Cult of Tarot Forum

I like to explore the relationship between astrology and tarot. It really helps to understand the minors better (the majors, too, but that's another chapter). This post is written for people with zero prior knowledge (myself some years ago), sorry to those who know it all. If you are looking for a book that explains it all better than I can, look for Anthony Louis' or Lon Milo DuQuette's books.

Today, I want to explain the importance of the decans and their rulers.


This is the wheel of the year. Twelve astrological signs - we all know them. Each astrological sign occupies c. 30° of the 360° that make up the circle (because 12 x 30 = 360). If you take now each sign and divide the 30° into three smaller segments, you get three decans - meaning three segments of 10° within each astrological sign.

Now we're in Cancer - it just began, so we're in the first decan. In c. ten days, we'll enter the second decan, and then the last decan. When the c 30 days/30° are over, we enter the next sign.

Sorry if that was too obvious... I simply remember the long months on AT when I stopped reading as soon as the word DECAN came up. I was sure that it's something so esoteric I could never understand it. Until I understood.

What's the difference between the decans? Each is ruled by another planet. The seven planets that are visible to the naked eye, the seven planets known since the earliest days of mankind when the knowledge of star constellations was important and probably the first study of mankind.

These seven planets (who also gave their number and names to the week and weekdays we know until today) are:

Saturn (far away, slow, cold yellow light)
Jupiter (radiant light, moves a bit quicker, dominates the skies when he's up)
Mars (reddish light, moves quicker than Jupiter)
Sun (was thought then to be a planet circling around Earth, moving visibly all the time, gives not only light but also warmth)
Venus (moves quicker than the Sun, always close to the sun, never visible in the middle of the night or high up like the other planets, radiant Evening or Morning Star)
Mercury (difficult to see because he moves so quickly and is often so close to the sun that we can't make him out)
Moon (not only moves quickly and visibly but also changes his shape from one night to the next, sometimes visible in the daytime)



From watching how these "wandering stars" behave, the ancients came to the conclusion that they have different characters and influence us humans differently. They also received names that reflected their character, and the mythological stories woven around each character reflected their celestial behaviour. Myth and the observation of nature were born together - until today, astronomers give mythological names to new objects. Jupiter's moons are called after mythological Zeus'/Jupiter's lovers, Saturn's moons carry names of mythological figures associated with his myth etc. It's actually really fascinating to see how the human brain connected these things. Stars, planets, constellations were really part of the human experience, until a not-so-long time ago.

Back to the order of the planets. According to their speed, the ancient Chaldeans saw them as arranged in the skies in this order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon (I mentioned already that I use the acronym SIMSUMM to remember it).

And each decan is ruled by one of the planets, in the Chaldean order. The year starts with the first decan of Aries at the time of the vernal (spring) euqinox, and it ends with the last decan of Pisces. Interestingly, both these decans are ruled by Mars, meaning that we have a strong injection of Mars energy at the "seam" between the old and the new year.

How are these decans connected to the tarot? Esoteric tarots establish (or intuit) that the minor cards (except for the Aces) reflect the energies of each decan. We start the year in the first decan of Aries with Mars - and this is the first numbered minor card of the tarot, the Two of Wands. And now it's obvious how to continue - the first three decans of Aries are associated with the Two, Three and Four of Wands respectively. Fire decans for a fire suit, ruled by Mars, Sun and Venus.

But then Taurus comes along, and with it the element Earth. We can't continue with Wands and switch over to Pentacles/Disks. We continue to count, though, and accordingly, Five, Six and Seven of Pentacles belong to the three decans of Taurus. The Chaldean order continues as well, so these decans are ruled by Mercury, Moon and Saturn - after the seven planets are through, we simply start again with Saturn.

Then we move on to Gemini, and the three decans of Gemini are associated with the three last minors of the Air suit, Swords. Eight, Nine and Ten of Swords are associated with Gemini, and ruled by Jupiter, Mars and the Sun.

And thusly we continue.


