Ill-Dignified Card Meanings and the Qlippoth

[Shaira]

So I don't reverse cards in the shuffle, but I do use elemental dignities to determine whether a card is well- or ill-dignified. If a card is flanked by two cards of an opposing suit or element, then that card may end up being functionally reversed, in which case I actually turn it upside down in the spread and read it as such. The precise meaning depends on the nature of the flanking cards forcing the ill-dignification. 

 

Let's say I have the Three of Swords, the Lord of Sorrow. If it's flanked, say, by the Nine and Ten of Pentacles (Material Gain and Wealth respectively), that's Earth flanking Air, so the Three of Swords is flipped. Then, because the Nine and Ten of Pentacles are generally positive, then the reversed meaning of the Three of Swords could be very much mitigated, even becoming something like "A Rebound After Great Sorrow", "A Sense of Relief, Rebirth", "Liberation and Elation", and so on. If the Three of Swords, however, was flanked by the Five and Six of Pentacles (Material Troubles and Material Success respectively), which themselves can be negative, then the flipped meaning may itself be intensified into something devastatingly negative, something like "Paralysed by Trauma", "Self Pity and Incapacitation", "Unable to Do Anything Due to Extreme Sorrow", and so on. 

 

I have a project at the moment to revisit how I do these elemental dignity modifications, and generally try to be a little more rigorous, and spend some quality time contemplating, in particular, the highly ill-dignified / reversed card meanings with as much rigour as I do the normally dignified ones. I've become aware my current approach is maybe more than a little slapdash.

 

Over the weekend I got thinking about the Qlippoth, the "corrupt husks" of the Sephiroth and their paths. I was wondering if any of you use them, even conceptually, to guide or inform your interpretation of ill-dignified card meanings?

 

For example, it seems to be that an ill-dignified / reversed card meaning could be the result of pushing a card's meaning to and beyond its extremes, so it becomes perverted, twisted, corrupted - potentially becoming its complete opposite, but also potentially becoming an overblown hellish nightmare of its usual self. It struck me this may be analogous to what the qlippoth are supposed to be - the corrupt and perverted shadows or "dark" sides of the sephiroth and their paths.

 

At this stage, I'm just feeling my way carefully, not jumping to conclusions. This may be a dead end, and I'm finding the way I'm approaching the card meanings from a qabalistic point of view to be already very fruitful. But is there a correspondence here that's useful to consider? Or is it just a bit of a muddy path of obfuscation?

 

Blessed be, 

 

Sarah 

[dancing_moon]

This might be fascinating to explore. I've never really delved into the Qlippoth, partly because I've had my hands full with the Sephirot. What I find interesting here, though, is the notion of "positive/negative" and how it might translate into the interpretations of both upright and reversed cards.

 

It doesn't seem straightforward to me. Taking your example of 3 of Swords, the upright card is "negative" even though it belongs to a Sephirah. If I understood the idea correctly, then if it's flanked by "positive" cards that clash with it elementally, its meaning might take a more positive spin even though technically it now belongs to a Qlippah. On the other hand, if it's flanked by "negative" cards that clash with it elementally, its meaning becomes even more negative, consistent with its connection to a Qlippah, but now this means that the two flanking Sephirotic influences somehow pushed the central card into the "twisted and perverted" territory of the Qlippoth. 

 

What I'm (probably) trying to say here is that if the Qlippoth are to be brought into the picture, then the notions of "positive" and "negative" might need to be revised. Maybe, "real" and "illusionary" would be a better division: even (seemingly) "malevolent" upright cards are still Sephirotic in nature, and as such are always "positive" even if only as lessons - simply because they do exist and do provide a path to the Divine (as opposed to the empty, fake Qlippoth that can only lead to destruction). Again, this is nothing but some off-the-cuff thoughts that could be further explored.

 

Thank you for bringing up such interesting topics 🙂

[Shaira]

9 hours ago, dancing_moon said:

This might be fascinating to explore. I've never really delved into the Qlippoth, partly because I've had my hands full with the Sephirot. What I find interesting here, though, is the notion of "positive/negative" and how it might translate into the interpretations of both upright and reversed cards.

