Three of Chalices
Chalices
How This Card Is Derived
Papus gives no separate description of this card. It is derived from his system: Chalices is He (ה), the passive, receptive principle, acting in Briah, the creative world; the number 3 is Vau of the first series, the equilibrium binding the two. The meaning below is that combination read out — the passive, receptive principle taken at its 3rd term — not a quotation from him.
Upright
The binding term inside the receptive world: what holds several feelings in balance is company. Three is the first number in Papus's decade where something exists that is not reducible to the two before it, and in Chalices that emergent thing is shared feeling — the group, the celebration, the sympathy that lives between people rather than in any one of them.
Reversed
The company become the point — a gathering that continues long after the reason for it has gone. Or the third party who unbalances rather than binds, turning something mutual into a performance with an audience.
Correspondences
- Suit
- Chalices — He (ה), Briah, the creative world
- Suit principle
- the passive, receptive principle
- Number
- 3 — Vau of the first series
- Numeric role
- the equilibrium binding the two
In a Spread
At the commencement, the matter begins among several people rather than two. In opposition, a group whose sympathy is not with the querent. At equilibrium the situation holds because it is shared. As the result: something held in common — which also means it cannot be taken privately.