by Marcus Katz
Shuffle the split-deck of forty cards whilst considering your question and then select the top and bottom card of the pack, inserting the keyword pairs for both cards into the oracular construct like this:
OK, it’s time to [keyword pair of top card] but not [keyword pair of bottom card].
If I asked: “In these changing economic times, how should I consider my own finances?” and received the card at the top as the 6 of Swords and the card at the bottom the 7 of Cups, I would get:
6 of Swords: Transport it
7 of Cups: Imagine it
And this would produce the oracular sentence:
“OK, it’s time to transport it but not imagine it.”
I need to move my finances into something else and not imagine that the current times will not impact on my security. This is a downright practical reading with serious advice.
Before we look at the court cards, having looked at the major and minor cards in this contemporary light, we will address an issue that many modern students face, that of connecting their cards.
Connecting Cards
Many new students of tarot tell us they have most difficulty connecting cards together so that they can speak to another person about what the cards are telling them about the situation. In this little variation of one of our Tarosophy skill-teaching games, practice will help your story-telling flow.
Card Connecting
Shuffle and take three cards out from your whole deck.
For the first, write or think of one action shown or suggested by the card, e.g., dancing.
For the second, select a situation in life it suggests, e.g., the home, the workplace, friends, and so on.
For the third, think of a state of mind or emotion the card depicts, e.g., separation.
Then put the three together in a sentence as follows …
“I see you [or “myself”] in these cards [action] in the situation of [situation], resulting in [state of mind].”
Now take three more cards and repeat the same process to come up with another action, situation, and state. Place those three words into the following sentence …
“So, these cards show us that you [or “I”] should [action] to bring about [situation] and gain [state of mind].”
If I selected 2 of Pentacles, 8 of Pentacles, and 4 of Cups, I might say:
“I see myself in these cards juggling in the workplace, resulting in a feeling of boredom.”
Then if I selected for my second sentence, the Hermit, 6 of Swords, and Page of Cups:
“So, I should take time to myself to bring about travel and gain a new enthusiasm.”
This is both a practice and a way of reading a six-card reading to describe and advise upon any question. The more you practice this, the more variations you will produce until it becomes very easy to speak your own voice and tell a more elaborate story from your cards.
We will now add the court cards into our toolkit so we can work with a full deck of possibilities.
Defusing a Bomb with Court Cards
Whilst our other books have dealt with different ways of reading court cards and we have given a three-minute method in the Orientation chapter at the start of this present book, now we can add a very contemporary way of practising court cards.
When practising with court cards, first take the core of the question to an extreme by turning it into a dramatic movie scene requiring a resolution.
So, if the question is about facing a deadline, turn it into defusing a bomb. The more dramatic and over-the-top the better; we really want to take the core of the question into a scene that is outside of itself. The bomb should be a huge bomb capable of blowing up the entire planet.
As another example, if the real question was “is X the right partner for me?”, we might ask instead, “Is X the notorious time-travelling serial killer that has been hunted by special agents for centuries?” We can risk making the situation outlandish or even ridiculous, that is part of the technique.
We would then shuffle a split-deck made of the sixteen court cards only and select two cards.
In this example, rather than try and work out the answer to the original question, which some students find difficult with court cards only, ask instead about the over-dramatic version:
If these two court cards were special time-travel agents, how would it work out if Mr. Normal is the serial killer or not? How would they work together?
Or in the former example question, “How would they work together to defuse that bomb?”
We can even wonder about their back story, whether these two court cards are best friends, or a good cop/bad cop type relationship, or uneasy partners like in a buddy movie.
We can also use just one card, although we find two-card draws are somewhat easier. A question about a work project with a one-card draw from the court cards would become “We have a month before global disaster, what does this court card invent that no one has considered to save the day?”
Always make the scenario ludicrously extreme. That’s the first trick with the technique, then there is a twist.
The twist is that you simply produce the strange scenario from your original situation or question, then you create the solution with the court cards as characters in a B movie film ... then you simply forget about it and wait a few days.
In this cutting-edge technique, you have already processed the answer unconsciously by “chunking it up” to an extreme; the actual solution to your question should arrive naturally and suddenly in your conscious mind after a just few days. It may also come to you on awakening, in a weird episode of synchronicity, or in a dream—it is quite a magical technique.
This Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)-based practice will also help you whenever court cards come up in a reading or any spread as you will have unconsciously sorted and filtered their application to a wide range of situations. 175 NLP is a modern approach to human behaviour and the way we represent the world, which often concentrates of how language serves as a code for the way we process our experience. It can be used in tarot to model and teach elegant communication methods but more importantly it can be used to treat tarot as a language. This allows us to go beyond the usual box of tarot and use it in novel ways for powerful readings.
We will now take another NLP-based approach to the court cards and in this next case, see how they can be used to deal with a question about a past situation, in learning for the future. It sometimes surprises us that in the same way that we only consult a doctor when we are ill, or take a car to the garage when it is broken down, often we mainly read tarot for the future. As real-life time travellers, we have a lot of past that can provide useful lessons for our present and immediate future, and tarot can read for the past as much as it can read for the future.
Court Card Advice
A way of getting quick and frank advice from the court cards by NLP, before doing something you might regret or to learn from something in the past which you could have done better—or might have done—or will do—or should do ... is to consider what we call “modal operators of necessity” in the sixteen court cards. This phrase sounds complex but is something we do all the time; use words such as could, should, might, may, and would, etc.
We all know the difference between someone saying, “Can you open the window?” versus “You must open the window.” These words give the scale of need to a sentence, be it a definite demand or a casual enquiry. There are some people who are just one court card and use just one word all the time; we must all know someone like that. Or perhaps we might all know someone like that. We should know someone who does that, surely?
Here are the modal operators for the court cards.
Pages: Might do ... Might not do [reversed]...
Knights: Should do ... Should not do [reversed]...
Queens: Would do ... Would not do [reversed]...
Kings: Can do ... Cannot do [reversed]...
We then take the suits and consider them as meta-programs. These are aspects of NLP that model different types of fundamental behaviour in people. Again, it is a complex phrase that refers to something we all know about—one simple example is a can-do person instead of a naysayer. There are some people who think big and some people who see details. These are examples of different types of meta-programs or more simply, ways we go about looking at the world.
Here is a selection of meta-programs for the suits.
Pentacles: Short-Term/Long Term [Reversed]
Swords: Little Steps/Big Steps [Reversed]
Cups: For Yourself/For Others [Reversed]
Wands: Towards Something/Away from Something [Reversed]
We now put these together to look at what we can learn when we ask two court cards about a situation we regret or might be about to regret. We will get their most straight-forward advice as they will be true to their own personality in what they say.
NLP Court Card Method
Take the sixteen court cards. Ask their advice. Shuffle. Select one card.
Read it according to the rules above. We will call this sentence X. So, if we had the Page of Pentacles, this would be “might do” (Page) and “short-term” (Pentacles). This suggests we might make do with a short-term solution.
Turn the deck so the cards are reversed, repeat, and select one card reversed.
Read it according to the rules above. This is sentence Y.
So, if we then had the Queen of Swords reversed this would be “would do” (Queen) and “big steps” (swords reversed). This reads as “would do big steps.” We can see this makes sense as the Queen of Swords upright is someone who decisively (must or should) cuts down to the point, so reversed it is suggesting we should perhaps be more laid back and look at bigger steps.
Now place the two sentences together into one sentence, i.e., You would do X [and/but/if/so...] you cannot do Y.
Use your intuition and common-sense to construct the sentence towards a positive outcome and use a linking word (e.g., and, if, but, when, so, then) as may be appropriate. If alternate linking words fit, use your intuition as to which one is correct for the question. This is part of the art of the method rather than the science of constructing the sentences.
In the example given above, we have the Page of Pentacles and the Queen of Swords reversed.
As we have seen, these are “might do short-term” and “would do big steps.”
We put those together in a sentence: “You might always try and take short-term actions, but you would have to go and do bigger steps instead.”
This tells us bluntly that we are fooling ourselves in life by taking big projects on but pretending we are just doing little things; this is a strategy that is not good for long-term health and one day may trip us up completely. The court cards do not provide a “solution” as such, they just “tell it as it is” which is often enough to shock us into different behaviour.
As another example, I might consider a question and draw the Page of Cups + the Knight of Wands reversed.
The result: “You might do it for yourself [but] you should not do it away from something.”
I might want to do it for myself, but I should not do it in blind and immediate response to someone else doing something I don’t like.
Try this method and see what frank advice the court cards hold for your situation and life. As you practice this method, you will find yourself also more proficient in reading the court cards within general spreads.
