AUTHOR’S NOTE: In Chinese cosmology there is a premise that certain forms of qi (life-force) subdue and diminish other types, subordinating their influence. I’m intrigued by the idea that something similar could be going on in tarot divination.

It’s a well-established concept that certain cards in a tarot spread will dominate the reading and push other factors into the background, or even beneath the surface in the same way that reversals can create oblique input such that what we think we see isn’t always what we get. However, unless there is a total absence of one type of card (by suit, element, number or rank), the weakening of an influence does not necessarily “cancel out” its presence. In some clear-cut instances, if the cards are inherently hostile to one another, we might see their interaction as “warring principles” (or “archetypes at war” as I described them in another essay). While a superior force might overwhelm and subjugate an inferior one, I never thought of this as being a victor-and-vanquished scenario.

In the past I’ve written about a populated tarot spread as resembling a topographic or isometric map in which certain cards stand out in high relief from the rest. In some cases the conceptual gradient between the two can be so steep that the shallower aspects are far less visible than the more imposing ones, thus becoming masked in their importance. It’s entirely conceivable that the elevation of powerful cards will produce an overshadowing impression in which the reader will be tempted to scale the peaks and leave the valleys untrodden. Particularly prominent cards can strike a clear, true note in the diviner’s mind while the rest come across more as “static” that complicates the picture rather than elucidating it. The challenge comes in effectively identifying the two types in the beginning while giving each its due in the eventual synthesis.

I for one have never been shy about pushing less relevant threads of meaning to the side as I pursue the main theme of the narrative; in fact, during brief sessions it is often necessary. They are at best incidental elements that may add inflection but don’t contribute strongly to the telling of the tale. This is a situation that new readers struggle with because everything tends to merge into shades of gray. The first step in addressing a series of cards is deciding whether there is anything that deserves a deeper look; obviously, any highly motivating cards should receive top priority as the keynote of the story. Conventional wisdom is that trump cards are more potent than court cards, which are in turn more important than pips, but I find that it doesn’t always work out that way.

Because I take an action-and-event-oriented stance in my approach to tarot and downplay the more mystical side, I’m inclined to interpret pips as the most pragmatically incisive cards in the reading, with the trumps showing the general environment or backdrop and the courts weighing in on social dimensions (if any). Of course, the context of the question will have much to say about the focus of the inquiry. Don’t ask me what someone else “thinks or feels” since I don’t believe tarot works that way (or not very well anyway); I’m far more interested in what that individual may or may not do in the situation.

Some say that a thought is usually a precursor to an action and should be fair game for divination, but too often this type of query is evidence of wishful thinking rather than an active interest in the other person’s intentions and motives (which may be entirely conjectural with almost zero chance of manifesting unless the querent steps in and forces the issue). Give me the nuts-and-bolts of the matter and leave the psychological justifications and excuses out of it, please. As the old nautical maps used to point out for uncharted regions of the ocean, “Here be dragons.”