Mysteries of the Tarot: The Three of Cups

A.E. Waite described the Three of Cups in his book, Pictorial Key to the Tarot, as "[Three] maidens in a garden-ground with cups uplifted, as if pledging one another." Waite's description omits the richness of the garden, the fine robes of the ladies, and the hints of crowns made of ribbons in the ladies' hair.

Of particular interest to the member of Golden Dawn is the hint of the cornucopia in the garden, for the esoteric title for this card used by the Order is "The Lord of Abundance". When positive in a reading, that is exactly what it means: fulfillment and a productive outcome of a matter; when negatively aspected, the card also signals the excesses that comes with abundance. Beyond this esoteric meaning, which is the blended result of the seven layers of Golden Dawn Tarot study, there are whole other worlds of possible meaning and symbolism.

The overriding layer to consider when studying any Tarot deck is the image that depict the forces (energies) that the card represents. Without this layer, as Pat Zalewski points out, there is no unification of the other symbols (again energies) that go into a card; there is a reason that we don't simply have the sigils of the planets and zodiac signs on the cards; the picture makes the card more than the sum of its parts.

In the case of the deck devised by A.E. Waite, and created by the artist Pamela "Pixie" Colman Smith, the picture is that of three women holding up chalices, dancing around a common center. The three ladies will speak differently to each reader, but we can state some of the deeper symbolism that others may glimpse in the Three of Cups.

For the Wiccan, the three ladies can represent the mysteries of the three goddess figures of Wicca. While Smith depicted them all the same age, the modern-day student of witchcraft, the wiccan, knows that people of the same age can represent, and even embody, different aspects of the Triple Goddess. The Maiden (Lover), the Mother, and the Crone are the cycles that the universe, nature, and human beings all go though.

In another artist's version of the Three of Cups, the Secret Tarot (I Tarocchi Dei Segreti) drawn by Marco Nizzoli, the three women are replaced by three men sitting in a wood framed building while drinking from tankards. To many students of the esoteric Orders, these three men could be Freemasons, an Order that in an earlier time period met in taverns and pubs. While they no longer are considered a drinking Order (alcohol has been banned from its meetings), the imagery still remains. Freemasonry itself has a threefold cycle that depicts the life of the Mason, that of initiation and the three degrees of Freemasonry: the apprentice, the journeyman, and the master mason. Like the threefold feminine mystery of Wicca, these three degrees can represent the stages of an initiate's development as they grow though the mysteries and the cycles of life.

Golden Dawn itself has several threefold mysteries, including the Three Orders. Of particular instance, in relation to the cycles of life is their symbol of LVX (pronounced "lukes"). This symbol on one level represents the Goddess Isis, the God Apophis, and the slain and risen God, Osiris; on another level, it represents the Christian colored mysteries of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood that Golden Dawn modeled its Second Order upon. In this mystery, things died and are then reborn.

Leaving the imagery of the card behind, with this as our baseline, one can move out and include other mysteries. For instance, one of the mysteries of Thelema, and the esoteric Order it influences, the OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis), the mystery word MABN (pronounced "mah-ab-ben") can be incorporated into one's personal interpretation of the card: the image of the mother, the father and the son. The Catholic Trinity could be included, for those of that religious bent.

All of these mysteries can be keyed to this card if the reader so desired. Each of these mysteries has a common theme, and each in its own way explains the process by which abundance enters our universe.

Of all the mysteries of the number three that the Three of Cups could embody, perhaps the most important to link to the card is the Wiccan Threefold Law: that which you do will return to you threefold. This coupled with the theory of the aura as the magical mirror of the universe (a Golden Dawn theory) can be used to understand how to create abundance in one's life. Quite simply, in the right hands, the Three of Cups can be the key to the secret of abundance. And that is an important mystery for all of us.