Stoicheion-Somata Tarot

By Christine Payne-Towler
ArkLetter 33, December 9,  2007

I participated in a most interesting conversation a few weeks ago.  It encapsulated phenomena that have appeared over and over in my life, but never in quite such sharp focus. Perhaps because I've gotten older now, this unique perspective is becoming more available to me.

My friend, who is a very culturally attuned, multidimensional person, was telling me that Astrology is based on science (meaning carefully recorded observations gathered over time), but that it was at this point mired in a morass of ancient superstitions that are holding it back. ...

My mind reeled to hear this point made so forcefully to my face, since I've been an astrologer myself since the 1970's and have seen the profession rocket forward in time at tremendous speed. What of computer programs that instantly calculate charts with the precision of NASA? What about the discovery of the Outer Planets  (well, let's just call Pluto a gravity-body) and the consequences of adding them to the traditional heliocentric model? What about astro-cartography, asteroids, and all the other new bells and whistles that have become available now that Eastern and Western methods are being studied together? This is not to mention the amazing convergence of ancient astrology and Internet culture!  My eyes rolled up in my head...

But rather than argue, I thought  -- in what way is this opinion correct? What is the core science that Astrology rests on, and what is the astral junk it has collected? Am I capable of seeing the difference?

The answer to this question has been hovering at the fringes of my thinking for years, but it took this conversation and several weeks of mulling over this article to bring it all into focus.  Now I've got a meta-agenda running under my goal to write up these relationships: It's not enough just explain what they were -- it's also necessary to attempt to explain why they are relevant for people to work with today.

Taking the Catelin Geofroy Tarot as our time-marker

Readers who have been following these essays serially know that last summer I challenged myself to create a set of quarter-yearly dissertations on the 'internal content' contained within the {(21+1) + ((10+4) x4)} structure of the standard Tarot pack. For the sake of not driving myself crazy, I'm breaking up the 78-card deck into the Trumps and the Pips and dealing with one 'pack' per essay. 

Last quarter I presented a theory about the Lazzarelli Trumps. This quarter I will be explicating the Elemental world-view that permeates the standard, classic European (post-Mamluk) pips pack. I'll be keeping an eye towards the pips' possible use as a diagnostic and remedial tool for healers and alchemists in the orbit of our Renaissance magi. Standing firmly in the footsteps of Agrippa and Paracelsus, we will examine how the 56-card pack quintessentializes the ancient scheme of the Cosmos and puts it into flash-card form.

I specify that we are using the European pips rather than the Mamluk set, because I'm including the unique fourth Royals, the Queens. This dates my theoretical Tarot user to the time when block-printed packs became an item of European commerce. We know that the Catelin Geofroy Tarot demonstrates the Trump ordering we now call the Marseilles order, and is tentatively dated 1557. So that's where I'm locating my temporal focus, in the wake of Agrippa and the milieu of Paracelsus, the two most well-known 'traveling salesmen' of the occult paradigm (short of the myth of Faust, that is.)

These two individuals became figureheads in the quest to wring practical and useful information from the mass of superstition that smothered the ancient, inherited Elemental and Astral Science.  It looks to me as if Agrippa collected and collated a vast swath of Europe's multicultural, ancestral 'magical' inheritance, whereas Paracelsus winnowed it down again and refocused the goals. What Paracelsus didn't reject outright as humbug, he redefined more solidly towards a coherent form of astro-alchemical medicine that has its roots in the Hermetic Cosmos yet is fiercely anti-superstitious (in the sense of challenging received wisdom that doesn't produce proven results). To my mind, then, this gives us a great 'moment in time' from which to gain perspective on both the classical esoteric tradition, and the birth of the modern mind.

Any contemporary person who followed the work of one or the other of these seminal figures (and they both had students in multiple towns) was entirely free to project their learning onto this pack of flash-cards. The pack of cards available at the time was quite conveniently constructed to make it easy to do exactly that.

Operating from within the worldview of a person in Paracelsus' time and general cultural matrix, the question driving this investigation is: Which values would have to be programmed into a Tarot deck to make it function as a broad-spectrum diagnostic and remedial tool for assessing constitutional imbalances and determining suitable remedies?

Astrology, the Mother of the Mysteries

Envision a bull's eye with horizon and meridian lines: The horizon is "time", as in the March of Esoteric Transmission from Antiquity to the present. Meanwhile, the nadir heads straight down into elemental magic and the midheaven heads straight up into Astronomy.  This is like a dowsing tool -- anywhere where Astronomy and Elemental Magic meet, you will find a Priesthood (or a branch of the Orders) working at that intersection.

Because the sky is shared by all human societies, and because all the ancient deities are versions of the Sun, Moon and Planets (protagonists in the various sacred dramas), Astrology emerges as the common denominator of all the different Temple cultures around the world. The twelve signs, the seven visible planets, the ascendant and midheaven, the nodes of the Moon; these are common possessions, which then every different culture embroiders over to suit their national temperament.

Many, many lifetimes have been spent all over the world in every era, watching the cycles' interactions and attempting to distill the fundamental operative principles that govern the system. Astronomy (the mathematical art, as opposed to Astrology, the interpretation of these movements' meanings for humans) is the mother of all the sciences, and the astronomical capability of a given civilization gives a reliable indicator about the level of sophistication (in the sense of 'grasp on reality') that a culture has attained. 

We all know that the modern view of the mechanics of the solar system is vastly updated compared to the ancient understanding. Nevertheless, it’s important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Even without knowing why things were working the way they do, our ancestors (the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Hindus, the Maya, every Temple-building society) were using mathematical analysis of direct heavenly observations, collating them alongside the corresponding outcomes that were witnessed in nature and culture. The professional class (the priests at the astronomical temples) collected the data over hundreds and hundred of years. The time-scale involved allowed these professional analysts to evaluate and interpret the fruits of their observations across many cycles. Each culture's mythic stories are, to a large degree, astrological instruction pieces, intended to encapsulate the wisdom of Time and cycle in terms relevant to that ecosystem.  Therefore, make no mistake, there is information built into this system that we could still take advantage of, because we still live under the same sky. Like our ancestors we remain, waxing and waning through the same unfolding of Moons, seasons, and signs...

Precession of the Equinoxes

Over the last several thousand years, the earthly tilt relative to the anciently named constellations of the Milky Way has shifted. This is called the Precession of the Equinoxes, and it means that the first day of spring (hence the entire calendar of the year) is slowly and steadily ticking away from the alignments that were platted out and taken as fundamental during the era in which humanity's first calculations were undertaken.

Throughout  the unfolding time (at least six millennia now) since the Signs were named and regularized, the astrologers of the East chose to keep their observations glued to the constellations (in effect viewing what is "coming down from the sky"), whereas the astrologers of the West have followed the Earthly observation of the actual Solstices and Equinoxes as they precess and fluctuate away from the ancient markers. To laypersons this situation might seem to create a conflict about 'which method is correct'. However, the Esoteric Paradigm discriminates these things not to set them against each other's throats, but instead to represent different realms of appreciation and application.

Those who would like to try and stretch their minds around a very large view of the interrelatedness of these divergent approaches can follow Robert Hand and investigate the work of Antony Damiani.  His book Astronoesis; Philosophy's Empirical Context, Astrology's Transcendental Ground is a masterpiece, and a beautiful book to read and view as well.  For our purposes it is enough to highlight the oldest and least-controversial bedrock of the astrological paradigm, which has never been lost or forgotten east or West. Some cultures might have remained in ignorance of the niceties of other cultures' astrological analyses, but both East and West agree on the fundamentals I will now be discussing.

