We now come to line #6 of the First Operation - and the real meat of the OOTK spreads. All the operations use this card counting technique and for me it can be quite fascinating and illuminating. I'll repost line #5 so that the first part of line #6 makes more sense. Recall that I said you should NOT abandon the reading despite what line #5 tells you - but this is entirely up to the reader.
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5. Tell the Querent what he has come for:
if wrong, abandon the divination.
6. If right, spread out the pack containing the Significator, face upwards. Count the cards from him, in the direction in which he faces. The counting should include the card from which you count.
For Knights, Queens and Princes [Kings] count 4.
For Princesses [Pages]
count 7.
For Aces, count 5 [11].
For small cards, count according to the
number.
For trumps, count 3 for the elemental trumps; 9 for the planetary
trumps; 12 for the Zodiacal trumps.
Make a "story" of these cards. This story is that of the beginning of the
affair.
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Breaking down the first part of line #6 we have, "spread out the pack containing the Significator, face upwards".
Many of the sources for the OOTK say to spread the cards in an upward horseshoe fashion - but I have never found this to be necessary. Laying them out in a linear fashion [one after the other] is just fine.
Recall that because of my awful cutting I ended up with 25 cards in stack/pile #1 - the Fire stack, where my Significator - the King of Swords is located. This is the stack/pile of cards I will be reading because it is where my Significator is located. The url I supplied above has the actual cards in this stack but I will be using a different method in this tutorial.
Now, back to spreading out the stack/pile with the Significator. There are two ways you can do this. Fan the cards to the right making sure the order of the cards doesn't get changed [remember the cards should be face up from reading the 'Question Overview']. Also make sure that the top facing card of the stack is all the way over on the RIGHT.
Or you can pick up the stack/pile, turn it face down, and deal one card after the other starting on the left and ending on the right. The important thing to remember is that the card you read in the Question Overview needs to all the way to the right. In my case this was the 'Wheel of Fortune'.
Here are the cards that came up for me in stack/pile #1.
Left/UP
----------------------------------
The Fool [first card on the left]
Queen of Wands
The Chariot
5 of Cups
5 of Pentacles
The Sun
3 of Pentacles
2 of Cups
8 of Cups
6 of Cups
2 of Swords
The High Priestess
9 of Cups
The Hierophant
Page of Wands
10 of Swords
Judgement
The Hermit
The Star
The World
Page of Pentacles
King of Swords
King of Cups
Ace of Cups
The Wheel of Fortune [last card on right]
---------------------
Right/DOWN
When I say - go, move, or count right - you will need to move DOWN the list of cards. When I say - go, move, or count left then move UP the list of cards. It's not that hard but if you get confused let me know. Just hang in there for a bit.
Continuing with line #6;
Line #6: Count the cards from him,
Him meaning the [my] Significator - the King of Swords. You always start the count - and thus the reading from the seekers chosen significator card. Or almost - always.
Continuing with Line #6
in the direction in which he faces.
Now herein lies a problem. The King of Swords in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck faces you head on, so no direction is indicated. This is often the case with many decks, that it will have courts facing outward. You could go with his [KoS] symbol of power - the sword, which he holds in his right hand and start counting to the [his] right. Or you can say that the active elements, Fire and Air go in one direction while the passive elements of Water and Earth go in another.
Paul Hughes-Barlow, on his supertarot web site makes the following suggestions. "Queens and Princess should move to the right, while the Kings and Knights should move to the left". He gives you his reasoning for this, I just don't think it adds anything at this point and will only confuse people.
I personally go with the active elemental courts [Fire and Air] moving right, and the passive elemental courts [Water and Earth] moving to the left. But try a few methods to see what works best for you. For this tutorial I'll start my count from the King of Swords and move - right [or DOWN the list of cards above].
Important Note: Paul Hughes-Barlow also says that the direction will change if you land on another court card looking in the opposite direction you have been moving in. I have not seen this in any other resource including the book, The Golden Dawn by Regardie. Try it both ways and see what works for you - assuming you land on a court going/looking in the opposite direction. If you have other information about this I would be happy to hear about it.
Continuing with Line #6
The counting should include the card from which
you count.
This means you start counting from the card you are on. This can be a bit confusing at first. Say you are on the 2 of Swords. Counting 2 to the right [or left] means you are only going to move one card to the right [or left - depending on the direction you are moving]. This is because you count the 2 of Swords as count #1.
................ V ........................
