The Third Principle
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In The Tarot of the Bohemians, Papus covered a minor point that I’ve explored in much greater detail in my own work over the last few years, although at the time I had no idea I was echoing a nearly 150-year-old numerological concept. He proposed treating the second of two cards in a non-adjacent pair as a negative reflection or mirrored “reflex” of the more active and positive first card (the numbers all fell within his formulaic septenary pattern for the 22 trump cards); then, through division, he found the card occupying the midpoint between the positive and negative poles and designated it as the mediator or reconciler between them. His theme followed Wronski’s principles of creation (active), preservation (passive) and neutralization (neuter) that I explained in a previous post (although I prefer “integration” for the last one because the other cards should really be united in their expression, not mutually canceled, even if Wronski’s ideal state of being seems to suggest “pacification” of the opposites as a prerequisite for further evolution).
Several years ago I created a number table for the 78 cards that does just that so I can avoid having to do the math every time I want to know this information. I’ve used this table in a variety of ways, often to create triangular spreads in which the “outcome” position is populated with the midpoint card between two extremes. In practice, these spreads are typically of the “action/reaction/resolution” kind that draws its inspiration from the Hegelian dialectic: “thesis/antithesis/synthesis,” although the cards at the opposite ends of the argument aren’t necessarily antithetical to one another; it’s just a method for examining their dynamic interplay. This is particularly useful when the two are separated by a wide gap in the number sequence.
My use of numbers is nowhere near as mystical as that of Papus, but I do see some practical uses in his approach. For example, in his discussion of the unnumbered Fool in the 21st position of the sequence, he relates it to the Hebrew letter Shin, which he says “expresses the same hieroglyphic meaning as the Zain and the Samekh: this is an arrow, an object directed to an aim. But the movement which was direct in the Zain, and which became circular in the Samekh, here takes the form of a vibration from one pole to the other, with an unstable point of equilibrium in the center.” (Here I’m disregarding the “Continental” Hebrew letter assignments and sticking with the Lover as Zain and Temperance as Samekh in line with later occult thinking of an astrological and alchemical nature.)
This discussion is remarkably similar to my own analogy that any binary condition emulates a pendulum swinging between two terminals that only comes to rest (briefly and imperceptibly) at the “bottom-dead-center” of its travel. If we think of “loosing an arrow” at the preferred choice in the Lover and seeing it reach a “turning-point” as we experience the full implications of our decision in Temperance, we might see a “rebound” in the form of vibratory imbalance (a “disturbance in the Force?”) as the consequences come back around (or we might say “come home to roost”). The clueless Fool sitting there may perfectly symbolize our flat-footed response to the situation if we didn’t anticipate the push-back. (If you’ve seen the “grandstand scene” from the archery contest in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, you’ll have an idea what I’m talking about.)
Going back to the initial premise about the middle card between two others, if we add the number of the Lover (6) to that of Temperance (14) we come up with 20, and half of that is 10, making the Wheel of Fortune the “reconciler” between the other two trumps. This has esoteric credibility in one school of thought because the Gemini association of the Lover and the Sagittarius connection to Temperance are zodiacal opposites, making them both contradictory and complementary (I won’t go into the allegorical tale of the “alchemical marriage” here); while the Wheel of Fortune relates to Jupiter, the ruler of Sagittarius. Between the image of “Cupid’s bow” in the Lover and the allusion to the Archer, Chiron, in the other two, I can accept the notion of an “arrow” as directed effort.
Below I’ve laid out an archetypal spread that might be used as a template for readings that involve some kind of goal-oriented initiative requiring forceful, focused action. (I included the Magician because the “10” of the Wheel reduces to “1,” and I sometimes think of the Fool as the “backseat driver” for the Magician as he steers the Wheel of Fortune down the road.) I would use this model for a three-card pull, with the card that lands on the middle triad showing the situational motif and the likely outcome of the matter. The “baseline narrative” for the array could be: “Successfully hitting the target (Lover) will require a juggling of priorities that relies on finesse (Temperance), tactical precision (Magician) and luck (Wheel of Fortune) in order to come away “clean” (Fool). The random cards drawn will suggest how well those objectives will be met.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on January 31, 2024.
