What is an Essence Card?
The Essence Card is sometimes called a Birth card, Soul Card or Personality Card. Different Tarotists calculate and use them in slightly differing ways – as Significators in a reading, or to devise a year ahead reading, or a birth chart; as a focus for meditation; in spells and manifestations; finding Spirit cards in Shamanic or Pagan practices. There are connections here with Numerology and other esoteric practices which I will explore in later blog posts.
Calculating Essence and Guidance Cards
I suggest you work with a familiar birth date as you follow the instructions – it is much easier than it seems, I promise.
The Essence Card is calculated by reducing the digits of the day, month and year of the querent’s birth, one at a time, to find 3 single digits between 1 and 9.
These numbers are then added together to find a number from 1 to 22 (the numbered cards in the Major Arcana) which is firstly the Guidance Card. Double digit numbers can then be further reduced to a single digit number which relates to one of the first nine cards of the Major Arcana. This is the Essence Card. Often the Guidance and Essence cards will be the same.
Sounds complicated? It really isn’t.
For example, we can calculate the Essence Card of someone born on 12th August 1992:
Day (reduced) = 1+2 = 3
Month = 8
Year (reduced) = 1+9+9+1 = 20 = 2+1 = 3
Add the Day, Month and Year numbers =3+8+3 = 14 = Guidance Card (Temperance)
Essence Card = 4+1 = 5 = Essence Card (The Hierophant)
Here the Essence Card is The Hierophant, the archetype for belonging to family and community; for understanding the importance of family - whether given or found - and how to make relationships that work through acceptance of shared values and love.
Christ the Great Hierophant by Br Nicholas, Greek Institute of Venice, Italy.
Temperance from the 1JJ tarot by Johann Georg Rauch 1789-1851, Wikimedia.
Whatever our religious or spiritual beliefs, at the heart of what The Hierophant or High Priest means in our times is the archetype of the Christ figure, the giver of unconditional love and acceptance for all whilst upholding the importance of right actions if a community is to protect and serve its people. The Hierophant as Essence Card might indicate an ability, or a deep unfulfilled need, for giving and taking within secure relationships. Unconditional love that knows no barriers but which acknowledges personal and community boundaries that make us feel safe, enables us to thrive as individuals.
Temperance as Guidance card reminds us how important it is to balance our need for the safety and security of a loving family, and the support of others who we care about, and who care about us, with our need to grow and become independent, self-confident and loving individuals. Well-balanced people understand unconditional love, and real love is always about acknowledging strong boundaries.
Another Example.
We can calculate a person with the birth date 3rd September 2002.
Day = 3
Month = 9
Year (reduced) = 2+0+0+2 =4
Guidance Card = 3+9+4 = 16 (The Tower)
Essence Card = 1+6 = 7 = (The Chariot)
So, this person will have the 7th card of the Major Arcana, The Chariot, as their Essence Card and card 16, The Tower, as a Guidance Card.
Trump 7 The Chariot of the 1JJ tarot deck. English version, between 1831 and 1838, by Johann Georg Rauch 1789-1851
The Tower from The Smith-Waite Tarot Deck 2017, Borderless Edition, US Games Systems Inc.
As an Essence Card, The Chariot might feature strong self-control; introspection and acute self-perception; vulnerability and self-protection; a stubborn will to succeed; poor anger management; jealousy or lack of control over sexual and other appetites.
The Tower as a guiding card suggests that a fear of change, disruption, or losing face, might be at the heart of any issues that arise from The Chariot’s need for appearing fearless and victorious in his inner struggles to control his deeper or baser instincts. The actual relationship between the two cards will become apparent during the reading and in conversation with the querent.
One number produces 3 Essence and Guidance cards: that is if a person’s birth date digits add up to 19. For example: if a person was born on 15th June 1996
Day = 1+5 = 6
Month = 6
Year = 1+9+9+6 = 25 = 7
First Guidance Card = 6+6+7 = 19 (The Sun)
Second Guidance Card = 1+9 = 10 (The Wheel of Fortune)
Essence Card = 1+0 = 1 (The Magician)
This is a powerful combination and, if you are interested, I suggest you explore it for some insights into how Essence and Guidance Cards might work for someone with 19 as their birth date number.