The Stoicheia-Somata-Schema

Thinking of elements as "suits" or "substances" in the modern sense is not the way to approach the core characteristics of the ancient Stoicheia (shapes or forms) whose combinations make up the Elements (Somata). It is better to consider the ancient Four as representing different primal qualities or approaches towards being, action and expression. Each Stoicheion elaborates the behavior and consequences expressive of its own Nature. These inherent qualities then combine in various ways with each other to create the manifestations and effects we experience here in the world. [see  http://www.friesian.com/elements.htm]

As the website's writer Kelly L. Ross, PhD. demonstrates, the ancient discussion about the elements, after long intergenerational argument, resolved down to two primary descriptions. The Aristotelian worldview was derived from the theory of elaborated opposites, much like the yin/yang theory of the Taoists, or the Gnostic Hypostases of the Pleroma. Qualities of reality were understood to manifest in pairs, each half at the far opposite ends of the territory they mutually define.

An easy way to illustrate this principle is to employ nature's changes through the seasons, which are qualified by the interwoven states of matter -- hot and cold, wet and dry. All the states of external and internal weather, including psychological temperament, were understood as combinations of these four qualities -- Earth is cold/dry; Fire is warm/dry; Water is cold/wet; Air is warm/wet.  The four thusly-derived Elements correspond to four substances in the body that must be balanced for an individual to experience health and well being. 

In the medieval alchemical and medical diagrams we regularly see the Signs and Elements interwoven around the four directions, with notations about the states of matter and the modes of the elements added in. Diagrams like these are offered to assure the reader that we are not stretching for exotic or hidden values when citing these correspondences at the "cubic" elemental and zodiacal foundation for the healing work of our alchemical magi.

What can be forgotten as we view these images, however, is that a whole subculture of Pythagorean and Platonic philosophers were standing within that Aristotelian equals-and-opposites model.  The miracle is, they did not let this fixed view of reality stop them from visualizing Harmonic (Platonic, musically-rationated) theories governing the interactions between the Stoicheia. A modern scholar of musical mysticism, Joscelyn Godwin, has meticulously documented the writings of this stream of thinkers, making it clear that the people who elaborated the theory of magic for the Renaissance (and have come down in history as exemplars of the practice) were also employing Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy in their base principles.

It seems as if, though standing within the static Aristotelian grid (or chessboard) of fixed opposites held in tense square with each other, the Platonic philosophers animated the scheme of the Elements by emphasizing the multidimensional, transformational characteristics of the Platonic Solids.  Plato might not have been technically correct about the 'shapes' of individual atoms or molecules (though as Kelly notes, his ideas were really very modern at root).

Nevertheless he was onto something when it came to helping humanity visualize the quality of each Stoicheia's mathematically attuned 'shape' and thus their ultimate effect upon the elements in aggregation. When understood as modalities of activation, it is much easier to envision how the ceaseless recombinant nature of the three "original" elements Fire, Water and Air keep up the perpetual motion and vitality to prevent the composite element Earth from settling forever into cubic inertia.

Platonic number theology

If you checked out that link I just pointed you to, you will see that the discussion about the Elements always proceeds from the motive to discover what the world "is"; the quest for a description of the fundamentals of matter and materialization. A favorite method used to organize early pre-scientific thinking was to seek out the first and foremost 'thing behind all things’, which could be pointed to as an origin-point. Different ancient philosophers seized upon different 'elements' as their cornerstone in their search for the primordial reality.

Before people can even argue about something, they need to have hammered out some core concepts that are held in common. The same thing had to happen in the case of these slippery, pre-manifestation theories and ideas.  One cognitive strategy, popular in the East but expressed for the first time in the West by a mathematical philosopher named Pythagoras, analogized the creation of the world with the unfolding of the whole numbers, one from the next. By moving from whole to whole to define the Harmonic Sequence (without thought for fractions -- as happens when viewing a rainbow or singing a scale), Pythagoras was able to express a philosophy that highlighted the regularity and efficiency of Nature in her core constructive ways.

Following this line of thought, the concept of One is given the meaning of Monad, conceived as the all-inclusive primordial Unity that existed before Wisdom (Logos or Sophia) was separated out from the Divine Mind. In this state, everything and the potential for everything resides within the formless, shapeless, qualityless Singleton.   Another name for this would be the Pleroma, the Unmanifest or All-One.

In order for manifested reality to appear, however, the Pleroma or Monad has to open or split, and give forth from its eternally pregnant but sealed state. This must be done in order to pour out all the potentials of the infinite creation for actualization, giving us the world as we experience it now. Something had to happen for One/All to break apart into the many different 'things' and lives that now predominate in time/space.

The necessary change of state came to be attributed to the action of two governing principles that between them rule the world, anciently termed Love and Strife. One early philosopher who attempted to articulate this doctrine was Empedocles, who lived half a millennium before the Christian era, however, the idea was probably not new even then. This is one of many ways to say that in this world there appears to be both a force for health and a force for disease; a force for evolution and a force for devolution; a force for unification and a force for diversification; ultimately a force for life and a force for death.  From here humanity gets its basic understanding of good and evil, at least in relation to ourselves.   

From this initial division in the One, this fateful split of the atom (atman, Adam), are born all of the numbers in their turn. Ultimately the binary split sets the stage for every expanded dimension, every geometrical and mathematical principle, upon which the full and final manifestation is hung.   It is for this reason that Pythagoras determined that whereas One means the Fullness and Wholeness (and therefore is not a number, since the Monad transcends any division), the number 2, by contrast, expresses the process of breakdown out of that fullness (or reunification back into it again). Thus it was taught that 2 could not be considered a true number either, since it's always in the midst of a changeover between the All and some lesser quantity, acting much more like a verb than a noun. By necessity, then, 3 becomes the first  "real" number, representing an actual amount, indicating a unique variety or multiplicity of items.  (This can be a difficult concept to envision at first, trained as we are to think of numbers as ceaselessly increasing rather than being smaller and smaller divisions of the Whole.)

From here we can see how at first the Greek philosophers limited their idea of the authentic (unmixed, hence 'pure' in the sense of 'virtual' or 'theoretical') Elements to the number Three (fire, water, air). Astrology uses the number three as well, to describe the elemental modes Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable.

The Kabala uses the number 3 to indicate the three so-called Mother Letters, which form the three horizontal bars marking the planes or levels in the Kabalistic Tree (a Western Chakra model). Alchemy uses the concept 3 to express its three principles, termed Mercury, Sulphur and Salt. Sacred Geometry enshrines the 3 in the Triangle.

In practice, the mixed element Earth must be factored in, appearing as the result of the densification of the original Three by admixture with each other. This gives the world four (manifested, tangible) elements, all nested into each other in an infinite array of variations. It is easy to see the principle of Four manifested everywhere around us -- the elements of Astrology, the suits of Tarot, and the four successively denser Worlds of the Kabala Tree.  Four is the stage of the Cube, material and solid, the most stable, unmoving structure of them all. Four is the Directions, and the natural unfoldment of the Seasons. Four is the base of the Pythagorean Tetractys, an extremely recondite and cunning symbol of complexity built from simplicity. 

Then again, if Aethyr is also enlisted, to represent the transcendental Element, then that makes 5 elements now, and the world has grown commensurately.  As Ross reminds us, eventually the Element Aethyr was added to the roster to signify all things heavenly or "Celestial", partaking of a nature that was not limited to the forms and actions of the sublunar Elements. We would nowadays qualify this with the word Astral, meaning "made of the substance of the stars", representing the "energy body" which radiates out from the physical body and is in communication with the whole Cosmos. Let it also be noted that division of the 360-degree circle by 5 and 10 produces the angles of 72 degrees and 36 degrees respectively. These angles are the key to producing the mathematically amazing, visually dazzling, celestially attuned mosaics of Islamic architecture.  If we ever need a tangible reminder of the spirit, essence, and energy of 5-ness, the art of Islam can offers endless inspiration.

