I said some time ago that my husband and I are looking for a home (I have a tarot reading ready for that). I also wholeheartedly believe that once you are interested in something, everyone else who has the same interest tends to show up in your life, and real estate questions have been common lately. Here’s the spread for a woman who asked if she would manage to buy a house she was interested in (it started out as a five card spread, but I asked her to draw two more cards, for reasons that will become obvious shortly, and then a third I forgot to take a picture of)
Real estate question with the Vera Sibilla Italiana
The first cards that caught my attention in the original five cards are the Five of Hearts and the Eight of Diamonds. Traditionally this means an engagement ring, but in this context it shows the proposal of a down payment (which is basically your engagement ring with the house you want to buy). According to the Peacock card between the two, this is a very high down payment, so I asked the querent, and she said they are (understandably) trying to pay off as much as possible in advance, almost half the total price.
The Thought card gives us some insight into the querent’s psyche: since it is followed by the Ace of Spades, she is worried, preoccupied or pessimistic. But the spread clearly isn’t complete, so I asked her to draw two more cards, and these were the Eight of Hearts, Hope, and the Six of Clubs, the Surprise. Clearly things will end up well, because these two cards together indicate the receipt of the hoped for money or the receipt of awaited money – for instance, money you’ve loaned or invested.
So I asked the querent if she’s waiting for money to invest into the home and she confirmed that she has some money tied down in an investment and she’s waiting for her bank to agree to free that money ahead of time. I was 99% sure this was possible, but to be on the safe side I asked her to draw a further card: this was the Seven of Clubs, the Realization (gran consolazione). Everything will be fine.
(Note: this is a collection of the meanings attributed to the cards by some occultists in the past centuries. It does not reflect my own study or opinion of the cards. It is only meant as a quick comparative reference as I develop my own take.)
The Queen of Wands from the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) tarot deck
Paul Foster Case (and Ann Davies)
The time period related to the Queen of Wands is from July 13 to August 12, symbolizing the influence of Jupiter and Neptune in Cancer and of the Sun and Jupiter in Leo. The basic power suggested by this Key is that of command. Well Dignified: in a divination the Queen of Wands symbolizes a kind, generous woman, resolute in the face of opposition, strongly psychic and intuitive but practical in applying her spiritual gifts; intense; magnetic ; friendly to the querent and a favorable influence for the success or business of the querent. Ill Dignified: Inimical to the querent; obstinate, dangerous woman, unfavorable to querent’s affairs; revengeful and tyrannical. (From the Oracle of Tarot course)
A. E. Waite
The Wands throughout this suit are always in leaf, as it is a suit of life and animation. Emotionally and otherwise, the Queen’s personality corresponds to that of the King, but is more magnetic. Divinatory Meanings: A dark woman, countrywoman, friendly, chaste, loving, honourable. If the card beside her signifies a man, she is well disposed towards him; if a woman, she is interested in the Querent. Also, love of money, or a certain success in business. Reversed: Good, economical, obliging, serviceable. Signifies also–but in certain positions and in the neighbourhood of other cards tending in such directions–opposition, jealousy, even deceit and infidelity. (From The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)
Aleister Crowley
The Queen of Wands represents the watery part of Fire, its fluidity and colour. Also, she rules in the Zodiac from the 21st degree of Pisces to the 20th degree of Aries. Her crown is topped with the winged globe and rayed with flame. Her long red golden hair flows down upon her armour of scaled mail. She is seated upon a throne of flame, ordered into geometrical light by her material power. Beneath the throne the surging flames are steady. She bears a wand in her left hand; but it is topped with a cone suggestive of the mysteries of Bacchus. She is attended by a couchant leopard upon whose head she lays her hand. Her face expresses the ecstasy of one whose mind is well in-drawn to the mystery borne beneath her bosom.
The characteristics of the Queen are adaptability, persistent energy, calm authority which she knows how to use to enhance her attractiveness. She is kindly and generous, but impatient of opposition. She has immense capacity for friendship and for love, but always on her own initiative.
There is as much pride in this card as in the Knight, but it lacks the spontaneous nobility which excuses that error. It is not true pride, but self-complacent vanity and even snobbery.
