A bit confused and thus some novice questions

Hello

I am currently reading DuQuette hoping to understand The Thoth Tarot better than I did before.
But somehow it just seems to add to my confusion.

What i really want to know more about is the way the cards interact with each other. I think the right direction to look in is the Elemental Dignities-direction. But I don't really think DuQuette helps me here - I get the feeling that he is giving a bit of information, and I am left hungry for more. Maybe I am - as usual - too impatient - I am only half way trough the book.
For example on page 83 he writes :

"We could argue quite correctly that there are really 1,232 (22x56) tarot cards in a complete deck ; fifty-six cards of the Minor Arcana dutifully playing out their elemental roles in twenty two different, but intimately connected drama/comedies written and directed by each of the twenty-two trumps. In The Book of Thoth Crowley uses the Three of Disks as an example ..."
And then follows the example.

This really is exiting, I think. What I wanna know - and I hope some of you wise people could shed some light on this for me - is:

1. What about the other trumps and their influence on the small and the Court cards?
2. Is this about the elemental dignities? And should I use the trumps' corresponding zodiacal signs and elements to determine their elemental dignities and thereby their influence on the other cards?
3. Are the trumps always influencing the court cards and minor arcana cards - not the other way round?
4. How do you determine which cards in a spread influence which cards?
Here I think of the positions not the way the elements influence eachother?

For example how are the cards in the following positions influencing eachother (This is the spread I use most - I call it the energy spread):

* 3 *
1 5 2
* 4 *

1. Suit of Wands/fire
2. Suit of Cups/water
3. Suit of Swords/air
4. Suit of Disks /earth
5. Major Arcana/spirit/ether

Should it look like this:

***5***
**1* 2**
**3* 4**

(like a pentagram?)
Or this

***5***
1*2 *3*4

(the suits on a straight line with the major arcana card residing over them all?)

I am going to dig deeper into this study, and I have found by browsing this and other sites on elemental dignities that I will read Hazel and Hughes-barlow
- and Crowley himself (If I can - I have had the Book of Thoth for a long time now - without understanding much, though).

I hope some of you can and will help me on the right path by answering my inadequete and novice questions.

Yours truly

K. Gazel.

Hey Gazel,

Not inadequate or novice questions!

They're very astute questions, and you seem to be headed in the right direction. But remember, by way of friendly introduction DuQuette only wants to make you feel curious and give you basics. He's trying to get you in the door so that you actually feel invited to the party and don't see the task of reading the Book of Thoth as something overwhelming and random. He is repeatedly insistent that Crowley is the best person to teach you the Crowley deck.

As for elemental dignity, Hazel and Hughes-Barlowe will help (especially Hazel for practical divinatory usage in conventional "spreads"). In my opinion, the questions you're asking are both too complicated and too subjective to answer simply. Any one of those questions could easily be the subject of an entire book! The truth is, these are all things that you will get a feel for as you work with the deck over time, not months, but years.

Hazel will give you a hard and fast feel for things you can put into practice and her grasp of astrology is solid and accessible. It sounds like that's what you should tackle after you finish the DuQuette. But as for answering your questions, there are no hard and fast rules. The cards are more organic and supple than that, so even guidelines are only so useful because by reducing cards to the status of cogs in a cosmic Tarot machine you limit their expressive content. When people start popping in with suggestions, you could (conceivably) get an infinite number of answers and interpretations because even individual readers don't read dignity the same way in every reading.

Sorry I can't be more pithy and immediately helpful, but it sounds like you have a good feel for the scope of the journey and what remains is to keep travelling...

Scion