Seven of Cups

Seven cups overflow with a green, poisonous slime; the lotuses above have gone rotten and the sea is a swamp.

Netzach, Victory, in Briah, the world of creation. Victory, the sphere of Venus: feeling, desire, art, the bliss and the instability of the emotions. Below Tiphareth the Tree is no longer balanced, and Netzach shows force without form. The Sevens are Netzach in the four worlds and tend to show the element degenerating.

Netzach in the world of Water: feeling below the balance point, force without form. Venus in the last decan of Scorpio is pleasure in the element of putrefaction.

Venus in the third decan of Scorpio (20°–30°, about Nov 13–22). Venus is attraction, harmony, love, art and fertility. On the Tree it is Netzach, Victory; among the trumps it is the Empress, the door through which all forms are born.

Scorpio is fixed Water: the scorpion, the serpent and the eagle, putrefaction and regeneration, the depths. Mars rules it. It is the kerubic sign of Water (as the eagle), and its trump is Death. The trump of Scorpio is Death.

This decan is ruled by the Knight of Wands, whose arc runs from 21° Scorpio to 20° Sagittarius. The two Shem angels of the decan are Asaliah and Mihael.

Bliss: feeling, desire, the pleasure and the instability of the emotions. Netzach, Victory. The Sevens tend to show the element degenerating; the Chariot is trump VII.

Feeling corrupted by wish; the value replaced by its image. The Cups are usually read as the feeling function in Jung's typology, an interpretive convention rather than a text of Jung's.

Rider-Waite calls the suit Cups (also Chalices). Its small cards carry scenes; the Thoth small cards carry the suit emblems arranged geometrically, with the keyword printed at the bottom and the colours of their Sephirah and decan. The Golden Dawn title (Lord of Illusionary Success) is shared by both traditions.