AUTHOR’S NOTE: As part of my exploration of esoteric syncretism, here I’m paraphrasing a quote from Benebell Wen’s I Ching, The Oracle: A Practical Guide to the Book of Changes to make it more relevant to tarot reading. The quote relates to invoking the “Mysterious Lady of the Nine Heavens” as a metaphor to aid us in our magical pursuits, but instead I’m applying it to drawing on the principles of a single Major Arcanum to support our goal of self-realization in accordance with its metaphorical “signature.”
“It’s symbolic of unveiling that latent facet of yourself empowered by those attributes we admire in (the chosen icon). (It) represents the inner self that is highly attuned to the unseen forces around you, and (you are) therefore able to foresee what is to come because your mind is accounting for more factors and variables than the average person. You’re activating your subconscious to pick up on all the cues in the environment that your conscious mind is overlooking.”
By way of example, let’s suppose that we want to leverage the skills, talents, mental acuity and tactical mindset of the Magician in our present circumstances. After removing the Magician from a deck of tarot cards (and also the rest of the trump cards since we don’t want competing archetypes when we’re trying to focus on only one), the idea is to shuffle the remaining 56 cards and lay a two-tiered spread as follows, in which one tier will show reinforcement of our objective and the other will identify obstacles in our path. Using only the lower-ranked cards is intended to ensure that the outcome will be personal rather than metaphysically abstract.
In the form of contract bridge known as “rubber” play, scoring is recorded either “above the line” or below it, and here I’m using the same approach. Although in this case it has absolutely nothing to do with the card game, the concept of two levels of “scoring” is still germane. Tarot cards appearing above the “horizon line” of the spread would be viewed as fully engaged in furthering our quest while those below it would be obscured and thus less available to us. The example reading below shows how this would work; in the next several paragraphs I’ll describe how the two are to be differentiated.
In the Golden Dawn’s system of esoteric correspondences, the Magician is associated with the element of Air and the planet Mercury. When we deal the cards into the spread, any of them that are harmonious with the nature of Air would be placed “above the line,” and those that are discordant would go below it. (Planetary and court-card “rank” associations are secondary as discussed below.) So all active and positive Air and Fire cards would be situated above since they are elementally friendly to Air, and all passive and negative Earth and Water cards would sit below, with Earth being elementally hostile toward Air and Water weighing in as neutral but not particularly helpful.
Recognizing that many of the odd-numbered Fire and Air cards are a bit harsh, the premise is that because the Magician represents the number One, the root of the odd-numbered “unitary” series, all of the odd-numbered and inherently difficult but elementally friendly cards would at least be empowering because (according to tarot writer Joseph Maxwell) they are actively striving to be brought into harmony with the whole; consider them as embodying restless creative energy that can be pressed into service toward our ends.
The even-numbered cards of the favored suits are balanced and stable; their influence flows naturally in line with our vision. In the less-supportive suits of Pentacles and Cups, the odd-numbered cards as more-or-less disruptive while the even-numbered ones are mainly innocuous in their contribution. Qabalistically, Mercury is assigned the number Eight, so any card that is an expression of “8” has an immediate “in” with the Magician.
Regarding planetary correspondences, astrological Mercury is something of a chameleon and maverick that doesn’t get on especially well with some of the other planets. If I had to choose among them, I would say that any of the Minor Arcana (as shown in the Golden Dawn’s “Chaldean” model) that are associated with the energetic planets Mercury, Sun, Jupiter and Mars in Wands or Swords and therefore “above the line” would have “most favored” status with the Magician even if the cards are not at all benevolent in nature (see above), while in Pentacles or Cups and “below the line” they would be unsympathetic or at best unremarkable. (As a pragmatist and opportunist, the Magician is not too fussy about the provenance of his raw materials.)
The less-demonstrative Moon, Venus and Saturn are on a different wavelength than Mercury regardless of where they fall (and they are even more reluctant to participate in its machinations when “below the line”), so their related “pip” cards would be poorly-attuned to the Magician’s style. (But once again, suit and element are of primary importance.)
Among the court cards, the Pages of Wands and Swords are probably the most aligned with the Magician’s initializing mode of expression, followed by the more assertive Knights of those suits; the Queens and Kings are sedate and decidedly less nimble in their operation. Suit and element would still be the main consideration in the placement of the court cards, with rank a contingent factor for establishing their potency in the matter.
To begin, place the trump card of interest (in this case the Magician) to the left and shuffle the sub-pack of 56 court and pip cards while concentrating on the question or topic. Begin dealing from left-to-right, above and below the “horizon line” according to the relative friendliness or unfriendliness of each card’s suit to the Magician. Place each one in its allotted row, continuing until you have five cards in each series. If one row is filled before the other, simply disregard any future pulls in that category.
Once both rows are fully populated, read them as progressive developments in the situation: the top row shows aspects that enhance movement toward the goal and the bottom one implies challenges that might be encountered during its pursuit. (If reversal is used, treat the affected card[s] as conveying less-obvious influences working beneath the surface of the matter rather than as “blocked” energies.)
In both rows of this example reading all of the cards but one are reversed despite a very thorough shuffle, suggesting that little is straightforward about this initiative; most of the outlook is effectively out-of-sight even when appearing “above the horizon.” At first glance, it looks like the Magician will summarily avoid or deflect any attempt to broach the subject of his enlistment in our cause, and it’s also worth noting that the 8 and 10 of Swords are two of the quintessential “overthinking” cards. The message could be “Figure it out for yourself . . . and good luck!”
But in the upper row, the Mars, Sun and Jupiter cards are all sympathetic to Mercury, as is the 8 of Swords, while (going against type) the mounted Thoth Knight of Swords and Knight of Wands (analogous to the throned RWS Kings) are in league with the Magician. (Although in the RWS system I would technically consider the Page of Swords to be the court-card ally [aka “little brother”] of the Magician, the reversal of the Thoth Knight of Swords and Knight of Wands lends them some uncharacteristic youthful vigor, perhaps because they are scrambling to stay in the saddle.)
The key card in this sequence is the upright 10 of Swords (Sun in Gemini), indicating that the best course may be to scrap all preconceptions and start fresh, with the reversed 8 of Swords carving a game-changing path to the reversed Knight of Wands, who will take the proposal “under advisement” while making no immediate commitment to act. The potent concentration and willpower of the Magician could become dissipated in the interim, casualties of administrative waffling.
In the lower row, with the upright 8 of Disks (Sun in Virgo) cautioning “prudence,” and the rest of the (reversed) cards keeping a low profile, there is no active resistance to invoking the Magician, just a general lack of enthusiasm (even with the Venus-in-Cancer and Mars-in-Capricorn cards imposing a Cardinal [action-oriented] emphasis as book-ends to the series). Rather than rising to the occasion, the reversed Prince of Disks has his head “stuck in the mud” (or somewhere less polite) and the reversed Prince of Cups is about to stifle a yawn. The advice seems to be to make a move to tap into the energy of the Magician before inertia and indifference take over. Mental horsepower can become attenuated if allowed to wander.
Postscript: It’s reasonable to suppose that we could use as the “Focus” any card that has an immediate and direct bearing on our circumstances, and apply the full deck to creation of the spread. But as I see it, starting with a “molehill” and potentially stacking a few “mountains” on top of it could produce an ungainly structure (the proverbial “house of cards”) that resists rational and orderly interpretation. On the other hand, there is no proscription against trying if we’re so inclined, but it might be best to use a three-card pull instead of a five-card line to provide a narrower “window of opportunity.”
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