Barleywine
When calculating a quintessence, many people don't include the court cards because they have no numbers on the face of the cards; some do (myself included) because the quint is ideally supposed to be a summation of the energies of all the cards on the table, so it doesn't make sense to disqualify some of those energies. The question is what numbers to give those cards.
The most obvious way is to assign them 11 through 14, Page through King, as the last four cards in a suit. Another way is to number them 1 through 4 as part of a unique sub-set. A third way is to consider them moving up the Tree of Life, from 10 (Daughter) to 6 (Son) to 3 (Mother) to 2 (Father).
A while ago I was looking for a way to find any card that sits mid-way between two other cards in the 78-card series, so I made a table that starts with the Fool as 1 and ends with the King of Pentacles as 78. (This table assumes that the suit series runs Wands-Cups-Swords-Pentacles). Each group of four court cards forms a cluster of sequential numbers within the range, and I've been thinking about using those numbers as the numerical values for calculating the quintessence. The breakdown is as follows, and is shown on the attachment.
Page of Wand = 33 or 6
Knight of Wands = 34 or 7
Queen of Wands = 35 or 8
King of Wands = 36 or 9
Page of Cups = 47 or 11 or 2
Knight of Cups = 48 or 12 or 3
Queen of Cups = 49 or 13 or 4
King of Cups = 50 or 5
Page of Swords = 61 or 7
Knight of Swords = 62 or 8
Queen of Swords = 63 or 9
King of Swords = 64 or 10 or 1
Page of Pentacles = 75 or 12 or 3
Knight of Pentacles = 76 or 13 or 4
Queen of Pentacles = 77 or 14 or 5
King of Pentacles = 78 or 15 or 6
It would also be possible to subject all 78 cards to this numbering scheme when doing the quint calculation. One other interesting thing I noticed with the table is that the Aces and Tens of each suit both reduce to the same number: Ace of Wands (23) and 10 of Wands (32) both reduce to 5; Ace of Cups (37) and 10 of Cups (46) both reduce to 10 or 1; Ace of Swords (51) and 10 of Swords (60) both reduce to 6; and Ace of Pentacles (65) and 10 of Pentacles (74) both reduce to 11 or 2. I have no idea whether any of this means anything important or useful, but playing with the numbers is fun.
The most obvious way is to assign them 11 through 14, Page through King, as the last four cards in a suit. Another way is to number them 1 through 4 as part of a unique sub-set. A third way is to consider them moving up the Tree of Life, from 10 (Daughter) to 6 (Son) to 3 (Mother) to 2 (Father).
A while ago I was looking for a way to find any card that sits mid-way between two other cards in the 78-card series, so I made a table that starts with the Fool as 1 and ends with the King of Pentacles as 78. (This table assumes that the suit series runs Wands-Cups-Swords-Pentacles). Each group of four court cards forms a cluster of sequential numbers within the range, and I've been thinking about using those numbers as the numerical values for calculating the quintessence. The breakdown is as follows, and is shown on the attachment.
Page of Wand = 33 or 6
Knight of Wands = 34 or 7
Queen of Wands = 35 or 8
King of Wands = 36 or 9
Page of Cups = 47 or 11 or 2
Knight of Cups = 48 or 12 or 3
Queen of Cups = 49 or 13 or 4
King of Cups = 50 or 5
Page of Swords = 61 or 7
Knight of Swords = 62 or 8
Queen of Swords = 63 or 9
King of Swords = 64 or 10 or 1
Page of Pentacles = 75 or 12 or 3
Knight of Pentacles = 76 or 13 or 4
Queen of Pentacles = 77 or 14 or 5
King of Pentacles = 78 or 15 or 6
It would also be possible to subject all 78 cards to this numbering scheme when doing the quint calculation. One other interesting thing I noticed with the table is that the Aces and Tens of each suit both reduce to the same number: Ace of Wands (23) and 10 of Wands (32) both reduce to 5; Ace of Cups (37) and 10 of Cups (46) both reduce to 10 or 1; Ace of Swords (51) and 10 of Swords (60) both reduce to 6; and Ace of Pentacles (65) and 10 of Pentacles (74) both reduce to 11 or 2. I have no idea whether any of this means anything important or useful, but playing with the numbers is fun.
