The Lover and the Devil: Trump-Card Bookends
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been playing around with the 7×3 array of trump cards (minus the Fool because zero adds nothing to this exercise) by running out the numerological expressions for each row and column. I used both Theosophical reduction (adding together the digits of any sum larger than 21) and “casting out nines” (subtracting increments of nine as many times as necessary to come within the 1-to-21 range), arriving at a series of trumps that is emblematic of the whole pattern. (Note that the resulting cards are always “numerological counterparts, one single-digit and the other double-digit.) In order to keep the progression symmetrical, I took a few minor liberties with the math; except in a handful of cases where the methodology was reversed for this purpose, the cards at the top and the far right were derived by adding together the digits, and those at the bottom and the far left all devolved from removing sets of nine numbers.
The first thing that jumped out at me was the repetition of the numbers 6 (the Lover) and 15 (the Devil) thrice when totaling the values of the vertical sets; these cards already share a common root since 1+5=6, although in practice they are seldom mentioned in the same breath. The second thing was the triple appearance of the Hermit and the Moon (also numerological counterparts since 1+8=9), twice in the columns and once in the rows. Finally, the Hanged Man and the World (linked by casting out nines) show up twice in the remaining columns.
The upshot of all this numerology is that the numbers 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 and 21 — each one divisible by 3 and separated by 3 — form a kind of “inner theme” or architecture for the entire series of trump cards. (Although it would be out-of-sequence in my model, the Empress as Trump III can also be obtained by numerologically reducing 12 and 21, completing the set). Clearly, this arrangement of trumps has a strong triune vibration. The Lover and the Devil “bookend” the upper and lower series of calculated trumps while also populating the central “keynote” position in their respective rows. The pairs of interstitial cards in both cases reduce to 12, the Hanged Man, in one instance by casting out nines and in the other by Theosophical reduction. Although I didn’t carry it out that far, the peripheral (top, bottom, left and right) groups can all be reduced to 6, as can the three cards in the middle column (Emperor, Fortitude and Moon), making that number — and the Lover — something of a “magic key” for the 21-card sequence. I’d think this fact would “up its game” in any relationship reading where it shows up with any of the other five highlighted trumps in this study.
The question then becomes what to do with this information in a practical reading scenario. I think my approach would be to strongly link these cards conceptually when they appear together in a spread, even if they are technically not numerological counterparts, simply because they share a motivating “Three-ness.”
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on December 22, 2023.
