Elemental Dignities: inversions

Hi All,

This is my first post - greetings! I have been enthusiastically embracing the use of elemental dignities, and since I have started looking at spreads this way have found things have been a lot more interesting!

I have question however; do "negative" cards which are ill-dignified elementally, which is to say weakened, by other negative cards, increase in their negative aspect or are they weakened in the sense that the sting is taken out of them?

Say for instance we have 5 swords and 7 of discs, next to each other - they are elemental enemies. Does this mean, they could reverse each other - even though they both are by their own nature unpleasant?

The reason I ask is that before I would have read this as conflict leading to professional failure, or a failure due to an argument or something - but with elemental dignities it seems that that both cards have the sting taken out of them. Simply the fear of failing because of past conflicts or something to that effect...

You see, previously, I would have seen the bad combination as enhancing the negative aspects of each, so it seems really odd that two unpleasant cards together can read as, well, good. Am I looking at it in the right way?

Thanks in advance,
James

Welcome to AT James.

And welcome to the wonderful(ly complicated) world of EDs! Much like tarot itself, different people use EDs differently. For me, when I look at a pair of cards AB, I consider B to modify A; consequently I would interpret AB differently than I would interpret BA. I don't look at AB as each card having an effect on the other one.

In the example you've given, I would see that the 7 Discs weakens the effect of the 5 Swords. So as a general interpretation, I would say that there was some kind of setback that can be overcome through hard work. (I'm using RWS-based interpretations of the cards.)

If the cards were 7 Discs 5 Swords, then I would say that the work one has put in/the planning one has done isn't enough to get past someone who's standing in your way hoping that you fail/helping you to fail.

HTH,
Rodney

Thanks Rodney this is helpful.

In your approach to my example you say that you would see the 7 discs to weaken the 5 swords - is this because it comes later in the sequence or because your reading of the of 7 discs is slightly more positive than that of the swords (labour in RWS as apposed to failure in Thoth)? In other words the adverse elemental dignities allow the more positive card to "triumph", over that of the negative 5 of swords, which is weakened?

Hi James,

In the case of two cards, I read the first card as the primary card and the second card as the modifier. So with AB, A is primary and B is the modifier. But in BA, B is primary and A is the modifier. So it has everything to do with the order in which the cards appear and nothing about the positivity or negativity of either of the cards.

Let me know when you're ready for three card triads. That gets really interesting....

Rodney

I have a lot of the same questions. I'm just barely starting on learning elemental dignities, and it can be confusing. I know there are various ways of carrying it out, but that only makes it more confusing for me in the short run I'm sure I'll get it down eventually, but as these boards have been a wealth of information to me, I'd be very interested in what others have to say about how they would read that sequence.

RWC, do you do spreads with named positions (like the Celtic Cross, only it doesn't have to be that complicated) using elemental dignities? Say you're doing a five card spread--say, just as an example, this one. Would you use EDs on that, or would you just let the positions speak for themselves? Would you use them only as far as their being more overtones of wands vs. cups energy, would you use it only with the cards that are "touching" each other, or would you just disregard it completely and let the positions speak for themselves?

Usually I just do two and three card flops, so it's nice to have EDs there to elaborate on things, but if I were going to do that spread up there, I would forget about them (well, for the time being--I'd LOVE to be ABLE to, but I think it would just frustrate & confuse me).

Rodney, thanks for sharing here. I have been looking at the elemental dignities in, admittedly, quite an elemental )) way compared to your suggestions. I like what you are saying here (and in another thread in Your Readings, I think), though, and am going to see how incorporating your methods will work for me.

Good stuff!

staticfuzz said:

I have a lot of the same questions. I'm just barely starting on learning elemental dignities, and it can be confusing. I know there are various ways of carrying it out, but that only makes it more confusing for me in the short run I'm sure I'll get it down eventually, but as these boards have been a wealth of information to me, I'd be very interested in what others have to say about how they would read that sequence.

Click to expand...

SuperTarot is a great resource in general and specifically about EDs. I don't agree with all his conclusions, but my method is based in large part on what I learned from his site.

staticfuzz said:

RWC, do you do spreads with named positions (like the Celtic Cross, only it doesn't have to be that complicated) using elemental dignities?

Click to expand...

I don't use EDs with every spread I do (and don't use them at all yet with my IDS deck), only when it feels right or the spread layout lends itself to the use of EDs.

staticfuzz said:

Say you're doing a five card spread--say, just as an example, this one. Would you use EDs on that, or would you just let the positions speak for themselves?

Click to expand...

The Wheel would be a perfect spread IMHO for an in depth ED analysis.

........5........
..................
4.......1.......2
..................
........3........

First I would interpret each card as it appears in its designated position. Then I would look at the 10 different elemental triads (I usually only use EDs in triadic formations) in the spread for more information: 452, 432, 543, 523, 513, 412, 213, 413, 514, and 512. Each card appears in 6 of the 10 triads, By looking at each of the triads, you can get a sense of how strong or weak a given card is overall. If card 4 is weak in 4 of the 6 triads it appears in, then overall it's effect on the spread is weaker. But if card 1 were strong in all 6 of the triads it appears in, then it would have a very strong effect on the rest of the spread.

staticfuzz said:

Usually I just do two and three card flops, so it's nice to have EDs there to elaborate on things, but if I were going to do that spread up there, I would forget about them (well, for the time being--I'd LOVE to be ABLE to, but I think it would just frustrate & confuse me).

Click to expand...

The Wheel would definitely be an all-day exercise for me! You could also look at fewer triads. For a quick overview, you could just look at 412 and 513.

The way I look at three card triads is that the central card is the main focus and the two flanking cards are modifiers. So in 452 above, 5 would be the main focus and 4 and 2 would modify the interpretation of 5. It's also valid to look at 452 as 5 modifying 4 and 2 modifying 5. The problem I have with looking at it that way is that 4 never gets to be used as a modifier and 2 is only a modifier. It's only 5 that gets to be both a main focus and a modifier.

Some real-time examples of how I've used EDs can be found in the Your Readings forum:

Here, posts 3 and 9 and
Here

There may be others, but those are the ones I remember.

ssn, you're quite welcome. Just as I did with the information I found, I encourage everyone to only take from what I've said what works for them and then to discard the rest.

HTH,
Rodney

Wow, Rodney, that really looks complicated!

If you don't mind my asking, how do you find going into that much depth when doing face-to-face readings (say, at a fair or a store) where you must get a reading done in X amount of time? I guess I wonder if I would be able to look that closely at all the combinations when a clock is ticking--or is it that once I get some practice in, it will seem much simpler?

Oh, I would never go into that much detail face-to-face or if a timer were ticking. If I'm reading for myself it's not an issue of course. Last time I did EDs on a reading I did for a friend, I gave her the basic reading and told her that when I emailed it to her that it would contain an elemental analysis that would provide more detail. But I didn't charge her for her readings either. (I rarely read for others and I don't charge for readings.)

But, yes, as you get more practice in, it'll be a lot simpler. You'll be able to look at three cards and have a basic idea about their elemental interaction. "Normally the Tower would mean (whatever) but because it's surrounded by two water cards, it is weakened and instead means this...." Or you could just look at the horizontal and vertical axes as I suggested earlier. That'll give you some basic idea about the interactions between the cards.

Rodney

Wow, Rodney, thanks so much for your reply! That seems like quite the undertaking!

I need to rest my brain after just READING that!

That's one great thing about tarot--always more to learn.