Elemental Dignities... Neutral Cards?? Ill Dignified Cards??

Teheuti said:

These issues come up because few people bother to study "Book T" and how Mathers actually used Elemental Dignities. It is the most misunderstood topic in Tarot.

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The misunderstanding may be true but I am not sure if this is because "few people bother to study Book T".
Perhaps many more would bother if they knew where to begin! I remember I read about dignities for the first time long time ago and it wasn't in Book T. Because many tarot books dip their toe in the dignity matters but do not always refer to the origin. That is a shame in itself but that is how it is. So if these tarot books do not explain the dignities well enough, I can totally imagine that this question comes up again and again, like about many other subjects (reversals, tarot myths, etc.).

I love your explanation which is a great and easy to understand introduction. Thank you for that, also on behalf of everybody who did not know that Book T is the next stop on learning about dignities.

Thanks for those detailed and understandable explanations Mary. I am very appreciative, this is such a useful thread for me.

So if it was a triad, and the center sword (AIR) card was flanked by one earth ace and another earth card, the center air card acts as only a filler for the gap in the triad - because one should pass over it as if it was blank?

I too thank you very much for your replies. This is complicated subject for me... I have the book "21 ways to read a tarot card", where there is an explanation on dignities, is that enough to get me started?
I have a doubt about neutral cards. Do they just DON'T count in a reading, like, ignoring them to the point of taking them off the table?
I also have a doubt when a card is Ill dignified. Does this depend if the cards are uenemies to each other, let's say Fire and Water, like a 3 of wands and a 8 of cups, which one of both is ill dignified?

Frannie said:

I have a doubt about neutral cards. Do they just DON'T count in a reading, like, ignoring them to the point of taking them off the table?

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>> I << wouldn't, but if that works for you, then that's fine. For me, neutral cards either coexist with the other cards without interacting with them or the neutral card may become friendly or unfriendly depending on the other cards.

Don't know if this will help or confuse matters, but a neutral card could be seen as an additional (possibly currently unknown) factor. For example, two of the three cards in a triad might point to tension between a husband and wife, while the neutral card might point to something about one of their children that will come to have an effect on the tension, but currently doesn't affect it.

Frannie said:

I also have a doubt when a card is Ill dignified. Does this depend if the cards are uenemies to each other, let's say Fire and Water, like a 3 of wands and a 8 of cups, which one of both is ill dignified?

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I use dignities in triads - ABC. If B is Fire and A is Water, both cards are ill-dignified. But when it comes to interpretation, >> I << don't read either card as negative/reversed per se; instead I interpret B as being negatively affected by A. If the positions were reversed, I would interpret A as being negatively affected by B.

Rodney

Thank you so much rwcarter, that really helped me clear up things more, but, how about If I make a 3 card reading with no specific positions at all, just to answer one question? then ABC would be equally significant, and if A and B were enemies, would both be ill dignified, or there is a certain order, it gets kind of confusing with 3 card readings, since I don't know if I shoul interpretate A and B both ill dignified, like A ill dignifies B and viceversa? or just A ill dignifies B, or the other way around? I'm sorry this may sound confusing, but my main question is the interpretation in order...

Hi Frannie,

With triads, there usually aren't defined positions. However you lay the cards out (ABC, BAC, BCA, etc.), the central card is considered the primary card and the two flanking cards are modifiers. So I look at the central card and its relationship to each of the flanking cards. (I don't look at the relationship between the two flanking cards cause it didn't make sense to me why sometimes it mattered and sometimes it didn't. But with Tehuti's information about Book T as the source for EDs, I'll have to see if it makes more sense.) So in the triad ABC, I start with B then look at the effect of A on B and then the effect of C on B. For me it doesn't matter which order I look at the modifying interactions. I usually will look at AB before looking at BC, but sometimes it seems more right to look at BC first.

When teaching myself EDs, I found it helpful to take the same three cards and lay them out ABC, BCA and CAB to see how the interpretations (and elemental interactions) changed with each layout.

HTH,
Rodney

Thank you rwcarter, I you have helped me dissipate so much of my doubts I will sure try mixing the order of the cards, that looks to be an excelent way of seeing the cards from different perspectives, and now I have a much clear view of how to see Elemental Dignities, thank you!

GREAT thread Franiee! I too am a starter in this ED thing, and have so many doubts! Your thread has helped me too!

But i was wondering...in bigger spreads...such as 5 cards or 7 cards, like the horseshoe...can you use Elemental Dignities? How do you know then which card is being affected and which cards are the modifiers? Do you 'break' the spread intro triads or something like that?

Also, is it possible to use Elemental Dignities in pairs - i mean, reading two cards only? Not that i plan to use it, but i was wondering...because from what i read here, three cards are needed at least for a good ED interpretation. Right? Wrong?

Thanks

~Marina

miss_yuko said:

But i was wondering...in bigger spreads...such as 5 cards or 7 cards, like the horseshoe...can you use Elemental Dignities? How do you know then which card is being affected and which cards are the modifiers? Do you 'break' the spread intro triads or something like that?

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Say your spread looked something like this:
...........4...........
.....3..........5.....
..2................6..
1....................7

You could look at triads in one of two ways: 123, 234, 345, 456, 567 OR 147, 246, 345. I would choose the latter because 4 kinda jumps out as a "natural" central card.

If it looked more like this:
...........4..5.........
.....3............6.....
..2..................7..
1......................8

I would either do 123, 234, 345, 456, 567 and 678 since there's no one central card or not use EDs at all since there's no "natural" central card.

Generally, I look for natural triangles or three-card groups in spreads.
In a spread like this:

1....2....3
4....5....6
7....8....9

I would look at the natural three-card groups that go across (123, 456, 789), down (147, 258, 369) and possibly diagonally (159, 357). I probably wouldn't look at 426, 183, etc unless the position definitions somehow connected them together in a logical way.

miss_yuko said:

Also, is it possible to use Elemental Dignities in pairs - i mean, reading two cards only? Not that i plan to use it, but i was wondering...because from what i read here, three cards are needed at least for a good ED interpretation. Right? Wrong?

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Kinda. Of course in looking at triads, you're looking at either 2 or 3 pairs of cards. When looking at pairs of cards outside a triad, you have to determine for yourself which is the primary card and which is the modifier. In AB, does A modify B or does B modify A? I've chosen A to be the primary and B the modifier, but it might make more sense to you (or someone else) to do the opposite. And that's fine.

HTH,
Rodney