The Six of Cups stands for self-consciousness on the creative level of human expression. Six of Cups upright: negotiation. Six of Cups reversed: oppression.
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. — George Bernard Shaw
With this, George referred to the faculty of the Six of Cups.
An integral part of our life path is the heart’s desire, which is the most important thing we want to be or do in our incarnation, like being an inspiring writer, athlete, or politician. Pursuing our heart’s desire and creating ourselves are the same things.
Are you unsure how to create yourself? Let your values guide you, like honesty, justice, or bravery. The Six of Cups calls for being self-conscious of one’s values and producing those values in our lives.
On a side note, if you’re unsure about your values, take a test at Viacharacter.org
Imagine your life as a path that leads through a thick jungle. Twilight reigns, and you can only see a few meters into the thicket. Once in a while, you lose sight of your path and wander off. Sometimes, we stray off our path without realizing it. Sometimes, something tempts us to stray. At other times, our ego does so deliberately. When we realize we have strayed off our path, we face the decision of whether to keep pursuing a detour or to return to our path.
Most so-called decisions we make during the day are not decisions. These are impulses — the giving-ins to emotions, thoughts, and social pressure. Or they are choices. More about choices in the chapter about the Eight of Cups.
Returning to our path leads to betterment, which is the respective favorable inner experience. This kind of betterment is not a matter of morality or making amends to others. This betterment pertains to our soul’s progress.
An auspicious Six of Cups may indicate the querent’s readiness for betterment and willingness to return to her life path. She is in the position to make an auspicious decision that will bring about a meaningful experience or further her heart’s desire. Pursuing one’s heart’s desire is the root of happiness. This is where the secondary meaning of chance on happiness comes from.
An inauspicious Six of Cups may signify temptations that lure us off our paths, like the desire for possessions, power, fame, or sensuality. Usually, these desires are tainted with the ego’s illusion of separateness. They lead to contraction and trap the soul rather than help it evolve and create.
An inauspicious Six of Cups may also suggest that the querent’s inner life is out of balance, in particular, her desires. She may neglect or overrate certain desires, and lean toward a disproportional expression, like melodrama.
Six of Cups Symbolism
The six cups in the picture form a hexagram.
The inner lines form two triangles within the hexagram, which symbolizes the union of the higher and lower self.
These two triangles represent the lover and beloved Rumi spoke of. You know these two interlacing triangles also as the David Star. Mind the literal meaning of David is The Beloved.
You may have heard that the David Star stands for the connection between heaven and earth. Think of heaven as the higher self and earth as the lower self.
According to ageless wisdom, we don’t decide alone. The higher self gets involved in decisions. Hence, the interlaced triangles symbolize the joint decisions made by the higher and lower self.
The Five Psychological Core Meanings of the Six of Cups
We derive the psychological meanings of Tarot cards from their position on the Tree of Life.
In the Enlightenment Tarot framework, the Six of Cups represents Tiphareth of Netzach, i.e., self-consciousness on the creative-feely level of human expression.
Every Tarot card represents a faculty or power of consciousness. We can use faculties of consciousness constructively and destructively, which produces either a fortunate or an adverse state of mind. Hence, every Tarot card has five core meanings.
These are the five core meanings of the Six of Cups:
- Power of consciousness: Decision-making
- Constructive use: Mediation, negotiation, internal diplomacy
- Unconstructive use: Oppression
- Favorable internal experience: Good conscience, betterment
- Adverse internal experience: Bad conscience, deterioration, regress
As mentioned, decisions are not simple choices, decisions determine what belongs to our life path and what doesn’t.
The meanings of mediation, negotiation, or internal diplomacy refer to the balance between our heart’s desire and external necessities.
Oppression means the oppression of our heart’s desire, for example, choosing a necessity career over our heart’s desire.
We get a bad conscience if we act against our inner values, and a good conscience if we act according to them.
Reflective Questions
If the Six of Cups appears in your spread, you may want to ask yourself the following reflective questions:
- What are your most important values and how frequently do you produce them?
- Are your values in conflict with those of friends and family? Do you discuss this and find common ground?
- How do you define success, and does it align with your heart’s desire?
- Do you reach out to the higher self to make decisions?
- What external recognition or approval do you seek, and how does this affect your decision-making?
Six of Cups Summary
The Six of Wands reminds us that genuine success comes from pursuing our heart’s desire and doing the things our soul came here to do. This is the foundation on which we build an authentic life.
Where Do Tarot Card Meanings Actually Come From?
The meanings of Tarot cards come from various sources. The most common are:
- The position of the Tarot cards on the Tree of Life
- Astrological correspondences (signs, planets, & houses)
- The symbolism of Tarot cards
- Intuition
- Meanings that pertain to fortune-telling
Most of the Tarot card meanings you can google are astrological correspondences and go back to the Golden Dawn and Arthur Edward Waite. Astrological meanings dominate at present because Astrology is a divination tool and favors fortune-telling. But these meanings are unsuitable for (psychological) Tarot readings.
If you are interested in an overview of the astrological correspondences, you can download a high-resolution chart by subscribing to the Enlightenment Tarot.
Tarot card meanings are a bit of a mess since the meanings that pertain to their position on the Tree of Life are mixed up with astrological correspondences, symbolic interpretations, and fortune-telling connotations. That’s tedious to memorize. Further, tarotists’ opinions, knowledge, and linguistic backgrounds shaped some of these interpretations. Last but not least, many meanings are fuzzy, contradictory, and overlap. If you want to understand why they overlap, read the article How to Deal With the Overlapping Meanings of Tarot cards.
