Help - personal Tarot symbols

Hello all,

A few days ago I posted an admittedly long-winded query which failed to garner much attention (most likely due to my pedantic and verbose style). I'll just try to rephrase the question here more succinctly. (Sorry if this comes off as a bit urgent, I just want to devote some of this weekend to study and meditate on these symbols).

I'm seeking clarification for how the following are used and what they signify:

• Personal court cards
• Personal small cards
• Personal lessons & opportunities cards (also small cards but used differently)

For the first two personal symbols, I'm just unclear on what exactly a court card or small card will say about an individual, as contrasted with what, say, a lifetime personality symbol would say. The way this is calculated is explained well on the Astrological Attributions of All Cards thread. For instance a person born on July 1 would have a court card of Queen of Cups and a small card of Two of Cups.

For lessons & opportunities small card correlations, I'm confused about two things. Firstly, how are these symbols meant to be used in a practical sense - do they simply carry extra significance when they show up in readings, or are there other uses? My second question for L&O is what cards are L&O for a 19/10/1 and a 10/1 person. Would they be the four Aces or something else? (M.K. Greer's Constellations book states that each person's soul symbol will correspond to four other Lessons & Opportunities cards, which are small cards of that same number in the deck).

I don't know how many readers actually use astrological connections to the cards, so you may be asking a question that only a niche group can answer for you.

Courts, to me, mostly come out as aspects of people, not detailed bits associated with specifically colored hair or actual physical descriptions. I take a broader approach with them. And don't use astrological info in the mix. Sorry.

Niche perhaps, but I think there's a fairly decent number of folks who consider it legit. As for the nice reduction there, from what I understand there's more to it than personal physical properties.

Anyway, my main goal is understanding the principles to achieve a broader view of Tarot practice rather than to develop some kind of psychological profile cheat sheet.

court cards and astrology

If you use the court cards the way Crowley suggested, you have approximately the same insights you'd have if you do sun-sign astrology. Since I, personally, have a very poor opinion of sun sign astrology, I haven't paid a lot of attention to the attributions of the courts in my readings. Also, if you follow the Crowley/Golden Dawn attributions you will be confused if you read with an RWS clone unless you understand who is what and why.

I do think the attributions of the minors have some merit in adding information to the card. But you need to know astrology well in order for them to be helpful. Coming from an astrology background prior to studying tarot, it was useful to me.

Ah, like a cloud cover lifting, sort of. I think I shall put this level of detail aside for the time being until my mastery of astrology improves. Did Greer/DuQuette draw from anyone other than Crowley? They don't actually seem to say in the books I mentioned). Thanks again, wizzle.

Edit: Still a bit curious about clarifying the 19/10/1 question, if anyone has ideas.