Living at the intersection of occultism, fiction and philosophy, I travel the planes at a moderately quick pace. I read, I do magic, I cook for hubby. Confused by the number of things I talk about? Good, confusion is a nice thing ;)
The psychonauts’s capsule plunged into the collective psychic pool. The mysterious song no one had been able to identify slithered between their minds like the wind, guiding them away from the surface.
Lyrics evaporated one word into the other, notes became colors and colors became suns, and queen bees nested in them.
There it was, lodged between a memory and a desire for more, the cosmic song whose origin they’d been commissioned to investigate. They managed to unstick it.
Excited, they made for the surface. But they’d strayed too far. The mystery they’d entered was dissolving, fog-like, sweeping them along.
Locating the court cards within the querent’s life is probably one of the hardest tasks of a card reader. The Suit of the court card in question can help, of course. A Heart shows someone with a close connection, a Club is an official partner, a Diamond has a more distant connection or is unknown, a Spade tends to either be unknown, a stranger or an enemy.
However, far more revealing than the suit of the card are the suits surrounding it. Let us start simple. Suppose you have a Heart figure (Queen or King) surrounded by Spades. Hearts are usually positive, but IF the question is about a family member, the fact that it shows up as a Heart does not matter much: Hearts simply show consanguinity. However, if the question is about a friend, then their showing up as a Heart is in itself positive, as it shows core positive feelings. The fact that the figure is surrounded by Spades can indicate obstacles or a fight with the person.
As a very vague and general rule of thumb, the suit of the person shows their core, while the cards surrounding them show either their role or their current (or immediate future) way of relating to us. If the friend had shown up as a Diamond, it would have been worse, as then there would be no good feelings left and any fight might cause the end of the friendship.
In general, being surrounded by Hearts indicates good feelings, Clubs show either a solid relationship or a static one (it depends on the cards and the context), Diamonds show a transactional attitude for better or worse or, more rarely, one based on intellectual pursuits, while Spades show enmity. It is easy to predict, for instance, that a Heart figure surrounded by Diamonds shows the positive side of transactions (they may help us financially, for instance), while a Spade card surrounded by Diamonds may show the person will damage us financially.
Here is an example. A person asked if they could trust someone as a business partner:
5♥ – K♠ – 4♥
Regardless of the specific meanings of the cards, we have a Spade court card surrounded by Hearts. The Hearts show that the person is not trying to scam the querent. However, the fact that the person shows up as a Spade indicates that he is at his core a difficult person to get along with and this may cause difficulties along the way. Let us suppose that there had been Diamonds instead of Hearts. In this case the warning would have been more substantial: he may not be a scammer, but he is rather cutthroat and will only look after his profit. If there had been Clubs, the partnership would have probably ended up stranded due to differences of opinion, while Spades would have shown a dangerous individual.
Often Known As: Observer, Thinker, Investigator, Philosopher (note that names are as limiting as they are revealing.) Sin/Passion: Avarice Focus: on competence and knowledge Fear: of being incompetent Energy Center: Head (energy is asserted) Social Stance: Withdrawing Key Positive Traits(embodied at their best): Analytical, Objective, Unsentimental, Penetrating, Philosophical, Deep, Focused, Unswayed by mass opinion, Independent, Offbeat, Whimsical, Original, Humorous in presenting own observations, Good at making distinctions and connecting disparate subjects and details Key Negative Traits (embodied at their worst): Remote, Unavailable, Preoccupied, Sardonic, Socially inept, Self-isolating, Secretive, Unwilling to share, Impractical, Hyperfixated on trivia, Relishing in proving others wrong, Argumentative, Rational but unreasonable, Hair-splitting, Nihilistic, Destructive, Emotionally constipated Growth and Stress Directions:to Eight and Seven respectively
Enneagram chart with Type Five highlighted
Introduction
Fives are the unmistakable intellectuals of the Enneagram. Cool-headed, detached and curious, they rarely speak on what they aren’t sure about, and they usually find it hard to connect with people on an emotional level.
A Five’s expertise is often precious for those that need a pointer, although Fives may not always be willing to share it, as they tend to be very selective with their social contacts. In fact, they almost seem to have a tendency to disappear in interpersonal contexts. If they show up at all at social events, you will likely find them in a corner or outside, absorbed in their own inner discourse.
Fives are often innovative in their way of thinking, not necessarily because they are contrarians (this is often more the case with other types) but because they don’t let conventional prejudices taint their reasoning, which means that they will uphold any view that they find rational, regardless of its popularity or the controversies surrounding it, and even regardless of their personal preference.
