Elemental correspondences to the Court Cards

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 20 May 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

xouroboros	20 May 2003
On the suggestion of another esteemed resident of this Realm of the Tarot (mimers...:D),I propose to initiate a thread on the Elemental Correspondences to the Court cards. In contemplation,I considered the following: Kings -> Fire Queens -> Water Knights/Princes -> Air Pages/Princesses -> Earth (...this may not be an original conceptualization...I may have gotten the initial impetus from Crowley or another...I'm not sure,so illumination on this by some knowing soul would be appreciated) To continue... Therefore, the King of Cups would be Fire immersed within/expressed through the element of Water. The Princess/Page of Swords would denote Earth immersed within/expressed through the element of Air. ...and so on. Comments and critiques of this would be welcome and serve to expand my humble knowledge of the Tarot. ...namaste; xouroboros

HOLMES	20 May 2003
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4727&perpage=10&highlight=minor&pagenumber=2 the assocation i made in here was a bit wrong for i mistakenly thought that gd assocatied king with air, and knight with fire. while the tarot and tree of life book had king being earth, and pages being air. but in further double checking of my ill read understanding, that wasnt' the case. i have reverted back to gold dawn teachings for i can't see king as earth, knight as water, queens as air , pages as fire, . so the previous assocations i made were way off :O( but i will go back and fix :)O)

Macavity	20 May 2003
http://www.llewellynjournal.com/article/387 seems to be fairly exhaustive and definitive... But I note we said THAT previously too. Pretty good to derive it from FIRST principles though, X! ;) - Macavity

xouroboros	20 May 2003
Fine link,Macavity. And now I remember why I began to relate the Court cards to the Elements...to get away from the continous disagreements on Elemental signification of each card to what element. Whether one terms Fire as King or Knight could be irrelevant to the primal expression of the Cards themselves. Instead of "Court Cards",I actually have begun to refer to them as "Elemental Cards" because of what I saw as the 4x4 (4 Elements in 4 Elements) attribution of them as a "section" of the complete Tarot. In doing so,I can utilize them as Significators,not founded on Sun Sign or evident appearance,but on the basis of how a person "sees/feels" themself at that moment. In deep readings,I extricate the Court cards from the deck and perform one of two choices...either I lay them all out in front of the person and let them choose which Cards to represent them in the reading or I place all of them out before the person face-down and let them "feel" with their left hand which Cards will represent them. Oft-times,this will be surprising,be revealing and have significance in the reading. Also,this permits participation by the person in the reading and removes me from having to make a choice based on my interpretation of/reaction to the person. I am considering,in the creation of a Tarot,that I would paint the Court cards as one symbol (triangle) in the color representing the "title" element (King,Queen,etc) against a background of the color representing the element that "title" was immersed in/expressed through. Therefore,the King of Cups would appear as a Red Elemental triangle centered on a backdrop of Blue. ...namaste; xouroboros

The Elemental correspondences to the Court Cards thread was originally posted on 20 May 2003 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.