Book T no. 42 · Eight of Cups · decan: Saturn in Pisces
Lord of Abandoned Success
Eight of Cups · Lord of Abandoned Success
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it.
Book T (1912)
A WHITE Radiating Angelic Hand, holding a group of stems of lotuses or water-lilies. There are only two flowers shown, which bend over the two central cups, pouring into them a white water which fills them and runs over into the three lowest, which later are not yet filled The three uppermost are quite empty. At the top and bottom of the card are symbols Saturn and Pisces.
Temporary success, but without further results. Thing thrown aside as soon as gained. Not lasting, even in the matter in hand. Indolence in success. Journeying from place to place. Misery and repining without cause. Seeking after riches. Instability.
Hod of ה (Success abandoned; decline of interest).
The Angels ruling are ווליה and ילהיה.
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. 42 of Book T's 78 titles · Eight of Cups · decan: Saturn in Pisces
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
A man of dejected aspect is deserting the cups of his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern. Divinatory Meanings : The card speaks for itself on the surface, but other readings are entirely antithetical— giving joy, mildness, timidity, honour, modesty. In practice, it is usually found that the card shews the decline of a matter, or that a matter which has been thought to be important is really of slight consequence— either for good or evil. Reversed : Great joy, happiness, feasting.
Picture sets
Book T deck, SVG. PlayfulProcess (line art traced from the composite). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, composite. Composite by PlayfulProcess: AI-painted elements (gemini-2.5-flash-image: hand from a cloud, goblet, lotus, sky) placed by script in the layout Book T describes, so every count is exact. 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.