Queen of Tarot

The ancient wisdom of the cards

Tarot Reading Did i conceive?

Reading Performed 07/21/2017 at 5:27 AM

Click or scroll down for the meaning of each position and the interpretation of its card.

Visual Layout

The Meanings of these Tarot Cards

This Covers You

This card gives the influence which is affecting the person or matter of inquiry generally, the atmosphere of it in which the other currents work.

The Hanged Man from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

The Hanged Man. This is the symbol which is supposed to represent Prudence, and Eliphas Levi says, in his most shallow and plausible manner, that it is the adept bound by his engagements. The figure of a man is suspended head-downwards from a gibbet, to which he is attached by a rope about one of his ankles. The arms are bound behind him, and one leg is crossed over the other. According to another, and indeed the prevailing interpretation, he signifies sacrifice, but all current meanings attributed to this card are cartomancists' intuitions, apart from any real value on the symbolical side. The fortune-tellers of the eighteenth century who circulated Tarots, depict a semi-feminine youth in jerkin, poised erect on one foot and loosely attached to a short stake driven into the ground.

Card Description

The gallows from which he is suspended forms a Tau cross, while the figure--from the position of the legs--forms a fylfot cross. There is a nimbus about the head of the seeming martyr. It should be noted (1) that the tree of sacrifice is living wood, with leaves thereon; (2) that the face expresses deep entrancement, not suffering; (3) that the figure, as a whole, suggests life in suspension, but life and not death. It is a card of profound significance, but all the significance is veiled. One of his editors suggests that Eliphas Levi did not know the meaning, which is unquestionable nor did the editor himself. It has been called falsely a card of martyrdom, a card a of prudence, a card of the Great Work, a card of duty; but we may exhaust all published interpretations and find only vanity. I will say very simply on my own part that it expresses the relation, in one of its aspects, between the Divine and the Universe. He who can understand that the story of his higher nature is imbedded in this symbolism will receive intimations concerning a great awakening that is possible, and will know that after the sacred Mystery of Death there is a glorious Mystery of Resurrection.

This Crosses You

It shows the nature of the obstacles in the matter. If it is a favourable card, the opposing forces will not be serious, or it may indicate that something good in itself will not be productive of good in the particular connexion.

King of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

The figure calls for no special description the face is rather dark, suggesting also courage, but somewhat lethargic in tendency. The bull'Valour, realizing intelligence, business and normal intellectual aptitude, sometimes mathematical gifts and attainments of this kind; success in these paths.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

A rather dark man, a merchant, master, professor.

Card Description

The figure calls for no special description the face is rather dark, suggesting also courage, but somewhat lethargic in tendency. The bull's head should be noted as a recurrent symbol on the throne. The sign of this suit is represented throughout as engraved or blazoned with the pentagram, typifying the correspondence of the four elements in human nature and that by which they may be governed. In many old Tarot packs this suit stood for current coin, money, deniers. I have not invented the substitution of pentacles and I have no special cause to sustain in respect of the alternative. But the consensus of divinatory meanings is on the side of some change, because the cards do not happen to deal especially with questions of money.

This Crowns You

It represents (a) the Querent €™s aim or ideal in the matter; (b) the best that can be achieved under the circumstances, but that which has not yet been made actual.

Three of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

For a woman, the flight of her lover.

Card Description

Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind.

This is Beneath You

It shows the foundation or basis of the matter, that which has already passed into actuality and which the Significator has made his own.

Knight of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Skill, bravery, capacity, defence, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance, ruin. There is therefore a sense in which the card signifies death, but it carries this meaning only in its proximity to other cards of fatality.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

A soldier, man of arms, satellite, stipendiary; heroic action predicted for soldier.

Card Description

He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a prototypical hero of romantic chivalry. He might almost be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart.

This is Behind You

It gives the influence that is just passed, or is now passing away.

Knight of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Utility, serviceableness, interest, responsibility, rectitude-all on the normal and external plane.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

An useful man; useful discoveries.

Card Description

He rides a slow, enduring, heavy horse, to which his own aspect corresponds. He exhibits his symbol, but does not look therein.

This is Before You

It shows the influence that is coming into action and will operate in the near future.

Four of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

They are for once almost on the surface--country life, haven of refuge, a species of domestic harvest-home, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace, and the perfected work of these.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

Unexpected good fortune.

Card Description

From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended; two female figures uplift nosegays; at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house.

Your Self

Signifies the person or thing about which the question has been asked, and shows its position or attitude in the circumstances.

Three of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

The conclusion of any matter in plenty, perfection and merriment; happy issue, victory, fulfilment, solace, healing.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

Unexpected advancement for a military man.

Card Description

Maidens in a garden-ground with cups uplifted, as if pledging one another.

Your House

Your environment and the tendencies at work therein which have an effect on the matter €”for instance, your position in life, the influence of immediate friends, and so forth.

Queen of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Opulence, generosity, magnificence, security, liberty.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

Dark woman; presents from a rich relative; rich and happy marriage for a young man.

