Tarot History Forum

In a recent talk I gave on Tarot History, I included a section on reading the "non-illustrated" pips.

This talk was aimed at those familiar with modern Tarot decks, (Waite-Smith based, Thoth based... etc). Everyone was very interested in the history, but also wanted to try reading with these decks. I supplied the following as basic guidance for those looking to match suit attributes and number attributes. The idea behind it was to try create a system that might line up with a historically nuanced numerological system.

Here is what I presented, please let me know if you think these are generally okay for a starting point or should be reconsidered.

There is a large portion of the Tarot community interested in reading with historical decks (especially Tarot de Marseille) and I would love for them to discover some of the history through their exploration. Would you agree this is a good starting point or would you change things and why? Ultimately, I’d like to offer a simple starting point for those interested in reading with “unillustrated” pips.

Many thanks for your feedback and suggestions to make this more interesting and accessible! it will go on the main tarothistory.com website.
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Reading with “unillustrated” pips

Don’t fear The Reaper, or “unillustrated” pips!


The great innovation of the “Rider-Waite-Smith” tarot deck, published in 1909, was that the “meaning” of the cards were illustrated onto the pips. These meanings were determined by Waite using several methods: Traditional playing card cartomancy; Numerological principles; Golden Dawn occult teachings; Symbolic correspondences between suits and elements (and his own intuitive and esoteric understanding. He seems to have borrowed heavily from S.L. MacGregor Mathers and the Golden Dawn’s use of astrological decans, and this system was also used by Aleister Crowley, more explicitly, in the Crowley-Harris Thoth Tarot.

Readers of the historical decks often argue that it is the predetermined meanings which limit the reader. Why use Waite’s system when you can invent your own?

Creating your own meanings

Some people use numerology and elements to understand the meaning of cards, with the Four of Cups, for Instance, possibly meaning something like: Fours = Stability, Order and Foundation and Cups = Emotion, Intuition and the Soul, so perhaps this card is indicating a time of emotional stability. A very different reading than from Waite’s. 

Some people I’ve known correspond the first 10 trumps to get mean, so in this case, 6’s would be related to The Lovers card, so would be about relationships and choices, and the suit would determine the circumstances.

Others simply look at the images and read intuitively. They may ask themselves what they see in the flowers and ornaments that decorate many cards, or what “Four Cups” might mean to them? Perhaps they imagine a dinner party with four friends toasting each other. This type of reading changes all the time based on the reader and situation at the moment.

On the pages that follow I provide a starting point for you to build your own system. These are fairly “traditional” meanings as one might have expected a 17th century reader to have known.

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SUITS
Batons ( Fire 🜂 ) – Will, Action, Enterprise
Keywords: Energy, passion, ambition, transformation, conflict
Meaning: Wands represent the fire of human will—desire, ambition, and enterprise. They indicate movement, change, and the assertion of one's power in the world. In a reading, they suggest a focus on action, career, personal drive, and the forces that propel events forward.

Cups ( Water 🜄 ) – Emotion, Intuition, The Soul
Keywords: Love, relationships, inner life, spirituality, fluidity
Meaning: Cups are linked to the emotional and spiritual self, symbolising love, intuition, and the fluidity of human experience. They reflect joy and sorrow, connection and longing. In a reading, they speak of relationships, emotional well-being, and the inner depths of the soul.

Swords ( Air 🜁 ) – Thought, Intellect, Conflict
Keywords: Reason, truth, clarity, justice, hardship
Meaning: Swords represent the power of intellect and reason. They are associated with justice, clarity, and discernment, but also with struggle and division. In a reading, swords indicate mental challenges, conflicts, decisions, and the cutting away of falsehoods.

Coins ( Earth 🜃 ) – The Material, Stability, Prosperity
Keywords: Wealth, work, security, physicality, endurance
Meaning: Coins signify the material world—money, trade, physical health, and stability. They represent both prosperity and the burdens of the physical realm. In a reading, they suggest a focus on work, financial matters, or the need for practical considerations.

Continuing... with pips..

1.
Unity, The Prime Mover
Keywords: Beginning, origin, creation, divine spark, perfection
Meaning: The number one represents the beginning of all things, the indivisible whole, the unity of existence. In a reading, it suggests something in its purest, most essential form—whether an idea, a relationship, or a course of action. It is associated with divine creation, originality, and an unshaped potential waiting to manifest.

