Need insight regarding the Courts corresponding dual element

rwcarter

Freyja of V said:
Question:
You said that Louis's explanation why he switched the king and knight made sense, but not enough for you to change. Can you tell me why? What is about Fire that you feel should correspond with the King and as well as Air for the Knight?

It's really simple. It's the first system I learned, and I'm not concerned enough about it to care.

As nisaba and Barleywine have said, I tend more to look at the ranks as degrees of mastery, so the King Cups has mastered the elements of the Cups suit and it really doesn't matter to me if he is Fire of Water or Air of Water.

Rodney

ETA: With almost 700 tarot books, I KNOW I have lots of info at my hands that I'm not aware of since I haven't read but maybe 8-10% of them from cover to cover.

Barleywine

Freyja of V said:
You know I'm not sure I will actually use ED in my readings (and you can't with a one card reading) but I am enjoying learning about them and now I know that reading reversal would be a lot easier than ED. I especially don't like the 'canceling each other out' rule (although I know some disregard that rule).

I get very metaphorically creative with the whole notion of "cancelling out." So . . . Fire and Water negate one another and just go "poof?" The Law of the Conservation of Mass and Energy makes that highly unlikely; all that "stuff" has to go somewhere, and the answer - at least for me - would be transmutation. Why wouldn't Fire applied to Water produce "steam" at the hot end of the spectrum (that is, with higher-energy cards) and "fog" at the cool end? Either way there would be an obscuring effect, a loss of clarity, but one would be a more hostile environment than the other. Similarly, Earth and Air could produce a dust-storm, or simply the dessicated soil of a drought; one would be more immediately threatening than the other, but both would symbolize the "dryness" of the combination. Complementary elements would work the same way: Water and Earth could express either "mud" or "bricks" depending on proportion, while Fire and Air might range from an explosion to a steadily burning flame.

It gets interesting when you have two of one element to a singleton of the other. The dominant pair would sway the equation in favor of their intrinsic nature; two Fires to one Water would move the mix in the direction of invisible water vapor, closer to "poof" and perhaps less significant to interpretation. But the "drying" effect could still have it's story to tell; a highly emotional Cup could be rendered less effusive and more reckless of others' feelings. I usually invent these things on the fly whenever a particular card combination suggests them.

Freyja of V

Barleywine said:
It might be more productive to consider the nominally triune nature of the court cards first and blend in the elemental qualities later. Do they represent people in a reading? Or do they show human characteristics of the querent? Possible they signify archetypal energies or forces at work in the matter itself, based on traditional ideas of gender roles? So a mature "male" entity, characteristic or energy infused with Fire would likely be more abrupt and forceful in its action than one imbued with contemplative Water. In a personal system, I don't think it matters a whole lot which elemental overlay you place where as long as the essence (this is where the "humours" shine) is logically equated to the nature of the base element and the rank of the card.

This fluidity of interpretation is what makes the court cards so challenging in a reading, where context is the primary clue as to which way to go.

This is how I have been approaching them, similar to the aces. But, I am going to be doing one card only email readings offered at a free network (their rule for beginners) and I thought that maybe interpreting a Court card without the duel element, wouldn't be enough and learning that extra layer would help.

IMO, It's easier to read the Courts when I have other cards and specific spread positions (esp. elemental position using ED) giving direction. But doing a one card reading with a Court, terrifies me. I worry that I won't be able to offer a proper/accurate interpretation or it won't include enough information, it would be to generalized. Especially if the querent asks a general question. Ugh. Normally I would welcome that, but in this case, I would prefer a specific subject/area of focus.

Maybe I'm wrong. I finally got their confirmation and assigned a mentor so I just asked him his thoughts on this. I guess I'll see soon enough.