The concept of a 5-element universe allows for the final "suit" of the Tarot cards -- the Trumps. It also suggests the presence of a special force or charisma that enlivens the 4-elements world with depth, psyche, or soul -- in short, the invisible component of human consciousness.  The theological explanation for this would be that because we are "made in God's image", we also then possess our own individual measure of transcendental purity and potency. Acknowledging the existence of Aethyr also explains the invisible populations of angels and archangels, as well as the 'shadow' beings that exist in the demonic realms. Hence the number 5 has specific relevance to the challenge facing our kind while living in the time/space world. Our five-ness as humans (five digits per hand and foot, five senses, five appendages define the body) implies that we should understand ourselves to be "in the world (4), but not of it (1)". Additionally, the envisioning of 5 elements lines us up with Hindu and Chinese medicinal/elemental theory as well, opening up further worlds of correspondences for meditation.

I take the time to note out these permutations because we will be carrying the individual meanings of the numbers along with us as we unfold the system we are looking at. Number theory provides an aid to deriving increased meaning from the numbered Pips in our Stoicheion Tarot, as in all others. It is not a contradiction to say that the numbers three, four, and five all comprise different aspects of the elements. If we can hearken back to the oldest ideas about these things, we will remember that the reference for the world Stoicheia was originally a process, mode of action or style of manifestation, rather than a "thing" in the sense we now look for. 

We will also remember that those processes express first in the "pure" and unmixed state of distinct differentiation (3), but have their manifestation in the mixed and blended material world (4), which is meanwhile the reflection or reflexive response to the supernal realm (5).  We will pick up the rest of the number sequence later in the article, but these concepts are shared here so the reader can align their understanding with the unfolding numbers on the pip cards as we go along.

For those who would like to follow up further on this line of thinking, I would recommend the book The Theology of Arithmetic, translated by Robin Waterfield. This is a work attributed to Iamblichus (4th cent. AD), which has helped shaped the thinking of mathematical philosophy right through the Renaissance and beyond. Also, if one has either a copy of Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy [book online here], or else the magical compendium The Magus by Frances Barrett at hand, (which was taken partially from Agrippa), then one can examine the tables Agrippa put together to explain all the correspondences of each Number to the many layers and permutations of the world

Zodiacal Constitution and Temperament; The Somata in Action.

Now that we see how the Stoicheia produced the Somata, which are distributed to create our world, let's look at the Astrological system that expresses all these potentials in action.

The Zodiac of Signs or Constellations subdivides naturally into several innate groupings governed by the phrase 3x4. The component of 4 in this equation is the Four Somata/Elements; Fire, Air, Water and Earth.  The component of Three in this equation is the Three Modes through which the Elements express themselves around the year. The three modes open, sustain, and then complete each season -- Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable. The interweaving of the four elemental triangles through the three modes is what gives the each sign of the zodiac its characteristic flavor.

As we can see, the

• Fire signs are Aries (cardinal), Leo (fixed), and Sagittarius (mutable).
• Water signs are Cancer (cardinal), Scorpio (fixed) and Pisces (mutable)
• Air signs are Libra (cardinal), Aquarius (fixed), and Gemini (mutable)
• Earth signs are Capricorn (fixed), Taurus (fixed) and Virgo (mutable)

Each element begins its own season, which is the definition of the word Cardinal. Fiery Aries starts spring, watery Cancer starts summer, airy Libra opens fall and earthy Capricorn inaugurates winter.

The fixed signs follow the cardinal signs and hold down the center of the season. Fixed Fire is Leo, fixed Water is Scorpio, fixed Air is Aquarius, and fixed Earth is Taurus.

The Mutable signs finalize each season -- they erode and wear away the effects of the fixed sign that they follow. In this third and final mode, the season's qualities are already mutating to make way for the upcoming solstice/equinox. Mutable Fire is Sagittarius, mutable Water is Pisces, mutable Air is Gemini, and mutable Earth is Virgo.

There's an additional detail that is relevant to include in this review: at 15 degrees of each fixed sign, the ancient world would hold festivals that marked the halfway points between the Solstices and Equinoxes. The resulting eight-spoke Wheel is not only a meter of the seasonal cycle but is also a mirror of the compass as well as the eight stages of the moon in her cycle.

Projecting the Foregoing upon the Cards

We must remember that everything I have mentioned so far was in place for the Italian Renaissance and the subsequent cultural revolution across Europe. This model of the universe, known as the Hermetic Cosmos, emanated from the Babylonian culture of deep Antiquity and traveled around the world, informing astronomers and navigators East and West. We see it all delineated in Agrippa, and taken quite for granted by Paracelsus. We will go on to reveal deeper dimensions of the system in subsequent sections, but it is salient to note that the concordance of the Mysteries across multiple disciplines had already been revealed in Europe before the Renaissance, by the gradual seepage of Hebrew, Arabic, Egyptian, Persian and Indian learning into Europe after the Crusades.

That being said, it is no difficult matter to see that the structure of the Pips pack in the European Tarots lends itself to receiving projections from Elemental Astrology and the other Mysteries. It has already been noted in other contexts that the Tarot Trumps seem to be innately receptive to projection of the Hebrew Alphabet upon them. Just so, the 56-pack 4-suited collection of Pips by its very design possessed an affinity to receiving astrological projections as well. 

The rest of this article will demonstrate the elemental system in its purest form, with the goal of distributing the resulting values around the Pips pack of Tarot in this way:

•     Suits as the Somata, signifying the interpenetrated '4 worlds’ of blended elementals (as in the interpenetrating Trees of Kabala)
•    Ace as the Pure Element in its undivided nature (1st decan of Cardinal sign), 10’s as the full Elemental Trines in expression
•     Royals of King, Queen and Horseman hold the human Personalities of the Signs
•     The Pages serve as messengers of change at the Solstice/Equinox points   (this becomes the "extra" royal once the Queens are added to the pack)

The Ladder of Lights and the Essential Dignities

Superimposed upon the Zodiac Wheel, inherent in the pattern of rulerships governing the planets in the signs, we find the Ladder of Lights. This model, immortalized in the Hebrew sacred literature but actually much older, is equally present in both the Sidereal (constellational, Eastern) and Tropical (seasonal, Western) branches of Astrology. This construct illustrates and justifies the ancient matrix of rulerships, exaltations, debilities and detriments that characterize the planets' interactions as they move through the signs of the zodiac.

First of all, notice how the diagram is oriented. The crown of the diagram is the line between the signs Capricorn and Aquarius. Similarly, the base of the diagram rests between Cancer and Leo. The cusps Aries/Taurus and Libra/Scorpio mark the horizon. In between, the Mutable Square of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius occupy the midpoint of each quadrant.  This is the map of the sky as envisioned by the Ancients, before the dynamics of the Precession of the Equinoxes split Astrology into Eastern and Western schools of practice.

Now notice the crossbars that link the two sides of the diagram left to right. At the bottom is the bar between Cancer and Leo. Above that is the bar between Gemini and Virgo. Next up is between Taurus and Libra, and above that between Aries and Scorpio. The next-to-last in this rising sequence is the Pisces/Sagittarius bar, and finally the Aquarius-Capricorn bar. These are the steps of the Ladder of Lights.

Those who already have some astrology under their belts might recognize that what we have here is a key to the planets' rulership of the signs. Except the Sun and Moon, who each rule one sign only, the rest of the Planets have two signs each to rule, one considered the daytime domicile and the other considered the nighttime domicile.