We will now move on to other reading methods and first practice using the whole deck to learn an essential quality of each card; what it provides in the deck and what impact it has in the world. This allows us to quickly and easily read every card as a reversal.
A third of tarot readers often read reversals, a third usually do not read reversals, and a third sometimes do and sometimes do not read reversals. This response has been consistent in every survey we have run over two decades, so you can see there is no “rule” or common practice in reading cards upside-down other than it is up to you.
Brings and Leaves (Reversals)
In this practice method, we take a card out of the deck.
We then consider how it both brings its nature into the world, and what it also leaves.
We use the sentence structure “It brings ... but it leaves ....”
Here are some examples:
10 of Swords: It brings a stop to all those plans but it leaves no room for doubt.
Queen of Cups: She brings depth but leaves insecurity.
Hermit: He brings peace of mind but leaves loneliness.
6 of Swords: It brings movement but leaves ripples.
When you can do this easily for every card you will realise that you can read them reversed by using the “leaves” as an alternate way of reading the impact of a reversed card.
So, if you had a reading containing the Queen of Cups and the Hermit both reversed, these would indicate that there is emotional insecurity resulting in loneliness going on within the situation. The two things that these cards “leave” in their reversed role.
And that is all there is to it; you can now read the entire deck reversed with this simple trick.
We will now look at performing a one-card reading with just the major arcana, another aspect of reading often considered difficult when applied to a mundane question. When we take a contemporary view of tarot as a language, the method can become simple.
How to Do a One-Card Major-Only
Reading for Mundane Questions
The problem many new readers have with the major arcana is they believe these cards are big picture things; archetypes, huge effect, and literal majors. Books tend to reinforce the idea, equating majors to the gods and goddesses, and other higher planes or concepts.
So, what happens when we try and apply these big players to a mundane question such as “Should I buy a new car or repair my current car?” The trick is to get to the cartomantic core of the major card by asking about its function, not its symbolism.
To do this we ask one question of the card; “What does it do for me?”
To make it even easier, you can simply fill in the blank word at the end of this sentence ...
The [major card] makes ... [your word here]
Here are our examples for the majors. It is important that you also ascribe your own functions and words to the cards which will make them even easier to use.
The Fool makes fun
The Magician makes magic
The High Priestess makes mystery
The Empress makes plenty
The Emperor makes tracks
The Hierophant makes tradition
The Lovers makes union
The Chariot makes tracks
Strength makes endurance
The Hermit makes his way
The Wheel makes movement/revolution
Justice makes laws
The Hanged Man makes sacrifice
Death makes transformation
Temperance makes tolerance
The Devil makes mischief
The Tower makes change
The Star makes clarity
The Moon makes reflection
The Sun makes will
Judgment makes awareness
The World makes evolution
In completing that simple sentence, you automatically, naturally, quickly, and easily communicate with the archetype, tune into it, condense everything you have learnt about the card, and discover the core of it—the function.
The function of the archetype illustrated by the Magician is to carry “magick” in the world and our relationship to it. The function of the archetype that is illustrated b
y the Tower is to hold all notions, concepts, and examples of “sudden change” or shock.
Now that we have created this simple sentence, we can apply it straight to any mundane question by asking:
What action would make the same thing as the card?
If I pulled the Magician, I would have to ask: What action (buying a new car or keeping my current car) would also make magick?
To me, making magick is about changing things at the very least, so that function would be served by buying a new car. The fact that Mercury corresponds to the Magician backs that up, but is not necessary to know.
If I got the Devil card for the same question, I would realise that keeping my current car would be quite mischievous, rather than buying something brand new and obvious. The fact that the Devil has chains and signifies something we are attached to is useful but not necessary to know.
For you, it might be the other way around, but this method is about your relationship to the universe through the archetypes, so you go with whatever words you have set and your interpretation.
Go through the majors first and write down what each one makes, as we have given above: “this [card] makes ... [your word].” Then having fixed your answers, think of a question, pull a card from the majors only, and choose the action that will also function to make the same thing—you will have your answer. This simple method will also help you practice for when major arcana turn up in a general spread for other mundane matters.
Whilst we are dealing with majors, there is one major card that often causes issues in readings and for new students, so we will briefly consider the Death card and then move on to other methods of reading from the whole deck.
How the Time Traveller Deals with Death
When we consider the Death card in any reading, over time we have learnt to deliver it in terms of its role as “transformation” in the functions of the majors, as we have seen in the previous exercise.