Category: Tarot

Tarot Trumps: Justice and Judgement

Major Arcana, Numerology, Reincarnation, Tarot, Tarot Trump Pairs

Tarot trump XI, Justice, and Tarot trump XX, Judgement, are both Twos, and I have written about them, as twos, in the posts Twos and Elevens, More on Twos and Elevens, and The Number Two in Tarot. Now, I want to look a little more closely at these two particular cards, one (Judgement) “a pure Two”, the other (Justice) an “Eleven equals Two”.

In the physical world, the world of which we are conscious under normal circumstances, justice is the prerogative of the worldly authorities, symbolised by The Emperor in the Tarot pack and by his representatives (such as Pontius Pilate) in this world.

But the justice they dispense, whether or not they wash their hands of it, may not be just in any real sense. In this poem (from The Complete Tarot Poems) it is that this-worldly notion of justice that is being discussed:

XI – Justice

Looks good. But what is it?
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?
A life for a life? Jesus said ‘No’ to that,
‘that’s part of our brutal past,’
and he spoke the truth,
but was he perhaps
a Fool in some ways,
a Fool with his head in the clouds,
talking about what should be
rather than what is?

Sounds good, too. Half the cake
for little Johnny, half for Jane.
One slap for one slap,
two slaps for two. But that way
they will never learn
that life is full of pain
and justice a fairy tale.

A fairy tale,
like Larry the Lamb and Peter Pig
in little Johnny’s book.
Peter Porker and the Larry the Lamb
Chop more like.

Justice? … In
another life perhaps.

In another universe.

However, since I wrote that poem I have come to realise that (unlike Tarot trump IV, The Emperor) Tarot trump XI, Justice, does not relate to this world in that sense. On the contrary. “We are formed by the actions we have taken in the past; we form our future selves by the actions we take now,” says Rachel Pollack, speaking of Tarot trump XI, and that is exactly the point.

This card refers to Karma, something no government, no police force, no court of law, can influence or affect one iota. What goes around, comes around, we see on the card preceding this one, The Wheel of Fortune (the final card in the top row when the trumps are arranged in two rows of eleven cards, the physical, material sequence) but here we go deeper than that. Here we see that all our actions (and inactions) in this life are reflected, mirror-like, in our present and future life and lives. There is nothing anyone or anything can do about that, no divine forgiveness – and anyway this is not a matter of “morals”, of “sin” and “repentance”, for morals are subject to fashion and vary greatly with time and place. No, this is “Fools rush in where angles fear to tread”, and if the Fool steps off the edge of the cliff and plunges to his death no one is surprised or considers it unjust no matter how much they may mourn his passing.

Pilate played the Emperor card. Jesus’ karma was to rise from the dead. And Pilate would discover that “washing his hands of it” did not and never would or could wash away the fruits of his actions.

And speaking of rising from the dead, Tarot trump XX, Judgement, is usually, and quite rightly, interpreted as a call to action.

Actually, “Judgement” is something of a misnomer. Underlying all “pure 2s” (as opposed to 2s which are also 11s) is sense of being doubtful or hesitant about something, or of being unwilling to, or unable to, make a decision, to take action, to DO SOMETHING. It is the sitting-on-a-fence number. Look at these cards:

 

In trump card XX, we do indeed have a wake-up call:

Come out of your little boxes, the boxes that shelter you from life, and
DO SOMETHING!

C. S. Lewis on Broken Hearts

Quotations, Tarot

A quotation from C. S. Lewis’s book The Four Loves which certainly added to my understanding of the Three of Swords:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Tarot Trump Pairs (and Trios)

Major Arcana, Numerology, Tarot, Tarot Trump Pairs

If you lay all the Tarot trumps out in two rows, the eleven cards from The Fool to The Wheel of Fortune in the top row, and beneath them the next eleven cards, from Justice to The World, what you see is the whole panorama of external and internal, exoteric and esoteric, life.

Here are the first three cards in each row:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The top row depicts conscious, material, physical life, the life of the body. But when we pass beyond The Wheel of Fortune at the end of the top row and down into the bottom row everything takes on a different slant and the cards reveal the immaterial, the intangible, the unconscious (or sub- or superconscious).

We notice that while the two rows of cards depict all this on a large scale, each pair of cards, one from the top row and the corresponding one from the bottom row, represents the same contrast in a more particular way. Like this pair, for example:

Another obvious example is this pair:

But while this is certainly very interesting, myself I find it more meaningful to group the trumps in pairs (and trios) by number, from One to Nine.

