Elemental court card confusion...

I'm sorry if this post is misplaced I wasn't sure where to put it!

I've been slowly reading Tarot Decoded in chapter 3 there is a diagram called Horoscope Diagram of Court Card Attributions which I'm still trying to fully grasp. I'm confused about the breakdown. A Capricorn can either be Knight of Swords or Queen of Pentacles in this book (I have a print out which states without a diagram that 1st & 2nd decan Capricorn as Queen of Pentacles & 3rd decan as Knight of Swords) so my question..is this chart in Tarot Decoded broken down like my worded print out as three spots for each sign are the three decans? I'm sorry if this whole question is confusing in itself I felt like it was a bit hard to explain with out pointing out what I'm speaking of.

tigerlilybug said:

I'm sorry if this post is misplaced I wasn't sure where to put it!

Click to expand...

No problem, Here is as good as anywhere

tigerlilybug said:

I've been slowly reading Tarot Decoded in chapter 3 there is a diagram called Horoscope Diagram of Court Card Attributions which I'm still trying to fully grasp. I'm confused about the breakdown. A Capricorn can either be Knight of Swords or Queen of Pentacles in this book (I have a print out which states without a diagram that 1st & 2nd decan Capricorn as Queen of Pentacles & 3rd decan as Knight of Swords) so my question..is this chart in Tarot Decoded broken down like my worded print out as three spots for each sign are the three decans? I'm sorry if this whole question is confusing in itself I felt like it was a bit hard to explain with out pointing out what I'm speaking of.

Click to expand...

I think I understand your question. So I'll start with the short version which is probably the best for these cirucmstances.

Each Sign is divided into three equal 'slices' of ten degrees each (30 degrees divided by three = 10 degrees). Because each slice is ten degrees, they are often referred to as 'decans' - the first syllable 'dec' coming from the Latin for ten - decem

So Capricorn has three decans the first being up to degree 10 exactly but not including it.. The second being from 10 degrees exactly up to degree 20 but not including it and the last being from 20 degrees exactly up to 0 Aquarius but not including it.

Your written text corresponds to those three spots on the chart. (assuming I've understood your description correctly).

Now that should allow you to continue your reading of the rest of that section.

At a more complex level there are other issues to consider. Those are best left till you've finished the book but would include the extent to which there is a correspondence between Astrology and Tarot (if any) and the extent to which that correspondence depends solely on the subjective view of the author/deck designer.

Ahh yes very helpful Minderwiz thank you for the explanation This book is probably going to take me a while to get through but it is fascinating!

Glad I was able to help

I should also add that Astrologers don't agree on the way those decans are allocated to signs or planets, which isn't surprising given a 2,000 year history and two major traditions that use them.

For more information on the Astrology side, see the thread

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=222287

Minderwiz said:

Glad I was able to help

I should also add that Astrologers don't agree on the way those decans are allocated to signs or planets, which isn't surprising given a 2,000 year history and two major traditions that use them.

For more information on the Astrology side, see the thread

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=222287

Click to expand...

Funny you mention that because my print out actually reverses the king and knight but to keep things simple I changed it in my first post to stay uniform with the book. It's hard to decide which to follow I have been kind of testing my options on my boyfriend ( with his knowledge haha of course) because he is said to be Knight of Swords and others state King of Swords in my opinion he is more like the King so I guess we have to just decide on what system we want to use and stick with that one. Thank you for the link!