This wheel shows the decans of each astrological sign - start reading from the left, from Aries to Taurus

A nice pattern emerges. All cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn), the signs that usher in a new season with strong energies and the will to lead, are associated with the Two, Three and Four of their suits.

Have a look at the wheel - all cardinal signs appear after the diamond symbol of a celestial signpost. Aries comes with the spring equinox, Cancer with the summer solstice, Libra with the autumn equinox and Capricorn with the winter solstice. These are powerful events!

All fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) are associated with the middle minors of each suit, the Five, Six and Seven, and stand for the culmination of each season, its character uninfluenced by the season before or after it. That's why they are fixed.

On the wheel, you can see that these signs are stably anchored in the middle of each season.

All mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces) are associated with the last minors of each suit, the Eight, Nine and Ten. They are the signs that let us feel already that the next season is knocking on the door.

Look at the wheel again. These signs seem to be rushing towards the great celestial events when the seasons change.

I like to put it like that: Aries is winter spring (i.e. spring with remnants of winter that are left behind), Taurus is spring spring (spring and only spring), and Gemini is summery spring (spring that changes into summer).


A complete wheel - not only the astrological signs and decans are shown here but also the planetary rulers of each decan

So we have in every minor the influence of the element and suit, of its number (which has numerological and kabbalistic associations), the influence of the astrological sign and the planet who rules its decan. Each of them plays a role, and the mixture gives us the character, the influence of the minor card.

In the Thoth, these influences are clearly depicted and visible. In the RWS, they're hidden behind narrative scenes. In their wake, some deck creators stayed with the narrative scenes and developed them further, and others re-interpreted the esoteric associations (the Tabula Mundi for example went back to the "bare bones" of these associations and built the cards with a strikingly unique AND traditional iconography).

Once you understand this network of esoteric influences on each card, you have a lot of material to start interpreting each card and the whole reading. You look for elements/suits that dominate or are missing, for the strong influence of a planet (if there are three cards from a Venus decan, we have a strong hint that erotic energies are playing out - and if their flow is stopped by a Saturn card, it seems there is some obstacle or frustration on the way), and also for the energies of the decans themselves.

Anthony Louis sees the triple pattern of cardinal-fixed-mutable played out within each astrological sign. All the first decans usher in the suit/sign powerfully, all the second decans show it in its unadulterated form, and all the last decans prepare already for the next suit/sign.

This is an interesting idea but one which sometimes clashes with the character of a card. Let's take the Four of Pentacles. It's so stable that it can hardly move at all - the stable, stubborn Earth element, the very stable number four - but it's a "mutable" i.e. 3rd decan in a cardinal sign (Capricorn) that says goodbye to these decans. To me, the Four of Pentacles shouts fixed, fixed, fixed - I see neither the powers of the cardinal sign that pushes things forward nor the mutable character of a third decan.

But for other cards, it works very well.

I scanned my Thoth cards some time ago to see these patterns better.



These are all the minors from cardinal signs, i.e., the cards Two, Three and Four, from all elements/suits. Each column is the element/Suit: Wands, Pentacles, Swords and Cups, ordered like the astrological signs that always come as Fire, Earth, Air, Water sequence. So we have here the minors associated with the cardinal signs in their elemental suits: Aries/Wands, Capricorn/Earth, Libra/Air and Cancer/Water.


Here, we have all the minors associated with fixed signs, i.e., all the Five, Six and Seven. Cards of identical number are in a row, cards from the same element/suit/astrological sign in a column. Leo, Taurus, Aquarius and Scorpio are the fixed signs. (You can see that the Fives and Sevens are difficult cards - we'll discuss the reasons for that later, when I'll write a bit more about kabbalah, if you don't mind )


And the minor cards associated with mutable signs. They the Eight, Nine and Ten of each element/suit/astrological sign. Sagittarius, Virgo, Gemini and Pisces are the mutable signs, and they "close" the sequence of each suit, preparing for the next suit to appear.



I hope my explanation made sense. I'll write about the majors and court cards, too, if anyone's interested.

Thank you so much for sharing this! I going to need to read it again to soak it all in, but it's really cool knowledge!

