Opening The Key Spread: 36 Decanates

Fourth Operation:

The Further Development of the Question

The 36 decanates of ten degrees each correspond to the pip cards of the Minor Arcana, excluding the Aces.

The instructions in the Golden Dawn manual require that the cards are shuffled and placed on the table without cutting. The diviner turns the pack face up and searches through the cards until the Significator is found. At this point the Significator and the cards beneath it are placed on top of the remainder. The Significator is placed upon the table, the Deck is turned over and the following 36 cards are dealt out in the order of the picture below.

Card counting commences from position 1, or Ascendant, in the direction of the cards laid out, which means that there is no potential change of direction when a court card is hit. The general rules of noting the majority or lack of a suit, and whether 3 or 4 cards of a sort are present. Once the counting has been completed, the cards are paired together, starting at 1st and 36th, 2nd and 25th, and so on.

The actual interpretation of the 36 positions is left unclear in the text. There are the traditional images of the Decanates derived from Egyptian sources, but these rarely have any use.

There are several candidates:

• Decanate card interpretations
• Goetic Spirits
• Enochian Great Cross in the Watchtowers

Another problem is exactly what the first position represents! We might think this position is 0° Aries (2 Wands), but the Golden Dawn fixed the start of the Zodiac at 0° Leo, which would be 5 Wands. If we considered the House system, then positions 1-3 would be the first house, 4-6 the second house, and so on. It actually does not matter which zodiac is used elementally, since the first three positions would be fire, the next three earth, then air and finally water, repeating the sequence.

1. 2 Wands - Mars: Innovation, passion, fearless
2. 3 Wands - Sun: Ego, pride
3. 4 Wands - Venus: Love, beauty, artistic ability
4. 5 Disks - Mercury: Conscious awareness of surroundings, mental
5. 6 Disks - Moon: Emotional and feeling orientated, domestic
6. 7 Disks - Saturn: Serious, disciplined, dutiful
7. 8 Swords - Jupiter: Optimistic, understanding, eager
8. 9 Swords - Mars: Scattered energy
9. 10 Swords - Sun: Individual, hedonistic
10. 2 Cups - Venus: Love, collecting objects
11. 3 Cups - Mercury: Brothers, sisters, sensitive to the environment
12. 4 Cups - Moon: Feelings, home, sensitivity, changeable
13. 5 Wands - Saturn: Disciplined, dutiful to lovers
14. 6 Wands - Jupiter: Gambler, religious, exaggerates
15. 7 Wands - Mars: Passionate, adventurous
16. 8 Disks - Sun: Analytical or critical ego
17. 9 Disks - Venus: Perfection in love or beauty
18. 10 Disks - Mercury: Literary, conscious, meticulous mind
19. 2 Swords - Moon: Feelings for the partner, sensitivity to art
20. 3 Swords - Saturn: Duty to partner, disciplined in artistic expression
21. 4 Swords - Jupiter: Expansive and generous to partner
22. 5 Cups - Mars: Energy, passion, sexual pride, destructive energies
23. 6 Cups - Sun: Ego domination, glory seeking
24. 7 Cups - Venus: Possessive in love, secretive liaisons
25. 8 Wands - Mercury: Conscious awareness, communicative
26. 9 Wands - Moon: Feeling lucky, or detached from the environment
27. 10 Wands - Saturn: Disciplined, scientific, religious
28. 2 Disks - Jupiter: Ambition with integrity, big ideas
29. 3 Disks - Mars: Ambitious, me first
30. 4 Disks - Sun: Glory and status
31. 5 Swords - Venus: Congenial friendships, beauty
32. 6 Swords - Mercury: Creative mind, independence, nerves
33. 7 Swords - Moon: Erratic emotions, feelings for friends
34. 8 Cups - Saturn: Depressive, sacrifice for duty
35. 9 Cups - Jupiter: Spiritual, intellectually sensitive
36. 10 Cups - Mars: Secret actions or aggression, sensitive, passionate

The Chaldean system of ruling planets is ancient, and follows the traditional order of the days of the week. Note that many of the descriptions are close to the usual Tarot card interpretations, such as the 8 Cups.