Essay: In the Balance

The cards of the Tarot Major Arcana numbered one through twenty-one can be arranged in a grid with cards one through seven in the first row, eight through fourteen in the second, and fifteen through twenty-one in the third, and when we look at each vertical column in this grid of cards, we can apply the symbolism of the cards in each column to each of the Harry Potter books. The first column of Tarot aligns with the first Harry Potter book, the second with the second book, and so on. This gives us the Magician (card number one) at the top of the first column, Justice (card number eight) in the middle of the column, and the Devil (card number fifteen) at the bottom.

The first card at the top of this column, the Magician, is the Tarot equivalent of the archetype of the Wise Old Man, the ruling archetype for the first book in the series. (See Quantum Harry, the Podcast, Episode 2: This Old Man.) The Magician is traditionally depicted with various accoutrements of wizardry—in many decks he holds a wand. Items that appear on a table before him or elsewhere on the card may include a sword, a cup and a large disk or a coin, often with a five-pointed star on it, called a pentacle. These are the “suits” of the fifty-six cards in the Tarot Minor Arcana: wands, swords, cups and either disks, pentacles or coins (all three terms are used interchangeably). The suit cards of the Minor Arcana are numbered one through ten, followed by the “court” cards, Page, Knight, Queen and King, making fourteen in each suit, unlike the thirteen in modern decks of playing cards.

Each Tarot suit corresponds to one of the four elements recognized by alchemists: Fire, Air, Water and Earth. The Magician on the first card is effectively ruling over these items, positioning him as the master of fire (wands), air (swords), water (cups) and earth (disks or pentacles or coins). These have become the playing card suits that we know today: wands became clubs, swords became spades, cups became hearts, and pentacles became diamonds.

JK Rowling aligned the traditional four elements of fire, air, water and earth with her Hogwarts houses slightly differently than these symbols are aligned with the elements in the Tarot Major and Minor Arcana (see Quantum Harry, the Podcast, Episode Eighteen: The Wide World), but she is consistent in the way that she changes these alignments, which is probably because she thinks it works better in her story rather than because she is ignorant of the traditional alignments (which is unlikely).

Thus, even though Gryffindor is aligned with the element of Fire, which is clear in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament (the one involving fire-breathing dragons), because she also gives a sword to Godric Gryffindor, the sword is that house’s Tarot suit, not wands, though the element linked to the suit of swords is air, not fire. Similarly, wands are the Tarot suit aligning with Ravenclaw, though its element is Air.

 The visitors from the pseudo-Ravenclaw school in the fourth book, the French school, Beauxbatons, arrive at Hogwarts by flying through the air. Beauxbatons even has “batons” meaning “wands” in its name, and crossed wands for its emblem (which is also similar to the saltire or Cross of St. Andrew that is on the Scottish flag, and of the major regions in the British Isles, Ravenclaw is aligned with Scotland). In the Harry Potter books, wands are associated with everyone, especially Harry, with his phoenix-feather wand and later his mastery of the Elder Wand, but swords are never associated with Ravenclaw in the seven-book series. The Ravenclaw Horcrux, Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem, isn’t even destroyed by the Sword of Gryffindor or by a stand-in for the sword, a basilisk fang, as many of the Horcruxes are. Instead it is destroyed by Fiendfyre. JK Rowling seems to have decided that swords are aligned with the element of fire and wands with the element of air in her world, not the other way around.

The Hufflepuff Horcrux is a cup, which should go to the house with Water for its element, but in the Potterverse it goes to the one aligned with the element of Earth. On the other hand, Slytherin, whose element is Water, should have the cup for its Tarot suit, but instead it has the pentacle or coin, and the locket Horcrux looks like a large gold coin, such as a Gold Galleon (which is yet another reason for this object not to be silver, which would match with the heraldic metal for Slytherin). So, again, in the Potterverse, cups are aligned with the element of Earth and coins with Water, not the other way around.