Thank you, Libra. I'll continue this as series.

The connection between astrological signs and major arcana is much easier to understand than the whole decan thing, and maybe I should have started with it! It's very easy. We have 22 major cards in the tarot on the one side, and on the other, 12 zodiac signs, 7 classical planets and 4 elements, or 10 modern planets (the discussion about Pluto is open but when the number of planets in astrology was expanded to include the planets discovered via telescope, Pluto was included; more about the fluctuating number of planets obviously here). Remember that Moon and Sun count as planets in astrology.

The numbers are clear: it's easy to associate 12 zodiac signs to 12 tarot trumps, but what about the remaining 10 trumps? We can either associate them with the 7 classical planets and the remaining 3 with elements, or associate them with 10 modern planets. That has lead to the "double association" of three trumps - they are associated with a modern planet AND an element.

There are different ways of doing this, and some correspondences are debated. I want to present here the system of the Golden Dawn that is maybe most popular and well-known. It's useful to know it because so many decks are based on it.

Here are the astrological signs and the tarot cards associated with them:

Aries - the Emperor

Taurus - the Hierophant

Gemini - the Lovers

Cancer - the Chariot

Leo - Strength

Virgo - the Hermit

Libra - Justice

Scorpio - Death

Sagittarius - Temperance

Capricorn - the Devil

Aquarius - the Star

Pisces - the Moon

Later, I'll take a picture of the trumps that make up the zodiac.

The twelve tarot trumps associated with the zodiac sign don't mean that they have exactly the same meaning. But they are related, they have a lot in common, they throw light on each other. In mathematical language: an intersection. Knowing both helps understand each of them, and it's a useful tool in tarot study (example: thinking about what Hierophant and Taurus have in common helps understand Hierophant better). And thinking about the areas outside the intersection throws each into sharper relief (example: thinking about what Hierophant and Taurus DO NOT have in common helps understand Hierophant better).

And here are our seven classical planets with their associated planets:

Saturn - the World

Jupiter - the Wheel of Fortune

Mars - the Tower

Sun - the Sun

Venus - the Empress

Mercury - the Magician

Moon - the High Priestess

We're still left with three trumps: the Fool, the Hanged Man and Judgement.


We can either pair them with elements:

Air - the Fool

Water - the Hanged Man

Fire - Judgement

Earth - we have run out of tarot cards here so we can choose a double connotation here: the World (Saturn and Earth)

All tarot cards are associated with elements, but these four cards represent their elements.


If we can pair them with the newly discovered planets, this is what we get:

Uranus - the Fool

Neptune - the Hanged Man

Pluto - Judgement


How do we solve the double associations? It's not difficult; in esoteric thinking, many symbols are "loaded" with more than one meaning. Here, it works well because the planets are associated with elements anyway.

So let's start the list now with the tarot trumps:

Fool - Uranus - Air

Magician - Mercury - Air

High Priestess - Moon - Water

Empress - Venus - Earth

Emperor - Aries - Fire

Hierophant - Taurus - Earth

Lovers - Gemini - Air

Chariot - Cancer - Water

Justice* - Libra - Air

Hermit - Virgo - Earth

Wheel of Fortune - Jupiter - Fire

Strength* - Leo - Fire

Hanged Man - Neptune - Water

Death - Scorpio - Water

Temperance - Sagittarius - Fire

Devil - Capricorn - Earth

Tower - Mars - Fire

Star - Aquarius - Air

Moon - Pisces - Water

Sun - Sun - Fire

Judgement - Pluto - Fire

World - Saturn - Earth


* I follow here the older, TdM tradition of Justice as VIII and Strength as XI, a tradition that the Thoth adheres to but Waite changed when he switched places for Justice and Strength to make them fit the zodiac sequence. Leo after all comes before Libra, not after it. In spite of RWS' popularity his sequence is NOT the traditional one.