Offbeat and eccentric in their interests, Fives would love to live in a world where people put their emotional reaction to things aside and simply use their heads. Fives find it very easy to do, as this is precisely part of their survival strategy: feelings just cloud reality, so better keep them to yourself and take an objective look at things.
They have a tendency to live in their head, with the consequence that they look ill at ease with their physical existence, where they often appear clumsy like fish out of water. They easily feel intruded upon by others and consequently develop very strong boundaries, keeping any but their closest friends at arm’s length.
The hiding tortoise, a good symbol for Enneagram Type Five
Core Mechanism
Fives are a Head type, and they rely on their considerable intellectual power to get by. They process the world in terms of information, facts, logical relations and concepts. They grow their notions organically rather, like unfolding crystals, developing them coherently without regard with their own personal feelings and preferences.
Out of all the types, Fives are the most likely to follow premises to their logical conclusions without batting an eye if they don’t like the conclusions. Sometimes, due to their mental prowess, Fives reach conclusions almost intuitively, embracing large quantities of rational passages in the blink of an eye. Their thinking process is rarely linear. The speed of their rational mind is a counterpart to their awkwardness on the physical plane.
Fives’ reliance on their mind is primarily a defense against the uncertainty of the world. Fives feel small and powerless compared to the vast unpredictable universe around them. They seek to remedy their sense of impotence by accumulating knowledge, often in very specialistic and abstruse fields, which become their anchor in times of turbulence.
As they accumulate knowledge, they retreat from the world, often developing frugal habits. Ideally, they feel that one day they will know enough to be able to join the world as competent individuals who are capable of performing normally. Unfortunately, for many Fives such time never comes.
The world becomes a distraction from their absorption in more and more abstruse layers of thought. Human interaction is often dialed down to a minimum and everything, even well-meaning attempts at socializing, is perceived as an intrusion, a waste of energy and/or time.
While healthy Fives are often capable of surprising and deep insights and manage to integrate themselves, less healthy individuals paint themselves into a corner where the only thing they can do is digging further into the same arcane topics and their distance from their fellow humans widens, incommunicability grows, others are seen as idiots who simply do not understand the subtlety of their vision, the world becomes more unpredictable and dangerous, and this cycle continues.
Passion
Avarice is the passion of Enneagram Type Five. As with many types, this is to be taken figuratively. Fives are rarely attached to money or material possessions, and they tend rather to become minimalists and to learn to do without whatever is not a bare necessity.
This is partly because they feel that having too many needs will put them in danger of being dependent on others or on outside factors they feel unable to control, and it will therefore increase their chances of not meeting those needs, so they learn to go without the unessential.
Avarice, as far as Type Five is concerned, is referred mainly to their tendency to withhold themselves from the world and from others. Fives have a keen awareness of how much energy they feel they can spend on any given day, and they administer it very sparingly. It is as if their fuel gauge were constantly in the red, and contact with other people were extremely draining.
Therefore, they go without the human contact they cannot avoid, and when they do accept contact this is usually an unspoken sign of great appreciation for the person: it means the person is so in tune with the Five that the Five does not consider them a hinderance to their energetic survival.
Fives are elusive to most people: even when they are there with you, you cannot really tell what they are thinking or feeling. This is because the act of opening up is energetically costly for them, as it implies an act of trust, and Fives are usually only capable of trusting themselves, even though ideally they long for people to open up with.
Avarice, the passion of Enneagram Type Five
Misconceptions
There is a tendency on other people’s part to think that Fives don’t have feelings, mostly because Fives don’t show them. Unless they suffer from specific mental illnesses (which any type can suffer from) this is not true.
Fives do have an often rather intense emotional life and are often incredibly sensitive, but because they don’t know how to deal with it, they learn to put these feelings into brackets, sometimes resorting to thinking them rather than feeling them.
They normally see their feelings as something that has no bearing on the world, on how things really are, and on some level feel they must not visit their emotional issues on others (of course, they expect the same in return.) However, unhealthy Fives can become so detached from their concrete life that they fail to locate anything within themselves except arid mental abstractions.
Deep down, Fives would love to find someone with whom they can open up about their emotions, but depending on how entangled they are in their mechanism, this can take quite a while, because they are not used to giving importance to subjective reactions.
Furthermore, Fives tend to feel very easily rejected by others, in part because they expect people will find their personal presence as intolerable and intrusive as Fives usually find the personal presence of others. Therefore, anything except the most ideal response to a Five’s intimate feelings is interpreted by them as proof that they should have kept those feelings to themselves and that they are silly anyway.
