Welcome to the third installment of our Tarot for Dancers series. The previous issues offered an overview of tarot history, deck structure, and classic reading procedure. In this issue, we will explore the People Cards. If you have a deck of cards, you may want to get it out and follow along.
Who Are All These People?
Of all the cards interpreted in the deck, these sixteen are the most difficult. They typically represent the players on your life stage, although sometimes they describe aspects of yourself. The People cards are more commonly known as the Court cards, Royals, or Nobles. They show a stunningly neat parallel to the Jungian Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, devised to test for and describe sixteen distinct personality types. Experience will make them familiar to you.
Searching though your deck, extract the People cards. There are four in each suit, hence sixteen total. Notice that they span age and gender widely. In a traditional deck, they are titled King, Queen, Knight or Prince, and the Page or Princess. Don’t be overwhelmed by their ranks aka fancy titles: be they Court, Royal, Noble, whatever, they are just …People. Times change, and some decks, including my own World Spirit Tarot, dispense with the Nobility concept completely or rename the elemental suits themselves. I opted to maintain the standard structure but reframe these arenas of adeptness in a more spiritual way.
Rank and Suits and Elements, Oh My!
So who are they, and what do they actually do? Here’s an overview in very general terms:
Kings, Sages – maturity, leadership in the public sphere
Queens, Sibyls – maturity, catalyzing influence in the interpersonal sphere
Knights, Princes, Seekers – questing evangelism in action
Pages, Princesses, Seers – introspective exploration and learning
Please note that the tarot of this century is predicated on the four suits correlating with the four ‘western Elements’.
Fire – Wands, also called Staves (Clubs)
Earth – Pentacles, also called Stones (Diamonds)
Water – Cups, also called Chalices (Hearts)
Air – Swords, also called Blades (Spades)
Imagine that each of these people is THE expert in their arena of influence. The People cards do merit in-depth study and I recommend Mary K. Greer’s definitive work, called “Understanding the Court Cards”. Anecdotally, I can mention that the youthful naiveté of the Seers speaks to private journalling, independent crafting, small start-up businesses, singer-songwriting and a bevy of other creative, reflective, expressive engagements. The Seekers have strong and zealous behaviors without filters, best understood in terms of contrast; brave or foolhardy? dreamy or unrealistic? stalwart or stubborn? Sibyls reign through collaboration, overarching in matters of confidence, communication, and relationships, not only romantic, but familial and professional . And the Sages, as home-grown iterations of the Emperor, are strong leadership types, offering aspects of security, ‘big-picture thinking’ and consequences. They tend to trigger folks uncomfortable with authority.
People Cards as Significators
One way to employ them is as Significators. This custom involves selecting one card to represent the Querent. Brigit from the Biddy Tarot blog compares this to choosing an avatar for Social Media, an image to represent you, be it ‘witty kitty pic’ or a flattering shot of you on the beach. I like ‘The Matrix’ analogy of the residual self-image – it is what you think you are, or could be, like. In days bygone, Significators were chosen by appearance, i.e. a red-haired adult women was automatically the Queen of Wands, and anyone dark or swarthy, being ‘earthy’, was Pentacles. The tarot community by and large now eschews that approach as inherently ageist, sexist and racist. Instead, pick one you like! Your instincts will serve you. Once you know the cards well your choices may change. For now, go for it, and ask your client to do the same. Experiment. Lay your card at the center of your reading at the start and interpret from there.
Interpret Them in a Reading How?
Here’s the thing. They aren’t that complicated. Or, rather, just as complicated as the real people in your life. When they appear, search for their relevance to the question as:
Symbolic of the actual humans involved in the matter at hand. Maybe this one is that bossy woman in your troupe, or the guy on a horse is your husband or drummer. These are snapshots of the personalities afoot.
A call to be aware of these specific traits in yourself. Perhaps you need to cultivate this card’s leadership skills, or that one’s studiousness.
A message. People cards may pop up as harbingers of change, calls to action, that sort of thing.
But, how do you know which it is? The same way you learn to listen to the tarot, with a blend of intuition, courage, and studied familiarity with the symbolism of the cards. Work your way down the list. Don’t be afraid to quiz a client about the People cards in their spread. ‘Who is this?” “Could it be that you need to focus on communication skills?” “Any history of conflict with strong-willed dancers?” Then fine-tune the interpretation to both describe the situation and give homework. Like a mirror, without fail, the card that points to an actual person ALSO calls upon the Querant to mirror (or resist) those qualities. If no real people are described by the card, then delve for the subtle message.
One option I’ve read about but not explored is to ‘program’ the cards before you pull them. Think ‘These People cards will be actual people, or events, or personal qualities’. This allegedly works better in smaller spreads, when the symbolic language of the cards is be written in bold strokes.
Bonus Significator-Based Spread:
This interesting spread comes to us from the Golden Dawn, an organization that had a formative role about 100 years back in how we use the tarot today.
In this variation, the Significator is chosen, and shuffled back into the deck. Cut the deck into stacks, and scan them for your card. Once located, the cards touching it on either side, and fanning out from there, become the spread with your card as the central axis. Essentially, the closer to the starting card, the more relevant they are deemed to the Querant. It’s as if the Significator, in representing you, has access to your deep, gut-level information.
The Bottom Line
The more you pal around with them, the more comfortable you will be with interpreting the People cards. Recognize their traits in the humans around you. Take the Meyers-Briggs test free online with friends and then study your People cards, exploring correlations. And most of all, trust your instinct. We have survived over countless generations in part because of successfully interpreting social cues. Likewise, these images have evolved to communicate specific traits and very human messages across time. Be brave, and take the time to get to Know Some People.
