Elemental dignities

Elemental dignities is a method from the Golden Dawn's Book T. Each card takes an element from its suit or correspondence, and its neighbours in the spread strengthen or weaken it. Cards of the same element support each other, as do friendly pairs; opposed pairs, fire with water and air with earth, weaken each other. The Golden Dawn read all cards upright and used this system to shade meanings, so it is often used with the Thoth deck and by readers who do not use reversals. It takes practice, because the reader must hold a whole row in mind at once. See tarot elements.