That's all very simple and gives rich possibilities to our readings. We can see whether an element dominates or is lacking, we can look for Venus in a love reading, Mars in a conflict reading etc, and we can the horoscope of the querent into account. The sun sign alone is usually not enough. I'm not an astrologer but I find that knowing the Sun, Moon and ascendant sign gives quite a good basic outline of a personality.

You can take the three trumps that represent these three signs and get a shorthand of your astrological personality. For me (Sun in Taurus, Moon in Scorpio, Ascendant Sagittarius) that would be Hierophant, Death and Temperance - and when these cards turn up in my readings, I see them with a little exclamation mark. They ask for my attention.

It's even possible to lay out your horoscope in tarot cards. I have wanted to do that for AGES, maybe the time has come to do it now?

Anyway, this information is very useful, and for modern tarot decks, really necessary to know. So many tarot creators have taken inspiration from astrology. Some have treated astrology in the Golden Dawn tradition, others have found their own systems (Holy Light Tarot, Journey into Egypt, Celestial) - and if you know the basic Golden Dawn structure, it's easier to understand where, how and why new system change it.

We have seen now how each tarot card has astrological associations, and each zodiac sign and planet have tarot cards associated with them. Obviously, if you have three cards associated with Mars turn up in one reading, the old warrior is asking for your attention. There might be a conflict hidden somewhere, strong tension and latent aggression.

I have scanned the Thoth cards associated with each zodiac sign: the major, the three decans that belong the sign, and the planets that rule the decans.

The zodiac sign is in the upper row, the associated minors/decans in the second row, and their planetary rulers in the bottom row.

Please take note how beautifully the sequence is kept: the zodiac signs follow each other (Aries, Taurus, Gemini...), the numbers of the minors follow each other (Two, Three, Four, Five...) and the Chaldean order of the planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars...). The only irregularity is the "seam" between the last decan of Pisces and the first of Aries - the double push given by Mars to get us over from one year to the next.


Aries - the Emperor, and Two, Three, Four of Wands ruled by Mars, Sun, Venus respectively



Taurus - the Hierophant, and Five, Six, Seven of Disks ruled by Mercury, Moon and Saturn



Gemini - the Lovers, and Eight, Nine, Ten of Swords, ruled by Jupiter, Mars and the Sun



Cancer - the Chariot, and Two, Three, Four of Cups, ruled by Venus, Mercury and the Moon



Leo - Strength, and Five, Six, Seven of Wands, ruled by Saturn, Jupiter and Mars



Virgo - the Hermit and Eight, Nine, Ten of Disks/Pentacles ruled by the Sun, Venus and Mercury



Libra - Justice and Two, Three, Four of Swords ruled by the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter



Scorpio - Death and Five, Six and Seven of Cups ruled by Mars, the Sun and Venus



Sagittarius - Temperance and Eight, Nine and Ten of Wands ruled by Mercury, the Moon and Saturn



Capricorn - the Devil with Two, Three, Four of Disks/Pentacles ruled by Jupiter, Mars and the Sun



Aquarius - the Star with Four, Five, Six of Swords ruled by Venus, Mercury and the Moon



Pisces - the Moon with Eight, Nine, Ten of Cups ruled by Saturn, Jupiter and Mars



Look through these groups. Can you see how the minors combine influences from the zodiac and the planet? Shapes, symbols and colours - like a cosmic caleidoscope. (The Tabula Mundi does the same - it's breathtaking to see).

Why is it useful to know all that? Let's say you have a reading where the Star, the Empress and the Four of Swords appear together. Or Virgo, the Nine of Pentacles and the Empress. If you know that these three cards "belong together" astrologically, you understand how strong their synergy is. It's as if they were talking in a chorus, empowering each other. These are constellations - and like I love the moment when I recognize a constellation in the sky and instead of just some stars I see a Swan flying on the Milky Way, I also love recognizing these constellations.

