Masterclass 4(B)
Reading the 4-mention cards
Introducing the aspecting umpires
I’m not sure how to present this class. Reading the 4-mention cards is often found to be difficult, yet it still seems to me that, although there is a ‘knack’ to be acquired, doing so should not cause any great problems. So, this class will attempt to strike a balance: I will try to advance slowly and carefully; on the other hand, I will try not to write as if battling to impart understanding against enormous odds!
I described in class 4A how, in using my first home-made pack, I found myself facing the question: what significance should I attach to the fact that during a reading the cards may fall on any of their four sides?
At some stage, it occurred to me that I might well use the convention which I had already established in creating the bi-polar octagon spread: that I would designate the four sides of each card as corresponding to north, south, east and west. North and south would then represent the Unconscious and consciousness respectively, while on the other axis, east would be male – the Spirit Pole – and west, female – that of the Will.
It was at this point that I asked a question which was to have momentous consequences. It was this: If I can analyse a psychic entity – a person, place, business etc – into nine elements, how can I justify dividing another ingredient of psyche such as desire, form, charisma and so on into only four? The answer – ‘I can’t!’ – was of course the beginning of a major headache. How do you divide a four-sided card into nine? You can’t, after all, play with a pack of nine-sided cards. Perhaps you could make them eight-sided? But then how would you access the centre, far from any and all sides?
The solution I came up with constitutes one of the unique features of Rainring. Because it is unique, this means that anyone wanting to learn to read the four-mention cards has to learn how to operate a novel device. This is how it works:
A Rainring card is never read alone. Instead, it is read with a second card, called an umpire. There are nine umpires, but only three of them are involved in operating this system of dividing nine into four. These are known as the aspecting or graphic umpires, in order to distinguish them from the other six, which are the commenting or illustrated umpires. [1]The former are illustrated below:
Form Umpire Conjugation Umpire Heart Umpire
On the left, Form Umpire features the four cardinal points: Unconscious at north, Form at south, Spirit at east and Will at west. Next, to its right, Conjugation Umpire displays south-east (Self), north-east (Communication), north-west (Quest-ion?) and south-west (Conjugation). The inner diamond represents Form Umpire and shows how these Conjugation Umpire positions relate to the ones on Form Umpire.
The next figure, above, reverses the diamond and the square, to show the true positions of Conjugation, Self etc relative to those of Form Umpire. On Conjugation Umpire, these true positions have been rotated 45° left, in order for the mentions to appear on the faces, rather than at the corners of the Conjugation Umpire card. Conjugation, whose true position is at south-east, thus migrates to the south face of Conjugation Umpire, Self goes from south-west to west and so on.
Finally, Heart Umpire, which deals with the ninth or central position, carries no words at all, only a symmetrical design which indicates that all four sides of the card are read the same – as the centre, or heart aspect.
The two figures juxtaposed above show us also the parallel between the aspects of the individual card and the positions of the cards composing the bi-polar octagon spread: by a curious sleight of hand, we have created the means to read nine ‘sides’ – or, more accurately, aspects – (eight sides and the centre) of each individual card, just as we use nine individual cards to read nine aspects of that particular fragment of psyche upon which any spread enquiry is being focussed.
So far, so good. But the above does not tell me how to read, for example, the following combination of cards:
Here, the umpires are directing me to read the spirit aspect of this card – but what card is it? To answer this question, I have to know how to find the principal (i.e. main) mention.
The principal mention
To read the 4-mention cards, it is necessary to understand that each card has a principal mention and to know how to identify it. It is ALWAYS the one between the coloured numbers: for example, ‘Balance’ in the card shown below.
To make clear what we are saying: Rainring cards differ from most others in having four sides, but are similar in that each card has one name, and this name, the principal mention, identifies the card, so the card illustrated here is ‘Balance’. The side of the card carrying the principal mention is more important than, not equal to, the other three sides. This is because the mentions on the other three sides in various ways derive from that of the principal mention. This latter, if you like, is the key to the whole card.
This principal mention is found below the picture on all the cards except those of set 6. In the latter, the illustration is of the emotion on the west face of the card. The principal mention on these cards is 90° right from there, again between the coloured numbers: Emotion on the card showing Fear, Sensation for the image of Despair, and so on.
The aspecting or graphic umpires read aspects of this principal mention: Relation, conjugation aspect; Need, will aspect, Inhibition, heart aspect and so on.
Reading with the aspecting (graphic) umpires
When using the aspecting umpires – Form, Conjugation and Heart – the reader needs to remember that the umpire is paramount. In other words, if one of these umpires appears, you drop any other interpretive possibility and read the principal mention. Let’s see how this works in practice. Here is our puzzle example again:
As this combination of cards presents itself to us, it looks as if the reading would be Determined, Spirit aspect. However, Determined is not the principal mention on this card, Defence is the principal mention. The correct reading is therefore Defence, Spirit Aspect (The recognized notation is: Defence, U / Spirit).
