Major Arcana and Minor Suits

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 04 Feb 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Chibi pic pic	04 Feb 2005
It's been a while! Man, college is quite a work load...free time? What's that? Anyway, I have some now, so I'll post! Over the past year, I have been working on a tarot story in five or six parts to help familiarize myself with the tarot (I'm working on Cups right now, part two, even though I haven't written part one yet...) and I have yet to figure out how to integrate the major arcana into the story. As of right now, the minor suits are set up as kingdoms (societies) and the bulk of the storyline is my main character interacting with people representing each card. I've noticed that some of the major cards do correspond to minor suits in my opinion (Magician goes with Wands, Priestess goes with Cups, Empress goes with Pentacles) but is there such a correlation with all the Major Arcana? I was hoping to integrate the Major Arcana into the story in such a way that as the main character goes through the minor suits, the "Journey of the Fool" story plays itself out in the background, adding dimension to the major and minor cards. I'm not even sure if it's possible...but I wanted to convey the fact that the major and minor cards do have connections to each other, and while they were developed independently, they can still be used together. Also, as another quick note (more for myself than anything) which is more Fool-like: Someone who has some knowledge about life but is new to a place or someone who knows the place but hasn't bothered to pay any attention to what is going on around him? Just a thought...I'm contemplating on which of my main characters is the real Fool...or maybe it's neither of them...hmm...stuff to think about...

caridwen	05 Feb 2005
Hi - try relating each of the four pips with the corresponding number of the Majors. Each element, Earth/Water/Fire/Air. Each numbered pip should relate to one aspect of the Trump. Your work sounds very interesting:)

shaveling	05 Feb 2005
Here's a thread I found helpful on this topic: [thread]8618[/thread] Most of the systems of correspondences seem to be based on connecting a set of Majors with an element, and through that, with one of the suits. Gareth Knight's system, posted by ihcoyc, seems to have a more direct connection between the Majors and the suits of the Minors through the four cardinal virtues. That's the system I'm using. It makes sense to me in a fairly straightforward way. -shaveling

Chibi pic pic	05 Feb 2005
Ah! I found in one of my books the corresponding Majors with Zodiac signs...that's why the list in the thread looked so familiar...but they only did enough for the court cards and part of the pip cards, so the fool, the magician, the priestess, the wheel, the hanged man, the tower, the sun, judgment and the world were not shown. Hmm, a pity. Though the correlations do make sense, though. Interesting... I had always thought of the Magician as a firy sort of person, but I can see the air nature in him too. Now...how to use this successfully... this could take a while...

The Major Arcana and Minor Suits thread was originally posted on 04 Feb 2005 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.