Masterclass 4(C)
Reading the 4-mention cards: individual card issues
The anatomy of the individual card
Introduction
At the time of writing, (April 2010), I have published detailed meanings only for the principal mentions on the 81 grid cards, the east faces of sets one and two and the west faces of set 6 (the latter used as the main mention in the web version). The booklet which accompanies the 4-mention pack contains only brief explanations of the meanings of all 94 cards. In other words, there is still a great deal to do to give an adequate account of the meanings of all the mentions found on the Rainring cards. Readers wanting the most detailed available account of these meanings should consult the directory entries on this site. For practical divination, we recommend the purchase of the laminate which brings together all the summaries of these explorations into meaning.
The aim of this class, however, is in another direction. Here, we intend to analyse the anatomy of the individual card in general, and to look briefly at some of its peculiarities and exceptions.
General comments
The illustration allows us to examine the anatomy of the typical pack card in the 4-mention version. The main mention, Balance, is at south, between the two coloured numbers and below the picture. It is flanked by the mention ‘Heartened’ at west, this being the position reserved in almost all cases for either emotions or sensations; also by ‘Whole Psyche/Harmony’ at east. This east mention combines a first element common to all cards of that set (in this case, ‘whole psyche’ is the mention common to the set 9 cards) and a second one common to all the cards of that group: ‘harmony’ in the case of group 3. Finally, the north mention here, as on many cards, is the site of a reversal of the main (south) mention.
The east mentions system, which applies to all the cards of sets 3 to 9 inclusive, but not to those of sets 1 and 2, enables the relationships of one card in the pack with certain others to be brought out. The meaning of the card 3/9 Balance can be fully appreciated only in terms of its connection with the process sequence of set 9, of which it forms the third stage. The meaning of 1/9 Projection, 2/9 Resistance, 4/9 Formation and so on are indispensable for an adequate understanding of the card Balance. Even further, its identity is only fully brought to light when we examine it in relation to the other green cards, members of group 3: 3/3 Relation, 3/5 Creation, 3/8 Explosion and so on. The east mention aims to emphasise this tie-in between one pack card and others.
As has already been pointed out, we generally think of the cards themselves as representing four fundamental facets of psyche: Form and the Unconscious, Spirit and Will. However, this is somewhat loosely followed in the mentions found on the individual card. Some cards, like Balance, do not have a north side which explicitly involves an unconscious mention. Again, the east side mention Whole Psyche/Harmony is not a particularly obvious spirit-side derivative of the main mention – Balance.
How are we to understand all this? To what extent can we interpret the cards according to systematic criteria?
First, the east side mentions: these were not decided on a card-by-card basis, as already explained. Once the designation for each set (3-9) and for each group had been worked out, they were simply applied wholesale. What I myself do when reading is therefore to look at the east side definition to see whether, in the reading I am conducting, it has a particular resonance for me; if not, I make an interpretation based more on the spirit side of the card whose principal mention is involved. In other words, if I find that Whole Psyche / Harmony does not seem to illuminate the matter at hand, I consider Balance in Spirit as the focus of my interpretation.
Second, the west side. The mentions here refer typically to emotions, so that they could be prefaced by the words ‘I feel’. Some adaptation may be needed, for instance so that ‘Freedom’ becomes ‘free’ – I feel free. Not all the west side mentions exactly follow this schema. For example, the west mentions of set 4 cards refer to states typical of the archetypal individual portrayed: Responsibility (the Matriarch), Movement (The Stranger) etc. Whilst it is true that Matriarchs often feel responsible, we cannot so readily translate ‘movement’ into an obvious feeling typical of Strangers, though perhaps feelings of being stuck, bored, bogged down and needing to move on occur more strongly with this type than with others. Again, in set 7, mentions such as Dreaming Up, Tuning In etc clearly refer to characteristic qualities associated with the psychific states of Vision and of Resonance respectively, and not to emotions. At the other end of the spectrum, we have the nine cards of set 6, in which the emotion at west has become so important that it has captured the illustration from the principal mention, which would otherwise have title to it. The nine emotions represented here are considered to be those which are central to the psychic life of humans, and perhaps indeed equally of many animals. The notable absentee is Hate, which is present only as a subsidiary mention on the card Thought / Anger. The reason for this is that we situate Rainring in a future time in which hate will not occupy the place it now does, just as we base Rainring upon a nine-fold spectrum which does not at present exist.
Third, the north. It is here that the individual mentions are at their least systematic. C.G. Jung, of course, argued that the Unconscious is complementary to consciousness, so we can find justification for the placing at north of a reversal of the main, south mention – if we understand reversal in Jung’s sense. Elsewhere, the connection is tenuous, for example in the north mentions of set 4: Melody for The Youth, Grace for The Maid and so on. Here, it is more a matter of pinpointing what is felt to be the fundamental characteristic of each type. The deep forces moving these types are to be found rather in set 5: Desire, Creation and the others.
Fourthly, the south position. I move on at once to the south in order to make the point that when we are exploring north mentions, we should always bear in mind that they have to be contrasted with those at south. In this connection, it is worth considering for a moment the cards of sets 1 and 2. Here, the contrast is between voluntary and involuntary action. In other words, at south we have an individual who is using planning, will-power, control and so on to pursue a particular agenda. At north, on the other hand, we find the opposite: this time, the individual’s situation is brought about by forces beyond their control. In other words, fate or destiny is acting upon them in such a way that their conscious intentions are being subverted – whether by their own unconscious motivations, or by the external events which they (i.e. their unconscious) is attracting.