Card Description

The face suggests that of a dark woman, whose qualities might be summed up in the idea of greatness of soul; she has also the serious cast of intelligence; she contemplates her symbol and may see worlds therein.

Your Hopes and Fears

The Hermit from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Prudence, circumspection; also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

The Hermit, as he is termed in common parlance, stands next on the list; he is also the Capuchin, and in more philosophical language the Sage. He is said to be in search of that Truth which is located far off in the sequence, and of justice which has preceded him on the way. But this is a card of attainment, as we shall see later, rather than a card of quest. It is said also that his lantern contains the Light of Occult Science and that his staff is a Magic Wand. These interpretations are comparable in every respect to the divinatory and fortune-telling meanings with which I shall have to deal in their turn. The diabolism of both is that they are true after their own manner, but that they miss all the high things to which the Greater Arcana should be allocated. It is as if a man who knows in his heart that all roads lead to the heights, and that God is at the great height of all, should choose the way of perdition or the way of folly as the path of his own attainment. Eliphas Levi has allocated this card to Prudence, but in so doing he has been actuated by the wish to fill a gap which would otherwise occur in the symbolism. The four cardinal virtues are necessary to an idealogical sequence like the Trumps Major, but they must not be taken only in that first sense which exists for the use and consolation of him who in these days of halfpenny journalism is called the man in the street. In their proper understanding they are the correlatives of the counsels of perfection when these have been similarly re-expressed, and they read as follows: (a) Transcendental justice, the counter-equilibrium of the scales, when they have been overweighted so that they dip heavily on the side of God. The corresponding counsel is to use loaded dice when you play for high stakes with Diabolus. The axiom is Aut Deus, aut nihil. (b) Divine Ecstacy, as a counterpoise to something called Temperance, the sign of which is, I believe, the extinction of lights in the tavern. The corresponding counsel is to drink only of new wine in the Kingdom of the Father, because God is all in all. The axiom is that man being a reasonable being must get intoxicated with God; the imputed case in point is Spinoza. (c) The state of Royal Fortitude, which is the state of a Tower of Ivory and a House of Gold, but it is God and not the man who has become Turris fortitudinis a facie inimici, and out of that House the enemy has been cast. The corresponding counsel is that a man must not spare himself even in the presence of death, but he must be certain that his sacrifice shall be-of any open course-the best that will ensure his end. The axiom is that the strength which is raised to such a degree that a man dares lose himself shall shew him how God is found, and as to such refuge--dare therefore and learn. (d) Prudence is the economy which follows the line of least resistance, that the soul may get back whence it came. It is a doctrine of divine parsimony and conservation of energy, because of the stress, the terror and the manifest impertinences of this life. The corresponding counsel is that true prudence is concerned with the one thing needful, and the axiom is: Waste not, want not. The conclusion of the whole matter is a business proposition founded on the law of exchange: You cannot help getting what you seek in respect of the things that are Divine: it is the law of supply and demand. I have mentioned these few matters at this point for two simple reasons: (a) because in proportion to the impartiality of the mind it seems sometimes more difficult to determine whether it is vice or vulgarity which lays waste the present world more piteously; (b) because in order to remedy the imperfections of the old notions it is highly needful, on occasion, to empty terms and phrases of their accepted significance, that they may receive a new and more adequate meaning.

Card Description

The variation from the conventional models in this card is only that the lamp is not enveloped partially in the mantle of its bearer, who blends the idea of the Ancient of Days with the Light of the World It is a star which shines in the lantern. I have said that this is a card of attainment, and to extend this conception the figure is seen holding up his beacon on an eminence. Therefore the Hermit is not, as Court de Gebelin explained, a wise man in search of truth and justice; nor is he, as a later explanation proposes, an especial example of experience. His beacon intimates that "where I am, you also may be." It is further a card which is understood quite incorrectly when it is connected with the idea of occult isolation, as the protection of personal magnetism against admixture. This is one of the frivolous renderings which we owe to Eliphas Levi. It has been adopted by the French Order of Martinism and some of us have heard a great deal of the Silent and Unknown Philosophy enveloped by his mantle from the knowledge of the profane. In true Martinism, the significance of the term Philosophe inconnu was of another order. It did not refer to the intended concealment of the Instituted Mysteries, much less of their substitutes, but--like the card itself--to the truth that the Divine Mysteries secure their own protection from those who are unprepared.

Related Posts

The Final Result

The culmination which is brought about by the influences shewn by the other cards that have been turned up in the divination.

Eight of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Bad news, violent chagrin, crisis, censure, power in trammels, conflict, calumny; also sickness.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

For a woman, scandal spread in her respect.

Card Description

A woman, bound and hoodwinked, with the swords of the card about her. Yet it is rather a card of temporary durance than of irretrievable bondage.

Details of this Tarot Reading

Tarot Layout

Celtic Cross

Tarot School of Thought

Support This Site

Buy my ebook, "A Concise Guide to the Tarot: In Vivid Color" for Amazon Kindle!

Cover Image of Book