10. Ten of Cups
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Number: 10
Card Title: Ten of Cups
Esoteric Title: Lord of Perfected Success
Numerical Keywords: 10: Sensations, Completion, Consequences
Numerical Attributions: Elements, black citrine olive russet, Soul, Evil
Intelligence: Resplendent Intelligence
Element: Water (cold, wet)
Elemental Keywords: Love, Container, Emotions
Elemental Attributions: West, Fall, Twilight
Astrological Attribution: Mars in Pisces
Dates & Timing: March 11 to March 20
Qabalistic World: Malkuth in Briah
Translation of World: The Kingdom of Creation
Suit Color: Cups - Blue
Keywords: Mutual Love, Happiness, Tranquility, Unity, Trust, Sharing, Family
Ill-Dignified:Betrayal, Jilted, One-sided love, Family Fights, Disharmony, Arguments
Interpretation: Friendship has grown to true love. Happiness in personal relationships. Knows how to give and receive love.
Reversed Interpretation: Children turn against parents. Danger from over stimulation of emotions. Drug/Alcohol addiction. Arguments between lovers. Damage to home. disharmony in flow of relationship. On of the parties may not feel committed or ‘in love’.
Rider-Waite Imagery
A family stands in a field. The couple embrace and raise hands towards a rainbow of cups. The children play. There is a cottage in the distance. A stream flows to the left. There are hills and trees in the background.
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)
Appearance of Cups in a rainbow; it is contemplated in wonder and ecstacy by a man and woman below, evidently husband and wife. His right arm is about her; his left is raised upward; she raises her right arm. The two children dancing near them have not observed the prodigy but are happy after their own manner. There is a home-scene beyond. Divinatory Meanings: Contentment, repose of the entire heart; the perfection of that state; also perfection of human love and friendship; if with several picture-cards, a person who is taking charge of the Querent’s interests; also the town, village or country inhabited by the Querent. Reversed: Repose of the false heart, indignation, violence.
4 Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana
Ten.–For a male Querent, a good marriage and one beyond his expectations. Reversed: Sorrow; also a serious quarrel.
The Recurrence of Cards in Dealing
In the Natural Position: 4 Tens = condemnation; 3 Tens = new condition; 2 Tens = change.
Reversed: 4 Tens = event, happening; 3 Tens disappointment; 2 Tens = expectation justified.
The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]
Signification of the Four Series of Minor Arcana in the Divining Tarot
CUPS. Preservation. Love. Instruction.
TEN. Uncertainty in the management of the love affair.
The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]
Meanings of the Cards
40. Ten of Cups.–The Town wherein one resides, Honour, Consideration, Esteem, Virtue, Glory, Reputation; R. Combat, Strife, Opposition, Differences, Dispute.
Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa
Pisces III
A man naked, or a youth, and nigh him a beautiful maide, whose head is adorned with flowers, and it hath his signification for rest, idleness, delight, fornication, and for imbracings of women.
Picatrix the Goal of the Wise by Ghayat Al-akim
Book "T" The Tarot
XLIV. The Lord of Perfected Success: Ten of Cups or Chalices
HAND, as usual, holding bunch of water-lilies or lotuses, whose flowers pour a white water into all the cups, which "all run over." The uppermost cup is held sideways by a hand, and pours water into the left-hand upper cup. A single lotus flower surmounts the top cup, and is the source of the water that fills it. Above and below the symbols Mars and Pisces.
Permanent and lasting success and happiness, because inspired from above. Not so sensual as "Lord of Material Happiness," yet almost more truly happy. Pleasure, dissipation, debauchery, quietness, peacemaking. Kindness, pity, generosity, wantonness, waste, etc., according to dignity.
Malkuth of HB:H (Matter settled: complete good fortune).
Herein the Great Angels HB:a’aShLYH and HB:MYHAL rule.
Often the General signification of the Majority of a particular suit and of the particular signification of the either 3 of 4 cards of a sort in a reading:
- A Majority of Cups Pleasure, merriment.
- 4 Tens Anxiety, responsibility.
- 3 Tens Buying and selling (commerce).