The other side of her character is that she may have a tendency to brood, come to a wrong decision thereon, and react with great savagery. She may be easily deceived; then she is likely to shew herself stupid, obstinate, tyrannical. She may be quick to take offence, and harbour revenge without good cause. She might turn and snap at her best friends without intelligible excuse. Also, when she misses her bite, she breaks her jaw!
In the YI King, the watery part of Fire is represented by the 17th hexagram, Sui. It indicates reflection upon impulse, and the consequently even flow of action. There is great capacity for lucid conception and steady prosecution of work; but this is only at the bidding, and under the guidance, of some creative mind. There is a tendency to be fickle, even disloyal; the ideas which she obeys make no deep or permanent impression. She will “cleave to the little boy and let go the man of age and experience” or the reverse (lines 2 and 3) without realizing what she is doing. There is liability of fits of melancholy, which she seeks to cure by bouts of intoxication, or by panic-stricken outbursts of ill-considered fury. (From The Book of Thoth)
Strangely Crowley-esque AI-generated illustration for the Queen of Wands
Golden Dawn’s Book T
A CROWNED queen with long red-golden hair, seated upon a Throne, with steady flames beneath. She wears a corslet and buskins of scale-mail, which latter her robe discloses. Her arms are almost bare. On cuirass and buskins are leopard’s heads winged, and the same symbol surmounteth her crown. At her side is a couchant leopard on which her hands rest. She bears a long wand with a very heavy conical head. The face is beautiful and resolute. Adaptability, steady force applied to an object, steady rule, great attractive power, power of command, yet liked notwithstanding. Kind and generous when not opposed. If ill dignified, obstinate, revengeful, domineering, tyrannical, and apt to turn against another without a cause. She rules the heavens from above the last Decan of Pisces to above the 20 Degree of Aries: including thus a part of Andromeda.
Etteilla
Country Woman Upright: This card, as far as the medicine of the spirit is concerned, means, when upright: Country woman, housewife, economy, honesty, civility – Sweetness, virtue – Honor, chastity Reversed: Good woman, goodness, excellence – Respectful, caring, obliging – Service, favor, benefit
While in Italy for the holidays, I retrieved my first notes from when I had started learning cartomancy from the person who taught me to read playing cards and the Sibilla. It’s just a couple of loose sheets on the basic meanings of the playing cards, the main combinations and two spreads (the row of cards, hardly a spread at all, and the cross).
This brought back so many memories of that period, but most of all it reminded me of how eminently practical divination used to be before its current glamorization. Of course, over time I learned a lot more from that lady than what is on that couple of now yellowed sheets, but the core of the system is there, and I believe she must have passed it on to me in no more than two sittings, if not just in one.
People who spend their time musing on the arcane meaning of the splotch of color on this or that card in the latest glossy and overly ornate oracle deck may laugh at how bare-bones that system is, but they would forget what significance divination had for the regular folks that used it to solve everyday matters.
Folk systems of fortune-telling, especially by cards, were designed to be quickly memorizable in their main lines, because they formed part of every housewife/househusband’s toolkit of remedies to the difficulties and uncertainties of life.
When an elderly person passed their meanings on to you, they did so not to introduce you to a different world detached from the real one, where you could dilly-dally with pleasant platitudes, but to send you into this life with another string to your bow. In principle, they revealed their system to you for the same reason that they taught you how to make preserves and liquors and how to best cultivate your garden.
Folk fortune-telling, in a word, was just another traditional remedy to the complexities of life. It did not involve stepping into a different plane of existence, because the everyday one was already enough, and it was looked on with the same pragmatic, solution-oriented gaze that was cast on all other problems people faced back in the day. “Don’t forget to add a small pinch of sugar to your tomato sauce. The Ace of Spades is a thorn in the heart.”
This is an attitude toward life that is hard to recapture nowadays. The idea of divination being useful has been so utterly eradicated from our mind that, when we approach it again, we do it as if it were an exotic, quaint, arcane world separate from our own. Our immediate reaction is therefore to keep it separate from our life, divorcing it from veriafiable prediction.
This stance is fatal, because it implies that our world is not inherently meaningful as it is; that meaning is found elsewhere and cannot be reconciled with our real life; that in order to find it, one must learn to look at one’s everyday struggles as illusions or as silly preoccupations not worthy of the attention of those in the know about the cosmic mechanism. All this ends up debasing both life and divination, because once life is debased, divination, which is the language of life’s drama, becomes a meaningless mirror only reflecting vague vapors.