2.
Duality, Harmony & Opposition
Keywords: Balance, pairs, opposition, choice, partnership
Meaning: Two is the number of complementarity and conflict—day and night, light and shadow, reason and passion. It signifies both harmony and division, suggesting relationships, choices, or dilemmas. In a reading, twos often indicate a need for balance, decision-making, or an interaction between opposites.
Growth, Creation, Synthesis

3.
Expansion, creativity, completion, fertility, resolution
Meaning: Three is a powerful number in philosophy and religion, symbolising the synthesis of opposites into a new form—body, mind, and soul; thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. It represents the fruition of ideas, movement, and the realisation of potential. In a reading, threes point to a moment of growth, creativity, or a situation reaching a fuller form.

4.
Stability, Order, Foundation
Keywords: Structure, law, endurance, reliability, material security
Meaning: Four is the number of earthly stability—four seasons, four elements, four humours. It represents established order, reason, and permanence. In a reading, it suggests a moment of consolidation, security, or the establishment of a lasting framework, though it may also indicate rigidity or stagnation.
Instability, Struggle, Change

5.
Disruption, conflict, challenge, transformation, adversity
Meaning: The number five is a symbol of disruption and movement—it breaks the balance of four, introducing change, conflict, and unpredictability. It is associated with the human experience of struggle, but also growth through challenge. In a reading, fives indicate a test, an obstacle, or a necessary period of upheaval before a new equilibrium is found.

6.
Harmony, Restoration, Reciprocity
Keywords: Resolution, generosity, beauty, equilibrium, cooperation
Meaning: Six is the number of balance restored, of harmony between opposites. It is associated with generosity, beauty, and justice, often indicating a return to stability after turmoil. In a reading, sixes suggest a moment of relief, a restored balance, or a recognition of fairness and duty.

7.
Wisdom, Contemplation, The Mystic’s Number
Keywords: Knowledge, study, introspection, divine connection, patience
Meaning: Seven was revered by scholars and mystics as the number of wisdom and divine insight. It represents contemplation, patience, and the search for deeper understanding. In a reading, sevens indicate learning, reflection, or a need to seek hidden truths rather than immediate action.

8.
Power, Mastery, Justice
Keywords: Strength, authority, discipline, cosmic order, balance of forces
Meaning: Eight symbolises mastery and control over the material world, often associated with law, justice, and power. It represents the understanding of cycles—rising and falling, action and consequence. In a reading, eights suggest an encounter with authority, personal strength, or the completion of an important stage.

9.
Completion, Attainment, Fulfilment
Keywords: Culmination, wisdom, reflection, preparation, nearing the end
Meaning: Nine stands at the threshold of finality. It signifies completion, but also the wisdom gained through experience. In a reading, nines suggest an approaching resolution, a moment of reflection, or a phase where one must prepare for the final step.

10.
Finality, Transition, The Turning Wheel
Keywords: Endings, new beginnings, transformation, destiny, cycles
Meaning: Ten represents both an end and a new beginning. It signifies the completion of a cycle, but also the start of another, much like the turning of Fortune’s Wheel. In a reading, tens indicate closure, a moment of reckoning, or the necessity of embracing change.

On the pages that follow I provide a starting point for you to build your own system. These are fairly “traditional” meanings as one might have expected a 17th century reader to have known.

If you want to build your own system, that's fine. If you want to say that these are "traditional" meanings, you need to provide some basis that a 17th century reader would be expected to know. It is not obvious, at least to me. And why the 17th century, as opposed to any other time? If you have particular decks in mind, they should be referred to.

As far as the suits, I cannot imagine that anyone would have thought of thinking as the main characteristic of Swords, as opposed to serious strife. Nor "materiality" for Coins: all the suit-objects are material. Coins are money. As for batons, well, they were wielded by political authorities. Or were the weapons of those not permitted to have swords. If greenery sprouts from them, or they are green, they could represent growth, spring, farmers, and the countryside. Cups are religion (at least the ace), also sustenance and, if there are lots of them, over-indulgence. If batons are countryside, cups are the town, where churches are. As far as elements go, they were associated in all sorts of ways and none; one thing is clear, fire was associated with Swords, if anything.