Barleywine said:
I get very metaphorically creative with the whole notion of "cancelling out." So . . . Fire and Water negate one another and just go "poof?" The Law of the Conservation of Mass and Energy makes that highly unlikely; all that "stuff" has to go somewhere, and the answer - at least for me - would be transmutation. Why wouldn't Fire applied to Water produce "steam" at the hot end of the spectrum (that is, with higher-energy cards) and "fog" at the cool end? Either way there would be an obscuring effect, a loss of clarity, but one would be a more hostile environment than the other. Similarly, Earth and Air could produce a dust-storm, or simply the dessicated soil of a drought; one would be more immediately threatening than the other, but both would symbolize the "dryness" of the combination. Complementary elements would work the same way: Water and Earth could express either "mud" or "bricks" depending on proportion, while Fire and Air might range from an explosion to a steadily burning flame.

It gets interesting when you have two of one element to a singleton of the other. The dominant pair would sway the equation in favor of their intrinsic nature; two Fires to one Water would move the mix in the direction of invisible water vapor, closer to "poof" and perhaps less significant to interpretation. But the "drying" effect could still have it's story to tell; a highly emotional Cup could be rendered less effusive and more reckless of others' feelings. I usually invent these things on the fly whenever a particular card combination suggests them.

Thank you so much for this...again I find it so interesting and so far this is the best reasoning for NOT canceling out a card and how to interpret the affect. It seems like it would be such a waste to cancel a card out and I believe the universe gave you this card for a reason, why ignore it?

Just like jumpers...we listen. :angel:

Thanks again for you post and time.
Freyja

rwcarter

Like Barleywine, I'm not so apt to automatically have opposing elements cancel each other out. As he said, Fire and Water can combine to form steam. Air and Earth also combine to form mountains. And where the ED rule of discarding flanking cards of opposite element goes, I ignore it completely because I don't believe in discarding any cards that have come up in the reading.

The story I've told many times is a pyramid reading I did for someone here at Aeclectic. In doing an overview after interpreting the individual cards I noticed that all the cards were either Fire or Water. And since it was a relationship reading, I determined that those cards were combining to create steam, not canceling each other out. I also noticed that one of the elements (I think it was the Water cards) formed the Greek letter Lambda. I didn't know what, if anything that meant, but I mentioned it to the person for whom I was reading. She said that the person she was inquiring about had a Lambda tattoo on his arm!

Rodney

Freyja of V

rwcarter said:
It's really simple. It's the first system I learned, and I'm not concerned enough about it to care. As nisaba and Barleywine have said, I tend more to look at the ranks as degrees of mastery, so the King Cups has mastered the elements of the Cups suit and it really doesn't matter to me if he is Fire of Water or Air of Water.

This is basically what I have been doing and it's worked for me. After getting the numbered cards and suits down pat, I then learned about the page, Knights, queens and kings themselves (again like the Aces) and then added the suit elements.

It's this free reading network and doing a one card reading that has freaked me out.

Along with the 'one card' rule, initially their site said you must read reversals or ED. I don't read reversals (although I think I'm going to start) so I dove into the EDs and the dual element of the Courts. But, you can't apply ED to a one card reading.

Only after I applied, I found out that you do NOT have read reversals. So that's how this all started with me.

I really think that I am going to stick with just the suit element and maybe add reversals to add a layer instead. It'll be easier. :thumbsup:

ETA: With almost 700 tarot books, I KNOW I have lots of info at my hands that I'm not aware of since I haven't read but maybe 8-10% of them from cover to cover.

WOW, 700 is a lot!! So I'm not the only one who does that?
Thank you for making me feel better

Take care,
Freyja

Ruby Jewel

Freyja of V said:
Need help with the dual element attributed to the Courts (not the suit elements)

I have been really diving into the courts, as well as elemental dignities.
When I first started studying Tarot, I was reading the duel elements following the GD tradition (King/Fire, Q/Water, Kn/Air, P/Earth). I knew that some readers switch the King and Knight's element, but initially I ignored it.

Now (that I am really learning) I am starting to think that match up makes more sense. Although, to me, none of the elements seem to entirely/completely fit with any of the Courts 100%, there are definitely some characteristics that do match and I can now see how air could match the King better and fire the knight (especially movement).