Sometimes a spread doesn’t give us enough information and we need to dig deeper. I know that there is a number of way to do it. The way that has been taught to me is called ‘opening the spread‘ and it simply means adding one to three cards in one point to obtain further information. At this point I should say that I try to use this technique only when I find it is strictly necessary. The cards are fickle friends, so they are best kept on a short leash, lest they start confuse us. Here is an example. A querent asked me about his career. This is what came out:
Career reading
He didn’t ask a specific question, but the first two cards, the Six of Diamonds and the Five of Diamonds, represent worry about change. The center of the spread is occupied by the Jack of Diamonds, which indicates messages. Note, also, that the spread is ovverrun with Diamonds.
At this point, I asked him to draw two cards to add to the Jack of Diamonds, and we got the Four of Clubs and the Eight of Diamonds, clearly an interview. Then I asked him to open the spread again on the Eight of Clubs, the job card, and the Ace of Clubs and Seven of Clubs came up, indicating the overcoming of obstacles.
The question I asked him was if he was waiting for a message about some change, possibly to do with a raise or another positive change, where he would need to solve new problems, and he said he had applied for a promotion with came with new tasks, and he was waiting for an answer. I told him he’d get it (Ten of Diamonds and Eight of Clubs). Yesterday he confirmed he got the promotion.
When you pull three cards to describe a person (as I just did) and you get:
9♦ – J♠ – 3♠
This is a meddler, someone who interferes in others’ lives (J♠, 3♠), not out of self-interest or to get something, but due to a bloated belief in themselves (the Nine of Diamonds following the negative Court card). If the court card were positive, it would still be meddling, but out of love (Hearts, for instance)
English Version (scroll down for the Italian version)
It is an exciting time to be practicing divination. Among the occult arts it is probably the most popular for its immediate practical usefulness. The tarot is enjoying a divinatory revival after being brought to its knees by decades of pseudodeep elucubrations, and even lesser known systems of fortune-telling are being slowly fished out the obscure underbelly of folk tradition.
And occult folk tradition is especially rich in Italy, a country which, in part due to its chaotic and conflicted history, can boast a huge diversity of divinatory systems, especially (but not exclusively) of the card-based kind. It is especially reassuring to see that, unlike in the past, people of considerable education are taking these folk systems seriously.
It’s the case with Ernesto Fazioli’s latest book: Carte Piacentine. Divinare con le Briscole (Piacentine Cards. Divining with Briscola* Cards), a book dedicated to one of the many dozens of cartomancy systems based on the many types of Italian playing cards — in this case, Piacentine Cards–
Carte piacentine, one of the most popular playing card decks in Italy
Fazioli’s book is part of the same series as Germana Tartari’s Book on the Bolognese Tarot and it shares some of its traits: it is short (84 pages) and goes straight to the point; it is prefaced by a very quick but well-documented historical introduction; finally, it is aimed at shining a light on a small part of the Italian folk tradition while giving the reader the tools to work with it in today’s world.
I could quibble on a couple of points that made me wrinkle my nose, such as the association of the four suits with the four elements following the Golden Dawn pattern (which is not rooted in folk tradition, Italian or otherwise) but in reality all this is of very little account, as it can be very easily overlooked. The bulk of the book is solid and it teaches a traditional and little-known method of fortune-telling using a reduced pack of 30 Piacentine cards.
Each of the 30 cards is dedicated a small paragraph, which is enough, considering that, in traditional fortune-telling, one doesn’t spend a great deal of time musing on the quaint design of this or that card based on the latest fashion. For what little I know about this deck, the meanings retrieved by Fazioli feel genuine and even show a degree of overlap with the meanings of the Bolognese tarot.
This should not be a surprise, as fortune-telling and divination were born as methods of “gathering intelligence” about the world, meaning that, whatever system one uses, one must be given access do an adequate vocabulary–that is, a vocabulary that is adequate to describing the real world.
The spreads that Fazioli present also come from the folk tradition, and vary from the easier ones (the five card spread) to the very complex (a tableau of all 30 cards).