One of the inspirations for the creation of the Tarot “trumps”, or “triumphs” was Petrarch’s I Trionfi, which means: The Triumphs. (See Quantum Harry, the Podcast, Episode 30: Harry and Tarot.)

This was an allegorical procession in the form of a poem, in three parts. In each part of this triumphal-procession-as-story there are two people, one of whom triumphs over the other, and each subsequent pair triumphs over the previous ones. The first two are Love and Chastity, represented by Cupid and by the love of Petrarch’s life, Laura. In the second part, Laura is in turn trumped by Death (she did actually die), while Death is trumped in turn by Fame.

In his book on Tarot history and symbolism, Robert M. Place writes, in reference to Petrarch’s work:

“Fame allows one’s work and reputation to outlive the body and in this way defeats death.” [Mysteries, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena (NY: Chelsea House Publications, 2009), p. 111]

This philosophy might be the reason that, when Dumbledore is falling out of favor at the Ministry in Order of the Phoenix, Bill Weasley tells Harry “he doesn’t care what they do as long as they don’t take him off the Chocolate Frog cards.” Perhaps this type of enduring fame is another reason that Dumbledore thinks of death as “the next great adventure,” while Voldemort has either not considered this (because surely Voldemort’s fame will outlive him) or he doesn’t feel that it is adequate compensation for his life eventually ending.

At the other end of the spectrum is Voldemort, whose Tarot archetype here and in much of the series is the fifteenth card: the Devil, at the bottom of the first column. The Devil is often shown with servants, male and female, who are enslaved to him, chained up and unable to exercise their will, which is consistent with Voldemort using the Imperius Curse to control people, though he also controls other wizards, whether his Death Eaters or not, with threats of violence. This contrasts with Dumbledore interacting respectfully with the teachers who work for him and the other members of the Order of the Phoenix, who are valued for their diversity, not their ability to follow orders, which is what Death Eaters are expected to do. Hogwarts’ students are equally respected by Dumbledore, who lays down rules but does not enforce them quite as stringently as Filch or Umbridge. (He gives an Invisibility Cloak to Harry when he is eleven.)

At the end of the first book, Quirrell binds Harry with snake-like ropes, snakes being both Slytherin’s emblem and a creature traditionally linked to the Devil. In contrast, on the first card, the ouroboros, the image of a snake eating its own tail, is the Magician’s belt, and this symbol is as morally neutral as an infinity sign. Quirrell calls Voldemort “master”, which no one calls Dumbledore, though he is the headmaster. Voldemort has servants, slaves even. Dumbledore has colleagues and comrades, despite his extreme magical prowess.

In Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, Sallie Nichols writes about the symbolism of the Devil card:

“…according to Jung, any kind of psychic function that is split off from the whole and operates autonomously is devilish.” [Boston, MA/York Beach, ME: Weisner Books, 1980), p. 267.]

Voldemort aspires to immortality and believes any price is worth achieving this, even splitting his soul or condemning himself to a cursed “half-life” by drinking unicorn’s blood. No other life is sacred to him, not even a loyal servant’s; he murders Snape while still believing him to be loyal merely because he thinks that this is necessary for him to gain mastery over the Elder Wand. He is, of course, wrong about this. (See Quantum Harry, the Podcast, Episode 24: Disarmed and Ready.)

The Devil card is linked to the element of Earth, and therefore to graveyards and to the Devil’s mythic home, Hell. This card is also linked to Capricorn, Tom Riddle’s astrological sign, and to ambition, a Slytherin characteristic.

At the top of the first column of Tarot Major Arcana cards is Dumbledore as the Magician (it might as well be his Famous Wizard card) and at the bottom of the column is Voldemort, epitomized by the Devil card. In the middle is card number eight, Justice, an archetype that can be seen as Harry in the first book. The middle row of cards, eight through fourteen, is often called the Realm of Equilibrium. It is a bridge between worlds, just as Harry, as an archetypal Liminal Being, is someone who bridges worlds. (See Quantum Harry, the Podcast, Episode 8 and Episode 9.)

