Book T no. 55 · Three of Cups · decan: Mercury in Cancer
Lord of Abundance
Three of Cups · Lord of Abundance
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it.
Book T (1912)
A WHITE Radiating Hand, as before, holds a group of lotuses or water-lilies, from which two flowers rise on either side of, and overhanging the top cup; pouring into it the white water. Flowers in the same way pour white water into the lower cups. All the cups overflow; the topmost into the two others, and these upon the lower part of the card. Cups are arranged in an erect equilateral triangle. Mercury and Cancer above and below.
Abundance, plenty, success, pleasure, sensuality, passive success, good luck and fortune; love, gladness, kindness, liberality.
Binah of ה (Plenty, hospitality, eating and drinking, pleasure, dancing, new clothes, merriment).
Therein the Angels ראהאל and יבמיה are lords.
Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's).
In Book T's table
No. 55 of Book T's 78 titles · Three of Cups · decan: Mercury in Cancer
Correspondences
Waite, Pictorial Key (1911)
A. E. Waite, a member of the Golden Dawn, in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911) · public domain · he describes the Rider-Waite-Smith picture of this card, not Book T's
Maidens in a garden-ground with cups uplifted, as if pledging one another. Divinatory Meanings : The conclusion of any matter in plenty, perfection and merriment; happy issue, victory, fulfilment, solace, healing. Reversed : Expedition, dispatch, achievement, end. It signifies also the side of excess in physical enjoyment, and the pleasures of the senses.
Picture sets
Book T deck, SVG. PlayfulProcess (line art traced from the AI painting). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, painting. AI painting (gemini-2.5-flash-image) from Book T's words, prompt by PlayfulProcess. CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, iconography. PlayfulProcess: glyphs drawn for this deck, composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_iconography.py) from the card's own metadata, placed as Book T (1912) places them. CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, full imagery. PlayfulProcess: parts drawn for this deck (tarot/book-t/parts, tarot/book-t/glyphs), composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_full_imagery.py) from a spec per card that follows Book T (1912). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, linocut. PlayfulProcess: a linocut printing of the full imagery, composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_linocut.py) from the same spec per card, which follows Book T (1912). CC-BY-SA-4.0.