In this chapter you’ll find information about the tarot people and personalities. As in life, these folks are gay and straight, and they have feelings, thoughts, dreams, hopes, fears, anxieties, skills, deficiencies, warts, and flaws. In other words, they’re just plain human.
I’ve discovered some things along the way that I’d like to pass along about the “people” cards. These are formally known as the Court Cards: Pages, Knights, Queens, and Kings.
The Animus and the Anima
Early in the last century, Carl Jung called our other-gender component the animus (masculine, for a woman) and the anima (feminine, for a man). In the past couple of decades there’s been a lot of talk about the male’s sensitive, feminine side. Well, that in a nutshell is the anima. Women cry, and it’s expected. Men cry, and finally these days in a lot of places what should be this totally normal reaction to pain is being rewarded.
But there’s even more talk now about the ballsy, aggressive woman scrambling to climb the corporate ladder. Well, this woman is all about the animus. Men who are aggressive and edgy in business are respected. Women who are aggressive and edgy tend to be frowned on. Still!
So it would appear that society has decided, at least for now, that we all have another side, but it isn’t always okay to show it!
In any case, many times I’ll be doing a reading and I’ll realize that the King I’m seeing in a woman’s cards is really her masculine side. And so I know that she needs to express this more. Maybe she needs to play hardball at work more. Maybe it means she needs to use the brain she was born with more. Maybe it means she needs to think more and feel less. Maybe she needs to be more decisive and firm.
Of course, when this happens it can cause huge confusion, because a reader doesn’t know, for example, if that King is an actual guy or the other side of the female client.
Well, all I can say is that this animus/anima thing doesn’t happen often, and for sure it won’t come up for you for quite a while. But it just might at some point when you’re good enough to spot it. And so I’m telling you here that it might. Again, relax. Tarot will advance only as fast as you can! And this incredible subtlety will make itself known to you only after you’ve done enough work that your right (psychic) brain is sufficiently developed.
Couples
A King and a Queen side by side will usually be a couple. If they’re both of the same suit, I can be pretty sure they’re a compatible couple.
But if the King is upside down and the Queen is right-side up, right away I know there’s something wrong between them. And if they’re back to back, well, then I get the immediate sense of two people turning away from each other in bed and in life. They’re just not on the same page.
Again, this is something you can see quickly. It may take longer, though, to understand all the permutations.
For example, if you have the King of Swords upside down next to (or near) the Queen of Cups right-side up, you wouldn’t want to be that woman. Think: a critical guy next to a sweet woman? Ugh.
Or maybe you see the Page of Cups upside down next to (or near) the Queen of Swords upside down, and you can imagine this sweet child doesn’t stand a chance in the hands of this negative, critical woman/mother.
The Page of Cups
At some point after I’d been reading a while, I realized that this particular “child” card showed up in my readings most of the time to describe my client. My adult client.
As time went on, I discovered that the Page of Cups right-side up is a client who is emotionally healthy and has no psychological problems, no unresolved baggage to mess up a relationship. This person has probably been through psychotherapy.
The Page of Cups reversed, though, is another story. This is somebody who wasn’t loved when little the way he or she needed to be by the mother, and if it shows up this way in a reading I always suggest that my client consider psychotherapy to deal with all that old pain.
Also, sometimes next to a Page of Cups reversed I’ll see violence (the Five of Swords reversed) or seduction (the Knight of Cups reversed), and I’ll know that something very bad happened to this little kid long ago.
But sometimes, of course, the Pages are actual kids, maybe children of the client. And sometimes that Page of Cups reversed is the child of the person sitting across from you.
Of course, it’s hard to tell a client, “It doesn’t look like your child is getting the love he/she needs from you.” But I do it, because I’m all about protecting children.
Again, none of this will occur for you if you don’t come from the place I do in terms of psychology. But if you do have a deep interest in mental health, please keep this phenomenon in mind for when you get good enough to spot it and use it in a healing way.
Knights
It took me years to boil down the meanings of the Knights to single words or a concept each. Usually, this is the way the Knights appear in my readings now. Sure, they can also be young men and young women, but usually they appear to provide description.
