Trump Cards and Isomorphs
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I avoided discussing this technique in my previous post on reconstituting the trump cards, but I’ve been mulling over ways to make it work. Once again, I will use the Tower as my main example and also provide a couple of others. (If you’re unfamiliar with isomorphs, I linked my “primer” on the subject below and you should probably go there first.)
As number 16, the Tower reduces numerologically to 7 by both Theosophical reduction (summing and reducing of digits) and “casting out nines” (subtracting increments of nine). Seven in turn is comprised of the isomorphs 2 + 5 and 3 + 4. If we accept these five numbers as being exemplified by the related trump cards, we could say that the allies of the Tower are the Chariot (7), the High Priestess (2), the Hierophant (5), the Empress (3) and the Emperor (4). Here we have the four paragons of spiritual and secular authority lined up behind a card that represents, according to A.E. Waite, “triumph on the physical plane.” Carrying this to its conclusion, Alejandro Jodorowsky proposed that the Tower should be called “the Devil’s House,” not “the House of God” since it follows immediately after the Devil card, and its destruction by a “bolt from the blue” should be a cause for celebration; for him, the Tower suggests a sudden epiphany or revelation that dispels misapprehension. (In other words, it’s a “good” card.)
In his introduction to The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus, Waite quipped that some experts on Egyptian cosmology assert that the High Priestess and the Hierophant are husband-and-wife, but he (Waite) feels that it is evident only in the fact that they seem to be “trying to get as far away from one another as possible;” it’s undeniable that each has its own agenda even though they’re reading from the same script. The Empress and the Emperor are of course hierarchical equals that share in governance. For its part, the Chariot carries the “command-and-control” banner of the ruling jurisdiction forward into battle. This makes me think that the Tower endeavors to rectify legal and moral iniquities through royal decree and irresistible force of the “might-makes-right” kind. (I sometimes think of the Chariot as the Emperor’s “mobile throne” and the Tower as where he’s headed to “kick ass and take names.”) Up to the instant that it unleashes its purgative mayhem, the Tower is anything but abrupt and knows exactly what it’s up to since it has highly competent antecedents guiding it who have already “fingered” those who deserve purging; for its part, the Tower just brings on the remedial lightning.
As the number 14, Temperance reduces to 5 by both Theosophical reduction and “casting out nines,” while 5 is made up of the isomorphs 1+4 and 2 +3. This brings the first five numbered trump cards (the Magician, the High Priestess, the Empress, the Emperor and the Hierophant) into line with Temperance, and the Hierophant serves as the modulating link between it and the other four. I consider Temperance to be a card of consummate discernment and discretion, while the Hierophant imposes restraints on our innate lack of moral probity; together they curb our ability to operate with complete freedom from responsibility. We must remain within the limits imposed by our sense of parity and propriety.
A useful example of casting out nines that is not duplicated by Theosophical reduction is presented by Trump 20, Judgement. Subtracting nine yields 11 as either Justice or Fortitude depending on which deck you’re using, and another deduction of nine produces 2, the High Priestess, which is the “end of the line” since it is the binary root. Theosophical reduction takes us immediately to 2 and the same “dead-end” but with no intervening card to expand its narrative reach. If Trump 11 is Justice (as in the RWS deck), it gives us the “trial” (11) and the “verdict” (20) in one neat package; if it is Fortitude (aka RWS “Strength,” or “Lust” in the Thoth deck), it delivers another dose of “might-makes-right” exuberance (vigilante justice?). These cards are all “numerological counterparts,” which distinguishes them as a group even though the isomorph content is meager unless we shelve the two-part architecture and move into triplicities, in which case 2+4+5=11, making the High Priestess and the Emperor the “promulgation-and-enforcement” branch of Justice, and the Hierophant the “court bailiff.” (I’m conveniently ignoring Fortitude in this analogy since I doubt it would tolerate such administrative niceties.)
This technique is not nearly as transparent as the comparable approach to pip-card isomorphs because there are so many outsized “personalities” to merge into the equation. It is also limited in its range of applicability because some trump cards don’t exhibit much depth of expression in their constituent isomorphs. For example, the Sun and the Wheel of Fortune both reduce to One, which is the primary Unity with no contributing combinations; although the Sun makes a “stop-over” at the Wheel (19=1+9=10), Maxwell dismisses 10 from his model as being a reprise of the unitary One (1+0=1). The number 9 is also a hybrid, incorporating 3+3+3, 4+5 and 3×3, and Maxwell describes it as “both even and odd” due to this formulation. Still, the Hermit as 4+5 would seem to gain some benefit from this attempt to interpose it between the Magician and the Sun.
A similar paucity of detail is present in trumps that directly express or reduce to the numbers 2, 3 and 4, while most of the other even numbers are ramifications of the binary 2 that attain to isomorphs as much through multiplication as addition, limiting their interpretive scope or latitude (6=2+2+2 and 2×3; 8=2+2+2+2 and 2x2x2.) I doubt there is as much practical value in this technique as there is with the same methods applied to the pip cards; it is more of a philosophical exercise that correlates the archetypal characteristics of the primary trump card with those of its closest numerological companions. As a visual aid to comprehension, I would place them on the table in ascending order and create an allegorical yarn for the series as I did in the above examples.
https://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com/2018/07/14/a-maxwell-primer/
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on May 3, 2024.
