialist."

"okay, yes," i acknowledged. "you shuffled the cards, he shuffled the cards, he pulled some number of cards. how can this be anything but random?"

"have you never attributed meaning to random events?"

that set me back a notch. "probably. but i try to dismiss that kind of thinking."

"why?"

"i want as much as possible to be able to think of myself as a rational being."

zach paused. finally he said, "let me ask you this. what exactly do you think were your motives in initiating this conversation just now?"

i found myself struggling with the answer. finally i had to concede that at some level i had felt threatened by what i had seen, and i had wanted to reassert my grasp of mundane reality.

"you want to paper over something you don't understand with rational explanations."

"okay, yes."

"do you remember what you actually felt in the moment you decided to talk to me, any physical sensation?"

and again i found myself struggling. suddenly i realized that, yes, there had been a distinct physical sensation. it was as though i were waking up, or as though i were stepping back into the cafe from a closet. as though the entire scene with the russian and the reading had been a film.

zach looked at me for a moment, as if deciding something. finally he said, "the four of spades was for you."

the "a" word

when i started on this project, i thought, how deep do i want to go into astrology. of which i then knew practically nothing, and of which i have since learned not much more.

i decided early on i would place the attributions on the cards, so that anyone who wanted to go that direction would have a ready reference. but it is not just the seven planets and the zodiac. there is this whole business with planetary dignities -- rulerships, exaltations, triplicities, terms, detriments, falls. how much of that did i want to include.

to which of course the answer would have to be, only as much as turned out to be meaningful to me.

one of the first things i noticed is that the zodiacal signs are arranged in four groups of three, the four groups corresponding to the four elements and then each element presented in its "cardinal," "fixed," and "mutable" forms, which one might think of as corresponding roughly to thesis, antithesis, synthesis, or maybe as commencement, opposition, and equilibrium.

or maybe in terms of the three gunas, essence, activity, and inertia, though possibly not in this sequence.

duquette does an excellent job of explaining how, at least in the thoth system, the thirty-six "small" cards are assigned to "decantes," or ten-day intervals, throughout the zodiac. twos, threes, and fours to the "cardinal" signs, fives, sixes, and sevens to the "fixed" signs, and eights, nines, and tens to the "mutable" signs."

the system starts with aries, which is the sign of the spring equinox. the cardinal fire sign. the two, three, and four of wands. then four months later leo, the fixed fire sign, the five, six, and seven, and four months later saggitarius, the mutable fire sign, the eight, nine, and ten.

then there are planetary attributions, which appear to correspond with the ptolemaic "face" dignities, the lowest form of "essential" dignity. these start at zero degrees leo and run through a repeated cycle of seven, the outer planets, then the sun, then the inner planets, and finally the moon.

these seem arbitrary, but they apparently do have something to do with the meanings the qabalists attributed to the small cards. again see duquette.

so for example the seven of swords, one of my favorites, would be assigned the third decante of aquarius, fixed air, mid-february, and the moon, which has no dignity in aquarius other than "face." seven on the qabalistic tree is netzach, corresponding to venus, but with an elemental attribution of fire. the third chakra.

crowley calls this combination "futility," and mathers calls it "unstable effort." in my own readings the seven of swords has come up as verbal manipulation, sometimes lying.  the waning part of the oppositional phase.

anyway, i may put all of those attributions on the small cards. and in fact i may decide not to go with illustrations on at least the pips themselves. maybe rename some or all of the cards to reflect my own thinking, but then let the attributions and correspondences speak for themselves.

and even though i myself have not gone very far down this path, i think because most of the major arcana are assigned planetary or zodiacal correspondences i will indicate these as well. but i am not sure how deep i want to go with the so-called planetary "dignities."

the dignities begin with "rulership," with the sun in leo at midsummer and the moon in cancer, and the five planets known to the ancients distributed on each side in sequence outward, so that each rules one house by day and another by night. each of the so-called "masculine" planets "prefers' his day house, while the "feminine" venus and the "androgynous" mercury each "prefers" the night house.

a planet is in "detriment" in the sign opposite its rulership.

"exaltation" and "fall" are a bit trickier. the sun is "exalted" in the nineteenth degree of aries, which is about three weeks after the spring equinox. i dunno why. mercury is "exalted" in the fifteenth degree of virgo, because that is where it first escapes the "rulership" of the sun in leo. or something. and so on.

a planet is in "fall" in the house opposite its "exaltation."

if these distinctions begin to make sense to me, i may include them.  for now, i think "rulership" and "exaltation" ought to be enough. what i am trying to do here is to identify patterns of correspondence, not construct a horoscope.