In my readings a Knight concept can add huge shades of meaning, depending on which cards are added to make a complete sentence or thought. So learn the meanings and see how the Knights show up when you’re doing readings. My students seem to have the most trouble understanding the Moon and the Knights, as I did. So my only suggestion is to keep reading real people using my definitions until you can see your own pattern of meaning for these cards.
If you don’t come up with anything of your own, that’s fine too.
Right-Side-Up Court Cards
Court Cards and certain of the Major Arcana that are right-side up will usually have a more positive meaning for the client than reversed ones. For example, an Emperor right-side up could be a CEO favorably disposed to you. An Empress right-side up is at least attempting to live up to her idea of a good wife/mother.
What Happens If You Run Out of Court Cards
If you’re doing a reading and the story is really complicated (the client has a lot of people in his or her life), you may have all the Court Cards on the table but the story still isn’t finished.
When this happens, I find other cards stepping in. I might see a King of Swords reversed husband, but the wife shows up as the Nine of Swords. Clearly, he’s not nice and she’s in sorrow. This can take a while to figure out, but it can be done. All of a sudden, one day you’re doing a reading and you see it clearly. The Nine is not only about pain now, it’s suddenly also representing the woman in pain next to the man who is causing it.
You know, I’m continually astonished at the capability of tarot to inform and to teach.
Sometimes I think it’s just miraculous. And never can I explain it. So I take tarot and my work on faith. And maybe someday, if I’m meant to, I’ll figure out the rest.
Reversed Card Meanings
I can’t tell you how many readers don’t use the whole pack of cards, or they only use the cards right-side up. This will work only so far. I mean, the Devil is malignant or dangerous or chronic when it’s right-side up, but the Devil reversed is healthy and good. The Star right-side up is beautiful; reversed, it’s depression. The Two of Cups reversed is two people out of love.
So if you don’t learn the meanings of the reversed cards, then when they fall upside down there’s absolutely no way you’ll be able to do the kind of work you’re reading this book to achieve. Tarot cards were designed for this. So just do it. Learn everything. Have the tools you need. Would you try to fix a car with three wrenches and no screwdriver?
No kidding.
The same goes for using only the Major Arcana to do readings. As I said, these cards deal with the large and overriding issues in a person’s life, but without the Minor cards you’re probably not going to get any useful information about the day-to-day things and decisions, which is what we’re confronted with most of the time. We live day to day. We have to decide things every day. So a competent reading must deal with the day-to-day, and the Major Arcana cards alone were never designed to do this.
The Gay Client
In 1948, sex researcher and author Alfred Kinsey announced that 10 percent of the US male population was gay. But in a 2017 Gallup poll, 4.5 percent of adult Americans identified as LGBT.
I myself find that gay clients seek me out often, but not spectacularly so. I believe it’s because these people are artists at heart and find my method (and my vibe?) compatible with their own instincts.
So now I need to explain something. There is no particular card in tarot to represent homosexuality, despite the percentages being thrown around.
So this is what happened for me in this regard. After reading people for a while, I started to notice that a particular Queen kept showing up when the client was a gay male and a particular King kept showing up when the client was a gay female. And this has held true for my entire career. The same two Court Cards. After I thought about it for a while, I realized that these two particular cards have meanings that I both consciously and probably unconsciously associate with gayness. In fact, I learned something about my own unconscious attitudes from doing tarot! Nothing bad—just the way my own mind works and how I “see” people and their roles in life.
So I suggest that every time you read for a gay male, make a note of what card comes up; I’m 99 percent sure it’ll be the same card every time. The same will be true if you work with a gay female. If you pay attention, eventually you’ll know which two cards represent gayness to you.
And this is why I won’t reveal my “gay” cards. They might not be relevant to your life, your attitudes, or your thinking. But if you do ascertain which cards signify gayness to you, it will never change.
Further, while I realize there are many transgender people out there, so far not one transgender individual has sought me out. I believe this is because the issue is far from my own concerns and history. The people who seek me out tend to be addicts, executives, and healthcare professionals, among others. As a result, I’ve had little chance to chart what cards come up for me with the transgender segment of the population.
Actually, I wish somebody with this kind of experience would write a book about it. It would interest me a lot.