Resources for learning about Court cards?

[Pauline Kilar]

Court cards are still very tricky for me to read (I'm the only one, right? )

What are some good resources for understanding the tarot court? Whether posts here on Aeclectic, books, or blog posts.

Do you have any mnemonics you use to remember what each court card means?

Not to mention the confusion between prince/princess/page/knight/daughter/son/what-have-you

Please post links to helpful sources, titles of books, or whatever resources you can think of that are helpful in specifically learning the Court cards.

EDIT: This is embarrassing. I just did a search for "court" in thread titles and of course there have been lots of threads about this.

 

[Grizabella]

What helped me a lot was this:

Page-messenger, around 12 years old
Knight--older teen to maybe 20 years old--go to battle and protect
Queen--adult female who does "queen stuff"
King--adult male in patriarchal society, does the ruling "stuff"

And then you fit those characteristics in with the suits and you have pretty much a full description of each of them. Or at least enough clues to round them out in a reading.

 

[Pauline Kilar]

When you see Court cards in a reading, does that indicate a *person* to you more than a pip card or a Majors card would?

I did a reading for somebody recently and the King of Pentacles appeared next to the 3 of Swords. I think that may have clearly been pointing to a relationship issue between the querent and somebody in her life (a professor? Her father?) and I totally missed the boat on it. I didn't realize this until later when I was mentally reviewing the reading.

 

[danieljuk]

they are tricky to work out! My suggestion is to give each a profile. What is their personality? characteristics? positives / negatives?

Thirteen's court card interpretations are really good on here - http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/

Joan Bunning's take on them is good too - http://www.learntarot.com/cards.htm she also has lessons about them on her site.

If you can make a profile in your head for each, it greatly helps! they can represent a person or a situation, so make sure you can find your own take on both. The figure in the card gives a lot of clues about their personality, their expression on their face, what they are doing (some Kings sit face on, some Knights ride really fast rushing around, some are not moving). You could even make stories up about them based on their invented profiles. You can even give them a back story, how did they get to that position in the card?

In my head I have a sort of "they like, they don't like" for each of them. Like the Queen and King of Swords do not like romance or expressing their feelings easily, but they love logical and intelligent discussions.

I learnt reversals for them as well which is normally an extreme version of the upright. As well as the reversals, each character has a negative, something missing or is their weak area. It's fun to work them out! I did look at a lot of different author's ideas about them to decide on my profiles for them but there is a lot of clues in the card pictures

Griz's guide is really good! there is also a hierarchy

Pages are at the bottom. If this comes up for a person it might show they are inexperienced, naive or child like in the area of the spread. They could be literal children or the characteristics. They represent beginnings and messages sometimes.

Knights are next. They are different to the beginning but are more action orientated! Page is the start, Knight is the teenager and the action and progress. They have a little maturity and know how to get what they want or work towards it. The Pages just have the beginning of an idea.

Queens have reached a level of maturity, they sit next to their King. They are more inward facing and have a feminine energy and caring. Just like often in real life and in history, they do not have the dominant power of the King but they have influence and gentle persuasion. Perhaps they might even be the person with the real power even though it seems they are the loved one of the King.

Kings are the top, they are the most mature and wise from experience. They are fully formed people after years. They have a masculine energy and are dominant.

I liked this take on them from the blogger biddytarot -

Pages conceive ideas, Knights act upon ideas, Queens nurture ideas and now Kings develop those ideas to an established and stable state

 

[nisaba]

What are some good resources for understanding the tarot court? Whether posts here on Aeclectic, books, or blog posts.

When I started learning, in the 1970s, there were no resources. I had one book to go on.

I was aware right from the start that the book in question was just a starting-point, a diving-board for me to jump headlong into Tarot. My deck was my learning resource. Just keep the images in front of your eyes, morning and night, day after day.

Do you have any mnemonics you use to remember what each court card means?

<smile> I use the pictures as mnemonics.

You could make a combination of two words for each court: its element and its seniority. For example:

King Pentacles - Pentacles/Earth (material world) plus seniority/mentor.
Queen Cups - Cups/Water (emotions both good and bad) plus internalised into your whole life.
Knight Swords - Swords/Air (intellect, thoughts) plus confident but not fully developed
Page Wands - Wands/Fire (energy, ambition) plus immaturity, very far from mastering their element.

 

[magicjack]

The court cards become tricky because they can mean different things and this is where you need to use your intuition. They can be the querent themselves, other people in the querents life or just the energy of the card. Whatever you decide on in a reading, they still require a personality. One of the ways I use, is to associate the card with a person in my life. For instance, my sister is very much a Queen of Wands so I get a pretty good picture of the Queen of Wands personality. There is an interesting book called "Understanding the Tarot Court" by Mary K. Greer and Tom Little. I'm not saying it's the best book out there but it does have some interesting ways to interpret and work with the court cards that you may find helpful.

 

[Vanchica]

Biddy Tarot

Biddy Tarot on NOT her website but her Youtube channel has a complete guide/ course in an hour on the Court Cards. ALso an author (I;m thinking Mary Greer) has a book with a related title, Amazon has it as a top search result if you look

 

[Pauline Kilar]

Thanks everyone! It's funny because a couple of court cards have very strong associations for me as people in my life, but that doesn't help much when I read for other people. I also still don't know whether to view them as people or attributes, but I think that's a thing I'll get better at with practice.

I was thinking a good exercise might be to assign court cards to characters in books or movies.

Heh. As soon as I typed that, I got a flash of Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day as The Hanged Man. Not a court card, but still, interesting.

(Now I want to do an 80s-movie-themed tarot. Wouldn't that be fun?)

 

[ribbitcat]

You might enjoy this blog about court cards This Game of Thrones

PS: not my blog

 

[lightrailcoyote]

I just came to this subforum to ask this same question, so I'm glad it was already answered in such depth. The biggest thing I struggle with re: court cards is what someone else mentioned, which is knowing if they refer to a person or just to an energy/personality type within the querent or another person. Context helps some--like if it's about a romance, I am more likely to think the court card refers to the partner--but it's still tricky.