We are saying, then, that south is the seat of conscious activity, of action directed towards the bread and butter issues of handling the material world, of life in the here-and-now. This, in effect, is why the principal mention of each card is at south: because here on Earth, in the material dimension, the first and most fundamental element of our lives must be to deal with whatever is required to ensure our physical survival. Any movement towards Will, Spirit or the Unconscious has to abide by the basic rule that if our psyche is invaded by other elements to the point where we lose our ability to function in the here-and-now, we are putting our Earthly existence at risk.
When we work with the Rainring cards, it soon becomes clear that excessive occupation of any of the four cardinal positions creates major problems. These are, typically, an excess of Sprit over Will (Thought over Feeling) or vice-versa, or of Form over the Unconscious (Sensation over Intuition) or vice versa. Because Rainring contains also the balancer cards, we cannot but be continually aware of the interplay between excess and moderation, equilibrium and its loss. The single most important characteristic of Rainring is the four-sidedness of the cards, which promotes a fundamentally different mentality than that derived from all two-sided divination tools, with their basis of yes/no, black or white. Indeed, I would go further and say that the quintessential Rainring formation is the nine card spread of the centred octagon. Indeed, it is no accident (though created by mathematics, not by my conscious intention), that there is a version of the octagon where the numeric value of all the pairs equals that of the centre.
In other words, this formation, from the standpoint of Rainring, is one in which all the pairs of vibrations involved total those of the centre: Form-Unconscious; Self-Heart; Spirit-Conjugation; Communication-Will, or in terms of personal archetypes: The Hero and The Seer; The Patriarch and The Maid; The Matriarch and the Youth; the Wanton and the Artist.
After these considerations arising from the four sides of a card, let us now look at some other detail from the faces of the cards.
The symbols used in the Rainring pack:
< > voluntary
> < involuntary, forced
λ reversal – this is not invariably negative
Ψ prefaces the west side mentions, usually referring to emotions or sensations
Φ prefaces the east or spirit-side mentions
The above duplicates the information given in the instruction booklet. To clarify it, we should first look at one of the cards from the first two sets.
Here, as in all the cards of sets 1 and 2 except 9/1 Ebb and 9/2 Flow, both the north and south of the card bear the same mention. The accompanying symbol tells us that the state referred to is either voluntary or involuntary (forced). These two sides of the card refer to an imbalanced condition. As explained elsewhere, the cards later led me to realise that a balanced mention was also required for these cards. This was assigned to the east side, so that the cards of these two sets do not bear east side designations similar to those of set 3-9 cards. The directory entry for these cards reflects this dual condition of imbalanced and balanced aspects:
OBSESSION: Obsessional focus; not being able to get someone or something out of your mind; frustrated desire; being driven, for example by pathological ambition;
EBB WORLD: repression of sexual desire, the energy of which is channelled into creative work; engaging with the inner world – the activity of the clairvoyant, medium, seer or shaman. On the true journey of the soul, no blame attaches.
Finally, these cards bear an orthodox west-side emotional mention related to the principal mention, Obsession – ‘beside myself’ in this case.
Additional features of the individual card:
The individual card also bears two identifiers for its group and three for its set.
Those for the group are:
1) The band of surrounding colour: indigo in the above case
2) the Group number (5 above), also in the appropriate colour.
Those for the set are:
1) the black number for the set – 1, above.
2) a symbol for the set, which accompanies that number.
These two latter are collected in the illustration below:
3) A characteristic format applied within the card, often as an integral part of the image, sometimes with variations. Two of these are shown below:
Finally, the symbol λ is used throughout the cards to signify reversal. So, for example, the notation we would use for the card clarity, accompanied by the reversal umpire on the side indicating loss would be : Clarity, U / λ loss; the card Beauty occurring on its north side accompanied by one of the three cats would be written: Beauty λ, U / 3 cats and so on…
Further marks used outside the grid
1) Other-coloured borders: three of the 4 pack cards outside the grid have a grey border, and the umpires have a yellow and green one. The grey colour reflects the fact that these four cards, of which Psyche, constitute a re-presentation of the grid, with its rainbow of group colours. On the other hand, the colour of the umpires’ borders was, at a conscious level at least, not intended to be symbolic, but was simply a way to deal with there being no unused colours available!
2) Orientation dots: these can be seen clearly on this enlarged version of Umpire Oracle. The colours mimic those of the groups, so red at west indicates the Will side, purple at east is Spirit, orange at south is Form and indigo at north is Unconscious. This indicates that the mentions on Umpire Oracle, like U / Seasons and U / Balance, but unlike U/ Cats and U/ Bull/No Bull, correspond to Rainring’s four cardinal points of the psyche. Umpire Reversal, not yet occupying a purpose-designed card, will also have this orientation.
Of the graphic umpires, U / Heart does not have the cardinal points orientation, U / Form does, and U / Conjugation has its own unique orientation, which its dots reflect – magenta at south, yellow at west, blue at north and brown at east. This anomaly is caused, as we have explained, by the fact that Conjugation umpire is a card whose ‘sides’ are really the corners of the Form umpire. We see the latter as an inner diamond, pushed 45 degrees left or westward:
Conclusion
In this class, we have looked in outline at the significance attached to each of the four sides of a Rainring card, and studied the marks and symbols which can be found on the cards. We have also touched briefly on the relation within the cards of the two themes of polarization and balance.
I want also to acknowledge that there are many issues connected to the understanding of particular cards which I have not dealt with here. The Masterclass series is an attempt to give card readers present and future an elementary grounding in Rainring. Already, as will long since have become clear, the 4-mention version of the cards widens greatly the range of information needing to be acquired for a basic understanding. Further questions relating to the peculiarities of individual cards I take to be beyond the needs of the beginner, and so will not engage with them here.