All in all, I am very pleased with my purchase, and will probably be posting a spread or two following the system. I am especially surprised by the good amount of information that Mr. Fazioli could pack into such a short booklet, and am endlessly fascinated, once again, by how folk divination emerges in its quality of spontaneous and creative remedy to life’s uncertainty.
* Briscola refers to one of the most popular game cards in Italy, usually played with Piacentine cards or a similar 40 card regional deck. For this reason, regional playing cards are often known as “carte da briscola” (briscola cards) in common parlance.
Versione Italiana
È un momento storico molto entusiasmante per chi pratica la divinazione. Tra le arti occulte è probabilmente la più popolare per la sua immediata utilità pratica. I tarocchi stanno vivendo un revival divinatorio dopo essere stati messi in ginocchio da decenni di elucubrazioni pseudointelletuali, e anche sistemi di cartomanzia meno conosciuti vengono lentamente ripescati dal ventre oscuro e creativo della tradizione popolare.
E la tradizione popolare occulta è particolarmente ricca in Italia, un Paese che, anche a causa della sua storia caotica e frammentata, può vantare un’enorme varietà di sistemi divinatori, soprattutto (ma non esclusivamente) del tipo basato sulle carte. È particolarmente rassicurante vedere che, a differenza del passato, persone di notevole cultura prendono sul serio questi sistemi popolari.
È il caso dell’ultimo libro di Ernesto Fazioli: Carte Piacentine. Divinare con le Briscole, un libro dedicato a una delle molte decine di sistemi di cartomanzia basati sui numerosi tipi di carte da gioco italiane – in questo caso le carte piacentine -.
Il libro di Fazioli fa parte della stessa collana del Libro sui Tarocchi Bolognesi di Germana Tartari e ne condivide alcuni tratti: è breve (84 pagine) e va dritto al punto; è preceduto da un’introduzione storica molto rapida ma ben documentata; infine, si propone di far luce su una piccola parte della tradizione popolare italiana dando al lettore gli strumenti per metterla a frutto nel contesto odierno.
Potrei cavillare su uno o due punti che mi hanno fatto storcere il naso, come l’associazione dei quattro semi con i quattro elementi secondo lo schema della Golden Dawn (che non ha radici nella tradizione popolare, italiana o meno), ma in realtà tutto ciò è di ben poco conto, perché può essere facilmente trascurato da chi non è interessato. Il libro ha solidi contenuti e insegna un metodo di cartomanzia tradizionale e poco conosciuto, utilizzando un mazzo ridotto di 30 carte piacentine.
A ciascuna delle 30 carte è dedicato un piccolo paragrafo, il che è sufficiente, considerando che, nella cartomanzia tradizionale, non si passa molto tempo a riflettere sul design pittoresco di questa o quella carta in base all’ultima moda. Per quel poco che so di questo mazzo, i significati recuperati da Fazioli nella sua attenta indagine sembrano genuini e mostrano persino un certo grado di similitudine con i significati dei tarocchi bolognesi.
Ciò non deve sorprendere, poiché la cartomanzia e la divinazione sono nate come metodi di “raccolta di informazioni” sul mondo, il che significa che, qualunque sia il sistema utilizzato, ci deve dare accesso a un vocabolario adeguato, cioè un vocabolario che sia adeguato a descrivere il mondo reale.
Anche le stese che Fazioli presenta provengono per lo più dalla tradizione popolare e variano da quelli più semplici (la stesa delle cinque carte) a quelli molto complessi (una stesa di tutte le 30 carte).
Nel complesso, sono molto soddisfatto del mio acquisto e probabilmente pubblicherò una o due stese seguendo il sistema. Sono particolarmente sorpreso dalla buona quantità di informazioni che Fazioli è riuscito a racchiudere in un libricino così breve e sono infinitamente affascinato, ancora una volta, da come la divinazione popolare emerga nella sua qualità di rimedio spontaneo e creativo all’incertezza della vita.
This spread is proof that we always need to have good communication with the querent, because sometimes readings are deceptive.
Sometimes spreads don’t answer the question at hand. This happens in two cases: when something more important is going on (or about to happen) in the querent’s life or when the cards want to give us details about the question that we haven’t asked for. This latter case requires great care, especially if the question is of a delicate nature.
