Describe the pattern, keep each card in its position, and check the proposed connection. Suit counts do not measure personality or missing abilities.
1. Establish what you are counting
For this exercise, count only the cards selected for this reading. Group the Minor Arcana, including aces and court cards, into Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles. The Eight of Swords counts as one card, not eight swords. Upright and reversed belong to the same suit.
Keep Major Arcana in the overall interpretation, outside this suit count. They are not a fifth suit in this counting convention; that does not settle other symbolic correspondences. State what appeared without inventing a cutoff for a “strong” suit or adding redraws to the count.
2. Keep three scales of interpretation separate
In The Four Suits, Rachel Pollack distinguishes a whole suit’s field of activity and experience from the types she discusses through court cards. Her example is a reading with many Wands: she emphasizes current experience rather than assigning a permanent fiery personality. Our Swords example below is a separate application.
She also allows categories to overlap and asks readers to consider positions and the whole arrangement. Use the following questions to check the scale of your claim. The table is our teaching device, not a system of numerical rules from her book.
| Scale | Useful question | What it cannot establish |
|---|---|---|
| One card in a position | What does this image contribute to this particular role? | That every aspect of the situation shares one meaning. |
| A suit repeated across the spread | Does a shared perspective help discuss these experiences? | A permanent personality, intensity score or guaranteed outcome. |
| A suit absent from this spread | What relevant real information have I not considered? | That a person lacks the corresponding feelings or abilities. |
3. Give three Swords cards different jobs
Original fictional example: Mina volunteers to prepare a visitor information sheet for an exhibition. She has an old schedule, two draft files and unconfirmed opening times, prices and contact details. She keeps switching versions. She can edit wording, but the organizer must confirm those details. She asks: “How can I prepare a reliable sheet for the next review?”
Suppose the upright Eight of Swords, Six of Swords and Page of Swords appear in the tool’s positions “What brought you here,” “What is present” and “A possible next step.” These cards were chosen to teach the example, not recorded from a draw. The tool does not guarantee this arrangement.
In the first position, the Eight of Swords has a bound, blindfolded figure, with gaps visible from outside. It can prompt Mina to separate unverified assumptions about the old schedule from genuine approval limits. A visible gap does not grant her authority to confirm a price.
In the present position, the Six of Swords carries its swords along in a boat. Unanswered questions can travel with work in progress; a new file need not erase them. Has the team agreed where the working copy lives and who carries open items forward? The boat cannot decide which schedule is correct.
For the next step, the Page of Swords holds a sword while looking another way. That attentive, unsettled posture can prompt a narrower check: send the organizer one draft with the three uncertain fields marked, ask who can confirm them, and record the reply. It does not promise a reply or imply deception.
Only now consider the shared suit: checking assumptions, carrying unresolved information and forming a specific question may be a useful discussion thread. If Mina clarifies that the current information, permissions and version are already confirmed, while printing costs alone block delivery, withdraw that thread. Address the budget instead of rescuing it as a hidden thinking problem.
4. Missing Cups do not mean missing care
No Cups appeared in this teaching arrangement. It tells us nothing about Mina’s capacity to care. Whether visitors feel welcomed, volunteers feel overloaded or someone needs help calls for conversations and observations beyond the cards. None of those questions disappears because its preferred symbol is absent.
If feedback says the wording feels unwelcoming, discuss that wording. You do not need to draw a Cup before responding. Treating absence this way is our limit on the exercise, not a missing-suit rule supplied by Pollack.
5. Try a scale check on one reading
If you need help fixing positions first, use the three-card worked example. Then try this short exercise with your own selected cards:
- Record the question, positions and cards. Describe the suit pattern within this selection only.
- Read each card’s image and role before proposing one shared theme.
- Write one fact that supports the theme and one piece of information that would make you drop it.
- Choose a small action that checks a real condition. Do not redraw merely to fill missing suits.
6. Sources and the limits of this method
Reference: Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, Chinese translation by Sun Meijun (孫梅君), 商周出版, first edition December 2010. The Four Suits, Minor Arcana introduction: actual PDF 193–196 / printed 194–197 in the consulted scan. Page 193 acknowledges different elemental correspondences; 194 distinguishes experience from type; 195 considers overlap and context; 196 retains court-card personality types. This does not cancel readings involving people. The counting convention, table, case and absence guidance here are our own.
Waite’s entries provide a different historical reference: temporary restriction for the Eight, routes and passage for the Six, and vigilance and examination for the Page. Our information-sheet exercise is a modern application, not his original case or a universal Swords formula. It makes no scientific prediction or health judgment.
Try it with a clear idea of what to expect.
Try the tarot table with one clear question