Two 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 2 is He of the first series, the passive reflection of that origin. The meaning below is that combination read out — the passive, receptive principle taken at its 2nd term — not a quotation from him.
Upright
The passive principle doubled: reception meeting reception. Papus's second term reflects the first, and in the receptive world that reflection is mutuality — two capacities open to each other at the same moment. This is the structural card of union, and it is exact about the terms: neither party originates, both receive. That is what makes it stable, and also what makes it fragile, since nothing in it is generating anything new.
Reversed
Reflection that only travels one way — one cup held out and never answered. Or mutuality kept up as a form after the substance has gone, two people faithfully receiving each other's habits.
Correspondences
- Suit
- Chalices — He (ה), Briah, the creative world
- Suit principle
- the passive, receptive principle
- Number
- 2 — He of the first series
- Numeric role
- the passive reflection of that origin
In a Spread
At the commencement, the matter begins in an agreement between two parties. In opposition, a bond that will not let the querent act alone. At equilibrium the pair is what holds everything else up. As the result: union — on terms neither side sets, because a second term never sets terms.