Caitlin Matthews is pretty good on these points in The Untold Tarot. First she says how suits were actually thought in terms of by Piscina (or Anonymous? - anyway, p. 45 of Caldwell et al) in the 16th century and then provides her own take. In some ways it is similar to yours (a compliment). She says it's Pythagorean, but she gives no references. I can see a glimmer of Pythagoreanism in it. Pythagoreanism was known in the 17th century, even the late 15th century and to an extent in the Middle Ages, through specific ancient texts. There are lots of such characterizations, going from 1 to 10, in tarot books: the little white book to Lo Scarabeo's "Universal Tarot of Marseille" has one; Jodorowsky has one; also Decker in The Esoteric Tarot. Both of these include the triumphs (majors) in their deliberations, because they have numbers, too. Alain Bougearel has one in Language of the Cards. Another is at https://archive.org/stream/marseille-ta ... s_djvu.txt. And so forth.

These authors are all a little different. They are all "common sense" for their authors, even if to me some of their reasoning seems far-fetched. So yes, why not "build your own"? It might be good for people to look at various ways people have already done it before devising their own, including popular systems of the past that aren't presented in so orderly a fashion, keeping a healthy sense that none of these is "right", or particularly reflective of some old wisdom tradition or proven by centuries of practice. Take what makes sense to you, reject what doesn't.

Well, here is a first draft for me, with some relationship to Pythagorean and other texts available in the 17th century, but also moving forward from them.

1. Beginning, a seed, with all its potential ready and waiting to unfold into realization, like the Big Bang. Infinity in a drop of water. Can be hazy, undefined, or perfectly worked out and just not put into practice. First cause. Unity. Parent, founder. Possible pregnancy.

2. Nothing in our experience exists in a vacuum, or at the absolute beginning. There is something preceding the beginning, to be utilized in the realization of its potential. Buried in the unconscious, now still unconscious but stirring. Study, observation. Matter (existing conditions) in relation to form (goal). Possibilities to be weighed, dialogue with others. No action yet, no decision. Pairs. Parent-child, brother-sister, lover-beloved, twins, etc. Pregnancy. Fear of failure.

3. A plan evolves. Or else, no plan, just impulsive but informed action, doing something to see what happens and going from there. Trinities: rivals for the affection of a third; spirit-soul-body; mind-emotion-body. Father-Son-Holy Spirit. Beginning-middle-end. Birth.

4. Progress. Success. Realization. Stable structure. Panic at the closing of options. Post-partum depression. Childhood.Fear of success, or being too comfortable.

5. New challenges. New developments. New connections, especially spiritual. Beware of Nemesis, goddess of divine vengeance.

6. Challenges overcome. Doing what one loves, in community with those loving what one does, triplicities paired, in spirit, soul, and body.

7. Unexpected crisis or lucky opportunity to be responded to well or badly, opening up a new dimension or requiring a dignified retreat.

8. Re-evaluation before and while moving forward, adjusting to changing conditions, Improving efficiency, communication, ethical sensitivity. Or a standoff between two stable factions, 2 fours.

9. Reaping of rewards, failures, other consequences.

10. It's done. Time to move on, or things will get excessive or stifling, or you will be pushed out.

Swords: protection, strife, mental arena, justice.
Batons: interests, future goals, premonitions, growth, fortitude.
Cups: love, religion, pleasures, relationships, temperance.
Coins: money, the body, material conditions of life, prudence.

All this is a priori, first hypothesis. To be modified according to the actual look of the cards I am using, including the corresponding trumps; also, testing in practice. Does it work, in the sense of helping oneself or others? Here it would be necessary to check back with the querents six months after the reading. That said, I am not a reader and don't plan to be. But it is a useful exercise for gaining insight into how one form of cartomancy might have emerged and developed.

Thank you for this - this is helpful. For fun, I am developing my own version of the Boiardo-Viti deck as an intellectual exercise (I am not a reader) to study the history of the cards. I chose Boiardo, because I am fascinated with the different suits. I have the translated poem and started with the suits, though there is no arc, so I wondered if I could massage one in somehow. It's turned into a massive undertaking to say the least! I joined this forum to find more information and absorb some wisdom from those more learned in this than me.