The meanings of the Enlightenment Tarot are based on an objective, holistic framework: the Tree of Life and the four levels of human expression. The resulting meanings are transparent and logical, and hence, easier to memorize.
What do Various Tarotists Say about the Meaning of the Six of Cups
Let’s explore what different tarotists wrote about the Six of Cups.
Usually, tarotists consider the astrological significance of Tarot cards. The Six of Cups associates with the second decanate of Scorpio, ruled by Mars and Uranus and sub-ruled by Pisces, Jupiter, and Neptune.
The Scorpio vibes of the first decanate are: enduring, romantic, intense, mystical, magnetic, and resourceful. The sensitive-psychic Pisces modifies those attributions to sagacious, analytical, and penetrative.
Scorpio rules the 8th house of death, great changes, inheritance, the financial affairs of the business or marriage partner, warfare, and surgery.
What Paul Foster Case Said About the Meanings of the Six of Cups
For the Six of Cups, Paul Foster Case offered the keyword betterment.
Betterment refers to returning to one’s values, life path, and heart’s desire.
Paul offers the following secondary meanings: deep emotions, ardor, enthusiasm, and generosity. These refer to the sense of purpose we get from pursuing our heart’s desire.
The meaning of generosity pertains to the essence of the sixth sphere, which is empathy (Six of Wands).
He also proposed the meanings of beginning of steady gain in business or pleasure, but beginning only and some reversal of fortune. These goes back to the fact that decisions set the course for success or failure.
The meanings of money through marriage or business partner or by inheritance, peculiar circumstances, new relations, and new environment pertain to the 8th house of Scorpio. The same is true for the following inauspicious meanings: deceit in reference to partner’s money, loss of inheritance through some sort of swindle, danger of death on water (Scorpio is a water sign), and death through poisons or anesthetics (surgery).
What Arthur Edward Waite Said About the Meanings of the Six of Cups
Arthur Edward Waite proposes that this card signifies either looking back into the past or into the future.
This is an interesting take on self-consciousness, which can exist only in the present. Our self-consciousness can look back at memories and the history of how our present self-consciousness came about, and it can imagine the future, i.e., that which we want to become.
Arthur adds that this card may indicate happiness and enjoyment, but those come from the past and things that are gone.
According to Arthur, the children in the picture are playing an unfamiliar place they explore out of curiosity.
Last but not least, Arthur suggests this cards signifies renewal, new relations, new knowledge, new environments, and inheritance to fall in quickly. These meanings go back to the house of Scorpio.
What Etteilla Said About the Meaning of the Six of Cups
Etteilla, a French occultist and the first known professional tarotist, agrees with Arthur by offering the meanings of past and future.
What Papus Said About the Meaning of the Six of Cups
Papus, another French occultist and the founder of the Martinist Order, suggests the meanings of unsurmountable obstacles, widowhood, and separation.
How he derived the meaning of unsurmountable obstacles is unclear. Widowhood and separation, which is a great change, refer to the house of death and transformation ruled by Scorpio.
What Gregor Mather Said About the Meaning of the Six of Cups
Gregor Mather, the founder of the Golden Dawn, thought that an auspicious Six of Cups signifies memory and anticipation.
With that Gregor concurs with Arthur and Etteilla. Memory refers to the past and anticipation to the future.
The Psychological Framework of the Enlightenment Tarot
Every Tarot card represents a faculty of consciousness. We can use a faculty of consciousness constructively and destructively. This produces favorable and adverse experiences.
We can express faculties of consciousness on four levels:
- The spiritual level (wands/fire/intention)
- The creative-feely level (cups/water/imagination)
- The intellectual level (swords/air/intelligence)
- The bodily level (pentacles/earth/bodily action)
The four tools on the magician’s table symbolize these four levels:
- The wand (spiritual)
- The cup (creative-feely)
- The sword (intellectual)
- The pentagram (bodily)
These tools correspond to the four so-called elements: fire, water, air, and earth.
For this reason, the Enlightenment Tarot wands are made of fire, the cups consist of water, and the pents are composed of earth. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to illustrate something made of air, since air is invisible. For that reason, all swords are made of crystal to show at least transparency.
The Enlightenment Tarot derives its meaning from the Tree of Life and the four levels of human expression. This is an objective, holistic framework that reveals the psychological imports of Tarot cards and their faculties of consciousness. Read more about this framework in the article The Psychological Framework of the Enlightenment Tarot.
The Enlightenment Tarot project attempts to rediscover the original meanings of the Tarot cards that pertain to their position on the Tree of Life. These meanings are simple, clear, and easy to memorize.
*This framework is compatible with Paul Foster Case’s qabalistic system.
Do you want to Learn more About The Enlightenment Tarot?
If you want to delve deep into the psychological meanings of Tarot cards, read the book Tarot of Life.
If you are curious about how the Enlightenment Tarot came about, read this article.
If you are interested in learning how to perform psychological Tarot readings, subscribe to receive a free copy of a guide on how to perform psychological Tarot readings.
If you are looking for a psychological Tarot deck, you have come to the right place. The Enlightenment Tarot derives the cards’ meanings from a holistic and transparent framework that is easy to learn and memorize. All major and minor arcana carry psychological titles, and the court cards display psychological profiles. Have a look at the Enlightenment Tarot deck here.
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