The overall pattern goes like this:  Moon rules Cancer from the day side of the zodiac, while the Sun rules Leo from the night side. Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo, and Venus rules Taurus and Libra. Mars rules both Aries and Scorpio, while Jupiter rules both Pisces and Sagittarius. Saturn rules both Capricorn and Aquarius. (There are no outer planets in this system, because all of this was recorded and compiled from naked-eye observation. If you imagine a ladder rising through the signs, the two "feet" or supports for it are the Sun and Moon.  The diurnal (daytime) signs run from Aquarius down to Cancer moving sunwise, while Leo to Capricorn is the circuit of the nocturnal signs.  The planets can be seen to "rise on the ladder" in the order of the length of their orbits.

This Ladder is the structure that the soul is supposed to climb (perhaps many times, through many lifetimes) to learn the necessary lessons that will ultimately liberate it from being in thrall to the Planets and their realms in the zodiac. With enough time and experience, a soul born into flesh ("through the womb of woman", Cancer) can eventually become enlightened enough that even Saturn, guard of the Ring Pass Not at the edge of the visible solar system, will allow the soul to pass on, away from all responsibility to a body or a presence in time and space  -- the final jumping-off point being, supposedly, Capricorn.

From this characterization, a number of Astrology's fundamentals have been derived.  For example, each of the classical aspects, even the ones considered "malevolent", has their basic natures dictated by their similitude to the positions on the Ladder.  (For the following, I am indebted to the astrological scholar Demetra George, whose unceasing labors, along with those of her compatriots are unearthing the bedrock of Greek Astrology after two millennia.)

To make a little tour of the process, position yourself in Leo, with the Sun. Moving sunwise to the next rung of the ladder takes you to a Mercury sign, and makes an arc of 30 degrees. The Ancients considered it a debility when a planet falls into a house one sign ahead or behind of its own, and so this 30 degree aspect (called a semisextile) was not used. This same attitude extends to the planet Mercury, who was considered a trickster, shape-shifter and unreliable character-- no planet to count on.

Move sunwise another sign and you are on the Venus rung, marking a 60-degree arc (called a sextile) from the Sun. This aspect is considered harmonious, fortunate, and benign. Rise on the ladder another rung and you are on the Mars rung, at 90 degrees away from your original position. This type of aspect (a square) is considered harsh, confrontational, stressful, full of friction and combative (and now you know why). Another rung up the ladder and you are on the Jupiter bar, making a 120-degree aspect, known as a trine. This is a largely fortunate, bountiful, easygoing expansion of all good things, as befits the jovial ruler.

One more rung up the ladder and we hit the Saturn rung, marking the 150 degree aspect which, like the 30-degree aspect, was considered so unfortunate that it was largely blacklisted or counted as a deficit. This accords perfectly with the perceived nature of Saturn, the Lord of Obstacles and administrator of our karma, who imposes limitations and enforces penalties.  Those who cannot pass Saturn's tests will "fall" back down into incarnated life again and have to start on the Wheel of Souls for one more round...  (And now do you see a little further into the Wheel of Fortune card, my friends?)

Note that the exact same relationship applies when starting from the Moon and climbing anti-sunwise through the signs to Aquarius.  Looked at this way, the zodiac is constructed like a clamshell with the Lights at the hinge -- the Moon stabilizing the Day signs and the Sun grounding the Night signs.

Similars and Opposites, the classic Sympathies and Antipathies

In the construct of the Ladder of Lights, the crossbars or rungs connect the signs with each other according to a property called "similars", which is to say "in sympathy with each other".  Pisces is a similar of Sagittarius because they are both domiciles of Jupiter. Just so, Capricorn and Aquarius are similars, Scorpio is sympathetic with Aries, Libra and Taurus are similars, Virgo is sympathetic with Gemini. Cancer and Leo are similars in a special-case, limited sort of way, as these two are both Lights, though they are not identical.  A planet is strengthened when it is in either of its natural domiciles. According to the tenants of Paracelsian astral medicine, these pairs are the mitigating sympathies, which provide the healing of homeopathic medicine to each other in a gentle, nurturing manner. There's a comfort there that is supportive and complimentary.  This would constitute one way that a planet can be "dignified" by placement in the chart.

On the other hand, there are signs whose rulers have polarizing effects on each other, and these signs are seen as opposites, antipathies of contraries. (This is not the same thing as the astrological aspect called the Opposition, though that will come up soon in its own category.) In this paradigm of alchemical relationship, the contraries or antipathies were considered yin/yang of each other, being inverse/obverse or mirror images, like any divine pair (Shiva/Shakti). 

The signs that pair off this way use the Aries/Taurus cusp as their line of cleavage; Aries/Taurus, Pisces/Gemini, Aquarius/Cancer, Capricorn/Leo, Sagittarius/Virgo, and Scorpio/Libra.  These planets would be called into play to exert an equal and opposite influence on their contrary signs, in effect damping, quenching or neutralizing them.  This is the method of allopathic medicine -- hit the disease with its opposite and try to suppress or extinguish it.  At best, the extremes of the contraries can be calmed and completed through balanced application of their opposite, much like compatible spouses do for each other. Unfortunately, there are other times when the same combination will cut a turbulent, confrontational or downright violent path towards a cure.  It is not hard to see the fingerprints of the adversarial side of this model in our modern "war on drugs", "war on cancer", "war on poverty".

In general, we have to be careful with attributing the modern definitions of opposition and antipathy to these pairs. This pattern is another iteration of the three rectangles within the Ladder of Lights diagram -- the Saturn/Lights rectangle, the Mars/Venus rectangle, and the Jupiter/Mercury rectangle.   We can also find this pattern on the Kabala Tree, in the arrangement of the six planets clustered around Tifaret, the Sun.

Note that Mars crosses the Sun to pair with Venus, Jupiter crosses the Sun to pair with Mercury, and Saturn crosses the Sun to pair with the Moon.  This is also the pattern being referred to wherever you see this glyph:  ((7-pointed trident centered on the Sun - 12)) Therefore these associations of planets are normal to find in multiple disciplines, being applied for varying reasons. These relationships are not like light switches, with just "on" or "off" for the choice of setting!

I first encountered this arrangement in a small pamphlet on Esoteric Astrology that I have long since lost, to my great dismay through the years.  At the time I thought the Ladder of Lights was a modern construct, because the three Outer Planets had been added to the ancient diagram to harmonize with the planetary pairs.  (In that presentation, Pluto overlights the Mars/Venus rectangle, Neptune overlights the Jupiter/Mercury rectangle, and Uranus overlights the Saturn/Lights rectangle.)  It was a long time before I realized that the Ladder itself was very old, so old that both eastern and western astrologers have forgotten and remembered it multiple times. Wherever you see these standard pairings being employed within the esoteric disciplines, you can know that the underlying teaching being conveyed is grounded in the ancient Hermetic Cosmos and is the key to the healing art of astrological alchemy.

The Detriments

A planet is in a detrimental state when it makes an opposition with its domicile, marking 180 degrees of distance (exactly opposite the zodiac from its home). A Planet in its detriment is constrained or limited in its powers.  This type of interaction was more of a focus for the Tropical astrologers than the Siderialists. Tropical astrology teaches that the rulers of opposing signs are challenging rather than complimentary, thus antagonistically pulling in opposite directions more easily than finding common ground for cooperation. This rule makes for fascinating ponderation when you realize that  (again) the planetary groups defined by the signs in 180-degree opposition are the very same groups that are considered complimentary opposites above!  By this I mean we are again looking at versions of the Mars/Venus association, the Jupiter/Mercury association, and the Saturn/Lights association.  How can these things be both married to each other (yin/yang of each other) and detrimental to each other at the very same time?

