Reading Pips the Knapp-Hall Way: Is It Workable?

[Wooden_Nickel]

Wanting to get beyond the standard Golden Dawn ways of reading pip cards, I’m looking into the numerological Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis method described by Knapp in the Knapp-Hall LWB [1929].  

 

Has anyone out there ever tried this?

 

It goes like this: each suite has a keyword: Love for Cups, Hatred for Swords, Enterprise for Scepters, and Fortune for Coins.

Knapp breaks down 9 of the 10 pips into 3 groups of 3:

 

1, 2, 3 —COMMENCEMENT
1….Commencement of Commencement
2….Opposition of Commencement
3….Equilibrium of Commencement

 

4, 5, 6 — OPPOSITION
4….Commencement of Opposition
5….Opposition of Opposition
6….Equilibrium of Opposition

 

7, 8, 9 — EQUILIBRIUM
7….Commencement of Equilibrium
8….Opposition of Equilibrium
9….Equilibrium of Equilibrium

 

To apply this over 36 cards, “It is only necessary to add the words Love, Hatred, Enterprise and Fortune, to define the meaning without wearying the memory.”  But he leaves 10 as “Undetermined; following card explains it.” I'd call this chickening out, or a failure of imagination.

 

Here’s an example of how he puts the method into practice for the suit of Scepters.  Note he substitutes “Realization” for “Equilibrium" throughout.

 

SCEPTERS
ACE:  Commencement of Enterprise.
TWO:  Opposition of Commencement, unexpected obstacles intervene.
THREE:  Realization of Commencement, can be fearlessly continued.
FOUR:  Commencement of Opposition, effort to overcome them necessary.
FIVE:  Opposition to Opposition, victory after overcoming opposition.
SIX:  Realization of the Opposition, failure of enterprise.   
SEVEN:  Certain success of the enterprise.
EIGHT:  Opposition to its success, partial success.

 

Less memorization certainly appeals to me, but the examples wold be hard to translate into practice in an actual reading.  It’d take a lot of imagination to flesh out such dry, schematic conclusions. That said, it also takes a lot of imagination to translate typical LWB keywords into useful observations. “Design, attempt, wish, hope, confidence,” [RWS 7S] anyone?

 

Would you ever try this out?  Do you think Knapp’s method can be made to work?   If you read pips with numerology, does that take less work?

[Misterei]

53 minutes ago, Wooden_Nickel said:

SIX:  Realization of the Opposition, failure of enterprise.   
SEVEN:  Certain success of the enterprise.
EIGHT:  Opposition to its success, partial success.

 

Would you ever try this out?  Do you think Knapp’s method can be made to work?   If you read pips with numerology, does that take less work?

I use my own version of numerology to read Pips. Based on intuition and a bit of Pythagoras.

 

This Knapp-Hall version might bother me as the meaning for 6 wands is the exact opposite of RWS 6 wands.

When i read Pip decks, I don't read them exactly like RWS. In some cases they are pretty different [the 5s for example]. But it would bother me to memorize a system that directly opposes RWs meanings.

[DanielJUK]

I've moved this thread to the specific TdM section as I think it relates better here 🙂 

[Wooden_Nickel]

1 hour ago, Misterei said:

 But it would bother me to memorize a system that directly opposes RWs meanings.

 

I can see that.  So the problem's not so much the effort of applying inspiration to bring a bald description to life as it is forcing ourselves to go against early training.  Like when an English-speaker is reading Cyrillic and has to give "P" and "H" the sounds of R and N.  It's stepping away from something basic to how we process information, and that's destabilizing. 

 

But in my case, I'd say it's the bald descriptions as well.

[Misterei]

19 hours ago, Wooden_Nickel said:

... applying inspiration to bring a bald description to life as it is forcing ourselves to go against early training.  Like when an English-speaker is reading Cyrillic and has to give "P" and "H" the sounds of R and N.  It's stepping away from something basic to how we process information, and that's destabilizing. 

LOL I learned Greek alphabet as a child so Cyrillic is somewhat familar. But yes, I don't want to go directly OPPOSITE of early training.

 

This is a struggle with Eteilla style. Eteilla sees the Devil in a positive light, but this doesn't bother me. I understand the French of that time were angry with the Church, so applied subversive political ideas wherein the Devil was human strength and the Hermit became a "false or corrupt cleric" As I can understand the politics, it seems reasonable.

