Elemental Dignities

Elements

For these and future tutorials on Elemental Dignities, or ED's I will use the following shorthand:

Pents = Pentacles

Here are the four Elements that are dealt with in Elemental Dignities and their meanings.

Chart #1: Element Definition Chart

WANDS (Fire)	Motivation, action, energy, drive, growth, will, passion, libido, desire, inspiration, initiation, enthusiasm.
SWORDS (Air)	Mental activity, thought, ideas, intellect, logic, reason, analysis, decision, communication, conflict, volatility.
CUPS (Water)	Relationships, emotions, feelings, receptivity, reflection, subconscious, vision, imagination.
PENTACLES (Earth)	Stable, solid, practical, material concerns, possessions, groundedness, strength, resources, money, wealth, commerce, labor, prosperity, security, generosity, charity, body/health.

Note which Suit ... Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles ... each of the elements is associated with.

Qualities (Energies or Modes)

Active and Passive are what are termed 'Qualities'. Qualities is the term I use instead of Energies which is the term Paul Hughes-Barlow uses in his lessons on Elemental Dignities on his supertarot web site. But I will also use the words energies, mode, or quality but all three will mean the same thing when dealing with elemental dignities. So the following are all interchangeable except for the words Active or Passive.

Active Quality
Active Energy
Active Mode

Passive Quality
Passive Energy
Passive Mode

Two of the element-suits are considered to have Active Qualities, or energies. They are the element-suits of Fire/Wands and Air/Swords.

The Active Elements and Suits

Fire   =  Wands
Air    =   Swords

Two of the element-suits are considered to have Passive Qualities, or energies. They are the element-suits of Earth/Pentacles and Water/Cups.

The Passive Elements and Suits

Earth  =  Pentacles (Disks or Coins)
Water =  Cups

What are Active and Passive Qualities?

When I emailed Paul Hughes-Barlow and asked him what he meant by Active and Passive he told me that Active Qualities (energies) took the attributes of Fire and Air, and Passive Qualities (energies) took the attributes of Water and Earth. I will go with his definitions but add some of my own I borrowed from Astrology.

Active = active, direct, extroverted

Passive = receptive, adaptive, introverted

Suits, Elements, Qualities, and Colors

For the purposes of these lessons we will assign each of the four (4) elements a certain color:

Below is a chart breaking down the suits, elements, and qualities with their individual colors. Note also that the letter coloring for the Active Qualities is Black and the Passive Qualities lettering is White. There is 'absolutely no significance to this' ... it just makes the lettering easier to see.

Breaking Down the Majors

The minor card elements are easy because we have Fire/Wands, Air/Swords, Water/Cups, and Earth/Pentacles. But what about he Major Arcana? How are the cards of the Major Arcana broken down into elements, suits, and qualities. To do this we use Astrological associations. Note that some Majors are associated with Signs while others are associated with Planets. I have added the astological symbols for both signs and planets just for reference purposes.

Chart #3: The Majors

Key #	Major Card	Sign/Planet/Symbol		Element	Quality	Suit
0	The Fool	Uranus				Swords
1	The Magician	Mercury				Swords
2	The High Priestess	Moon				Cups
3	The Empress	Venus				Pentacles
4	The Emperor	Aries				Wands
5	The Hierophant	Taurus				Pentacles
6	The Lovers	Gemini				Swords
7	The Chariot	Cancer				Cups
8	Strength	Leo				Wands
9	The Hermit	Virgo				Pentacles
10	Wheel of Fortune	Jupiter				Wands
11	Justice	Libra				Swords
12	The Hanged Man	Neptune				Cups
13	Death	Scorpio				Cups
14	Temperance	Sagittarius				Wands
15	The Devil	Capricorn				Pentacles
16	The Tower	Mars				Wands
17	The Star	Aquarius				Swords
18	The Moon	Pisces				Cups
19	The Sun	Sun				Wands
20	Judgment	Pluto		or	or	Wands or Cups
21	The World	Saturn				Pentacles

NOTE:
I see Judgment as being Water since Pluto rules Scorpio and Scorpio is a Water sign. But you make up your own mind.