Seven of Cups

Identity

Symbols

• Seven Cups Rising from CloudPossibilities glowing evenly — and the evenness is itself a confusion.+

  Waite calls them 'strange chalices of vision', the images 'more especially those of the fantastic spirit'. Book T's title is blunter still: 'Lord of Illusionary Success', under Venus in the last decan of Scorpio, in Netzach.

• The Single CloudAll seven cups issue from the same cloud — they share one origin: imagination.+

  The cups rest on a bank of cloud, three above and four below, with no ground beneath them. Waite calls their contents 'things seen in the glass of contemplation' and adds that 'nothing permanent or substantial is suggested'.

• The Silhouette from BehindThe onlooker is rendered as outline — whoever watches mirages is first a self whose features are not yet clear.+

  Seen from behind as a dark outline, the figure stands where the viewer stands, and we see the cups over his shoulder. Among seven detailed visions he is the one shape left unmodelled: a spectator with no face to read.

• The Face in the CupThe illusion of loving and being loved — the only human face among the seven.+

  Waite lists 'images of reflection' among the card's meanings. Of the seven contents, the head in the top row is the one a looker might also find in a real cup: a face, the thing still liquid gives back.

• Serpent and DragonThe dangerous seductions — mirages are not only sweet; some of them bite.+

  The two are kept apart, the serpent in the top row and the dragon in the bottom. Scripture joins them: Revelation 12:9 casts out 'the great dragon… that old serpent', the one 'which deceiveth the whole world'.

• The Veil and the Glowing FormThe one vision that hides its contents: light without a shape to hold onto.+

  At the centre of the top row stands the one cup whose content is covered: a draped figure glowing through its veil. Later readers often take it for a hidden or spiritual self; the drawing gives only light and folds, no face.

• Castle, Jewels and WreathOwnership, riches, a prize: the lower row's visions of having.+

  A wreath was the victor's crown in the Greek games, and Paul turns it into a measure: athletes strive 'to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible' (1 Corinthians 9:25). Here it shares a cloud with castle and jewels.

Story

A dark figure in the foreground has his back to us, so the viewer looks where he looks: up and out at seven cups resting on a bank of cloud. The eye cannot settle. It moves from cup to cup along two uneven rows, three above and four below, and each one holds a different thing; no two visions repeat. Nothing sits on the ground, and the space between the watcher and the cloud is left unmeasured, neither near nor far. All seven are still on offer at once, and the choosing has not begun.

Correspondences

Elemental Dignity

Shadow

Related Cards

The Moon

Seven of Swords

Nine of Cups