A woman asked me if she will get pregnant. This is the spread (this is a rather old reading):
A pregnancy question answered with playing card divination
You’d probably think (and you’d be right) that my first instinct was to say “no” due to the horrible mesh of Spades following the Jack of Hearts, which is the child card.
However, something didn’t sit right with me about this spread. I wasn’t at all convinced the spread was answering the question directly. The reason is that the cards Ace of Spades, Nine of Spades and Ten of Spades can show bereavement, and bereavement can only happen if there *is* a child.
The King of Spades could be a doctor performing an abortion, but this isn’t confirmed by any other card (e.g. the Six of Spades). In this case, the King of Spades seems to be more like a priest celebrating a funeral.
I asked the querent if she already had a child, and she said that she unfortunately had a miscarriage in the recent past when the pregnancy was already relatively advanced.
So the cards were not saying that she wouldn’t have a child: they were merely reflecting a recent trauma. With that in mind, I interrupted the reading, telling her the cards were telling her to take time for herself. This was an excuse, of course: I could have done another reading, but I didn’t want to risk having to predict another miscarriage.
Fortunately, today the woman is the happy mother of two twins.
(Note: this is a collection of the meanings attributed to the cards by some occultists in the past centuries. It does not reflect my own study or opinion of the cards. It is only meant as a quick comparative reference as I develop my own take.)
The Queen of Cups from the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) tarot deck
Paul Foster Case (and Ann Davies)
The time period is the beginning of the last decanate of Libra to the end of the second decanate of Scorpio, October 13 to November 11, combining the rulerships of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune. Well Dignified: through the influence of Mercury in Libra the Queen of Cups personifies a woman, mentally alert, yet somewhat superficial, who probably has a touch of the poetic in her nature. She is kindhearted though not likely to go to too much trouble for anyone. The Scorpio influence added gives her strong desires and makes her emotionally responsive and attractive to the opposite sex; very psychic, and if her hig he r nature is developed she depicts a very powerful spiritual force akin to the influence of the purified desire nature and the influence of Neshamah. Ill Dignified: a woman who is subtle, decidedly coquettish and may even be a deliberate heart-breaker. Usually gold-brown hair with blue eyes. (From the Oracle of Tarot course)
A. E. Waite
Beautiful, fair, dreamy–as one who sees visions in a cup. This is, however, only one of her aspects; she sees, but she also acts, and her activity feeds her dream. Divinatory Meanings: Good, fair woman; honest, devoted woman, who will do service to the Querent; loving intelligence, and hence the gift of vision; success, happiness, pleasure; also wisdom, virtue; a perfect spouse and a good mother. Reversed: The accounts vary; good woman; otherwise, distinguished woman but one not to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonour, depravity. (From The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)
Aleister Crowley
The Queen of Cups represents the watery part of Water, its power of reception and reflection. In the Zodiac it rules from the 21St degree of Gemini to the 20th degree of Cancer Her image is of extreme purity and beauty, with infinite subtlety; to see the Truth of her is hardly possible, for she reflects the nature of the observer in great perfection.
She is represented as enthroned upon still water. In her hand she bears a shell-like cup, from which issues a crayfish, and she bears also the Lotus of Isis, of the Great Mother. She is robed in, and veiled by, endless curves of light, and the sea upon which she is enthroned conveys the almost unbroken images of the image which she represents.
The characteristics associated with this card are principally dreaminess, illusion and tranquillity. She is the perfect agent and patient, able to receive and transmit everything without herself being affected thereby. If ill-dignified, all these qualities are degraded. Everything that passes through her is refracted and distorted. But, speaking generally, her characteristics depend mostly upon the influences which affect her.
In the Yi King, the watery part of Water is represented by the 8th hexagram, Tui. The commentary is as colourless as the card; it consists of mild exhortations on the subject of pleasure. It may really be said that, normally, people of this type have no character at all of their own, unless it can be called a characteristic to be at the disposition of every impact or impression.