In other words, the appearance of a graphic or aspecting umpire commands us to read the principal mention on the card, not any other. During a reading, we would normally adjust the card on the left to comply with this:
All the aspecting (graphic) umpires have the same effect. Here are two more examples:
Here, Conjugation Umpire appears on the Communication side, thus causing an adjustment of the card Inflation, so that the original side showing the mention ‘Invaluable’ is replaced by the principal mention. The reading is now Inflation, Communication aspect (Inflation, U / Communication).
And one more example, in which the combination Rainring + Heart Umpire gives us Heart, U / Heart:
Finally, we should make clear that if the card appearing with an aspecting umpire is already on its principal face, it will be read as is, with no positional adjustment being needed:
Here, the reading Creation, Will aspect (Creation, U / Will) can be made at once.
Reading with the commenting (illustrated) umpires
We have introduced this class by laying out the special method needed to read the nine aspects of a pack card. To complete this exposé, we need to emphasise that, in the absence of one of the three aspecting umpires, the cards are read ‘at face value’ i.e. exactly as they appear:
Reading: Relations/Tension, U/ Spring
Reading: Enterprise, U/ Tea Interval
Finally, note that the umpires have the option to say: ‘add nothing to the card on the left’:
Reading: Flow Self, U/ 3 Cats
The notation ‘3 Cats’, (as against ‘1 Cat’) indicates that it is one of the three cats who are minding their own business which is being referred to. These cats tell the querant that the umpires have nothing to add to the mention on the pack card: Flow Self, no comment.
Reading with umpires: summary
A. Rules
To conclude, we read in two different ways, according to the type of umpire which appears:
1) at face value:
Reading: In body / Success, U / No Bull
2) as aspects of the principal mention:
Reading: The Maid, U / Heart
To summarise, the following rules should be observed for users of the 4-mention version of Rainring:
a) Always read a card in conjunction with an umpire
b) Read the cards at face value whenever an illustrated (commenting) umpire appears.
c) read the principal mention on a pack card appearing with a graphic (aspecting) umpire.
B. Exceptions.
There are five exceptions to the above rules. The four cards outside the grid – Psyche etc – and the card Soul inside the grid are read in a different way. In these cases, ignore the aspecting umpires if they appear. Read these cards only in conjunction with the commenting (illustrated) umpires. The reason for this is very simple: none of these cards has a principal mention. They each bear a name, but it cannot be considered that any one side is more important than any other. [This advice supercedes that given in the instruction booklet, where we have recommended no umpiring at all of the five cards just referred to.]
It should also be made clear that the umpires themselves have no principal mention, which is why, in some cases, they bear a name either separate from all the mentions they carry, e.g. Umpire Seasons, or despite the fact that they don’t carry any, e.g. Umpire Cats.
Loose ends
This has been a long class, perhaps leaving some readers with homework needing to be done. For this reason, I will carry over to a further one, 4C, those matters which relate to the exploration of the individual card, as set out on the card ‘Balance’ illustrated earlier.
We have seen how, using the methods described above, Rainring is able to read beyond the 81 x 2 = 162 options offered on the web, to a total of around 7,500 possibilities. For some people, this profusion is a negative, and they will work only with the one-mention version; for others, they will be drawn to the richness and precision available through 4 mentions plus umpires. I hope that all who work with Rainring will, whatever their preferred option, recognise the value of both of these approaches.
[1] Why did I not stop with three umpires? There are two very contrasting reasons:
First, you cannot shuffle three cards, but the umpires, clearly, would have to be shuffled together and one chosen each time a pack card was played. But it requires a minimum of four cards to create an effective shuffle.
The other reason was the wonderful opportunity represented by having umpires! What additional layers of interpretation, refinements of meaning could I not bring to Rainring with this twinning always of card and umpire?
The truth is that I now went through a very painful and difficult process, because the possibilities seemed infinite. In the end, I managed to recognise and accept that the ‘commenting’ umpires could not enshrine objective elements in the same way as I felt the cards themselves did.
So what were they? They would have to be a sort of personal codex to the core material of Rainring. In their published form, they thus represent a mixture of a) elements which could claim some objectively valid status, such as Seasons umpire, with b) others where I was more or less fooling around, albeit with an ultimately very serious intent: Umpire Bull/No bull is such a card. C) Umpire Cats became necessary in order to give the umpires the chance to say: ‘We have no comments or additions to make’. Finally, after the pack was already completed and in use with eight umpires, it was found that d) a ninth was imperative, one which was capable of reversing every mention on every card in the pack.
The above forces us into the question: in what consists the basic or fundamental Rainring pack? My own personal view is that I believe a psychic reader could satisfactorily use an 85-card pack (81 grid cards on the web, plus 4 outside the grid in the hard copy of the cards), read one mention per card, and dispense with the umpires.