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Pythagorean Number Symbolism Method
 Pythagorean Number
+ Suit Attributes
+ Context
= Final Meaning
The ultimate meaning of a Tarot de Marseille Minor card will never be pre-existent, but will be derived in the moment of the reading, given the specific context of the question.
The flexibility of combining abstract categories in order to ultimately derive a specific meaning is different than the Rider-Waite and Crowley methods, wherein a specific list of meanings are given which must be abstracted to the whole.
This Marseilles Tarot method allows the reader tremendous flexibility, but also appropriately limits the reader by “fencing in” the meaning of the Minor card, especially when reading for oneself! Although the process of deriving the meaning seems apparently laborious, it actually occurs in a blink of the eye, as the reader quickly considers the Pythagorean Number and its significations, plus the Tarot Suit and its attributions, plus how all of this fits into the Context of the question.
  Let’s look at an example. Let’s say that the querent is asking about how to approach negotiations with a potential business partner. The querent is excited, and generally passionate by nature. The querent asks about how to approach the potential business partner. The card drawn is the Quatre de Coupe (Four of Cups). For the sake of simple illustration, we use a single card, but in an actual reading-spread, we would use multiple cards in order to discern patterns.
Just to be clear, the Rider-Waite image will not be relevant here. The Rider-Waite card typically signifies ennui, boredom, lethargy, withdrawal and blended pleasure within the Rider-Waite tradition; Crowley calls it “Luxury” and paints a card that apparently illustrates saturation. These canned-meanings are unnecessary and unhelpful in the Tarot de Marseille tradition, as we will see. As well, they are Golden Dawn meanings and have no inherent relationship to the Tarot de Marseille.
In this method, the Pythagorean Number Meanings are combined with the Suit Attributes and then combined with the Context of the Question.
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Number Meanings
PYTHAGORAS |
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Suit AttributesThe attributes of theSuit
provide specific Meanings
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Context of Question
The Context of the
question focuses the
meaning.
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In other words, the Four of Cups (in this reading—and it would logically take on subtle nuances of meaning depending how the above Number, Suit, and Context combine), is the vibration of the Four/Tetrad as expressed through Cups in the Context of the Question.
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Minors Method
Pythagoras: Four
The TETRAD
Stability, foundation,
Solidity, Order,
Organization
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Suit of Cups
Les Coupes
Water, Emotions,Relationships,
Family,Ceremony,Spirituality
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Context of Question
Advice on business
Partner negociations
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Inasmuch as the question is framed as “Advice,” so too the answer will follow this context. The answer advises the querent to seek a stable relationship, one wherein the business partner will feel safe and secure. The querent should emphasize those aspects of the business that will engender these feelings in the business partner. The querent may want to tone down his passion. Because the card is upright, the meaning is given a positive spin.
Thus, the method of combining Pythagorean Number Symbolism with the Suit Attributes with the Context of the Question provides a facile system of comprehending the 40 Pip Cards without memorizing multiple meanings for 40 cards! Although it may seem tediously formulaic on the surface, it actually takes place in a nanosecond—a blink of an eye—and the result is a meaning that is tailor-made to the situation of the querent.
 Although the Rider-Waite image may mildly suggest similar ideas as in the example (as if the two decks are the same, with simply a cartoon on one version of the card, and four cups as pips on the other) this is only incidental to this example. This is the fallacious myth that many modern Tarot readers have maintained about their Rider-Waite decks: That the Rider-Waite deck is simply a Tarot de Marseille deck with more pictures. Consequently, why would one want a card with four cups, when one can have those four cups incorporated into a storybook picture?
 However, we remind the Tarot reader that, first of all, many Minor Arcana images within the Rider-Waite Tarot deck do not match the Number Symbolism elucidated here. There are numerous mismatches wherein the Rider-Waite images depart from Pythagorean Number System. Instead, the Rider-Waite deck generally follows the Golden Dawn Number System or perhaps follows Eteilla’s meanings. Certainly, the Crowley Thoth Tarot 4 of Cups does not exemplify the Tarot de Marseille number system, as “Luxury”.
Perhaps the Golden Dawn System is perfectly acceptable to you. In this case, we would recommend that you might as well read with a Rider-Waite deck or a Crowley Thoth deck or one of their many clones. We presume that the reader of this website wants to find a way to embrace the Marseilles Tarot and not read it as a kind of ugly step child to modern Tarots.
For example, the Fives in the Rider-Waite and Crowley decks are negative. But, within the Pythagorean Number System, the Fives (The Pentad) holds a different meaning and is only given a negative spin if the Minor card appears reversed.
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Pythagoras:
5Five, Les Cinq
THE PENTAD |
 Secondly, the cartoon image on the Rider-Waite card actually obfuscates a Minor card’s meaning regarding how is to be applied to any given question.
Because the cartoon already has a “story picture” on its face, it becomes less clear how to apply the meaning of the card to the given context of the question.
Indeed, the cartoon offers too much information, so to speak, besides the fact that the story picture is based on a meaning-system that has nothing to do with the Marseilles Tarot tradition.
Ironically, the paucity of imagery on the Tarot de Marseille allows the reader to move from the abstract to the specific with greater facility. As luck would have it, it is the apparent lack of “helpful” imagery on the Marseilles Tarot Minor Arcana that actually makes it easier to read! It is paradoxical that the abstract nature of the Tarot de Marseille allows for clearer meanings.
Of course, we acknowledge that Tarot Readers may still actually divine with the Rider-Waite decks, which is to say, such readers may use the cartoon scenes to establish a storyline or a given meaning. Such is not impossible, for sure.
The same holds true for the psychedelic, dreamy, and abstract images of the Crowley Thoth deck. One can read with these decks, the same way one can read a Rorschach or Thematic Apperception Test.
Our argument here is that reading of the analogies is actually easier with the Marseilles Tarot. Furthermore, because the Tarot is not actually a product of the Golden Dawn Society, but was co-opted by this Secret Society, the Marseilles Tarot can be understood apart from the Golden Dawn. Thus, if one understandably wants to escape the Golden Dawn overlay, the Marseilles Tarot is the ticket, because it pre-dated the Golden Dawn.
Finally, the seeming paucity of imagery on the Marseilles Tarot Minors that makes it apparently inaccessible or unreadable, is actually its tour de force!
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Tarot Divination 
