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In my own studies of Elementa Theory, I noted points where parallels could be drawn to the Tarot.

Background

For those not familiar, Tarot describes a deck of 78 cards which is commonly used for divination. It's origin is placed anywhere from Ancient Egypt to Renissance Europe by different sources, and it has seen reinvigoration since the start of the 20th century. The deck is divided into two sections, Major and Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana are a set of 22 'unique' cards embodying archetypal transformations between states. The Minor Arcana are the other 56 cards in the deck, divided into four suites, each containing 14 cards. The four suites differ somewhat between decks, but are generally defined as Discs, Swords, Wands, and Cups. These correspond to the four 'classic' elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.

Within each suite of the Minor Arcana, there are four 'face cards', each describing a person. In most decks these four are classified as the King or Knight, the Queen, the Prince, and the Princess. What these actually define is a system of interrelating elemental characteristics. The King of a suite corresponds to Fire, the Queen Water, the Prince Air, and the Princess Earth. For example, the King of Cups can be thought of as the Fire of Water, and the Prince of Wands the Air of Fire.

Connection to Elementa Theory

The 16 face cards define the 16 possible combinations of the four classical elements. This can be thought of as an alternate Elemental Circle, based on the composition of four factors rather than the mathematical combination of 2. The system is valuable because of the historical validity and context it lends to Elementa Theory, and because it provides another lens for viewing Elementa.

The way the elemental relationships in the Tarot actually work is by taking a base classical element, taken from the suite of the card, and modifying it with another elemental descriptor. This is easiest to see by example. The Prince of Cups or the Air of Water is a good starting place.



Princes represent the Airy part of the house they belong to, which in the mysticism of the Tarot is the intellectual refinement and outwards manifestation of raw energy, the union between the Fire of the King and the Water of the Queen. The suite of Cups represents water, meaning the Prince of Cups is the intellectual refinement of Water's emotion. In the Book of Thoth, a reference by the creator of the deck that I use, the Prince of Cups is described with "The moral characteristics of the person pictured in this card are subtlty, secret violence, and craft. [...] On the surface, he appears calm, but this is a mask of the most intense passions."

If we translate 'intellectual stirring and inwards push, secretive and introverted' into Elementa Theory terms, we get something like Shade-Water or Water-Shade. The same thought process can be applied to understand the other possible composistions of elements in this system. However, it can be difficult to translate the elemental combinations directly to Elementa Theory terms for some of the possible combinations, indicating that the system either functions differently, isn't fully understood yet, or is incomplete. What I tend towards assuming in thinking about this system is that the suites and modulations of the suites describe attributes of a broader 'slice' of the elemental circle, rather than a pointer to a specific location.

One additional complicating factor is that the progression of 'Knight -> Queen -> Prince -> Princess' in addition to defining seperate classical elements, also describes the progression of classical Alchemy, better understood as the process by which ideas and souls are refined and purified. So, in addition to describing elementa traits, the progression describes how the classic elements change in different configurations of expression in the world.

Overall I would say that more research needs to be done on this system, since my own understanding is incomplete in some regards.

Tarot Elemental System Data

A collection of data from my own notes on this system:

KNIGHTS (Yod) -- The active, aggressive aspect of the element; the primal but transient force that alters but is swift, an instant impulse. The lightning flash of Fire, the rainstorm of Water, the surge of Wind, the rise of the mountain (or the innermost compression, the transfer of kinetic energy).



QUEENS (He) -- The feminine; the reciever, the amplfier, the womb, the fermentation of the impulse; sustaning and continuing. The balanced, most soft part of the suite.



PRINCES (Vau) -- The manifestation of the union of the Knight and the Queen -- energy projected outwards into the world, an enduring factor that continues the will of the original impulse but represents an intellectual refinement and actualization into action. Finite, however.



PRINCESSES (He) -- The ultimate fruition of the impulse into enduring, but simultaineously its union back into nothingness. Crystalization, manifestation, reabsorbtion.



References

I refer to the Thoth deck for my own Tarot references, as I've found it to be the most comprehensive and accurate of the decks that I've seen. Aleister Crowley's work on the Tarot, embodied in this deck and in its reference, The Book of Thoth, is invaluable for any student wishing to understand the systems of the Tarot.

For those interested in a better understanding of the Tarot itself, researching the connections between it and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life gives a good place to start.

Conclusions

The existance of elemental systems like this and how closely they can be compared to modern Elementa Theory gives a good indication that this sort of research has been undertaken and at least partially understood previously in history, possibly as far back as in ancient egypt if some sources on the origins of the Tarot are to be believed. More lenses and more perspectives through which to view any system gives a better depth for comprehending it

Thanks for reading, don't hesitate to post if you have any questions or if anything about my framework seems to need adjustment.