But...I was reading on Teach Me Tarot (link below), and there the writer changed the Kings to Earth and Pages to Air (Knights still Fire).
And now I am totally confused.

After reading all the qualities of the elements and additionally reading the corresponding Zodiac signs, I now think I agree with her take.

Please Help!
Can anyone please tell me which system you follow and why, so I may gain more insight from those who know a lot more about this than I do.

I know I need to decide for myself which system works for me (and there's no right or wrong), but I appreciate different views to help me decide.

Thank you for all your wisdom.:
Freyja

Edit: I have never seen this anywhere so it may be a silly question, but do the dual elements within the court card itself act in anyway like the dignities affecting each other? Say like: (if the king is fire) King of Cups = fire of water. Active vs passive. Does this his personality in any way?

A very generous site written by Vivien Ní*Dhuinn
https://teachmetarot.wordpress.com/lesson-1/part-ii-court-cards/

I don't really see the Kings being as slow moving as earth.....nor Pages as intellectually adept as swords. The King of Swords is a "strategist"... Kings are the warriors of the tarot.....they carry the sword and swords are air.....Pages are home plowing the fields when it comes to going off to fight the crusades. Earth and water are feminine. Fire and air are masculine.

More than the elements determining who the kings are, I think it is the energies such as "fixed", "cardinal" or "mutable". I see the "fixed" signs as being the ones who are stable, dependable and strong leaders: Leo, Aquarius, Scorpio and Taurus. Queens as cardinal, and Knights as mutable and unpredictable. Also, it is usually the element of air that is the constant with "fixed" which gives the kings their quality of intelligence, dependability and leadership. For me, earth is feminine along with water. Pages have a feminine quality about them still.

Freyja of V

Ruby Jewel said:
I don't really see the Kings being as slow moving as earth.....nor Pages as intellectually adept as swords. The King of Swords is a "strategist"... Kings are the warriors of the tarot.....they carry the sword and swords are air.....Pages are home plowing the fields when it comes to going off to fight the crusades. Earth and water are feminine. Fire and air are masculine.

More than the elements determining who the kings are, I think it is the energies such as "fixed", "cardinal" or "mutable". I see the "fixed" signs as being the ones who are stable, dependable and strong leaders: Leo, Aquarius, Scorpio and Taurus. Queens as cardinal, and Knights as mutable and unpredictable. Also, it is usually the element of air that is the constant with "fixed" which gives the kings their quality of intelligence, dependability and leadership. For me, earth is feminine along with water. Pages have a feminine quality about them still.

I have been reading exhaustively for the past few days (from Waite, Crowley, Wang, Regardie, Mathers, etc) and I have come to the conclusion that I can't reconcile the Thoths Courts with RWS. Except, Waite really confused me when he said that Knights were 40 years old and above and the King below 40. I have seen such strong arguement (including that one) that Thoth Knight = Waite's King and the prince = king,but then I was left with asking what's the hierarchy?

I have decided that although I do see that Waite's Knight's image corresponds to Fire, his King's leadership aspect is of Fire in Father. Therefore, I will read King/Fire, Q/Water, KN/Air, P/Earth. However...I still believe that they can be interchanged, but I will instead read it the way the deck was designed. Edited: Thoth's Knights are Fire; Waite's Kings are Fire, Knights are air.

Misery loves company and I have read that this has been a long debate and I'm not the only one. Oh, that brilliant Waite; brilliant but secretive/loyal. I wish he told us more.

I also read about the astrological correspondences and I too concluded that Kings/Fixed, Queens/Cardinal, Knight/Mutable. That really helped adding that extra layer along with the dual element. Because I never really learned much about the astrological correspondences, I never knew that the pips were also associated with the Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable signs. That was really cool.

Ruby and everyone else who posted,
Thank you for your time and insight, it helped a lot. :livelong:

Take care,
Freyja

Barleywine

Freyja of V said:
Thoth's Knights are air; Waite's Kings are Fire.