Wings
5w4: Fives with a Four wing tend to have a melancholic and poetic streak to them. Their ceaseless intellectual activity is both personal and universal and often has an autobiographical slant (think Nietzsche). More rhapsodic and less systematic than other Fives, they usually dislike canned notions and beaten paths and have a certain aesthetic appreciation of the truth. Deeply individualistic and somewhat aristocratic in their demeanor, they often come into conflict with the prevailing ideas of what is acceptable and become easily disdainful of them.
5w6: Fives with a Six wing are usually more clearly intellectual and somewhat more conventional in their reasoning style and possibly their interests. Nervous and high-strung, they are good at systematically formulating and probing hypotheses. They are more clearly detached from their feelings and their explorations have less to do with their own life and more to do with life in itself (think Darwin). Out of the two variants, Fives with a Six wing tend to fare better in academic and scientific settings, although this is more due to the Six wing than the Five type, as Fives in themselves are not especially academically minded (Fives often don’t give a rat’s behind about academic conventions)
(note that wings can have some minor descriptive power in terms of superficial behavior, but they are irrelevant in terms of what motivates the person. Many people have no noticeable wing, while few show signs of both.)
It was a galaxy teeming with life. Nations ranged from small islands to whole systems. Travelers were daring. Adventurers trafficked. Merchants brought their culture with them. Dissidents of all stripes were sure to find a more suitable place somewhere else.
Then the Vast Ones came from outer space, and no one was ready. To face the emergency, the galaxy united under an emergency government headed by the Liberation Front.
Untold lives were lost. But the invasion was staved off.
Yet, the Liberation Front is still there, and everything everywhere is uniform and gray, a vast oneness with nowhere to go.
Name of the Figure: Laetitia (Happiness), sometimes called “Bearded” Element: Air Planet: Jupiter (direct, though some say retrograde) Sign: Taurus Quality: Exiting Fortune: Good (in most questions)
Laetitia is another “pure element” figure, if we accept the theory that signle dots represent active element. In this case, only the fire line should be active. It is a figure of Jupiter, the planet of happiness, nobility, religion and wealth. By its own design, Laetitia is often likened to a tower or to an upward pointing arrow.
Illustration of the geomantic figure Laetitia, happiness
Although the wealth aspect of Jupiter is definitely represented by Laetitia, it falls more under the domain of Acquisitio, the other Jupiter figure. Laetitia highlights more the psychological aspect of being glad, being happy, feasting, etc. which are all aspects of Jupiter. It represents everything that is “high” in a positive sense: high spirits, high-mindedness, honor, increase, growth, etc.
Laetitia is one of the few positive exiting figures, as opposed to Tristitia, which is one of the few negative incoming figures. Laetitia indicates partying and being happy, but it can also show fleeting situations, if not accompanied by more stable figures.
It is also a figure of visibility. It is therefore excellent for finding out secrets, discovering, finding lost items, etc. On the other hand, it is very bad for keeping things secret and under wraps. For instance, if someone asked if their spouse will find out about their affair, Laetitia is not an encouraging sign.
One aspect that is not often emphasized about Laetitia is that it is connected being being “bearded”. A beard, aside from indicating manliness, was also traditionally a sign of wisdom, and wisdom is one of the attributes of Jupiter, especially as it pertains conventional wisdom (e.g., the wisdom of a priest or a mentor or benefactor, as opposed to Mercury’s cunning and technological know-how and Saturn’s occult depth). It can therefore indicate “growing” in the sense of acquiring wisdom, becoming adult, either literally or figuratively
Common Keywords: Joy, merriment, happiness, feasts, parties, things that raise your spirits, up, upward, ceiling, growth, increase, visibility, fame, recognition, being seen, being busted, unearthing, lack of durability, fleeting success, wisdom, maturity
Laetitia in the Geomantic Houses (these are only examples. Use context to guide your interpretation)
House
Possible Meanings
First
Happy, positive, high-minded, handsome, a sight to behold
Second
Increase of wealth, positive financial period, stocks going up, retrieving lost objects
Third
Good news all around, positive relationships with siblings and neighbors, neighborhood celebrations
Fourth
Help from the father, Tall buildings, unearthing treasures, Unearthing secrets
healing, gain through subordinates (maybe giving them a raise), buying pets
Seventh
Good acquaintances, no problems relating to others, marriage celebrations
Eighth
Protection from fear or from death, escaping danger, increase through business or marriage
Ninth
Religion, Wisdom, Religious festivals, Education, Realization, discovery
Tenth
A raise, a promotion, finding a job, government buildings, positive decision from a judge
Eleventh
help from friends, money, wish fulfilled
Twelfth
escaping from danger, release from prison, nothing to worry about, protection from magic
Thirteenth
past joy, upward mobility, increase
Fourteenth
future joy, being discovered, finding out
Fifteenth
Laetitia cannot be Judge
Possible meanings of Laetitia in the various Geomantic Houses. Note that this is not meant to be exhaustive, and it only serves to jog your interpretive muscles
Name of the Figure: Amissio (Loss) Element: Fire Planet: Venus (retrograde) Sign: Libra Quality: Exiting Fortune: Bad
Amissio is another rather straightforward figure, with a caveat that I will address at the end. It is the opposite of Acquisitio, and its symbol shows it, as it seems to depict a bag with its mouth held downward, signifying loss. Tradition assigns this figure to Venus retrograde, meaning that while it is bad in most things, some see it as good in love affairs.
