Please Help Me: The Court Cards — Part I

Precis: We received an email from a fairly new Tarot student who had discovered a problem which many people studying the Tarot have: the meanings of the Court Cards. Below is her request for aid. At the end of her request you'll see why we decided to post it here.

Dear Editor,

I live in a small town in Nebraska, so there is little chance for me to find out about metaphysical stuff. I have an iMac my parents gave me for Christmas and have been able to get on the Internet, but I really prefer books for learning about things.

Anyway, when I was a little girl, my ears looked a little pointed, so everyone started to call me "Pixie." Later, this got shortened to "Pix." Late one summer night, when I was bored and it was too hot to sleep, I got on the computer and did a web search for "Pixie." There were over a quarter million references. Lazily, I started going through them.

One that caught my eye was a web page about Pamela Coleman "Pixie" Smith. She was the artist for the Tarot deck that A.E. Waite designed. I found a place where I could order a copy, and a few weeks later I had my first Tarot deck.

Now, here's my problem. As I went through the little booklet that explains the cards, and as I read a couple of beat up, old books on the Tarot that I found at the library, I noticed that there is a lot of emphasis placed on the Major Arcana cards. I can understand that. They're very beautiful, symbolic, and sometimes exotic. The meanings of the number cards, ace through ten, of the four suits is done in detail, too.

But then come the Court Cards. There's not a lot of symbolism there. In fact, from suit to suit they look pretty much alike. In the books they talk about how they represent people of different ages and even their hair color.

I just have a feeling that there's got to be more to them than this. All of the other cards have deep symbolic meanings, but these sixteen cards are only about hair color? I think something has been hidden or is missing.

So I'm asking for help. I really don't want to start doing readings or even meditation on the cards until I fully understand them. That's just the way I am. Are you in touch with any authors who could give me more insight into this?

Thanks,

Pix

Editor's Note:

At the time we received this email we were, perhaps serendipitously, looking over an article on the Court Cards by David Allen Hulse, author of two books I'd really like to recommend. The first is The Eastern Mysteries. Using language as a uniting factor, it examines six major Eastern spiritual traditions, including sources of the Hebrew and the Qabalah, secrets of the chakras and Sanskrit, mysteries of Chinese and the I Ching, etc. The second is The Western Mysteries. Following the same focus on the secrets of language, this book links astrology, runes, magick squares, Enochian magick, the Tarot, etc. Together they form a complete introduction (and thus, a great encyclopedic resource for research) to virtually all major spiritual systems.

Mr. Hulse had already sent in an article explaining the secrets and traditions of Court Cards. It was a great article, but we didn't know if it was a good fit for this journal. When we read this email, which was sent to us at TLJletters@llewellyn.com, we knew Mr. Hulse's article would be a perfect answer to Pix's questions.

We hope you will read his exclusive article, "Hidden and Secret Meanings: The Court Cards — Part II", here in The Llewellyn Journal.