Clearly, what is going on here is that there are ways that these combinations of planets can be good for each other, and other ways in which they are challenging to each other. No planet wants to relate with its domicile by opposition, for example, but it happens several times per cycle for every planet nevertheless. Meanwhile, even the uncomfortable 30-degree aspect can be temporarily redeemed if the planets ruling the Saturn/Lights or Mars/Venus rectangles choose to play nice and enjoy each other's closeness. Given the nest of attractive-but-challenging considerations that we find in our ancient Ladder of Lights diagram, it becomes more understandable why the science of astronomy had to be partnered with the mystic art of divination (astrology) before these constantly moving interrelationships could be defined and evaluated. It takes a mathematical mind *and* the sensitivity of a mystic to apprehend the nuances of difference between a prickly relationship that creates positive, strengthening results versus a prickly relationship that will cut at cross purposes to the native's needs and goals. 

Exaltations and Falls

Another form of dignity is called "Exaltation", and a planet opposed its exaltation would be at its "Fall", as in exile or banishment from one's native land. One could liken these relationships to those of peak and trough, like the position of the two characters on the Wheel of Fortune who occupy the high and low points on the Wheel. In Vedic astrology the "Fall" is called "Debilitation". This pattern can be mapped upon the zodiac like so and condensed into a Lunar Trident. 

These two diagrams were pointed out to me by my Vedic astrology consultant and dear friend, Willa Keizer.  

The archetypal pattern that sets the Exaltations and Falls in place can be traced from the natural domiciles of the Sun and Moon.  If we place ourselves in the position of Moon in Cancer, we can see that the Moon is Exalted in Taurus, two signs back. Then, looking from the position of the Sun in Leo, facing the same direction, we see the Sun exalted in Aries. Jumping up the diagram, we can also see that Saturn is exalted in Libra and Mars is exalted in Capricorn. 

All in One Diagram

• Similars = blue
• Complimentary opposites = orange
• Detriments =  brown (Pisces/Virgo line is also a Fall)
• Exaltations =  green
• Fall = red (Pisces/Virgo line is also a Detriment)

It seems there is a bias expressed within the Ladder of Lights pattern that flows out from the exaltations of Sun and Moon, to the left and upward. Similarly, when positioned at the Sun's home in Leo, looking up and to the right, we see that the Sun is fallen in Libra, and just the same way, the Moon is fallen in Scorpio. This direction only shows one more repeat, Saturn's fall into Aries (there is no relationship of fallen ness between Saturn in Capricorn and Venus in Taurus). So again, an archetypal pattern emerges from the SoLunar pair that nests into the Ladder of Lights and expresses another subtle quality of relatedness that the ancients followed and employed in various ways:

For an explanation for the entire pattern from the point of Ptolemy, go here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/astro/ptb/ptb25.htm By reading the rules in their original conception we can see the internal logic of the assignments, at least from the point of view of those who were using it.

Let me remark that one doesn't find mysteries of this caliber very often -- even one as accustomed as I to finding amazing cosmic correspondences in the strangest of places. To see this density of information in the seemingly simple zodiacal wheel is a knockout, a true archaeological and anthropological gem.  What kind of effort, undertaken over what length of time, was required to discern this rulership pattern out of the seemingly random movements of disassociated planets wandering around a seemingly arbitrary zodiac? The mind boggles...

I am by no means saying that all of the lines representing Exaltations and Falls are so tidy and orderly by any means. If you draw every instance of every type of Dignity all together, you have an overgrown tangle of too much information.  Even so, an interesting thing happens when we trace out at least the most orderly and archetypal of the Dignities, Detriments, Exaltations and Falls onto the Ladder of Lights.  Let's look and see what there is to see (Click on the All-in-One Composite image above to open in a new window so that you can see the patterns ). 

One thing that stands out very fully to me, as I look over this amazing compilation of information, is that the Mutable Square has a special energy that is very self-referenced compared to the Cardinal and Fixed signs.  The cardinal and fixed signs act like two propellers at work forcing motion and change (action and reaction) into the system through the Mars/Venus pairing and the Saturn/Lights pairing.  Meanwhile the Mutable signs could be likened to the receptive medium in which these actions and reactions are registered, although against inherent resistance (square aspect predominant).

The planet Mercury has been known to show a two-sided nature across the multicultural astrological tradition. This becomes more understandable when we see the manner in which Mercury is structured into our diagram. Mercury and Jupiter are complimentary opposites of each other, giving Jupiter, the Greater Benefic, multiple angles by which to harness or entrain Mercury for partnership action. However, these two can easily have a stressful conversation going between them. This is because the Mutable signs have square aspects to their own and each other's realms all the way around. This impacts each planet in each of its Domiciles, touching even the exaltation of Mercury in Virgo.  Not only that, but Mercury and Jupiter in each other's signs are mutually detrimental. To top it all off, Mercury is fallen in Pisces.  (The line between Virgo and Pisces is both a detriment and a fall -- it's colored red so it will show up as a fall) This is not to mention, or course, Mercury’s three retrogrades per year, a troubling record of waffling.... 

If we were being Aristotelian about it, we would take the position that Jupiter is the 'right hand' in the pair, leaving Mercury to be the 'left hand'. Willa Keizer reminds me "Jupiter and Mercury are two types of teacher-student pairs across from each other in the Zodiac (Gemini/Sagittarius and Virgo/Pisces)." Jupiter has the qualities of joviality, optimism, generosity, and abundance.  A more indulgent teacher we cannot ask for!  Nevertheless, Mercury's perpetual immaturity (lack of fixity) can't always be comfortable with Jupiter as a partner, or for Jupiter as a partner.  Even devoted natural students can prove a trial for their teachers under certain conditions, in particular when the student thinks he knows better than the teacher! 

Bringing in our Platonic and Pythagorean rationating minds, however, and thinking of things in terms of degrees and shades rather than black/white, we can also realize that the quality that makes Mercury slippery and unpredictable is its level of consciousness. Because of his short orbit, Mercury runs circles around all the others save the Moon; he "gets around", so to speak.  Unattached to any given position, his mind flows like quicksilver over, under, around and through whatever he turns his attention to. From ancient times multilingual, and therefore a translator, he has the power to twist and bend the meanings behind speech and writing. He can talk his way into or out of anything, making him a great friend and a fearsome adversary. In fact, Mercury often makes up whole worlds through the fluency of his imagination. Every product of civilization has been embellished to some degree by imagination, which gives Mercury his power to create and destroy on the turn of a phrase. How can the proud teacher not be secretly seduced by the devil's-advocate brashness, even rebelliousness, of his smartest pupil?

I would also like to take a moment to note where Mercury stands in the Kabalistic and Vedic paradigms. These two disciplines have a teaching that parallels each other without showing any apparent awareness of their synchronicity. I mentioned earlier the planetary pairs that emanate out of Tifaret, the heart (sun) center of the Kabalistic Tree. There's another visualization you can see among these same planets arranged around the Sun, which is in Western terms is called the Star of David. 

Here’s how these relationships are stated in Vedic Astrology (quote from Willa Keizer):  "Jupiter is the Greater Benefic and Venus is the Lesser Benefic. Jupiter teaches the Gods or Suras (the Jupiter, Moon, Mars, Sun group) and Venus teaches the demons or Asuras (Venus Mercury Saturn group)” I had to stare at this for a little while before I realized -- Oh yeah!  -- The Jupiter/Mars horizontal bar makes a triangle with the Moon in Yesod, whereas the Venus/Mercury horizontal bar make a triangle with Saturn (in Daath, the "hidden" 11th Sephira at the throat). Again, the Sun centers everything, though the Vedics class it with the Suras, taught by Jupiter. Here we can see that Mercury is classed as one of the demons, again a somewhat ambivalent description, but apparently amenable to edification by Venus.