The three Number One trump cards are The Magician (1) The Wheel of Fortune (1+0=1), and The Sun(1+9=10, 1+0=1). I have discussed the correspondences between them in my earlier post The Number One in Tarot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Likewise you can find the three Number Two trump cards in The Number Two in Tarot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the three Number Three trump cards in The Number Three in Tarot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two Number Four trump cards in The Number Four in Tarot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two Number Five trump cards in The Number Five in Tarot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two Number Six trump cards in The Number Six in Tarot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two Number Seven trump cards in The Number Seven in Tarot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two Number Eight trump cards in The Number Eight in Tarot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the two Number Nine trump cards in The Number Nine in Tarot.

The Number Nine In Tarot

Major Arcana, Numerology, Tarot

Two great and very typical Nines from the past are Percy Bysshe Shelley and Emily Dickinson.

Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have born and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

People whose Name Number is 9 are always aware of their mortality, and can sometimes become obsessed with death, the separation of the Self from the body. In the Tarot, the 9s all depict people facing eternity.

NINES

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wands – I can do no more, I must accept my fate
Cups – having a good time – I have drunk life to the lees – eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swords – night fears – but this card is full of love for everyone who must suffer and die
Pentacles – retirement – living in peace, preparing for death

And the Major Arcana?

The Hermit – the link with the theme here is obvious.

However, I am not sure that the lantern should be a lantern. In what I believe is the earliest extant version of the card (from the Grigonneur deck) what the hermit is holding looks more like an hour-glass.

But I will return to that in a later post.

The Moon – another card which has strong associations with both Past and Future Lives – and a link with the number 2 (2 x 9 = 18) giving it something in common with the 6s, and maybe “two ways of looking at this”

The Number Eight in Tarot

Major Arcana, Numerology, Tarot

This, to me, depicts exactly the Number Eight in Tarot as it always seems, and all too often really is. But there is more to the Number Eight than that – or at least there can be and should be. As Oscar Wilde, a very typical Number Eight in many ways, put it:

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. (Oscar Wilde)

In Tarot, the 8s start like the 2s, but even more so – 2 to the power of 3! – the feeling of being harnessed by Fate. They need inspiration, need the soul, the spirit. Without it, stuck in a rut or whatever, they tend to believe the only escape is turning one’s back, running away.  But it doesn’t have to be like this. Think of the 8 as two circles touching – two worlds, the meeting point of the the finite and infinity, the material and the physical, the body and the soul.

EIGHTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wands – too many thoughts, dreams, plans, whatever, in the air at once, and without alignment one to the other – and all under the spell of gravity

Cups – what is he turning his back on, running away from?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swords – a prisoner in a cage she doesn’t realise she could walk out of any time

Pentacles – working for money, bored, in a rut, in need of inspiration

The point here with the 8s, always, is: it doesn’t have to be like this

But let’s see what the numerical 8s of the Major Arcana have to tell us.

Strength – your inner strength is infinite! Take charge!

The Star – this card, which is linked to The Empress and the Wheel of Fortune, signifies the goddess within. Here the body and soul are working together under the 8-pointed star (the square and the circle), the good side of the number 8.

The situations illustrated in the 8s have their source in a Past Life, and this – The Star – is the Past Life card. She is in, from, our unconscious. She is watering – baptising – our bodies and our souls. She knows all about our Past Lives even if we don’t. The Star is not about inner strength, it is about enlightenment, understanding. She is outside of Time: she invites us to join her, at least for a moment – the Timeless Moment – and to understand our situation and to realise it doesn’t have to be like that.

The Number Seven In Tarot

Major Arcana, Numerology, Reincarnation, Tarot
The Seventh Seal, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. (Rev 8:1)

Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity.  I am freeing man from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge, from the dirty and degrading self-mortification of a false vision called conscience and morality, and from the demands of a freedom and independence which only a very few can bear.  (Adolf Hitler)

In an earlier post talking about Name Numbers, I characterised the Number Seven thus: The Number of Mystery and Mysticism. A dreamer. May be a deep thinker, spiritually inclined; but just as likely to be materialistic and acquisitive, the dreams being of fame, glory and wealth; may be completely out of touch with reality.

And it is true, the number Seven has always been associated with the spiritual quest, the deep thinker, the seeker. But what do we find in the Tarot?

SEVENS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wands – defensiveness
Cups – dreams of wealth and glory

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swords – stealing
Pentacles – dissatisfaction

The number Seven is the number of unworldliness, but these cards are all materialistic and worldly. Why?

Before we try to answer this question let’s look at the cards from the Major Arcana with the numerical value of 7.