There is, however, a hint (line 6) that the chief pleasure of people of this type is to lead and attract others. Such are accordingly (often enough) exceedingly popular. (From The Book of Thoth)
AI-Generated illustration for the Queen of Cups
Golden Dawn’s Book T
A VERY beautiful fair woman like a crowned Queen, seated upon a throne, beneath which is flowing water wherein Lotuses are seen. Her general dress is similar to that of the Queen of Wands, but upon her crown, cuirass and buskins is seen an Ibis with opened wings, and beside her is the same bird, whereon her hand rests. She holds a cup, wherefrom a crayfish issues. Her face is dreamy. She holds a lotus in the hand upon the Ibis. She is imaginative, poetic, kind, yet not willing to take much trouble for another. Coquettish, good-natured and underneath a dreamy appearance. Imagination stronger than feeling. Very much affected by other influences, and therefore more dependent upon dignity than most symbols. She rules from 20 Degree Gemini to 20 Degree Cancer.
Etteilla
Blonde Woman Upright: As far as the medicine of the spirit is concerned, this card, when upright, means: Blonde Woman, Honest Woman, Virtue, Wisdom, Honesty Reversed: Distinguished woman, Vice, Dishonesty, Debauchery, Corruption, Scandal
(Note: this is a collection of the meanings attributed to the cards by some occultists in the past centuries. It does not reflect my own study or opinion of the cards. It is only meant as a quick comparative reference as I develop my own take.)
The King of Swords from the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) tarot deck
Paul Foster Case (and Ann Davies)
The time period is from the beginning of the last decanate of Virgo to the end of the second decanate of Libra, September 13 to October 12, under the combined rulerships of Venus in Taurus, Venus in Libra, and Saturn-Uranus in Aquarius. Meanings: a man of strong and powerful imagination; hard worker and having authority; keen in understanding law and capable of excellent cooperation; somewhat distrustful and suspicious and therefor e hard to convince. He sometimes surprises his friends by sudden changes of attitude, although he is usually overcautious and analytical. In a divinatory lay-out: Well Dignified: he is friendly to the Querent and will cooperate with him. lll Dignified: he is inimical, harsh, malicious and plotting, obstinate and wholly unreliable. Dark hair and dark eyes. (From the Oracle of Tarot course)
A. E. Waite
He sits in judgment, holding the unsheathed sign of his suit. He recalls, of course, the conventional Symbol of justice in the Trumps Major, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death, in virtue of his office. Divinatory Meanings: Whatsoever arises out of the idea of judgment and all its connexions-power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, offices of the crown, and so forth. Reversed: Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, evil intention. (From The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)
Aleister Crowley
(Note: Crowley and the Golden Dawn swapped around King and Knight. This is in part true of Waite as well.)
The Knight of Swords represents the fiery part of Air; he is the wind, the storm. He represents the violent power of motion applied to an apparently manageable element. He rules from the 21st degree of Taurus to the 20th degree of Gemini. He is a warrior helmed, and for his crest he bears a revolving wing. Mounted upon a maddened steed, he drives down the Heavens, the Spirit of the Tempest. In one hand is a sword, in the other a poniard. He represents the idea of attack.
The moral qualities of a person thus indicated are activity and skill, subtlety and cleverness. He is fierce, delicate and courageous, but altogether the prey of his idea, which comes to him as an inspiration without reflection.
If ill-dignified, the vigour in all these qualities being absent, he is incapable of decision or purpose. Any action that he takes is easily brushed aside by opposition. Inadequate violence spells futility. “Chimaera bombinans in vacuo”.
In the Yi King, the fiery part of Air is represented by the 32nd hexagram, Hang. This is the first occasion on which it has been simple to demonstrate the close technical parallelism which identifies Chinese thought and experience with that of the West. For the meaning is long continuance: “perseverance in well-doing, or continuously acting out the law of one’s being”, as Legge puts it in his note on the hexagram; and this seems incongruous with the Qabalistic idea of violent energy applied to the least stable of the elements. But the trigram of Air also indicates wood; and the hexagram may have Suggested the irresistible flow of the sap, and its effect in strengthening the tree. This conjecture is supported by the warning in line 6: “The topmost line, divided, shows its subject exciting himself to long continuance. There will be evil.”