The Thoth, Tabula Mundi and many other decks give us this information on the cards themselves, so it's no rocket science at all. I know that for many years, I used the Thoth without understanding the astrological glyphs - i.e. I knew that "Mercury in Taurus" was written on the cards but I thought that the strange people who made this deck probably took this constellation from some secret teachings I couldn't understand anyway

Once I understood it, I wanted to share it but there are many books that explain it better than I can. I'll add a reading list later

A while ago I approached the question of "Why do we need to know all that stuff?" Here's the post.

https://parsifalswheeldivination.com/20 ... -too-much/

I finally just took the time to read these two posts. What a beautifully clear explanation of these things.

And the cards and diagrams help so much. I can't claim to have memorised all this but I do feel a connection has been established, like the ice was broken for me on these topics.

As an aside, I can now really appreciate your use of a trimmed Thoth deck. The influences between the cards are more pronounced without the distraction of keywords and border.

Thank you so much for this Nemia. Just an amazing pair of posts.

Thank you! This was so helpful and I found this forum, which is a double win.

So, Im just curious to see if someone else comes up with something different. I have a symmetrical star of David in my natal chart. Two perfectly overlapping triangles. One trine is the three water signs and the other is the three fire signs. My overall natal chart resembles an ennegram. I am clothed with the sun and have my moon under my foot. I also have a crown of twelve stars on my head! Who am I?

Decans always fascinated me. I use them with TdM, too, much to others' chagrin

In researching the history where the actual order came from I found they are based on Lilly's Table of Planetary Hours and Days:



https://www.renaissanceastrology.com/pl ... ticle.html

It may not add too much to the discussion, but with all the whoo-whoo I've sometimes heard associated (not by you, Nemia!) with the Decans I thought it may be pertinent.

The planetary order is obvious if you look at the sky for a year or even less. Once you start observing the planets, it's obvious from their movements that Saturn is far away and the Moon closest. The Chaldean star watchers found that out without a problem. But I wonder why the first decan of the astrological/astronomical year starts with Mars. And then the Mars/Mars hinge between the last and first decan.

Your link explains nicely the sequence of week days (I wrote a lot about that when he had the Planetary Week readings around here, I'm still fascinated by it) and their relationship to the Chaldean order, and also the planetary hous, but not why Mars starts the dance of the decans.

Btw, even in Hebrew that shuns all pagan names and calls the days of the week by the names given to them in the story of Genesis (first day, second day etc - usually coounted in Hebrew letters: yom alef, yom bet, yom gimel etc), the Shabat is called after Shabtai. And Shabtai is no other than Saturn. Satur-day even in Hebrew. And it's fitting since you're not supposed to work on Saturday and Shabtai/Saturn really hardly moves

On my tarot calendar, I change every day the card for the day of the week. I used different decks, the Mantegna and the Celestial, but I like the Cosmos Tarot and Oracle. On Sundays - the Sun, on Mondays - the Moon, on Tuesdays - Mars etc. I feel a deep connection to the whole rhythm of the planets. Already as a child, I loved the concept of the Planetenkinder, the "children of the planets". I had a book about art and there were pictures of the Planetenkinder. Even before I started reading astrology books, I knew that I was a child of Venus




There are even children playing cards on the print! Otherwise - food, music, bath, love, nicely dresssed people having fun - I see nobody working


One last thing - anyone who's interested in the planets will enjoy Dava Sobel's book about them. Listen to Holst's Planets suite while you read it! I had great fun with it. Interesting enough - Holst starts with Mars, Bringer of War, too. Instead of Moon and Sun (no planets any more in modern times), he has Neptune and Uranus.

The order is one of natural observation of the apparent motion of the seven traditional 'planets' and was made by astronomers of ancient times. The association with the days of the week and the relation of such to the planetary hours is testified from pagan Roman times at least. In medieval times we find it in the Picatrix, and also the oldest redactions of the Sefer Yetzirah all attribute the letters of the seven double letters of the Hebrew alphabet to the planets in this 'Chaldean' order [which it is often called].

Re: with Mars - an interesting coincidence:

If we create a heptagram drawing a line between every second planet instead of every third, we get the order starting with Mars [as it rules the first decan of the first sign]: Mars, Venus, Moon, Jupiter, Sun, Mercury, Saturn. Replace with the metals ruled by the planets then they are ordered according to their ascending atomic weight [rounded figure]: Iron [56], Copper [63], Silver [108], Tin [118], Gold [196], Mercury [200] and Lead [207].

