Calculating Quint Card (particularly reducing)

devilkitty

To provide a bit of a counterpoint... Thinking about it, if a quint is supposed to be a summary of the natures of all the cards on the table, it's already ignoring a huge influence - that is, the suits. Suits can of course drastically change an idea of the overall energy, like the 10 of Cups vs the 10 of Wands. If you instead view the quint as a summation of the numerical information each card has, then it makes sense in a way to leave out the courts, rather than attributing extra numbers to them that are rather tacked-on. Or, perhaps to use the 10/6/3/2 idea, which stands out as a good option to me. (Although I wonder if you'd want to use the path numbers for the majors instead, to keep the method internally consistent?)

I first encountered the idea of the "quintessence card" many years ago in Oswald Wirth's Tarot of the Magicians, and I would point out that if one reads trumps only, (as is the practice in certain spheres - continental and TdM, for example), the matter of the suits and numeration of the courts becomes moot.
 

Barleywine

This is the way I do it as well. There is also a method of continuing to reduce until arriving at a single digit, but I've never seen the point of eliminating more than half of the majors as possible quintessence cards. I know some people consider both cards using that method...for example, 16 (Tower) reducing again as 1 + 6 = 7 to give an "additional" quintessence of the Chariot. Doing it that way doesn't seem to me to add any particular value to the idea, but I know many find it useful.

This is another instance where I might do both if the first quint card didn't seem especially revealing. Using the terminology I came across in the DruidCraft companion book, the fully-reduced quint is a "counterpart" to the first iteration, since their numbers are interrelated. Usually I stop when I get to a 2-digit number below 22.
 

Krystophe

This is another instance where I might do both if the first quint card didn't seem especially revealing. Using the terminology I came across in the DruidCraft companion book, the fully-reduced quint is a "counterpart" to the first iteration, since their numbers are interrelated...

This is one of those instances that always sound good to me in theory, and I love to tinker with such ideas. But I can never quite manage to make the numbering sequence of the Majors justify it (in my own mind)...it just always feels "forced" to me.

I've seen interpretations, though (including many of yours, Barleywine) that use the idea quite convincingly. Maybe someday, if I play around with it enough, it will click for me.
 

Maru

Thanks everyone who replied to the original request, I can't thank you enough!