By Gary Meister, CTM
A lot of new readers—and a good many experienced readers—have problems working with the court cards. For one thing, the earlier books in Tarot (e.g. A. E. Waite's The Pictorial Key to the Tarot and Eden Gray's A Complete Guide to the Tarot) use them to describe people in the client's life (or in yours if you're reading for yourself). The biggest problem with that approach is: Yeah, they physically describe a person, but they give no indication of what this person is doing, according to the reading. So, this leaves you with a situation where you describe a person in the client's life but don't know what to say about them... "A woman in your life with dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair…D-u-h-h-h-h…" Obviously, this approach has a built-in problem.
I'm going to give you some ideas on how you can deal with these cards, first by expanding on Waite's and Gray's ideas, and then by giving you some other ideas. If you like any of these, pick the ones most comfortable for you. That's always the most important thing—the secret of reading Tarot is to do it your way. When you are comfortable, you'll give a good reading.
Now: Let's see what we can do with these systems. First, a quick reminder about the suits and the elements:
Pentacles—Earth—Relating to money, material things, finances, etc.
Cups—Water—Love, Relationships, The emotions, etc.
Swords—Air—Thoughts, Ideas, Attitudes, etc.
Wands—Fire—Creativity, Imagination, Intuitive insights, etc.
(And, you have a right to change even that if you want to. You're the Reader! ) (Why does that seem familiar to me?)
First: A lot of readers—especially new readers—solve that problem by ignoring it completely, using the denial technique of just removing the Court Cards from the deck completely! Or—only using them as significator cards. The client is signified by the Court card which most closely resembles his/her description according to the way A. E. Waite or Eden Gray described them in their books.
Here's how they used the Court cards: (not necessarily in this order.)
First, they dealt with the person's complexion. Those in the Pentacles court had dark skin. Cups represented medium dark skin. Swords people had medium light complexion, and the Wands court were light skinned people.
Then they dealt with their hair color... Those in the Pentacles Court have black hair. Brown hair for Cups, sandy blond for Swords, and the Wands Court had blond hair.
Then they dealt with their eyes. Dark brown for Pentacles people; brown for Cups; hazel for Swords, and blue eyes for the Wands Court.
They didn't say what we should do with dark skinned people with blue eyes and bleach blond hair—what suit represents them?
My thought on that is: Removing cards puts unnecessary limitations on a reading.
Personally, I don't use the court to describe people's physical appearance. There are too many variations. But—they can certainly come in handy in representing people in the client's life and what part they may play in the probable future. Here are a few suggestions of ways to use the Court cards, either as Significators or people in a reading:
Pages are young people—of either sex—under the age of twenty-one...
Knights are males over twenty-one, up to about thirty-five or so...
Queens represent any woman over the age of twenty-one...
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Kings are mature men—over thirty-five—and often powerful men in the client's life.
Some Tarot decks (Golden Dawn decks come to mind) have a slightly different Court... i.e.: Princess, Prince, Queen, and King. In this case:
The Princess is a young to middle-aged woman
The Prince is a young to middle-aged man
The Queen and King represent mature women and/or men, respectively.
Now what do these people do? Well, here are a few more suggestions...
Pages are curious, they ask questions, sometimes inappropriate questions.
Knights butt in to your affairs, uninvited, and go off half-cocked!
Queens are loving and supportive women, or even gentle, loving mature men
Kings are logical men or perhaps strong logical women. They think everything out before taking any action.
In a reading they might do one of these:
Page of Pentacles might ask inappropriate questions about your finances, etc...
Knight of Pentacles may be nosy about your money matters, etc...
Queen of Pentacles may be supportive when you are having money problems...
King of Pentacles might give you good logical advice about your finances...
To expand this, use the above examples, changing the element as appropriate.
The Golden Dawn used a different system based on the Kaballah's Tree of Life. They assigned the Court cards to certain spheres on the Tree which already held Pip Cards. There are several ways to do this. Here's one suggestion:
Some assign the various Court Cards down the Tree's Middle Pillar. In this system, the Pages (or the Princesses) are assigned to the first sphere, The Crown, along with the Aces. The Knights (or the Princes) are on sphere #6, Beauty, with the Sixes. The Queen would be assigned to the ninth sphere, Foundation, along with the Nines. And—the King is on the tenth sphere, Kingdom, with the Tens.
If we want to use reversals, here is one way we can do it... If the Court Card is upright, it can designate someone in the client's—or your—life who demonstrates the same character traits as the Number Card of the same suit as the Court Card. For instance—the Knight of Cups might indicate a man in your life who is loving and giving, whereas the Knight of Pentacles could be a person who is good with money matters, etc... And so on...
In this system—a reversed Court Card may represent a characteristic that the client needs to work on, i.e. a reversed Queen of Swords could mean the client needs to work on his/her attitude. Or a reversed Knight of Wands needs to work on creative things, or perhaps work on developing his/her intuition or psychic abilities, etc...
Well—it looks like this subject is bigger than I thought it was. I'm about out of space and there's a lot more subject left over. So—next time we'll go into Part Two, and see where that leads. Have a great month! Until we talk again!
Bright Blessings ~ Gary Meister, Certified Tarot Master