← Encyclopedia of Tarot · lesson 108/121
Elemental dignities
Elemental dignity is a way of reading a card through its neighbours. Each card carries an element, and the cards on either side can strengthen it, support it or weaken it depending on how their elements get along. The method comes from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which used it instead of reversed cards: rather than asking whether a card is upright, the reader asks whether it is well or ill dignified.
The elements of the cards
The four suits carry the four elements: Wands are Fire, Cups are Water, Swords are Air and Pentacles are Earth. Court cards share their suit's element. The Major Arcana have no suit; one common practice gives a Major the element of its Golden Dawn sign or mother letter — The Emperor, for Aries, is Fire, and The Hanged Man is Water — and treats the planetary Majors, such as The Magician, as neutral.
The rules
The Golden Dawn's rule, in plain terms:
- Same element — strong. Cards of the same suit on either side strengthen a card greatly, for good or ill according to its nature.
- Friendly elements — supported. Air is friendly with Fire and with Water; Fire is friendly with Air and with Earth.
- Contrary elements — weak. Fire and Water are contraries, as are Air and Earth. Contrary cards on both sides weaken a card greatly, again for good or ill.
The Order's text does not say how Water and Earth relate. Many modern readers treat them as friendly, since both are receptive, and that is the reading followed here.
Note that strength is not the same as good fortune. A strongly dignified Ten of Swords is more fully the Ten of Swords; a weakly dignified one has less force, so its difficulty may be milder or more easily set aside.
An example
Take the Ace of Cups between the Three of Cups and the Queen of Cups: all Water, so the Ace is strong — its feeling is full and likely to find expression. Put it instead between the Knight of Wands and the Five of Wands: Fire on both sides, contrary to Water, so the Ace is weakened — the offer of feeling is there, but crowded out by heat and haste.
In a reading
Readers who use dignities still read each card's meaning and position; dignity adds a sense of degree, telling them which cards in a spread carry the most weight and which are muted. A related Golden Dawn practice, in the long method called the Opening of the Key, strengthens a card that falls on the pile of its own element and weakens one on a contrary pile.