Harry is innately justice-minded throughout the series; he has an inner voice that knows when something is fair—or not. Repeatedly, when he is caught doing something he knows is wrong and he cannot defend his actions, he accepts punishment. This is especially true if he respects the punisher, such as McGonagall, but he also accepts his detentions from Snape with no argument after cursing Draco in the bathroom in the sixth book. He balks at unfair or extreme punishments, usually from Umbridge, and also does this on others’ behalf. This includes Hagrid, Sirius, Buckbeak, and Stan Shunpike. On many Justice cards a woman is depicted. She sometimes has wings, sometimes not, but she almost always carries a sword and a set of scales, though in some cases just the scales might appear on the card. The Justice card is linked to the element of Air (hence the sword) and to the sign of Libra (hence the scales). Libra is also an Air sign in the Zodiac, just as Capricorn, linked to the Devil card, is an Earth sign. (All twelve signs in the zodiac are aligned with either Fire, Air, Water or Earth, three signs aligned with each element.)

Thus the first column of cards presents, in symbolic form, a fairly straightforward good-and-evil struggle, with Harry at the fulcrum of the see-saw. In the first book of the series, just as in the final book, Harry has access to great power—the Philosopher’s Stone— that he does not pursue for himself. His goal is to protect others by keeping this power from someone who would abuse it, and the magic that Dumbledore uses to hide the Stone in the Mirror of Erised is designed specifically to respond to Harry’s selfless, protective impulse.

Each card in the Tarot Major Arcana has at least one other card that is linked to it if the numbers on both cards—or on a set of three cards, in some cases—add up to the same number. The cards that are numerically linked to the first column card, the Magician (card number one), are the Wheel of Fortune (card number ten) and the Sun (card number nineteen). Symbolism connected to The Wheel card is more prominent in the third book, when it is the center column card for that book, and the same is true of the Sun card in the fifth book, when it is at the bottom of the fifth column, but in the first book there are faint echoes of the symbolism on both cards. A major connection between the first and tenth cards is that each has symbols that align with the elements of Fire, Air, Water and Earth, which in turn are connections to the four Hogwarts houses, since each house is aligned with one of these elements.

On the Magician card these symbols are the Tarot suits of wand, sword, cup and pentacle, while the Wheel card shows a composite mythical creature, a sphinx, which is made of an eagle, a man, a lion and a bull. These are also the symbols connected to the four Evangelists, the writers of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In many Tarot decks, the Evangelists’ symbols also appear in the corners of card twenty-one, the World, pointing again to that card’s link to the wholeness that comes from integrating disparate parts. Sometimes, instead of or in addition to a sphinx appearing on the tenth card, an artist might put the individual Evangelists’ avatars in the corners of the card.

Because each Evangelist is linked to a Tarot suit and to one of the elements of Fire, Air, Water or Earth, each can also be linked to a Hogwarts house, and the symbols for each Evangelist help make that alignment clearer. The lion of St. Mark is linked to Gryffindor; St. Mark is also the patron saint of the Italian city of Venice, and if you look at a Venetian flag, it depicts a winged lion in red and gold—something very close to the Gryffindor coat of arms. (A side note concerning a link between Venice and Gryffindor, which was also Dumbledore’s house: the opera house in Venice, called La Fenice, keeps burning down, but has been repeatedly rebuilt. La Fenice means “the phoenix”.)

St. John is represented by an Eagle, the symbol of Ravenclaw, which is linked to the sky and to the element of Air, which in turn is linked to the intellect and to learning. The Gospel of John is often considered to be the most esoteric; it is called the Synoptic gospel and was heavily influenced by the Greek philosophy of the Logos, or the Word.

