Most new explorers of the tarot would agree that the court cards are the most difficult to understand.

Therefore, let’s just begin by taking a look at these 16 people.
When you can grasp this, the rest is all butter.

The truth is, they are some really fascinating people when you look at them in a simplified way.

There is really no right or wrong way to read these cards but it does help to extract more wisdom if you know something of their community.

Before we dive in it’s important to address that you have a good tarot deck for genuine study.

If you don’t know what a good tarot deck is then, go ahead and click over to our second post in this series of 10 articles. These are specially designed to quickly get you using your cards like a pro.

9 Important Things to Know for Choosing and Cleaning Your First Tarot Deck

If you missed the first post in this series,

7 Steps in 30 Minutes or Less to Learn the Tarot Cards,

And finally, the last and third article so far, is

Tarot Wyzdom with Love: How to Dissect the Tarot Cards

There are many websites, articles and books explaining the 16 court cards in-depth but for today’s purpose we will be looking at the most basic points to get you feeling confident quickly and easily.

At the bottom of this post, you will find a list of further resources for continued exploration.

We began discussing in Dissecting the Tarot how the minor arcana contains several groups of four:

Numbered cards (#1-10)
Court cards (2 masculine, 2 feminine)

Elements (Earth, air, fire, water)

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#1
First, let’s Meet the elements

Meet the Elements

Element	Suit	Attributes	Gender	Atomic Correspond
Earth	Pentacles	physical/wealth	fem/daughter	carbon
Air	swords	mental/thoughts	masc/son	oxygen
Fire	wands	passion/spirit	masc/father	nitrogen
Water	cups	emotion/intuition	fem/mother	hydrogen

A printable, more detailed version can be found at this link

Study the chart above and become familiar with its’ contents.

Charting the Courts

Notice in the chart below how the Rider-Waite and Thoth inspired decks contain different court cards. Aleister Crowley omitted the King.

Rider-Waite	Thoth	Level of wisdom	Element	Action
King	Knight	mature	fire/red	Sitting/passive
Queen	Queen	mature	water/blue	Sitting/passive
Knight	Prince	scholar	air/yellow	Moving/active
Page	Princess	immature	disks/green	Stands or sits/active

Study the chart above. Now, make comparisons to the previous Elements Chart.

This is where it gets really fun. Do you see where the elements are listed in both charts?

Notice there are elements for:
Each suit (pentacles, wands, swords, cups)
Each Court Card (king, queen, Knight, Prince)

Make yourself flashcards or cheat sheets so you can memorize the four elements (earth, air, fire, water). At this point, it’s important to really grasp the attributes of each of the elements.

This is one of the few things we will recommend you actually memorize.

The Elemental Chart of the Courts

XXXXXXX	Wands (fire)	Cups (water)	Swords (air)	Pentacles (earth)
King (fire)	Fire/Fire	fire/water	fire/air	fire/earth
Queen (water)	water/fire	water/water	water/air	water/earth
Knight (air)	Air/fire	Air/water	air/air	air/Earth
Page (earth)	Earth/fire	earth/water	earth/air	earth/earth

The chart above works like a times table.

Find the two elements of each person. When the elements are combined the sum is that of more complex characteristics of the personality.

For example: All Knights, in the tarot, are AIR but there is an entire suite of AIR, symbolized with a sword.
The Knight of Swords would, therefore, be Air/Air. Which means he has double qualities of that of Air.

Knight/AIR + Sword/AIR = Air/Air (scroll above to reference AIR)
Knight/AIR + Cups/WATER = Air/Water
Queen/Water + Pentacles/EARTH = Water/EARTH
...and so on.

Consider the qualities of each element and how the personality is affected in addition to what that might look like.

The Activities section of this article contains a printable chart for you to use.

Understanding the 16 personalities.

Get to know the elements, blend it with maturity and status and you are on your way to mastering the court cards.

Using the Court Cards in a reading is easy when you keep in mind that these are not necessarily a particular person. Read it as the qualities or personality of the court card character.

The last step is to put this community to work for you. Use them in a reading and just simply play with them to get to know them.

Using the court cards there are all kinds of fun activities to do. Below are some ideas to get you started but if you come up with your own ideas go ahead and follow your inner guidance. After all, isn't that what tarot is all about?

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Activity: Meet the Court Cards.

Print out 3 copies of the chart below.
The first one you will complete with the elements like the Elemental Chart of the Courts above.
The second one, based on the elements of each card, this time, write down the qualities and attributes of each card, thus defining the personality of each character.
Finally, place your court cards in the same pattern as the chart and test yourself in defining each card. Are you surprised at how well you now understand these cards?
Using your 3rd chart, fill in the boxes with people you know personally or people in the media that you believe possess the appropriate qualities. For example: The Queen of Cups is Water/Water. You might say she is Mother Teresa but the Princess of Swords might be Joan of Arc.

REMEMBER: masculine is not always a man and feminine is not always a woman

Another activity to practice what you just learned…

The Court Dramas

Shuffle only your 16 court cards.
Lay a selected amount of them...begin with 3 for simplicity, in front of you.
Write or say out loud if you are doing it in a group, a short story about these three characters and how they might react together.
Imagine a play where a fourth character enters the stage unexpectedly. How might the plot develop?
Create family groups then develop possible storylines, elaborating on the attributes from the above charts.

Tarot Party Games

You and your friends can each draw a Court Card then interact with one another as that personality. Try guessing who each other is.
Another version is to take turns with your friends holding up your court card so you cannot see it but your friends can. We like to stick the card to our forehead. Ask “yes/no” questions until you guess the card. For example: "Is it a man?, Is the person sitting in a chair?, Is there a horse?".

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Now that you are familiar with some basics we encourage you to explore even deeper. All of the court cards have also astrological associations. If you have an interest or background in astrology this might be a great path for your personal study.

Clicking through these links and/or making any purchase
through them supports building a more loving world and
continuing the Epic Journey.

Tarot and Astrology: Enhance Your Readings With the Wisdom of the Zodiac by Corrine Kenner
Tarot and Astrology: The Pursuit of Destiny by Muriel Bruce Hasbrouck

In addition, Carl Jung

explored archetypes and as a result, he has left a great legacy of written work on comparing the Court cards to Jung's archetypes. This is a wonderful direction of study for those interested in psychology.

Sugggested further research and resources list:

clicking through these links and/or making any purchase
through them supports building a more loving world and
continuing the Epic Journey.

As always,

Love is available

for a variety of tarot readings to support you in creating the future you desire.

Tarot Wyzdom with Love
is now taking appointments.

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In the next article of this series,
we will take a closer look at the
16 Court Cards.

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Tarot Wyzdom with Love: 4 Easy Steps to Conquering the Court Cards