The Paracelsian homeopaths and subsequent alchemists used the symbol and term Mercury as one descriptor in their triplicity of "philosophical elements" or primal essences, alongside Sulphur and Salt.  These three essences have been analogized to the astrological Mutable, Cardinal and Fixed modes of the elements (Somata), multiplying each element by these three states to explain the temperaments of the 12 Zodiac signs.

Mercury in this sense represents the Mutable state, in that his fluid, shape shifty stream of consciousness transcends the bodily form and the individuality to flow as a great matrix of sentience causing the whole creation to be conscious. Mercury signifies the Divine Life that animates body and psyche in all their manifestations. (In these Paracelsian terms, Sulphur parallels the Cardinal mode and its active qualities; Salt is analogous to Fixity and its dense, immovable qualities.) Therefore we would have to add this inspired aliveness and hyper-sentience to our roster of Mercurial qualities, and grant that in this sense too, Mercury is a fit companion for Jupiter in the work of awakening humanity to the reality of the invisible, spiritual, and energetic realms.

Decans, Horas, and their distribution through the Pips

In the time of Agrippa and Paracelsus, the Zodiac signs were routinely broken down into smaller units, mostly of 5 degrees or 10 degrees each. This makes sense when you figure that global astronomy had developed using ingenious but also somewhat approximate tools. In practice, measuring a point down below its 5-degree area was more trouble than it was worth.  These segments of the signs were granted sub-rulerships by various systems, several of which I discussed in my article about the Shem Angels .

The five-degree angels are called the Shem-ha-meforesh, which have for millennia been considered helpers and guides that humans can turn to in need. The ten-degree segments, on the other hand, were assigned several different orders of rulers depending upon the need of the operant. The rulers were always the Seven Planetary Governors, but they were doled out into different patterns for different uses.  You can see the two primary ways these things were used at the bottom of this page, under the title Hindu Decans and Chaldean Face Rulers.

In my own Tarot experience, I prefer and personally use what are being called here the Hindu Decans. (Legitimate debate exists whether these are Eastern or Western; their time of origin is so old.) In the cited graph the Decans are listed by sign, as in "the first Decan of Aries is ruled by Aries, the second by Leo, and the third by Sagittarius". However, in the west, you'll find this same chart made up in planets, as in "the first Decan of Aries is ruled by Mars, the second by the Sun, and the third by Jupiter". From this and the discussion above, we can see that the practice of mentioning planets and implying signs would be a regular occurrence in the literature. Mars is not just the planet; it's also the arc of energy between Aries and Scorpio.  When one said Jupiter it also lit up both Sagittarius and Pisces in the hearer's mind. (This is the core assumption of a Doctrine of Correspondences -- all things are interconnected, you cannot ever pluck just one string.)

This method of providing rulerships is an extension of the core Stoicheion-Somata-Schema, and therefore it makes a balanced use of the elemental rulers around the zodiac and the cards.   Alternately, the Chaldean 'face rulers" (called the Horas in Vedic astrology) are the standard pattern by which the planetary hours of day and night are distributed around the 24-hour clock. This rulership pattern is primarily used to calculate the timing of rituals astrologically, and in practice the length of the "hours" in the matrix will change in proportion with the shortening and lengthening of the day around the year.  Use of the Horas as rulers of the Pips cards also unfairly privileges Mars over all the other planets, which to my mind is not in keeping with the inherent symmetry of the Ladder of Lights.

The Pips as a Paracelsian Astro-Alchemy Computer

As mentioned in my Shem Angel article, Agrippa teaches both the Hindu and the Chaldean group of decan rulers, so we know that our early Renaissance magi were using this method of dividing the signs of the zodiac into 10-degree segments. Therefore I stayed with that basic format when I was seeking a natural way to distribute the Dignities around the numbered Pip cards.  I am not considering changing or eliminating any meanings that would be traditionally associated with any card due to its number, element, shape, title, or any other detail found in a traditional Marseilles style pack.  However, I am going to propose a body of correspondences that can be added to any regularly structured Pips pack to turn it into a Paracelsian astro-alchemy computer suitable for a magus-healer of the mid-1500's.

In this system, by imitating the 3x3 pattern that carries the Decans/Horas around the Zodiac, we can include all of the natural Stoicheian relationships into the mix. The rule for each sign is:

• 1st decan = Ruling planet in Domicile / rx Ruler in Sympathy
• 2nd decan = Ruler in Antipathy  / rx ruler in Detriment
• 3rd decan = Ruler in Exaltation / rx ruler in Fall

Here is the pattern in full, relating the suits to their elemental trine, rather than by season.
I have also included the Royals, which I disburse as:

Queen=Cardinal,
King=Fixed
Knight=Mutable

Aries        Cardinal Fire -- Queen of Wands
Ace Wands     Mars in Aries        reversed:  Mars in Scorpio
2 Wands     Mars in Taurus        reversed: Mars in Libra
3 Wands    Mars in Capricorn        reversed:  Mars in Cancer

Taurus    Fixed Earth -- King of Coins
4 Coins    Venus in Taurus        reversed:  Venus in Libra
5 Coins    Venus in Aries        reversed:  Venus in Aries
6 Coins    Venus in Pisces        reversed:  Venus in Virgo

Gemini    Mutable Air -- Knight of Swords
7 Swords    Mercury in Gemini        reversed:  Mercury in Virgo
8 Swords    Mercury in Pisces        reversed:  Mercury in Sagittarius
9 Swords    Mercury in Virgo        reversed:  Mercury in Pisces

10 Swords -- Grand Trine in Air
Page of Cups -- announcement of Summer

Cancer    Cardinal Water -- Queen of Cups
Ace Cups     Moon in Cancer        reversed:  Moon in Cancer
2 Cups    Moon in Aquarius        reversed:  Moon in Capricorn
3 Cups     Moon in Taurus        reversed:  Moon in Scorpio

Leo        Fixed fire -- King of Wands
4 Wands    Sun in Leo            reversed:  Sun in Leo
5 Wands     Sun in Capricorn        reversed:  Sun in Aquarius
6 Wands    Sun in Aries            reversed:  Sun in Libra

Virgo        Mutable Earth -- Knight of coins
7 Coins    Mercury in Virgo         reversed:  Mercury in Gemini
8 Coins    Mercury in Sagittarius    reversed:  Mercury in Pisces
9 Coins    Mercury in Virgo        reversed:  Mercury in Pisces

10 Coins -- Grand Trine Earth
Page of Swords -- announcement of Fall

Libra         
Cardinal Air -- Queen of Swords

Ace Swords    Venus in Libra     reversed: Venus in Taurus
2 Swords    Venus in Scorpio       reversed:  Venus in Aries
3 Swords    Venus in Pisces         reversed:  Venus in Virgo

Scorpio   
Fixed Water -- King of Cups

4 Cups    Mars in Scorpio        reversed:  Mars in Aries
5 Cups    Mars in Libra      reversed:  Mars in Taurus
6 Cups    Mars in Capricorn        reversed:  Mars in Cancer

Sagittarius   
Mutable Fire -- Knight of Wands

7 Wands    Jupiter in Sagittarius   reversed:  Jupiter in Pisces
8 Wands     Jupiter in Virgo      reversed:  Jupiter in Gemini
9 Wands    Jupiter in Cancer     reversed:  Jupiter in Aries

10 Wands -- Grand Trine Fire
Page of Coins -- announcement of Winter

Capricorn   
Cardinal Earth -- Queen of Coins

Ace Coins    Saturn in Capricorn    reversed:  Saturn in Aquarius
2 Coins    Saturn in Leo      reversed:  Saturn in Cancer
3 Coins    Saturn in Libra      reversed:  Saturn in Aries

Aquarius   
Fixed Air -- King of Swords

4 Swords    Saturn in Aquarius reversed:  Saturn in Capricorn
5 Swords    Saturn in Cancer     reversed:  Saturn in Leo
6 Swords    Saturn in Libra      reversed: Saturn in Aries

Pisces   
Mutable Water -- Knight of Cups

7 Cups    Jupiter in Pisces     reversed:  Jupiter in Sagittarius
8 Cups    Jupiter in Gemini    reversed:  Jupiter in Virgo
9 Cups     Jupiter in Cancer     reversed:  Jupiter in Capricorn

10 Cups -- Grand Trine in Water
Page of Wands -- announcement of Spring

Following this method:

• The Aces, 4's and 7's retain the power and initiative they generally have in the divinatory pack  (1st term in their ternary -- thesis)
• The 2's, 5's and 8's retain the challenging and confrontational nature they generally have in the divinatory tradition (2nd term in their ternary -- antithesis)
• The 3's, 6's and 9's retain the balanced and optimistic cast they generally have in the divinatory tradition (3rd term in their ternary -- synthesis)
• The 10's represent the full Elemental Trine and all its permutations in expression.

