Today we’re continuing my project of exploring the Tarot de Marseille on its own terms, setting aside preconceptions about what the cards mean and trying to let the deck itself tell me its significance. If you’re new to this series of posts, check out my introduction, my posts on the methods behind my numerology and suit meanings, and the post about the Aces.
In today’s post, we’re looking at the Twos in the deck, and deriving their meaning from the second cards in each of the trumps’ two ten-card sequences: The Popess and the Hanged Man.
At first glance, these two cards don’t seem to have much in common. The Popess is a holy woman; the Hanged Man is a criminal. The Popess has spiritual (and probably temporal authority), while the Hanged Man has none. She is a card of enlightenment and mystery; he is a card of suffering and punishment. They are both solitary figures, it’s true—the Popess spending her time in peaceful meditation, the Hanged Man spending his time alone on the gallows. But that doesn’t really seem to me like a uniting theme that could serve as the numerological basis for these cards, especially considering that these are Twos we’re dealing with. “One is the loneliest number” and all that; we saw the Aces as the embodiment of personal qualities or virtues, so it wouldn’t make sense for the Twos also to be dealing with a solitary inner life.*
Trying to pull out a unifying theme in these two cards, I started to look at why each of these figures spends their time the way they do. The Popess is a religious recluse. She spends her time alone in quiet contemplation, in order to bring herself closer to God. She is devoted to spiritual improvement and advancement.
The Hanged Man, on the other hand, does not choose his position; it’s imposed on him from the outside, as a punishment for his crimes. This prompts the question: Why this punishment? What’s supposed to come out of it? It’s critically important that the Hanged Man’s sentence is not a capital punishment; he’s hanging by his ankle, not his neck. The punishment isn’t supposed to kill him. It’s just meant to teach him a lesson. The Hanged Man, then, is punished as a way of reforming or improving him.
In both cards, we have a theme of people being made better—one through peaceful meditation and prayer, and the other through violent punishment and hard-learned lessons. I decided to take this as the uniting theme of the Popess and the Hanged man, and by extension, the numerological basis of the Twos in the Tarot de Marseille. In my journal, I’ve noted: Twos strengthen and improve. The remaining question is how that theme appears in each of the four suits.
Bâtons were straightforward. This is the suit of action. Strengthening and improving our actions comes through practice and training. The Two of Bâtons, then, would be a card signifying those things—similar in meaning to the Eight of Pentacles in the RWS system.
Coupes are the suit of welfare and well-being. What’s an improvement in welfare? Initially, it would be healing, but that’s a little too restrictive. I think it makes more sense if this card extends more broadly to the idea of things getting better, which can include health but is not limited to it. In a way, I suppose, the meaning of the Two of Cups overlaps most strongly with the Twos in general. I sort of think of this as the Two-y-est of the Twos. Note that this reading of the Two of Cups is very different from the traditional RWS or Thoth interpretations, which have to do with love and partnership.
Deniers are the suit of resources. Our resources are strengthened and improved when we manage them properly, whether that’s through budgeting, investment, or careful monitoring of our time. The Two of Deniers, then, ends up being fairly similar to what it means in the RWS
Épées were the hardest for me to understand. The suit of Épées is about strife; what then is “strengthen and improve” in the context of strife? Is it an intensification of strife, a sense of things getting worse? That doesn’t seem quite right. On the other hand, if we see it as an alleviation of strife, that almost looks too close to the meaning of the Two of Cups. What would distinguish between the two?
In the end, I came to think about the Two of Épées as a sort of respite or cease-fire. It’s not “everything is better,” but it’s an opportunity to step back and lick your wounds before returning to the fray. It is a treatment rather than a cure—good to have, but not enough to solve all of the problems the querent is dealing with. Thinking in analogy to the RWS system, it’s more like what we’d typically see as an interpretation for the Four of Swords rather than the Two.
Putting these things together, then, we come up with the following set of meanings for the Twos:
Two of Bâtons: Practice, study, learning
Two of Coupes: Amelioration, progress, development
Two of Deniers: Investment, budgeting, management
Two of Épées: Respite, relief, reprieve
Here, we see a further deviation from established Tarot tradition than what we had with the Aces, but I think this system really works. Each of these card interpretations makes sense to me, both individually and when all four cards are taken together as a whole. I feel like there’s a clear and consistent theme here. What’s more, I feel like these cards fit with the Popess and Hanged Man. I can see all four of these areas as things that the Popess and the Hanged Man would jointly preside over, so I feel like these interpretations fit well within the structure of the deck.
I have a Wicca-related video that I want to make next week, but after that, I’ll be back with the Threes. We’re making good progress through the deck, and I’m excited to continue to see where this project takes me. Thanks for reading!
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*Also, if we’re defining cards in terms of solitude, the Hermit seems like a much more obvious candidate.
Jack Chanek 