Illustration for the geomantic figure Amissio, Loss
Mainly, Amissio is a figure of loss, especially financial or material loss. It is also often associated with losing items or having them stolen from you. Needless to say, it is bad in any situations where we hope for increase, gain and the like. It is good in situations where you want to lose something, such as weight, illness, prison sentences, etc. Some say that Amissio is good for love because in love you “lose yourself” in the other.
Frankly, I believe we need to be very cautious with this line of reasoning, as it can be played with and made to say whatever we want. “Will I find a job?” “Why, yes! Here it says you will lose your lack of employment!” Furthermore, even in matters of love I have personally found that there are better figures to represent love (Puella) elation (Laetitia), ardor (Puer) or commitment (Conjunctio). I have the sneaking suspiscion that the only reason the Medievals assigned Amissio to Venus was that Saturn already had two figures to its name and nothing else was available, so always take the attributions with a grain of salt. The main meaning is loss, plain and simple.
Common Keywords: Loss, Difficulties, Hardships, Theft, Healing, Liberation, Letting go, Falling in love
Amissio in the Geomantic Houses (these are only examples. Use context to guide your interpretation)
House
Possible Meanings
First
Loss, Depression, In love, Lost, Needy, In need
Second
Loss of money or valuables, Loss of an object, Hardhips, Sacrifices
Third
Thieves in the neighborhood, Bad relationship with siblings, rumors, gossip
Fourth
Loss of inheritance, Loss from real estate or from the father
Fifth
Losing yourself in pleasures, Loss of pregnancy, Sadness
Sixth
Healing, Loss from servants and subordinates or from small animals, losing your pet
Seventh
Falling in love, Losing your partner, Thieves
Eighth
Bereavement, Loss, Loss of partner’s money
Ninth
Loss during journey, Losing your way, Bad skill or bad science
Tenth
Loss of employment, Inability to find a job
Eleventh
Loss of friendship, loss of hope, Loss of government support
Twelfth
Being freed from prison or a curse, Loss through large cattle
Thirteenth
Past expenses, Past sacrifices
Fourteenth
Future loss, Expenses, If the Judge is positive, there may be bad consequences in the future
Fifteenth
Not getting what you want (may be good in “Venusian” pursuits)
Possible meanings of Acquisitio in the various Geomantic Houses. Note that this is not meant to be exhaustive, and it only serves to jog your interpretive muscles
In many card reading systems, the appearance of a court cart is enough to make the reader panic. This is partly because there is no fudging with real people: they are there in flesh and blood, so if you botch the interpretation, it’s gonna show.
It’s hard to place people cards in the querent’s life. But there are some tricks that can help us. These are rules of thumb, and need to be applied flexibley. Be sensible and reasonable. If something doesn’t make sense for whatever reason, don’t say it: if it doesn’t make sense in divination it doesn’t make sense in real life, and vice versa. Leave space for some intuition as well.
In general, we know that the Club court cards represent the two querents. In general, the Club court card of the opposite sex represents the significant other for straight querents (for gay querents it’s the Heart court card of the same sex, while the other Club card becomes an important figure who is close to the querent or will have an important role)
Often, Heart cards represent people the querent already knows as they have a close bond with them, shown by the Heart suit. However, if the cards surrounding them show newsness or being unknown, then the Heart suit represents that they are good to the querent.
Diamond and Spade figures may or may not be known. If they are surrounded by Hearts, they are more likely to have a close relationship with the querent, although Spades surrounded by Hearts still show a problematic relationship. Surrounding Clubs suggest a more distant relationship, while Diamonds and Spades suggest the relationship is purely transactional or even hostile (in the case of Spades.)
When two court cards show up next to each other, they are related in some way. Related doesn’t necessarily mean that they are relatives, but that they know each other and have already interacted in the past. When the two cards come up with some other cards between them, we need to pay attention to the cards that separate them. If these separating cards describe a type of relationship, they simply describe their interaction. if they describe happenings, then it may be that the two people don’t know each other yet.
