Sherlock Holmes Card of the Day

The Sherlock Holmes Card of the Day is:

THE PRINCE-CONSORT

Trump 4 (The Emperor)

The Sherlock Holmes Tarot

In The Sherlock Holmes Tarot by John Matthews and Wil Kinghan (Sterling Ethos), The Emperor is portrayed by Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819-1861), who married Queen Victoria when they were both twenty years old. According to Matthews and Kinghan, Victoria and Albert saw themselves as a modern incarnation of Arthur and Guinevere.

The Holmesian Wisdom for this card is “Now having secured the future, we can afford to be more lenient with the past.” This quote is from "The Adventure of the Priory School,” one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes himself makes this profound statement.

Keys for this card, upright, are: “leadership, fatherhood, authoritative energy, the wielding of power for good, willpower, organization, courage, responsible love, dynamism.” Reversed meanings: “stubbornness, misuse of power, failure, abduction and abandonment.”

The book that accompanies this deck also provides interpretations for each card under the headings “The Game” and “The Fog.” The former elaborates on the upright keys, while the latter expands on reversed meanings. An example from “The Game” for The Prince-Consort: “Masculinity, put to good use through leadership and fatherly wisdom. Authority and energy help organized force to move forward. Taking a more realistic attitude to life encourages a fairer structure in an organization, but always check that aspects of your leadership do not become domineering.” Examples from “The Fog”: “An immature approach weakens your authority and may lead to disorganization. If you defer control, you leave the field open to others.”

As a card of the day, The Prince-Consort encourages us to think about area of our life where we may be demonstrating too little or too much leadership, control, or authority. There is such a thing as being a “control freak.” It is important to determine what areas of life would benefit most from our leadership and a “take charge” approach.