St. Matthew is represented by a man, or an angel, when the man is given wings, and this aligns with Slytherin house because another angel linked to a snake, the symbol for Slytherin, is Lucifer, the fallen angel who became Satan, the Devil, which is Voldemort’s Tarot archetype in the first book. The Gospel of Matthew also begins with a genealogy for Jesus, which is likewise seen in Luke but not the other Gospels, and Slytherin the Founder was very interested in bloodlines. In addition to this, snakes are associated with both poisons and medicines, hence the two entwined snakes on the caduceus, the symbol of the medical profession, and Severus Snape, the Slytherin potion master, creates potions than can kill or cure, reflecting the fact that in ancient Greek, the same word is used for poison and medicine.

Lastly, St. Luke is represented by a winged bull or ox, creatures usually linked to Earth (the astrological sign of Taurus, the bull, is an Earth sign), which in turn links this with Hufflepuff. This house’s head is Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, and the plants she nurtures in the greenhouses are again linked to medicine and the potions that can be made from them; St. Luke was a physician.

The combination of the symbols of the Evangelists on the Wheel card, or the symbols for the Tarot suits on the Magician card, are each collectively a single symbol of wholeness. There is even a word for the combination of the Evangelists’ symbols: the tetramorph, which is a symbolic configuration of four images, from the Greek tetra (four) and morph (shape). The sphinx, which combines a lion, eagle, man and ox, is also considered a tetramorph. In Christian symbolism, compositions encompassing the four separate symbols of the Evangelists also appear prominently, especially in Revelation 4:6-8; in St. John of Patmos’s vision (not the St. John of the Gospel) these are a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle, though they are a lion, a cherub, a man and an eagle in the Hebrew book of Ezekiel, from which this is derived, and the Ezekiel images have earlier versions in Babylonian and Assyrian literature and art, especially images showing the four each facing a different cardinal direction. (Each element, Fire, Air, Water and Earth also have a link to each cardinal direction.) St. Irenaeus was the first to link these images to the Evangelists and to specifically link the lion to Mark, the eagle to John, the man to Matthew, and the ox/bull to Luke. These images are seen in many depictions of the Evangelists produced by artists in the last six hundred years (possibly more).

Tarot cards showing the symbols of the Evangelists, which are in turn linked to the cardinal directions, the four elements, and to the symbols for the four Hogwarts houses, are fitting links to the first book, in which Harry enters Hogwarts. This is a major milestone for him, allowing him to learn who he is and where he belongs in the world, and during this journey of self-discovery he coincidentally also learns that he has inherited a small fortune (as in “wheel of”).

A connection between the first card, the Magician, and the nineteenth card, the Sun, is Dumbledore’s pet phoenix, Fawkes, since phoenixes are symbolically linked to the sun. (See Quantum Harry, the Podcast, Episode 14: The Devil’s Game.) The phoenix is also linked symbolically to death and resurrection, as the sun is also, especially in winter solstice myths from around the world. However, just as the symbolism of the Sun card is present in the first book in only a remote, echoing way, Fawkes, a symbol of death and resurrection, is only seen briefly in it. Nonetheless, Harry, a boy with a feather from Fawkes in his wand, spends three days unconscious in the hospital wing, symbolically dead and then resurrected.

The eighth card, Justice, is numerically connected to the Star card, (number seventeen—its digits, one and seven, add up to eight). However, the connection here to the Star card is subtle, if Rowling did intend a connection to be seen. Hagrid tells Minerva McGonagall that Sirius Black lent him the flying motorbike to bring Harry to Surrey. Sirius is the name of the Dog Star and Sirius Black’s link to Justice is in the foreground in the third book, where Justice is a sequential card and the Star is a column card.

Finally, the card linked to the Devil (number fifteen) is the Lovers (number six), which is a sequential card in the second book and at the top of the column for the sixth. The Lovers card is about many things, but mainly choices. An important choice that Harry makes in the first book is connected to its related card, the Devil, because he chooses not to be in Slytherin specifically due to what Hagrid says about dark wizards (most likely because of Hagrid’s personal experience of Tom Riddle). This prompts Dumbledore to tell Harry in the next book, in which the Lovers card is even more influential, that choices make us who we are.

