AUTHOR’S NOTE: Following up on my previous comments about inscribing an equilateral diamond (essentially a “tipped square”) within the circumference of a circle, I decided to do just that with the double-triangle arrangement of trump cards from my earlier essay. Refer to the photograph below. (I did something similar with the pip and court cards of the Tarot de Marseille a while ago in a post titled “Squaring the Circle.) https://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com/2019/11/01/squaring-the-circle/

In the present case, the cards at the six points and the eight cards along the diagonal sides simulate the elliptical shape, while the other six cards form an internal ellipse with a seventh card (Justice) at its center. (If you prefer the Tarot de Marseille or the Thoth deck over the Waite-Smith version, you can swap La Force or Lust for Justice in the middle with no impact since it is the numerical value and not the image that is important here.) When read as a “story,” the six cards on each side of the outer ellipse suggest a hemi-cycle of evolution, recidivism (aka “backsliding”) and eventual redemption, in both cases ending at the World. (As before, I’ve removed the Fool because its value of zero adds nothing to the analysis.)

At first glance, the most interesting thing about this array is that all of the diametrically opposite cards in both the outer and inner ellipses sum to the number “22,” which is double the value of Justice, while adding Justice to each pair yields the number “33,” which was so prominent in my original layout. Thus, each card of a pair is equidistant from the nearest terminal end of the series, and Justice sits at dead-center of the entire affair. The number “55” is also relevant here since the five cards in each of the three radial axes centered on Justice sum to that number, while the inner ellipse totals “66,” the combined value of all six angular “point” cards, and including Justice yields “77.” Furthermore, the 14 cards of the outer ellipse plus Justice add up to 165 – the same total as the three central axes – which is 3×55 and also 11×15, bringing together Justice and the Devil, the latter of which is the numerological reduction of “33” when derived by “casting out nines.” There are many other convergences between symmetrical pairs and sets of cards that are too numerous to mention.

Has your brain checked out yet? Have your eyes glazed over? Hang on, it gets a bit more mystical.

We can see that the prime number “11” permeates the entire pattern. It is a “master number” in modern numerology, representing a higher vibrational rate that partakes of equilibrium as shown by the paired “Ones;” however, Henry Cornelius Agrippa, in Three Books of Occult Philosophy, described it as “the number of sins,” and of “the penitent” who wears a “hair shirt.” In short, it’s not holy like the number Ten and its not perfect like the number Twelve, falling short on both counts.

Because Agrippa was obviously anxious to display his religious zeal in order to avoid persecution, I place little store in his numerological pronouncements, which seem to follow Biblical assumptions that Eleven can symbolize disorder, chaos and judgment; at least “judgment” makes sense considering that “11” is the number of Justice in many esoteric decks, while – if we stretch the analogy a bit – its numerological partner, the Devil, has a reputation for disorder and chaos. We might say that Justice as Libra (sign of Saturn’s exaltation) needs all the help it can get from Saturn, ruler of Capricorn (corresponding to the Devil), in order to administer exacting judgment.

I plan to continue working with this arrangement as a kind of personal mandala. To wrap this up, here are the top-tier “numerological counterpart” cards for the number series shown above (they can be reduced further as deemed necessary). For the most part, these echo the “passive and negative” counterparts in the trans-personal subset of the Major Arcana that formed the core of my previous study, and an entire “morality play” could be written around them. The Sun stands out and should probably be factored down to its lower expressions (Wheel of Fortune and Magician) for additional exploration within the overall pattern. (I will examine the Wheel at some length in a forthcoming essay.)

22-9=13 (Death);
33-(2×9)=15 (Devil);
55-(4×9)=19 (Sun);
66-(5×9)=21 (World);
77-(7×9)=14 (Temperance);
165-(17×9)=12 (Hanged Man)