Ah, I didn't know that about the metals!

I wrote about the planets and weekdays when I started the reading circle "My Planetary Week" which became a bit limiting after time.

Regarding the origin of the decans, I heard that they go back to ancient Egypt and were found in the Tomb of Senenmet.


I found this webpage about it: https://themathematicaltourist.wordpres ... muts-tomb/


Also, I did a thing today:



I used the wheel Nemia posted above. I've never seen another with so much information in one wheel. I made one a while back but I used some cheap pens and the ink faded and I've been wanting to make a new one since so today I finally did.

I have a question: On the wheel in one of the outer rings it shows the Knights, Queens and Princes. Is the Knight the Thoth Knight (so King) ?

Yes, it's the Thoth Knight / RWS King (Michael Sternbach would sort them differently and has good arguments but I still follow the Thoth Knight/RWS King rule, and Thoth Prince/RWS Knight).

Great-looking wheel! Isn't it wonderful to be able to see with one glance all the cards ruling the day?

I continue to be fascinated by the tarot as cosmic clock, ticking away time hour by hour (ruled by planets), day by day (ruled by planets, too), decan by decan, sign by sign, season by season...

Some time ago, I bought on a whim a reading cloth with the zodiac printed white on black. It's not really good quality and I don't do astrology spreads - and I made my own spread maps - so I didn't really know what to do with it.

Today, I thought, why not decorate my tarotorium with it? I can't put up things on the walls of my study but I do have an old fridge that I use to put up stuff with magnets. That's where my tarot magnets live, the ones I made myself some years ago from a mini RWS.


Well, the not-so-pretty cloth was hanging there, a bit warped, and I put some magnets with majors on the pictures of their respective zodiac signs... Emperor an Aries, Hierophant on Taurus, Lovers on Gemini.... and I liked the effect. Oh, I prefer circular to linear any time!


After putting up the majors (without the cards currently on my tarot calendar: Death and Five of Cups), I added the minors for each decan (three per zodiac sign), then the court cards over the decans when they start.

Nicely enough, the fixed signs are in the corners of the cloth so there's room to put up the Aces and Pages/Princesses which rule each season.


I put the three elementary majors in the center (Fool, Hanged Man, Judgement) and around them, I arranged the planetary majors in the Chaldean order (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon).



It looks much nicer than on the pictures! My study is always dark - it's so bright outside that I shut down everything. So please forgive me for the horrible pictures, it's always my weak point

Anyway, all the signs now have their tarot cards with them, just like an illustrated diagram wheel!

The only thing that disturbed me is that the zodiac moves the wrong direction on the cloth - clockwise. I decided to put Aries in the 12.00 position and forget proper zodiac movement (widdershins).

And then I remembered that some time ago, I made a diagram of associations.


You know it's always so confusing, the assocations of seasons and elements and directions? I sorted it all out. It's easy. The fixed signs signify the peak and purest character of each season - their main stars, the Royal Stars, rule the skies - that's how you know the elements. Obviously, Winter is Night and Summer is Day. Once you sort them on the compass, it's obvious where everything belongs. Winter must be North and Summer South. And it' turned out clockwise, too, so it actually would fit perfectly over my black spread cloth.

When I looked at the order of the elements on that diagram, I noticed that if you go clockwise, you have the movement of the Sun and the order of the tarot suits: Fire/Wands, Water/Cups, Air/Swords and Earth/Pentacles.

But if you go the other direction, you get the sequence of elements like in the zodiac: Fire/Aries, Earth/Tarurus, Air/Gemini, Water/Cancer etc.

It's probably obvious to everybody but I never thought about it that way.

Anyway, I'm happy with my illustrated year in tarot cards.

These mini cards are lovely. One could probably make a nice poster using them, much prettier than this cloth. But for now, I'm happy with it the way it is.