What is in cups of 7 of cups?

ravenest

It doesnt really matter WHAT is in the cups. Its about a process or stage of magic (where many fall down) when you start to get results ... often, on this plane ( water, feelings, emotions, unconscious, dreams, etc ) the most difficult to deal with for some.

" The student, if he attains any success in the following practices, will find himself confronted by things (ideas or beings) too glorious or too dreadful to be described. It is essential that he remain the master of all that he beholds, hears or conceives; otherwise he will be the slave of illusion, and the prey of madness. "
 

bluelagune

While the list of vices is certainly of interest, it may or may not have anything to do with an individual's reading. What the images in the 7 cups represent is not definitive! A true symbol has unlimited referents (versus a sign or emblem). The objects in the 7 of Cups refer to fantasies and the imagination, as has been said here a couple of times. They do not refer to the Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of Cups, nor do the 8, 9 and 10 of Cups have objects inside of them. Your fantasy about this is as good as mine.

I was looking from a positive side of 7. Humans have similar desires, just differen degree of the same thing: love, power, health, wealth, wisdome, home, popularity ... which brings me to the shrouded person. I think its wisdome.

Thanks.
 

bluelagune

I just use the Thoth and don't obsess over this. Crowley had no illusions about what it meant to him. On-topic, though, I just see them as an illusory - and maybe delusional - state of unrealistic expectations and phantasmal anxieties, and don't sweat the details. It seems to have a little of the "kid in a candy store" vibe to it (although these days it would probably be a Toy 'R' Us - candy comes out of a plastic bag from Walmart).

I dont see the seven as unrealistic as the eight follows meaning the person has finally desided to press forward. Inless its badly aspected or I get it for persons feelings then it becomes wishes or fantasies. Otherwise I see it as goals and deaire.
 

bluelagune

It doesnt really matter WHAT is in the cups. Its about a process or stage of magic (where many fall down) when you start to get results ... often, on this plane ( water, feelings, emotions, unconscious, dreams, etc ) the most difficult to deal with for some.

" The student, if he attains any success in the following practices, will find himself confronted by things (ideas or beings) too glorious or too dreadful to be described. It is essential that he remain the master of all that he beholds, hears or conceives; otherwise he will be the slave of illusion, and the prey of madness. "

That fits perfectly with 7! I remember my first year of university ... 7 of cups that was me.10 years later I have dropped a few cups, I have let one go as I knew it was not for me. However, if there were no 7 of cups, why bother with the future?
 

Teheuti

I was looking from a positive side of 7.
You might want to go to the "Using Tarot Cards" section and ask others see as the most positive side of the 7 of Cups.

For me, fantasy and imagination can be very positive. I see every card as expressing a range from the most positive/beneficial to the most negative/problematic, and what is positive in one context can be negative in another.
 

bluelagune

You might want to go to the "Using Tarot Cards" section and ask others see as the most positive side of the 7 of Cups.

For me, fantasy and imagination can be very positive. I see every card as expressing a range from the most positive/beneficial to the most negative/problematic, and what is positive in one context can be negative in another.

Ok. I think we are on same page. Its like a fantasy of a boy who dreams of stars and spaceships runs around the house in helmet pretending to be an astronaut grows up to become a flight engineer working for NASA.
Somewhere along the line the boy goes from fantasy to be Popular (laurel) to become wise/knowledgeble (shrouded figure?
 

Teheuti

I see that in Katz & Goodwin's new book, Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot that they've identified the 7 cups as the seven stages of alchemy based on 1) Waite's saying the images are of 'the fantastic spirit' in his card description, 2) his describing Michael Maier as personally having 'a fantastic spirit,' and 3) a parallel between seven cups with symbolic items and seven stages of alchemy as described by Michael Maier (and most other alchemists). This seems to be one of the few cards in the Minors where they believe Waite directed the artist although they aren't sure which items match which alchemical stages.

They fail to mention that in Waite's book, Maier warns readers to "be on guard against fantastical teaching, and to listen to the truthful information which I shall now proceed to give you." So, I would think that instead of the 7 cups being the truth of alchemy, it might more represent the "fantastical teaching" of those who would lead one astray.
 

Teheuti

Personally I find this argument by Waite to be more relevant to this card:

In a footnote in The Book of Ceremonial Magic Waite quotes a correspondent regarding Practical Magic as contrasted with Ceremonial Magic:
"'It is chiefly in the former that lights, fumigations, symbolic figures and numbers, and incantations occur, all of which have their use, either as credentials of authority or as weapons of attack and defense in their intermediate hostile region between the material and spiritual universe.' It should be understood [notes Waite] that I cite this testimony merely as an illustration of fantasy presented in the guise of exactitude."

This seems to be supported by Waite in The Works of Thomas Vaughn:
"Strange chimaeras signify the innumerous conceited whimsies and airy, roving imaginations of man. For before we attain to the truth we are subject to a thousand fancies, fictions and apprehensions, which we falsely suppose and many times publicly propose for the truth itself . . . all which are false and fabulous suppositions. . . . Whence proceeded the present heresies and schisms but from the different erroneous apprehensions of men? Indeed whiles we follow our own fancies and build on bottomless, unsettled imaginations we must needs wander and grope in the dark, like those that are blindfolded [see 8 of Swords]. . . . It is true that no man enters the Magical School but he wanders first in this region of chimaeras, for the inquiries which we make before we attain to experimental truths are most of them erroneous.”
 

bluelagune

I see that in Katz & Goodwin's new book, Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot that they've identified the 7 cups as the seven stages of alchemy based on 1) Waite's saying the images are of 'the fantastic spirit' in his card description, 2) his describing Michael Maier as personally having 'a fantastic spirit,' and 3) a parallel between seven cups with symbolic items and seven stages of alchemy as described by Michael Maier (and most other alchemists). This seems to be one of the few cards in the Minors where they believe Waite directed the artist although they aren't sure which items match which alchemical stages.

They fail to mention that in Waite's book, Maier warns readers to "be on guard against fantastical teaching, and to listen to the truthful information which I shall now proceed to give you." So, I would think that instead of the 7 cups being the truth of alchemy, it might more represent the "fantastical teaching" of those who would lead one astray.

Can you ellaborate a little more. Im not familiar with the author.
Also you speak of alchemy, does this implyes phisical alchemy and the practice or an imagery of conversion of different object into gold with imllication of changing soul?

I dont speak old english but wasnt word "spirit" meaning the soul or the energy of a person. "Living spirits".
 

Teheuti

Can you ellaborate a little more. Im not familiar with the author.
First copies of this eagerly awaited book were delivered today:
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Waite-Smith-Tarot-Worlds-Popular/dp/0738741191/

Also you speak of alchemy, does this implyes phisical alchemy and the practice or an imagery of conversion of different object into gold with imllication of changing soul?

Marcus and Tali speak of a connection to alchemy as described by Michael Maier (see Waite's book The Hermetic Museum). I imagine it refers to both physical and spiritual alchemy.

I dont speak old english but wasnt word "spirit" meaning the soul or the energy of a person. "Living spirits".
Always depends on the context and person using the word. There's no one meaning, even in older texts.