A court card next to the Ace of Hearts is usually a member of the household. A court card next to the Two of Hearts is usually a relative, but usually not a sibling or parent. Obviously, a court card next to the Eight of Clubs is a colleague, and so on.
Here’s an example. The acquaintance of a friend asked me once if she would find a new boyfriend. I knew nothing about her.
K♣ – 6♣ – Q♣ – 5♠ – 10♠ – 2♦ – J♥
It is patently clear that this person is already in a committed relationship: the King of Clubs shows up at the beginning. He and the Queen do not interact directly, because their court cards don’t touch. However, the card that separates them, the Six of Clubs, represents the type of relationship they have: a tired one. This makes the Queen feel confined and unwell (Five of Spades) which leads her to sending secret flirty messages (Ten of Spades, Two of Diamonds, Jack of Hearts) probably over the internet. This spread does not show new relationships, it just shows that the querent is already in a relationship.
“I’ll come back with the measurements.” “It could be dangerous! We don’t know anything about this planet!” “That’s why I’m going.”
My capsule landed. I exited. Dusty light slanted greenly on me. Orbs. Rainbows. My worries subsided. The vastness of all seeped into the bottom of my soul, assuaging, comforting. No self, no otherness. Unity danced everywhere, overcoming all opposites, compassion without beginning nor end.
I was moved. I couldn’t wait to tell the others. I started back. Or tried to. But there was no ‘me’ to respond to my will. And I wafted away in deaf rivulets of ecstasy.
Name of the Figure: Acquisitio (Gain) Element: Air Planet: Jupiter (direct, but some say retrograde) Sign: Aries Quality: Entering Fortune: Good
Acquisitio is a rather straightforward figure, definitely one of the easiest to decipher. Its glyph is reminescent of a bag with its mouth held open as to signify gain, which is the literal translation of the Latin name. It is associated with Jupiter, which in traditional astrology was associated not just with wealth and abundance but also with higher and loftier things in life. All this is the domain of the other Jupiter figure, Laetitia. Acquisitio is a more material symbol.
Illustration for the geomantic figure Acquisitio, gain
Mainly, Acquisitio means what it says on the tin: acquisition, gain, money. It is strongly connected with material wealth and money in particular. It’s a good figure for finances and for acquiring objects, as well as for luxury. It can indicate finding a job, getting a raise and generally not needing to worry about the future. If the question is whether you will find a lost item or a thief will be caught, the answer is a resounding yes.
In non-material questions, such as love, affection, etc., Acquisitio can show attachment and honest relationships (it is still a figure of Jupiter) however if the chart veers toward the negative it can indicate possessiveness and, more broadly, the inability to let go. Alternatively, it can show a somewhat transactional mindset.
A rather notorious effect of Acquisitio is that its ability to gain us things can turn it into a bad figure whenever there is something we would like to lose. It represents catching illnesses or, more generally, it shows the inability to heal from them. Also, it can indicate that a prisoner’s sentence won’t be short (he will gain a lot of it)
Common Keywords: Gain, money, liquid assets, obtaining, receiving, getting back, wealth, inability to let go, inability to separate from someone or something (including illness or incarceration)
Acquisitio in the Geomantic Houses (these are only examples. Use context to guide your interpretation)
House
Possible Meanings
First
Wealthy, Jovial, Able to obtain what he or she wants
Second
Gain, wealth, increase of goods, Retrieving a lost item
Third
News of gain, Good news, News that lead to gain, Good relationship with siblings and neighbors
Fourth
Gain through real estate, Inheritance, Money from one’s family, Discovery of buried treasures
Fifth
Happiness, Jollity, Mirth, Pregnancy, Money through art
Sixth
Sickness, Inability to heal, “Catching” something, Gain through servants or subordinates or small animals
Seventh
Good business partnership, Gain through partners and marriage, Dealing with honest people
Eighth
Gain through inheritance, Dowry
Ninth
Gain through travel, High sciences, positive journeys
Tenth
Gainful employment, Raise, Increase in income
Eleventh
Help from friends, Money from the government
Twelfth
Long prison sentence, Gain through large cattle
Thirteenth
Wealth, Querent is wealthy or good at gaining wealth, he comes from a wealthy background
Fourteenth
difficulties gaining wealth, or there will be gain the future
Fifteenth
Obtaining one’s wish, especially in material issues
Possible meanings of Acquisitio in the various Geomantic Houses. Note that this is not meant to be exhaustive, and it only serves to jog your interpretive muscles