The Queens create
The Kings uphold
The Knights transform
The Pages turn the Wheel of the Year

Let me repeat for emphasis here: This system does not eliminate any other uses that a person might want to put their Tarots to. This is not a proposal requiring that the user throw away everything they have learned to start over from scratch. This system can ride alongside whatever matrix of meanings is already relevant to your Tarot use, be it divinatory, philosophical, psychological, magical or whatever. 

Of course, these correspondences will be difficult to fit onto a deck that has already been so customized by its maker that adding in the Stoicheion-Somata will clash with the already-existing architecture.  For this reason, I recommend finding a truly neutral, universal pack to learn this system with, like one of the old Marseille-style packs or any appealing modern pack that doesn't already have words or astro-glyphs printed on their faces. For that matter, you could take any modern playing-card pack whose designs please you, and use that for this application. That might be a really great way to familiarize yourself with this paradigm, because you won't feel bad about writing on the faces of the cards to make them over as "flash cards".

And if you do start to get results from working with the cards this way, I hope you will come back to this blog and tell us all about it!

Finishing the Numbered Sequence

Now that we have looked over the system carrying the Stoicheia/Somata into the Tarot, it's time to finish up the circuit of the numbers. I left us with the number 5, often thought of as the number of individuation, referencing Akasha or Aethyr, the astral or holographic substrate that projects 'forms' into the materialized world.

The number five bridges between the elementals and the Planets, and indeed, in the Vedic understanding of things, the 5 elements are directly correlated with the Planets (not including the Sun and Moon). Mars is Fire, Agni; Venus is Water, Jala; Jupiter is Akash, Aethyr; Mercury is Earth, Prithvi; Saturn is Air, Vayu.  A very fruitful study can be undertaken on the many subtle permutations of the 5 Elements/Planets, which in Sanskrit are called Tattvahs. Vedic astrology is rich with applications of 5-element theory, some of which would doubtlessly find a good fit with the Tarot if proper attention were paid to the east/west cognates. (Perhaps in a future ArkLetter some of these themes can be explored on their own merits.)

It might feel boggling to have both elements and planets corresponding to the same number, but this is the type of situation that a student of the esoteric paradigm must get used to. Just like we see the Trumps having multiple meanings attached to the same figure (number, title, astrological correspondence, angel of planet or sign, allegorical or mythical story, location on the Kabala Tree, etc.) so also the numbers themselves have accumulated myriad associations through the centuries.

We have to cultivate the attitude of a worker in a science lab, adjusting the focus of her microscope in order to look at the same slide under different levels of magnification. She is not prey to the belief that the different views represent different ‘things’ that must be kept separate! She has gotten used to the fact that there are whole worlds existing at each level of focus, though they all belong to the one thing under examination.  This is the reality of every item we encounter in this world, whether it is materialized as a discernible, distinct object or whether it is a movement of consciousness at the fringes of perception. No single explanation by itself contains the whole truth.  (According to science, it's all process, all the time.)

We have already touched on one aspect of 6, by noting the Star of David figure at the center of the Hebrew Kabala Tree and its distribution of the Planets around the Sun. This is a model of 3x2, the mediated opposites (3) doubled upon itself (2 - male/female) to form a higher-order Yin/Yang (6 - Star of David). Whether one sees 6 as three matching pairs of opposing points around a circle, or two interlaced triangles, the number 6 has long carried associations of musical and vibrational harmony, the union of opposites, the fertilization of yin by yang, and the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. 5-ness still bears the stamp of one's internal, personal reality -- of "individuation”, the "personal soul", the unifying factor that makes a loose and slippery assemblage of elements separate out from the mass and become a unique being of its own. Meanwhile, 6 spreads out into the concept of "the group", a collectivity of sorts, whether a couple, a team, or several generations of a family.  From the point of view of processes, the number 5 might create the first circle, but 6 adds the dimension of depth that defines a cycle, a repeating arc of unique manifestations harmonized by their common points of alignment.

One can also see this cusp between 5 and 6 as a tipping point of sorts in terms of time, since all the cards from Ace to 5 can be read as expressions of the 'now' at various depths, whereas the numbers 6 and above usually imply longer durations, developments that have crossed several stages in coming from the past and moving towards the future. Six has a discernable rhythm -- three above, three below, like the lilt of a waltz. The arithmetic of astrology, one of the remarkable achievements of the Babylonian-Sumerian culture, is sexagesimal, meaning it is built upon 6x10. Ernest G. McClain wrote a mind-expanding book on the arithmetic of the Ancients called The Myth of Invariance; The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato, which I heartily recommend to anybody ready to 'step back and think like the cosmos'. McClain calls the sexagesimal system "probably the most convenient language for acoustical arithmetic the world ever knew until ... late in the nineteenth century".   So the reputation that 6 has for harmony, proportion, and balanced expression is not just a poetic trope, but a hard fact of Nature, anciently observed and still binding today.

The number 7 has a veritable welter of correspondences, most often linked to the 7 Planetary Governors. Here's where we find the lists of planetary metals, animals, herbs, stones, and etcetera.  This time the celestial list includes the Lights, and it forms the logic for naming the seven days of the week: 

• Monday = Moon day,
• Tuesday = Mars day,
• Wednesday, Mercury day,
• Thursday = Jupiter day,
• Friday = Venus day,
• Saturday = Saturn day,
• Sunday = Sun day.

One way of symbolizing 7 is to put a Triangle atop a Cube, showing spirit (triangle) dominating and organizing earth (cube)  7 is also the number of directions present in the Cube of Space, a Kabalistic conception derived from the Tree that visualizes the six faces of a cube -- above, below, left, right, front, back -- with the seventh point at the exact mathematical center.  It is also relevant to note that 7 is a prime number, with all the eccentricities and uniqueness that entails.

For the number 8, let me just take this quote out of Agrippa's chapter XI of Book 2, starting with his very first words on the subject (Tyson ed. p. 281): 

"The Pythagoreans call eight the number of justice, and fullness: first, because it is first of all divided into numbers equally even, viz. into four, and that division is by the same reason made into twice two, viz. by twice two twice; and by reason of this equality of division [2x4], it took to itself the name of Justice, but the other [2x2x2] received the name, viz. of Fullness, by reason of the contexture of the corporeal solidity, since the first makes a solid body." 

Overlooking the tangled ness of the language, the point is made that 8 has a solidity and stability unmatched by any previous number. Illustrated as stacked cubes, it suggests gravity and tensile strength. Illustrated as interlaced cubes, it is the Wheel of Time moving through the quarters and cross-quarters of the year, hence the 'test of time'. Astronomically, the number 8 also references the "eighth sphere" of the Fixed Stars, which was visualized as if it were an esoteric atmosphere surrounding the Sun and all the Planets, populated at its fullest extension by all the constellations of the heavens.  8 is the matrix that proliferates the elemental effects of the Stoicheia-Somata. As I often say when I am reading cards, 8 is where the rubber meets the road.