6 of Cups .. 2 of Swords .. High Priestess
................ 1 ....................... Count
You have landed on the 2 of Swords. After reading this card, taking into consideration the elements of the cards next to it then you continue the reading. The Pip cards 2 through 10 have their face values - in this case 2 for the 2 of Swords - so moving right you would count the 2 of Swords as 1, and then 2 would be the High Priestess.
................................. V ......
6 of Cups .. 2 of Swords .. High Priestess
................ 1 .............. 2 ...... Count
You would now read the High Priestess after figuring out her elemental dignity. Going the other way - to the left - the 2 of Swords still counts as 1 and the 6 of Cups would be 2.
... V ....................................
6 of Cups .. 2 of Swords .. High Priestess
... 2 .......... 1 ....................... Count
If you get to either end [top or bottom of the card list] then you simply jump to the other side [up or down the card list] and continue counting from the other side.
Look at the last 3 cards in the list above;
King of Cups
Ace of Cups
The Wheel of Fortune [last card on
right]
---------------------
Right/DOWN
Say you have landed on the Ace of Cups. All the Aces have a value of 5 [or 11] so you would start counting at the Ace of Cups [1], then the Wheel of Fortune [2] and then jump to the top of the list [or all the way to the left if you have the cards laid out].
The Fool [First card on the left, or at the top of the card list]
Queen of
Wands
The Chariot
So The Fool becomes count [3], the Queen of Wands [4], and we end up on The Chariot as count [5].
Continuing Line #6 gives us the values of the cards, but you probably aren't going to know what some of the stuff means if you haven't been doing this a LOT.
Continuing with line #6
For Knights, Queens and Princes [Kings] count 4.
For Princesses [Pages]
count 7.
For Aces, count 5 [11].
For small cards, count according to the
number.
For trumps, count 3 for the elemental trumps; 9 for the planetary
trumps; 12 for the Zodiacal trumps.
The first two lines shouldn't be a problem - I hope.
The Aces had a count
of 5 per the Golden Dawn but Crowley liked 11 better for reasons I won't go
into. Try both counts, especially if you seem to be getting hung up on a
reading [with aces].
Small and Pip cards mean about the same thing.
They are the minor arcana cards from 2 to 10 and we use their face values for
counting [the number on the card].
Now comes that last line. "For trumps,
count 3 for the elemental trumps; 9 for the planetary trumps; 12 for the
Zodiacal trumps". Again, trying to explain this can be a waste of
time. I'll just give you some easy charts to follow.
Elemental Trumps - Card Count Value=3
The Fool, The Hanged Man,
Judgement
Planetary Trumps - Card Count Value=9
The Magician, The High Priestess,
The Empress, Wheel of Fortune, The Tower, The Sun, The World
Zodiacal Trumps - Card Count Value=12
The Emperor, The Hierophant, The
Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, Justice, Death, Temperance, The
Devil, The Star, The Moon.
Note: Watch The Moon and make sure you don't place it in the planetary trumps since it's associated with the sign Pisces - and doesn't mean the actual moon - which is attributed to The High Priestess.
Given this information we can go back to our list and assign the counting values for each card. You wouldn't do this in an actual reading because you should know the counting values but the first few practice readings you do it wouldn't hurt to write this stuff down.
UP/Left ............. Card Count
........................Values .
-------------------------------
The Fool ............... [3]
Queen of Wands ......... [4]
The Chariot ............ [12]
5 of Cups .............. [5]
5 of Pentacles ......... [5]
The Sun ................ [9]
3 of Pentacles ......... [3]
2 of Cups .............. [2]
8 of Cups .............. [8]
6 of Cups .............. [6]
2 of Swords ............ [2]
The High Priestess ..... [9]
9 of Cups .............. [9]
The Hierophant ......... [12]
Page of Wands .......... [7]
10 of Swords ........... [10]
Judgement .............. [3]
The Hermit ............. [12]
The Star ............... [12]
The World .............. [9]
Page of Pentacles ...... [7]
King of Swords ......... [4] <-- Significator [move down/right]
King of Cups ........... [4]
Ace of Cups ............ [5]
The Wheel of Fortune ... [9]
-------------------------------
DOWN/Right
Got it so far? Our reading would start at the significator and I like to use something along the lines of the 'once upon a time' theme, but in this case using the meaning of the court card you choose for the seekers significator. It might go something like this;
King of Swords
"A thinking, idea man who likes to use logic and reason is
... " [is what?]
Ah, now we need to check the King of Swords elemental dignity by checking the elements of the cards to the left and right of it [up and down].
Page of Pentacles .. King of Swords .. King of Cups
..... Earth ............. Air ........... Water ...
More to come in Part #4.
Don S.