Why Use the Essence Number?
I find that using the Essence Card is especially valuable when doing a reading for a querent who I have never met before, or with an online email reading for someone I do not know. At festivals or other public events, it helps to engage or relax the querent by explaining how the Essence Card figures in the reading. It makes the reading personal.
For example, The Emperor symbolises the need for order, structure and boundaries as a way of creating a safe and fulfilling space for the happiness of all. Chaos, disorder and improvisation are not the way of The Emperor. Knowing this, both reader and querent can examine this archetype to illuminate the reading.
Essence Cards Do Not Necessarily Describe Personality
It is important to realise that by no means everyone with The Emperor as their Essence Card will be incredibly organised; be structured and orderly in their lives; need Satnav to validate every journey and love to fill out forms and follow algorithms. Expecting that would be to miss the point entirely.
The point is to use the Essence Card as an indication of what aspects feature in the life of the querent. The Emperor could indicate someone who lacks and needs boundaries or structure; who does not want or understand how to make others happy; who is bullied or weak and indecisive; who constantly says what they ‘want’ to do but finds it difficult to make the effort to achieve it; even someone who is constantly aware of their powerlessness or vulnerability.
Some people with The Emperor as their Essence Card might constantly put up barriers to achieving success in their career or their close relationships.
Be open minded and flexible when using Essence and Guidance Cards. They are at the beginning of your conversation with yourself or your querent and the tarot. They are a starting point, as illumination, to light the path; not close it down with preconceptions about what the Essence Card means for us as individuals.
What Does Your Essence Card Mean? A Personal Story.
I happen to have The Emperor as my Essence Card and I am almost everything that The Emperor is not and that is the point here. As a naturally disorganised and wildly improvisational person myself, I am acutely aware of how important structure and order are if I am to be the best version of myself. The Emperor leaps in to remind me that if I am ever to achieve my personal goals, I must consciously channel that archetype in my teaching, my workshops and all my endeavours by being honest, organised and thorough in my preparation and evaluation.
Charles VI (or Gringonneur) Deck; Le tarot dit de Charles VI . 15th century. Author unknown
Like The Emperor, I want to make the people around me happy. And like The Emperor, I sometimes get the idea that I know what is best for the people I care about, but I am reluctant to tell others what they should do and I was a hopeless disciplinarian with my children. I love maps and travelling but dislike using Satnav unless it is absolutely necessary because I love the adventure and opportunities of being lost. I fought against authority from an early age and yet many people see me as laid-back and easily influenced. I attract and accommodate bullies but can ruthlessly expel them from my life when they go too far. So, The Emperor figures hugely in my life, not because I am much like the archetype but because issues of personal power, boundaries and control have been uppermost in so many of my life’s decisions.
Becoming aware of the importance of this ancient archetype in my life has revealed so much to me about my relationships with others and my own weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
An Exercise in Understanding Your Own Essence Card.
it is a good idea to write down your birth dates and add each digit as described above to calculate your own Essence Card. If appropriate write down both your Essence and Guidance cards, remembering that they might both be the same card (as mine are).
Explore the card(s) and write down the aspects that mean something to you. Be honest! It is a great way to gain a deeper understanding of yourself and the tarot cards. Try doing the same with friends or family, people you think you know well enough to understand how their personalities relate to the cards of the Major Arcana. Ask them how they feel the archetypes play out in their own lives - if they have any insight at all, their answers will matter far more than your own.
Using Essence or Guidance cards in your reading is certainly not mandatory. I find it helps both my clients and me to become quickly immersed in the cards before a shorter reading. With a longer 10 or 12 or larger spread it is less useful because the details will be in the cards, but for repeat clients I think it is always a good idea to have those details at hand.