Actually, the Thoth Knights are the "fiery" part of their element, and the Princes are the "airy" part, as stated in the "Summarized Description" section of the Book of Thoth. Knight = Yod = Fire; Queen = He = Water; Prince = Vau = Air; Princess = final He = Earth. The Thoth Knights replace to "old style" Kings and the Thoth Princes replace the "old style" Knights. As far back as 1912, Crowley noted "the Kings are now called Knights."

Ruby Jewel

Freyja of V said:
I have been reading exhaustively for the past few days (from Waite, Crowley, Wang, Regardie, Mathers, etc) and I have come to the conclusion that I can't reconcile the Thoths Courts with RWS. Except, Waite really confused me when he said that Knights were 40 years old and above and the King below 40. I have seen such strong arguement (including that one) that Thoth Knight = Waite's King and the prince = king,but then I was left with asking what's the hierarchy?

I have decided that although I do see that Waite's Knight's image corresponds to Fire, his King's leadership aspect is of Fire in Father. Therefore, I will read King/Fire, Q/Water, KN/Air, P/Earth. However...I still believe that they can be interchanged, but I will instead read it the way the deck was designed. Thoth's Knights are air; Waite's Kings are Fire.

Misery loves company and I have read that this has been a long debate and I'm not the only one. Oh, that brilliant Waite; brilliant but secretive/loyal. I wish he told us more.

I also read about the astrological correspondences and I too concluded that Kings/Fixed, Queens/Cardinal, Knight/Mutable. That really helped adding that extra layer along with the dual element. Because I never really learned much about the astrological correspondences, I never knew that the pips were also associated with the Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable signs. That was really cool.

Ruby and everyone else who posted,
Thank you for your time and insight, it helped a lot.
Take care,
Freyja

I think what really helps to characterize the Court Cards is when you put them in their respective houses with their Ruling Planets, and the Major Arcana cards that fall under the planetary domains. It is a real eye opener. For instance, the King of Cups becomes Scorpio with Death and Judgment in the 8th house of death, sex, and shared resources under Pluto....the 4th house just didn't fit the King of Cups as Cancer because it is the mother's house....the Moon which also is the mother. The King as Scorpio, fits the 8th house he is in....sex, death, resources.

What interested me is how the Devil winds up in the 10th house with the World......which is a major power house on the midheaven ruled by Saturn who rules Capricorn and we all know how powerful the Devil is. The book I'm referencing is "Tarot and Astrology" by Corrine Kenner.

Barleywine

Ruby Jewel said:
I think what really helps to characterize the Court Cards is when you put them in their respective houses with their Ruling Planets, and the Major Arcana cards that fall under the planetary domains. It is a real eye opener. For instance, the King of Cups becomes Scorpio with Death and Judgment in the 8th house of death, sex, and shared resources under Pluto....the 4th house just didn't fit the King of Cups as Cancer because it is the mother's house....the Moon which also is the mother. The King as Scorpio, fits the 8th house he is in....sex, death, resources.

What interested me is how the Devil winds up in the 10th house with the World......which is a major power house on the midheaven ruled by Saturn who rules Capricorn and we all know how powerful the Devil is. The book I'm referencing is "Tarot and Astrology" by Corrine Kenner.

I actually did this in a huge astrological layout on my living room floor, except that the astrological Trumps are those associated with my natal chart (so Death/Scorpio is on the Ascendant, and so forth around the wheel; the ascending degree is actually in the 3rd decan of Scorpio and the culminating degree is in the 2nd decan of Virgo). Here's the picture. But I used the Thoth correspondences and the Chaldean decans with traditional rulers (no Pluto), in which the Knight (King) of Cups is predominantly Pisces. The Prince of Cups is mostly Scorpio.

Need insight regarding the Courts corresponding dual element

rwcarter

Barleywine

Freyja of V

rwcarter

Freyja of V

Ruby Jewel

Freyja of V

Barleywine

Ruby Jewel

Barleywine

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