19 hours ago, Wooden_Nickel said:

But in my case, I'd say it's the bald descriptions as well.

Language translation? Bald is a man with no hair. So I think you want another word. Maybe "basic"? If you want to say the basic or rudimentary meaning of the card? Essential meaning? Anyway I think I understand.

Edited June 26, 2024 by Misterei

[Wooden_Nickel]

6 hours ago, Misterei said:

 Eteilla sees the Devil in a positive light, but this doesn't bother me. I understand the French of that time were angry with the Church, so applied subversive political ideas wherein the Devil was human strength and the Hermit became a "false or corrupt cleric" As I can understand the politics, it seems reasonable.

 

Reading the Devil as "human strength"!  😲  No way!  I've read about French anti-clericalism, but I didn't know that! 

Etteilla's keywords and interpretations are so intriguing -- I need to read more.

 

Quote

Language translation? Bald is a man with no hair. So I think you want another word. Maybe "basic"? If you want to say the basic or rudimentary meaning of the card?

 

OK, that wasn't the best choice of words.  I just meant "basic, unadorned."

 

The Greek alphabet's no problem for me either, but it only helps so much when I try deciphering Cyrillic signs (in the news, for instance). "C" and "P" work the same as in Greek, but to me "H" should be a vowel, not a consonant.
 

Edited June 27, 2024 by Wooden_Nickel

[Misterei]

20 hours ago, Wooden_Nickel said:

Reading the Devil as "human strength"!  😲  No way!  I've read about French anti-clericalism, but I didn't know that! 

Etteilla's keywords and interpretations are so intriguing -- I need to read more.

I'm not experienced with Eteilla, but this site is my main study material. It was recommended by someone here.

https://stolen-thyme.com/etteilla-in-english/

 

[Wooden_Nickel]

Thanks, Misterei!  Lots of meat on the bone here, more and better organized than the LWB in my Grimaud Grand Etteilla.  I just downloaded the PDF!

[Scandinavianhermit]

There exist four main sources for interpretation of Etteilla decks:

• Etteilla's own corpus of works (1783-1790)
• Hugand's and La Salette's Dictionnaire Synonimique du Livre de Thot (1791)
• d'Odoucet's Science des Signes, ou Médecine de l'esprit (1804-1807) quoted liberally by Papus in Tarot Divinatoire (1909). An English translation of the latter was published a few years ago.
• The little book by Simon Blocquel under the pseudonym "Julia Orsini" (1838 and later editions)

The Stolen Thyme website above is based upon the Orsini book.

 

There exist subtle differences between the four main sources mentioned above. They certainly belong to one and the same school of tarot interpretation, but not even the school of Etteilla is entirely homogenous, and there seem to have been some quarrel between the republican Hugand and the monarchist d'Odoucet. I haven't read Hugand's Course Complet: Théorique et Pratique du Livre de Thot (1794), which, if it differ from the book he co-wrote with La Salette, may form a fifth main source. 

[Scandinavianhermit]

The Knapp-Hall LBW seem to be based upon a method of tarot interpretation presented in Papus' first book about Tarot: Tarot of the Bohemians (1892). Tarot Divinatoire (1909) was Papus' second book about the subject matter.  

[Wooden_Nickel]

8 minutes ago, Scandinavianhermit said:

The Knapp-Hall LBW seem to be based upon a method of tarot interpretation presented in Papus' first book about Tarot: Tarot of the Bohemians (1892). Tarot Divinatoire (1909) was Papus' second book about the subject matter.  

Yes, thank you, that must be Knapp's source! Pages 310-315 of Papus, starting with the table Signification of the Four Series of the Minor Arcana, are repeated almost verbatim in the Knapp-Hall LWB, though Knapp omits description of the Courts. Up to now I've been under the mistaken impression that 19th century French Tarotists (or at least Levi, Wirth, and Papus) focussed entirely on the trumps and ignored the pip cards.  You have opened my eyes, Scandinavianhermit.

[Morwenna]

I have SO much to learn about Etteilla and Knapp-Hall! And this after having had a Knapp-Hall deck for over 20 years... 

[Mikeyc]

My way of reading the TDM is to assign a keyword to each number. 
example: aces.  New beginnings which leads me to new. New what? how does this work with the position in the spread and that part of the question 

 

ace of Swords. Swords head, intelligence,   A new thought perhaps, perspective

let the thought make you think subconsciously