The Chariot – dreaming of conquest? This too seems very materialistic to me

The Tower – the end of worldliness – based on the myth of the Tower of Babel? Note that the Tower, 16, is also 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 – very much also part of what we called the 2 group.

So what is happening here? Is the unworldliness of a negative sort? An inability to accept reality, things as they actually are, as opposed to things as they seem to be or things as they should be (in the view of the person in question).

The 7 of Wands is paranoid.

The 7 of Cups is living in a world of day-dreams.

The 7 of Swords is attempting to get himself the life he believes he has a right to.

The 7 of Pentacles is never satisfied: the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill.

All of these are summed up in the Chariot, number VII. He may well be paranoid, he is certainly living in a world of dreams, he is in quest of something he feels he has a right to, and he is definitely not satisfied with things as they are here on this side of the hill.

In XVI, the Tower, the Moment of Truth, all this nonsense is shown up for what it is.

 

 

 

The Number Six in Tarot

Good and Evil, Major Arcana, Numerology, Tarot

Two well-known and very typical Sixes are George Harrison and Kate Beckinsale.

The biggest break in my career was getting into the Beatles in 1962. The second biggest break since then is getting out of them. (George Harrison)

If someone had told me years ago that sharing a sense of humour was so vital to partnerships, I could have avoided a lot of sex! (Kate Beckinsale)

I think I like playing the bad girl. I like complicated, I like flawed, messed up. It’s more interesting. (Kate Beckinsale)

That the number Six has a strong affinity with Threes and Twos probably explains its main significance when it comes to Tarot: There are two ways of looking at everything.

SIXES

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wands – Victory is someone else’s defeat; also winning a battle is not winning a war; also the war between Good and Evil is never over: that’s what Good and Evil are, the opposite sides in a never-ending conflict.

Cups – the magic of the past. It did not, could not, last

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swords – Now marks the end of the Past; it also marks the beginning of the Future

Pentacles – Is it more blessed to be poor than to be rich? And how do you rate what he is doing?

And are those from the Major Arcana with the numerical value of 6 the same?

The Lovers – leaving the Garden of Eden – the Fall, the loss of innocence, or the Fall up, the attainment of maturity and of the knowledge of good and evil? Certainly there are two ways of looking at this.

The Devil – Mammon? We are all in captivity to Mammon … And these two poor souls … But look. The chains round their – our – necks are loose (the Devil wants willing slaves, not prisoners) but we cannot, will not, take them off until we are on our death-bed. Are these two helpless prisoners in the hands of Fate, or are they enjoying every minute of it? Look at her. Would you trust her? Or him, come to that?

The Number Five In Tarot

Major Arcana, Numerology, Tarot

Two great and very typical Fives from the past are Isaac Newton and William Blake.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
(Isaac Newton)

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.
(William Blake)

The key to this number is Luck + Lack – lucky and often very successful, reaching the top! However, there is always something lacking, they always seem to miss the point in some respect.

And the “something lacking in their lives” is often because they won’t listen, they have to do it their way.

Obviously here, for the Five also to be a Fourteen is going to be the exception rather than the rule. Of the 5s I have named so far here and in pevious posts, only Shakespeare was also a 14.

FIVES

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wands – a lack of organisation, thought, planning; may well succeed, though, by luck
Cups – a lack of will to go on; but two Cups still stand

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swords – winning by sheer luck
Pentacles – a lack of money – but may be lucky here
In all four cases it is the things of this world that matter above all else.

KINGS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wands – the King of Faerie; head in the clouds, out of touch with this world
Cups – the King of the Waves; ice cold, liked a carved iceberg afloat on a sea of emotion

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swords – the King of Justice, ultimate enforcer of the stone tablets of the Law; devoid of human sympathy
Pentacles – the King of the Forest; lack of time; it is coming to an end

The cards of the Major Arcana which have the numerical value of Five are, The Pope/Hierophant, and Temperance (which like the KIngs – above – is a 14 (1+4=5).

The Pope – a lack of spirituality; all is done by the book – and he is aware of that!


Temperance – the angel here is watering the wine (perhaps; or maybe this is alchemy) but he is missing the point; behind his back, ignored, lies the path that leads to the golden crown – a path where the wine is not watered?

I must say though that here I like the idea of this card as representing more overtly The Art (ie Alchemy – note the connection between 14 and 7): the alchemist, working on his own system may be blinding himself to the truth, may be missing the point. And note that Isaac Newton, so famous as an orthodox mathematician and astronomer and founder of modern physics, was at heart an alchemist.