*Sublimate: to refine or purify; to elevate
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been saying for several years that the Major Arcana (aka trump cards) are more about background themes than significant events. In my own practice over the last five decades I just haven’t seen them amount to much when they appear in a routine fortune-telling scenario.
The clincher for me was pulling the Tower in three consecutive daily draws using different decks, and nothing more than minor inconvenience showed up in my circumstances. This led me to believe that while a trump card might represent an environmental “bias” for something big to happen, it very rarely delivers under its own power and needs some kind of motivating “trigger” from the rest of the spread. In other words, they create sensitivity as “stage-setters” but not inevitability in practical terms.
In this essay I’m proposing that rather than trying to integrate “rogue” trump cards into a well-mannered reading, we allow them to rise out of the ordinary and assume their rightful “overarching theme” position in the matter. Here’s how it would work.
I began by pulling five cards to answer “What will happen if I take the initiative in a particular situation?” I received two Major Arcana cards in this draw. (All images are from the Thoth Tarot, copyright of US Games Systems Inc, Stamford, CT.)
I elevated these cards to “Bird’s-Eye View” status to see what the “big picture” would be if I were to proceed.
The Wheel of Fortune and the Fool, both reversed, suggest that my prospects for success are: 1) a definite “crap-shoot”; and 2) I will most likely make an ass of myself. In other words, there appears to be no future in it.
The “capsule view” of the situation is that there is little encouragement in the environmental outlook, and the mundane opportunities are also doubtful. The Prince of Wands is saying that it is best to move on before it’s too late to avoid disappointment and possible embarrassment. I toyed with the idea of pulling two more random cards to fill the vacant slots, but I received two additional trump cards that unbalanced the “big picture” in the direction of hypothetical conjecture. So I left it as-is.
If no Major Arcana come up in the pull, the “ground level” perspective can be taken at face value. If trump cards dominate the reading, consideration should be given to whether the environment is too “busy” to work in one’s favor. The upshot could be “too many irons in the fire,” with the matter most likely getting out of hand or reaching a standstill in a kind of archetypal gridlock. The cautionary advice would be to find an exit strategy fast!