The number 9 has been held up by many civilizations around the globe as the "perfect number". Nine is the last of the numeric sequence begun at the One or Ace, because after this, the numbers start repeating with 1 at a higher level. (Zero is not a number, having no 'amount' -- Zero is a cipher, a void holding open an empty category.) Being the multiple of 3x3, the number 9 has a symmetry that's unbeatable; in the Theology of Arithmetic, it is said "...it alone of the numbers up to it has a triangular number as its square root" (p. 106). There are 9 Muses according to the ancient Greeks. They are the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory), guardians of all styles and categories of learning, who provide inspiration for all the arts of humanity. The Hebrew teachings possess a 'Kabala of Nine Chambers'; similarly Taoism uses the cube of 9 as a visualization object for consciousness-cultivation. A similar analytical tool used with the Tarot arranges cards into a grid that is oriented horizontally as past, present, future, and vertically as subconscious, conscious, superconscious. In any scheme of the Decans around the Zodiac, there are nine permutations of the three Element rulers per season/suit.   Last century, the Fourth Way school of consciousness pioneered the Enneagram, a tool for understanding relations between nine different personality types, (motivated by 9 instinctual subtypes we all have active within us to various degrees).

The 10 has a huge amount of presence, as the Tree among the Kabalists, the Tetractys among the Pythagoreans, and the Decimal counting system that has organized Eastern minds for numeracy since deep Antiquity.  Without making too big a deal of this topic here (having put a goodly amount of energy into it in my chapters http://www.tarot.com/about-tarot/library/essays/minorarcana and http://www.tarot.com/about-tarot/library/essays/confluence), what we need to remember about 10 is that it completes and 'seals' the circuit of 9, lapping over to the 1 again at the next higher order of reality.

This is why I use the 10's for the elemental Grand Trines as a whole, whereas the previous nine cards in the elemental sequence represent individual stages along the way towards completion. The Ten recapitulates the potential held within the Ace, manifested at its fullest state of actualization.

Where do we use this today?

When all is said and done, the challenge still remains. How is this relevant to the lives we live in 2007 and beyond? Exactly where does this archaic relic intersect with life as lived today?

If I point to the amazing number of dollars spent per year around the world on astrology assessments for personal and business purposes, my remarks can be written off as spoken from inside my own bubble. Adding in the amazing growth of Tarot and other forms of divination still leaves me preaching to the choir. No, we have to look beyond the ghettos of the metaphysicians, beyond the New Age marketplace, out into the ranks of the truly "normal" and the mechanisms by which things are kept that way. Any guesses?  The answer might blow your mind.

The trail of crumbs that makes the connection is the concept of temperaments. Outside of the world of music, who else uses the concept of temperamental types?  It was Carl Jung who did the pioneering work on Paracelsus, highlighting the astrological model and method of classifying personality types and their innate natures. In this case it was not Jung's genius as a psychologist that made the difference, but his curiosity and insight as a researcher in the obscure byways of magic and alchemy. In my opinion it was a loss to humanity that he chose to take the path of "science" instead of following the path laid out by his Renaissance teachers. But such are the paradoxes of history -- we would probably not even know his name if he had gone any other route.

Have you guessed it yet?  It's the Meyers-Briggs personality test .    http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Just this week I have had two different friends heap glowing praise on this test, saying they have been learning amazing things about their style and that of their mate by sharing and comparing the results of their tests.  Plus, we all know this tool as the mother of all assessment paradigms in the workplace. (Is there an organization so retrograde, so feudal, that they have never resorted to this tried-and-true model at some point in their development?)  We are talking mainstream here. Millions and millions of people have been through this grid, and most of them have learned something new about themselves in the process.

Do not ask me "how it works".  I live so far inside the model that the question is not even ask-able.  I have been metaphysically inclined since before I was an adult, so there is very little of my life that was lived without the 4 suits/elements structuring and organizing my thinking for me.  The questions that I ponder go like this:  How was this discovered/derived? How did it get into human hands? Is this model -- the sexagesimal math, the 12 signs within 360 degrees, the rulership pattern of the Planets -- of early human invention? Or was this "given" by outside sources -- extraterrestrials, fallen angels or even our own future selves? 

Barring answers, what we can know is "it is here, and it describes our experience plenty well." To our knowledge, this paradigm has been with humanity since Babylon (laws codified 18th cen. BC), from which the model traveled all around the world. The mathematics and their interpretive dynamics have been tested and refined through residency in every nation and application to every cultural psyche, and we have yet to outgrow it or leave it behind. Matter of fact, we keep finding ways to expand upon it and update it for new application.  I'd say the model has a basis in 'Reality' (whatever that is) though we have yet to fully fathom the mechanism that enforces it. There are those who feel that "belief" in models like this is an outmoded superstition.  But to my mind, belief that this model represents merely "superstition" is, itself, a superstition!

Some Image Refs FYI:

8_wheel.jpg:     Stoicheia-Somata-Schema, from page 17 of my  book Medicina Magica by Hans Biedermann
Stoicheia - graph is from Biedermann's Medicina Magica, page 16.
8_pointed_star.jpg:    page 470 of Roob's Hermetic Museum, labeled:  S. Michelspacher, Cabala, Augsburg, 1616.
Astroelements.jpg:  Medicina Magica p. 42, called The Wonders of Nature; from the alchemistic collection "Musaeum hermeticum", Frankfurt 1677
Mercury Tree: from Roob's Hermetic Museum: Alchemy & Mysticism, p. 308,  from Basilius Valentinus, Azoth, Paris, 1659.
Days of week chart:        David Fideler's Jesus Christ, Sun of God;  Ancient Cosmology and Early Christian Symbolism   p. 245.
Medicina Magica;  by the english alchemist Thomas Norton,  found in the collection Husaeum Hermeticum", Frankfurt, 1678. p. 22 of

ArkLetter 33
December 9, 2007
copyright christine payne-towler 2005-2007, all rights reserved

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Comments

[drlaura andersson]

superb. i am only partway through, but what comes to mind is wondering about a place for the Fibonacci sequence and the ever upward spiral.
as we turn, then the lowest earth can rise to be the earth above fire, and the new plane is entered.
blessings, :L

[Christine]

Hi Laura --

If you are only halfway through upon posting that note, then you will be pleasently surprised when you find the graphic that illustrates exactly what you are visualizing. the site that link comes from is wonderful too.

Cudos to my lightscribe Cynthia, whose magical touch with the internet and intuitive grasp of the material embellishes the articles with art and links to die for!

And all thanks go out to the knowledge-miners, known and unknown, who labor behind our screens, making all this sublime material available to us without stint and often without pay.

Blessings to all!

chrstine

[Christine Payne]

I have recently found the excellent author Richard Tarnas, whose magisterial book _Cosmos and Psyche_ takes on the very same issues, with stunning effect. Not to be missed by those who are trying to bridge the gap between the Renaissance and Reformation worldview and our own.

I might also mention that this article forms the preamble for the alchemical paradigm of the Tarot of the Holy Light. But, since it was written in 2007, I hadn't yet worked out the issues that arise when this ancient model is cast into Kabbalistic terms, as it has to be to become "operative". Therefore there are issues still not solved in this presentation. I resolved the entire paradigm by crafting the THL Icon and making a slight re-arrangement in the unfolding of the numbers 1-10 among the Pips. You'll find the Icon discussed in nearly every ArkLetter since Sept 2011.