 

It doesn't seem straightforward to me. Taking your example of 3 of Swords, the upright card is "negative" even though it belongs to a Sephirah. If I understood the idea correctly, then if it's flanked by "positive" cards that clash with it elementally, its meaning might take a more positive spin even though technically it now belongs to a Qlippah. On the other hand, if it's flanked by "negative" cards that clash with it elementally, its meaning becomes even more negative, consistent with its connection to a Qlippah, but now this means that the two flanking Sephirotic influences somehow pushed the central card into the "twisted and perverted" territory of the Qlippoth. 

 

What I'm (probably) trying to say here is that if the Qlippoth are to be brought into the picture, then the notions of "positive" and "negative" might need to be revised. Maybe, "real" and "illusionary" would be a better division: even (seemingly) "malevolent" upright cards are still Sephirotic in nature, and as such are always "positive" even if only as lessons - simply because they do exist and do provide a path to the Divine (as opposed to the empty, fake Qlippoth that can only lead to destruction). Again, this is nothing but some off-the-cuff thoughts that could be further explored.

 

Thank you for bringing up such interesting topics 🙂

 

Great points, Dancing Moon. I think right now it's an area to explore, and I'm feeling I shouldn't be trying to make (or find) hard-and-fast rules. Obviously it's all very contextual - as you say, the Three of Swords is "negative" in the sense that no one really wants to go through that, but at the same time it's "positive" in that it clears the way for the rest and rebirth that is the Four of Swords, and it's the engine for spiritual growth. And as you say also, both aspects of the card are sephirotic, in that they provide lessons and lead to the divine. 

 

But I also wonder if there's a place where the "intensity" of the card is either turned up or down to such a massive degree that it gets completely bent out of shape, perverted, deformed, and distorted, so that perhaps there's no longer any redeeming feature to it, and a hypothetical "qlippothic" Three of Swords would just be bleak and pointless sorrow and suffering without any redemption, rebirth, or light at the end of the tunnel? So, rather than having a simple positive / negative axis, you actually have three possibilities: strengthened, weakened, and perverted / corrupted / "reversed"? 

 

Obviously this isn't something that will come out of "simply" reversing cards in the shuffle; it very much depends on the surrounding / flanking cards in a spread. When I analyse for dignities, I quarter-turn the card to the right if it's strengthened, to the left if it's weakened, and upside-down if it's "reversed". Although, to answer your question, I'm not too worried about the fact that two flanking sephirotic influences might have bent a card so out of shape to send it into "qlippothic" territory - I think we see that in real life plenty of times. 

 

Hmm. Part of me feels the whole qlippothic thing is maybe just too bleak and nihilistic. Sure, I mean, life is like that sometimes, for sure, but given the tarot is for personal growth, meditation, psychic exploration, and so on, maybe there doesn't have to be a place for pushing things that far? At the same time, others before me have certainly explored the tarot-qlippoth connection and even drawn plenty of parallels and correspondences.

 

I particularly like your comment about "empty, fake Qlippoth that can only lead to destruction". It's so true, and also something that makes me think such an important avenue for leading astray, to the dark side if you will, is something worth thinking about in tarot terms. A delicate investigation for sure. 🙂

[Deian]

I like this idea of changing the meaning based on surrounding elements.
In my humble view, however, Qlippoth were severly misunderstood at times of G.D.

From what I remember in other places, the idea is the 4 worlds are made to protect and nurture each other and work like an onion with a center and enveloping layers. So we have Spiritual/Fire one at the center, then we have its shell/envelope being the Mental/Air Worlds.
So each world is seen as a solidifying of the previous world, but Qlippoth is just looking at it in reverse. So for the Astral/Emotional worlds, the Physical worlds are Qlippoth.

 

For the material world, as far as I'm aware the solidifying enveloping shell are again the spiritual worlds. So we don't have Qlippoth here, we only can glimpse them from the above places(when looking at it mentally, the Astral would be the Qlippoth etc.)

Suggesting if one wants to use it in practice a way could be:
Assiah, Beri'ah and Yetzirah as Qlippoth for Atziluth.
Assiah and Yetzirah as Qlippoth for Beri'ah.
Assiah as Qlippoth to Yetzirah.
All merge in Assiah so each of the others may be, if it carry point of view of a higher one. So for example a Fire card would suggest for it qlippoth would be all 3 other suits, if that happens could affect pentacles as well as presence of another one is the only way material world can have that.

I like this more, can see it in meditations and stuff, also in everyday life. They viewed it differently, others have as well. I couldn't find validity in that, but that is just me, of course.