Allowing this, the image of “the extended flame of mind”, as Zoroaster calls it, may well be subjoined to the former description. It is the True Will exploding the mind spontaneously. The influence of Taurus makes for steadiness, and that of the first decanate of Gemini for inspiration. So let us picture him, “integer vitae scelerisque purus”, a light-shaft of the Ideal absorbing the entire life in concentrated aspiration, passing from earthy Taurus to exalted Gemini. Here, too, is shewn (as in the Yi) the danger to the subject of this symbol; for the first decan is the card called “Interference”; or, in the old pack, “Shortened Force”. (From the Book of Thoth)
Oddly Bismarckian AI-generated Illustration for the King of Swords
Golden Dawn’s Book T
A WINGED Warrior with crowned Winged Helmet, mounted upon a brown steed. His general equipment is as that of the Knight of Wands, but he wears as a crest a winged six-pointed star, similar to those represented on the heads of Castor and Pollux the Dioscuri, the twins Gemini (a part of which constellation is included in his rule). He holds a drawn sword with the sigil of his scale upon its pommel. Beneath his horse’s feet are dark-driving stratus clouds. He is active, clever, subtle, fierce, delicate, courageous, skilful, but inclined to domineer. Also to overvalue small things, unless well dignified. If ill dignified, deceitful, tyrannical and crafty. Rules from 20 Degree Taurus to 20 Degree Gemini.
Etteilla
Man in Uniform Upright: This card, as far as the medicine of the spirit is concerned, means, in its natural position: Man in Uniform, Man of the Law, Judge, Councilor, Assessor, Senator, Business Man, Medical Practitioner, Lawyer, Prosecutor, Doctor, Physician. – Jurist, Law-making. – Litigant [= Party to litigation], Jurisconsult. Reversed: Malicious, Maliciousness, Perversity, Perfidy, Crime, Cruelty, Atrocity, Inhumanity.
I already said that I am not a big fan of complications in divination. Nor do I believe that the tendency to overcomplicate things is just modern: if we look in older Horary Astrology handbooks, for instance, they are filled to the brim with (often mutually contradictory) techniques that may be thrown at the chart in an attempt to smoke a positive judgement out of it.
Still, one technique that is relatively consistent in the tradition is that of the Via Puncti, or Way of the Point. Not all traditional sources talk about it, but I have found it to be occasionally helpful. As usual, techniques are not to be used blindly, but intelligently, like tools in the hand of a surgeon.
The long and short of this technique is as follows: some Judges have one point in their Fire line (the upmost one), while others have two. In fact, out of all eight possible Judges, four have one single Fire point (Carcer, Fortuna Minor, Via, Amissio), while the other four have two (Conjunctio, Fortuna Major, Populus, Acquisitio). Due to how Geomancy’s model works, whenever the Judge has one Fire line, it is possible to trace it back unequivocally to one of the four Mothers or Daughters (that is, to one of the eight figures at the top of the shield).
Geomantic Shield Reading, drawn with the Simple Geomancy app
In the above example, Fortuna Minor is the Judge. It has one point in its Fire line. This one point is found again in the Left Witness, Laetitia, and again in the third Niece, which is again Laetitia, and finally in the second Daughter Puella. No other path is possible. This is always so (if it isn’t so and you’ve calculated the chart by hand, you’ve made a mistake.)
Usually, the Via Puncti or Way of the Point can be looked at as a root cause for at least some aspects of the final answer. In the example above, for instance, a woman may be the cause (Puella). Or, if we take the House in consideration, since Puella is in the Sixth house, it may indicate that a sickness is the cause, or a servant/subordinate, or a pet, depending on the question.
I repeat: depending on the question. I make no effort to squeeze a consideration of the Via Puncti into my readings. If it is helpful, and if the question lends itself, I will consider it.
Geomantic Shield Reading, drawn with the Simple Geomancy app
In this second example, Acquisitio is the Judge. Immediately the Via Puncti branches off, as both Witnesses have two points in their Fire line. John Michael Greer says that this shows more complex causes, but he fails to mention that, in the old books, this is not considered a valid Via Puncti. I don’t know if I am unaware of some of the old material or if Greer gave in to his tendency to mix innovation (which is fine) with pretense that it is rooted in tradition. You can of course choose to experiment with Greer’s version of the Via Puncti. Personally, I don’t even always regard it when it is there (as in the first example) let alone when it is not there.
One thing that the existence of the technique shows, though, is that the Golden Dawn’s way of reading the astrological chart by placing the mothers in the angles is completely baseless, and is a typical example of the “let’s make up a secret” tendency of the occult community.
