It occurs to me how appropriate the standard pack of playing cards is to modern occultism, and in Engligh Quaballa in general. For just as the Hebrew Quaballa is mapped to the tarot, so to can the English Quaballa be mapped to playing cards. This is also appropriate in that this deck is the deck of this age, just as the Tarot represents cards used in ancient times. So just as English is the magickal language of this age due to its present use, so to is the deck of standard playing cards the tarot of today for the same reason.
The biggest difference between the decks, besides the lack of a major arcana in the newer, is the loss of one of the royals. There is Jack, Queen, and King. No longer Prince/Knight and Princess/Page. These are combined in the Jack. The Jack is also called the Knaive, which is a major clue to its meaning. A Knaive is a type of scoundral. A thief. A trickster. Not like the joker who is the fool, more like the charming fellow you let into your home for an evening, who is gone in the morning with your purse when you wake. In this sense, I harken him to the Magician, in the Odenic sense of the Wise Ego which employs intelligence to gain wisdom and power. He thus represents dynamism and the questing intelligence of change, and as change, magick.
The Queen and King require less interpretation, for we understand them as the major male and female archetypes. The Emperor and Emperess.
So what we are left with is basicly 4 arcana: Emperor, Emperess, Magician, and Fool, which can be linked to the elements Fire, Water, Air and Earth respectively.
But I think a better match is the 3 pilars of the tree again. The King as Mercy, rooted in Chockma, the Queen as Severity rooted in Binah, and the Jack as Balance, rooted in Kether (or Malchuth, if you prefer, or both in a way). This gives each a quabalistic assignment for use in divination.
You could also use the triad of creation, preservation, and destruction, or simply map this triad onto to them. There are a number of takes on the primay triad, all of which can be mapped to each other if desired.
The number cards from 1-10 link to the 10 sepheroth, as before. Suits match Clubs=fire, hearts=water, spades=air, diamonds=earth. Map sphere to element as in the golden Dawn system to generate meaning for each. In the case of the royals, map element to triad. I think the royal triad needs a bit of ironing out here, still. Any insights?
But anyway, on to some numbers:
There are 13 cards in each suit, and suits of 2 colors. Therefore, 26 cards of each color. The entirety of the alphabet is present twice, and could be mapped to the cards to derive meaning, much as the hebrew alphabet is mapped to the major arcana. Only in this case, the mappings are twice. One can derive the meaning of this as offering a reversed meaning of each letter, since the modern cards do not invert.
The classic order of suits is hearts above diamonds, and spades above clubs. So you would map this beginning with the Ace of Hearts as A, through the King of Diamonds as Z, and the Ace of Spades as A throgh the King of Clubs as Z. Red being the Yang/male/upward/outward meaning, black the Yin/female/downward/inward meaning.
The effect of this is combining the major and minor arcanas. There is no difference in the English age. The minor arcana is the major arcana. They are both spheres and letters. The system has been condensed for modern usage, balanced.
This particular brainstorm brought me when I saw an 8 of diamonds on the ground and immediately read it as "skill, air in Hod". |