To return to the first two column cards, the balance and symmetry represented by the Magician and the Justice card are seen in the structure of the first book, which is highly symmetrical. Each obstacle to the Philosopher’s Stone aligns with a book in the series (see Quantum Harry, the Podcast, Episodes 10-29, the Game Episodes), but in addition to this, something related to each obstacle is introduced in reverse order in the plot of the first book.

The Mirror of Erised is the seventh obstacle to the Stone for Quirrell/Voldemort, but Quirrell/Voldemort is the final obstacle for Harry to protect the Stone, and Quirrell and Voldemort are each mentioned at the beginning of the story in reverse order. JK Rowling tells her readers very early that Voldemort has killed Harry’s parents (wizards rejoice over the disappearance of “You Know Who” and Dumbledore and McGonagall discuss Voldemort killing the Potters but not being able to kill Harry); then Harry meets Quirrell at the Leaky Cauldron. In the chamber with the Mirror, Harry sees Quirrell, then Voldemort when Quirrell removes his turban. His two faces, like the god Janus, also point to the book’s symmetry, which can be linked to the Magician card (and by association, to the Wheel and Sun cards) and to the balanced scales of Justice.

Before Harry encounters Quirrell and Voldemort on the way to the Stone, he and Hermione are confronted with the potions riddle, and earlier in the first book the next significant person Harry meets is Severus Snape, in the chapter called The Potions Master. Preceding the potions obstacle is the troll that Quirrell knocked out, and sure enough, soon after The Potions Master Harry, Ron and Hermione have their Troll adventure in the Halloween chapter. The reflection of the fourth obstacle, the giant chess game, is subtle; at the Christmas banquet in the great hall, Harry receives a wizarding chess set when he opens a wizarding Christmas cracker.

The reflection of the third obstacle, the flying keys, which Harry has to catch while on a broomstick, is even subtler. Harry has already played one Quidditch match by Christmas, but in that match he does not catch the Snitch with his hand; he does that for the first time in his second match, played after Christmas against Hufflepuff. Furthermore, since Harry plays a match against Slytherin first (becoming entangled with the Snitch that will contain the Resurrection Stone, in a ring that is handed down to Slytherin by his Peverell ancestors, setting this up to be reflected all the way at the end of the seventh book), and then he plays Hufflepuff, but is out of commission during the match against Ravenclaw, it seems that Harry doesn’t technically play a full Quidditch season in the first book, since he does not play against Ravenclaw. However, in this book he plays a metaphorical match against Ravenclaw, since the flying keys are the obstacle that Professor Flitwick created, and Flitwick is head of Ravenclaw house. (See Quantum Harry, the Podcast, Episode 16: The Seeker.)

The second obstacle, Devil’s Snare, is a reflection of the detention Harry serves in the Forbidden Forest, a symbolic Hell, which is also where Harry sees Quirrell possessed by Voldemort, who embodies the Tarot archetype of the Devil. Finally, after the detention in the forest, Harry learns how to overcome the first obstacle, Fluffy the three-headed dog, when he asks Hagrid about where he got the dragon egg that became Norbert. 

One by one, these story elements reappear, in reverse order, as the obstacles to the Philosopher’s Stone: Voldemort/Quirrell, the Potions master, a Troll, a chess set, Harry catching a Snitch with his hand instead of in his mouth, harrowing the metaphorical hell of the forest and seeing an incarnation of the Devil, and Harry learning how to subdue a three-headed hell-hound. One by one, Harry gets past each obstacle: Fluffy, Devil’s Snare, the flying keys, the chess game, the Troll, the potions riddle and Quirrell/Voldemort. This symmetry is reflected in the first column of cards in the Tarot Major Arcana, the column cards linked to the first book in the series: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Adapted from the script for Quantum Harry,the Podcast, Episode 31: The Devil You Know. Copyright 2017-2019 by Quantum Harry Productions and B.L. Purdom. See other posts on this blog for direct links to all episodes of Quantum Harry.

~ PREVIOUS ESSAY~