You Wouldn’t Ostracise Your Friends

It seems to be the most obvious thing in the world, doesn’t it? Reading Tarot cards in groups or combinations to let our readings unfold with depth and in layers. And yet it’s something seemingly absent from many authoritative Tarot books available on the subject. If any of you can remember holding your first Tarot deck in your hands and looking through the cards with awe and some trepidation, you may recall a fear of having to learn what all of these cards meant. 78 cards, each one different from the other, each one separate and unique, seemingly alone but in actual fact, already part of a huge family that co-exist together, not alone.

It’s not natural to develop a relationship with someone in isolation of everything else ~ Douglas Gibb

This is the crux of the article You Wouldn’t Ostracise Your Friends, written by Douglas Gibb for Contributors. Douglas has clearly shown the mistake we have all made in approaching Tarot cards in isolation, for the purposes of reading. It’s fair to say that individual card study has its merits, it’s a point that Douglas makes, and one I agree with. However, when it comes to doing a Tarot reading, the cards themselves are the sum parts of the whole – the reading itself; and are anything but alone whilst sitting in a positional spread such as the Celtic Cross, or laid out in a linear one like the Opening of the Key – they are grouped together.

Seeing the cards in isolation when they are laid out in a Tarot spread is very limiting, in my opinion. It works for some people, and it has worked for me, but I don’t read the cards as a single entity in a reading. Even a positional spread will allow for inter-relationships between the cards if we choose to look.

Douglas is right in his promotion of Elemental Dignities, I don’t know of a better system that allows so much layering to be discovered during the reading process. However, if you don’t know this system, don’t worry. You can still group cards together to better define the character of a Court Card, or an action they are likely to take based on the other Tarot cards around them.

Reading Tarot cards in combinations isn’t confined to the Court Cards though. Indeed, any group of cards can be read this way and you will find some surprisingly refreshing examples of these ideas in You Wouldn’t Ostracise Your Friends, as well as the simple and clean approach Douglas takes in interpreting Tarot Court Cards in readings. He has really stripped bare the self-imposed burden of ‘getting it right’ we all seem to undertake when we pick up our first deck, giving you a new direction that is uncluttered and well, to be honest, glaringly obvious now it’s been said!

Catherine

You Wouldn’t Ostracise Your Friends

When Catherine asked me to write an article for her Tarot blog, I started to reflect on where I went wrong as a beginner to Tarot: Tarot cards and Tarot reading. It occurred to me the first thing I did (and I did this for years) was to study each individual card as if it was separate from the other Tarot cards.

This was a mistake. Much like the mistake people make when they instantly assess a person’s characters on first meeting. The interesting thing about this is that it’s completely natural to do so. We all make instant judgements. We decide very quickly if we like a person and more importantly what kind of person they are.

This relates to the Tarot in several ways:

1. Recognising that a human being, or in our case, an individual Tarot card is never in isolation from the environment or circumstances that you’re interpreting them in.
2. That people’s characters change with each new role they are in. Whether that’s the role of parent, job title, sibling, lover or friend. In other words people act and respond differently depending on the role assigned.
3. By studying each card we are doing the right thing.

Wait a minute! I hear you say. You have just contradicted yourself. A moment ago you mentioned that it was a mistake to study the individual cards but now you’re saying it’s not. Explain yourself!

I certainly will. The instinct to want to make assessments of individual Tarot cards is valid and perhaps natural; however it’s never natural in isolation. Just like people, you must look at the role they are in. The Star card is one of my favourites (as a personal friend of mine). However, when that card is next to the 6 of Cups (another one of my favourites), then the ‘role’ the Star card is in it’s nostalgia for the past; living in the past. Never helpful if you want new opportunities.

We all know people that don’t appear themselves in certain circumstances. We either like them in this role, or not. It’s important to remember that we know them as they normally are, without influences. In other words, we like to think that we understand our friend’s ‘true self’.

Each Tarot card has a ‘true self’, and when you study each individual card separately you are becoming friends with that card, you’re getting to know that card’s ‘true self’. From this point of view it’s very natural to want to get to know your Tarot cards on a personal level. In fact when we like someone, in this case we like the Tarot, then we spend time getting to know them. We don’t want to see them in a bad light and so when it’s time to give a friend or client a reading; it’s very difficult to see these cards in all these unusual roles.

It’s not natural to develop a relationship with someone in isolation of everything else. In fact, when we develop a relationship with anything we have just created a new role. To make instant assessments when we first meet people is natural (but is not always an accurate assessment).

Elemental Dignities and Reading Tarot Cards in Combinations

That’s why I say it was a mistake for me to want to get to know them in isolation. Friendships don’t really happen in isolation and neither does learning the Tarot. It’s very important for people to get to know their Tarot cards properly and the best way for them to do this is through Elemental Dignities.

Catherine has already covered the subject of Elemental Dignities on her Tarot blog but I would just like to mention that it was this technique that really helped me understand the Tarot. It opened up another layer in my understanding and, as a result, my relationship with the Tarot deepened.

A classic example of this would be how I approach the Tarot Court cards. I don’t try and understand them in isolation from other cards. I look to the surrounding cards to get a sense of the ‘role’ they play within the reading. If I see a Court Card (that I really like) next to the 7 of Swords (perhaps the Moon card is floating around in the spread somewhere), then I’ve just seen another side to that Court Card. Now I see this Court Card fulfilling the role of a liar and a thief. In this role he is probably creating some kind of deception in the life of the person you’re reading for.

The same goes for the Trumps. Traditionally the 22 Trumps are privileged over the other cards in terms of importance. In isolation these cards might represent great spiritual principals but in the confines of a Tarot reading they usually mean something much more mundane I’m afraid.

Bringing the Tarot Into Our Everyday Lives

The High Priestess is a good example of this. A very spiritual card but in a reading her role might be to indicate the client is about to read some books. If we take the Tower card as another example of a spiritually painful but life changing and liberating card and we place that in a reading, then its role can also change. It might just mean that the cooker needs replacing.

Overall, the purpose of this article is to provoke some thought on how we approach our study of the Tarot. I’m all for studying each individual card, separately from the others. However, I’ve found that this approach was very damaging on a personal level. The Tarot is a picture book of life itself and I wasn’t studying its mystery. I was studying its individual parts and all those individual parts react differently for each unique person, under unique circumstances.

By studying the Tarot, in such a way that you open yourself up to the possibility of each card and it’s relationships with the ‘other’, then you open yourself up to the Mystery of life itself.

Douglas Gibb

Douglas Gibb is a professional Tarot reader, mentor, teacher and friend. Creator of the thought provoking and visionary Tarot blog, Tarot Eon, Douglas enjoys history, philosophy, the esoteric and making you think for yourself!

You May Also Enjoy:

• How You Can Turbocharge Your Tarot Readings Using The Elemental Dignities Dictionary
• The Magic Square©: Secondary Triads and Timing
• Having Fun With The Magic Square© – The Tarot Elements Signature Spread©
• The Elemental Dignities Dictionary – Two Card Combinations
• Introducing The Elemental Dignities Dictionary
• Beyond the Celtic Cross – Behind the Scenes
• Ancestral Patterns of Life: The Tarot

Tagged as: Court Cards, Douglas Gibb, Elemental Dignities, Opening of the Key, Tarot Card Combinations