Tarot Reading At last!
Reading Performed 09/06/2022 at 5:08 PM
Click or scroll down for the meaning of each position and the interpretation of its card.
Visual Layout
Card One
Eight of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
The decline of a matter; something thought to be important is really of slight consequence—either for good or evil.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Marriage with a fair woman.
Card Description
A dejected-looking man abandons the cups of his celebrations. They symbolize an enterprise, undertaking, or previous concern.
Card Two
Seven of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Money, business, barter.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Improved position for a lady's future husband.
Card Description
A young man leans on his staff, and looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a plant on his right. It looks as if these were his treasures, and as if his heart were there.
Card Three
The Heirophant from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude; also mercy and goodness; inspiration; the man to whom the Querent has recourse.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The High Priest or Hierophant, called also Spiritual Father, and more commonly and obviously the Pope. It seems even to have been named the Abbot, and then its correspondence, the High Priestess, was the Abbess or Mother of the Convent. Both are arbitrary names. The insignia of the figures are papal, and in such case the High Priestess is and can be only the Church, to whom Pope and priests are married by the spiritual rite of ordination. I think, however, that in its primitive form this card did not represent the Roman Pontiff.
Card Description
He wears the triple crown and is seated between two pillars, but not those of the Temple guarded by the High Priestess. In his left hand he holds a scepter ending with the triple cross. With his right hand he gives the well-known ecclesiastical sign of esotericism, distinguishing between the surface and concealed parts of doctrine. At his feet are the crossed keys, and two priestly ministers in albs (priestly robes) kneel before him. He is the ruling power of external religion, as the High Priestess is the prevailing force of the esoteric power.
Card Four
Strength from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Tyranny, abuse of power, weakness, discord, sometimes even disgrace.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
Fortitude. This is one of the cardinal virtues, of which I shall speak later. The female figure is usually represented as closing the mouth of a lion. In the earlier form which is printed by Court de Gebelin, she is obviously opening it. The first alternative is better symbolically, but either is an instance of strength in its conventional understanding, and conveys the idea of mastery. It has been said that the figure represents organic force, moral force and the principle of all force.
Card Description
A woman, over whose head is the same symbol of life seen in the Magician card, closes the jaws of a lion. Her benevolent strength has already subdued the lion, which is being led by a leash of flowers. Fortitude, in one of its most exalted aspects, is connected with the Divine Mystery of Union. It connects also with untouched innocence, and with the strength that resides in contemplation. These higher meanings are hinted at in a concealed manner by the leash of flowers, which signifies the sweet yoke and the light burden of Divine Law, when it has been taken into the heart of hearts. The card has nothing to do with ordinary self-confidence—it concerns the confidence of those whose strength is God and have found their refuge in Him. In one sense, the lion signifies the animal passions, and the lady called Strength signifies the higher nature of Man in his liberation. The higher nature of Man has walked upon the asp and the basilisk and has trodden down the lion and the dragon (see Psalm 91:13).
Card Five
Ten of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Whole-hearted peace and contentment; also perfection of human love and friendship; a person who is taking charge of the Querent's interests; also the town, village or country inhabited by the Querent.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
For a male Querent, a good marriage and one beyond his expectations.
Card Description
Above are ten cups in a rainbow. This vision is contemplated in wonder and awe by a husband and wife below. His right arm is around her, his left raised upward. She raises her right arm. Two children dancing near them have not observed the miracle, but are happy in their own play. There is a home on the horizon.
Card Six
Nine of Wands from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Obstacles, adversity, disasters.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
Generally speaking, a bad card.
Card Description
A man leans upon his staff with an expectant look, as if awaiting an enemy. His build indicates that he may prove a formidable opponent. Behind are eight other staves—upright, in orderly arrangement, like a fence.
Card Seven
Four of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Novelty, premonition, new learning, new relationships.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Presentiment.
Card Description
A young man sits under a tree, contemplating three cups on the grass before him. An arm extends from a cloud to offer him another cup. His appears discontent, as if the wine of this world had barely satisfied him. Another wine—a fairy gift—is now offered to the vagabond, but he sees no consolation in it, either.
Card Eight
Death from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
End, mortality, destruction, corruption; also, for a man, the loss of a benefactor; for a woman, many inconsistencies; for a maiden, failure of marriage prospects.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Death. The method of presentation is almost invariable, and embodies a bourgeois form of symbolism. The scene is the field of life, and amidst ordinary rank vegetation there are living arms and heads protruding from the ground. One of the heads is crowned, and a skeleton with a great scythe is in the act of mowing it. The transparent and unescapable meaning is death, but the alternatives allocated to the symbol are change and transformation. Other heads have been swept from their place previously, but it is, in its current and patent meaning, more especially a card of the death of Kings. In the exotic sense it has been said to signify the ascent of the spirit in the divine spheres, creation and destruction, perpetual movement, and so forth.
Card Description
Death appears here as one of the apocalyptic visions rather than a grim reaper—to show change, transformation, and a passage from lower to higher. In the background lies the whole world of ascent in the spirit. In the foreground, the mysterious horseman moves slowly, bearing a black banner emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which signifies life. Between two pillars on the horizon shines the sun of immortality. The horseman carries no visible weapon, but king and child and maiden fall before him, while a bishop with clasped hands awaits his end. The natural transition of man to the next stage of his being is one form of his progress. While still in this life, the exotic and almost unknown entrance into the state of mystical death is a change in the form of consciousness. It is the passage into a state to which ordinary death is neither the path nor the gate.
Card Nine
Two of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Enforced fun, simulated enjoyment, handwriting, composition, payment by check.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Bad omen, ignorance, injustice.
Card Description
A young man dances with a pentacle in either hand. They are joined by an endless cord: the number 8 on its side.
Card Ten
Six of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Journey by water, route, travel, messenger, assistance.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The voyage will be pleasant.
Card Description
A ferryman carries passengers in his raft to the far shore. The course is smooth, and the freight is light; the work is not beyond his strength.
Card Eleven
Queen of Wands from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Good, economical, obliging, serviceable; depending on other cards, may also indicate opposition, jealousy, even deceit and infidelity.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Goodwill towards the Querent, but without the opportunity to exercise it.
Card Description
Emotionally and otherwise, the Queen's personality is dark, charismatic, magnetic.
Card Twelve
Ace of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
The same, but the results are disastrous; also conception, childbirth, development, plurality.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Marriage broken off, for a woman, through her own imprudence.
Card Description
A hand extends from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.
Card Thirteen
The Hermit from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Prudence, caution; also and especially treason, hypocrisy, mischief, 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
A star shines in the Hermit's lantern. This is a card of attainment, and to emphasize this idea the figure is seen holding up his beacon on a hill. The Hermit is not a wise man in search of truth and justice; nor is he particularly an example of experience. His beacon hints that "where I am, you also may be." (see John 14:3)
Related Posts
Card Fourteen
Seven of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Desire, will, determination, project.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Success, if accompanied by the Three of Cups.
Card Description
Cups holding strange visions are presented to a figure in the foreground, as if offering a choice.
Card Fifteen
The Sun from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Material success, fortunate marriage, contentment.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The Sun. The luminary is distinguished in older cards by chief rays that are waved and salient alternately and by secondary salient rays. It appears to shed its influence on earth not only by light and heat, but--like the moon--by drops of dew. Court de Gebelin termed these tears of gold and of pearl, just as he identified the lunar dew with the tears of Isis. Beneath the dog-star there is a wall suggesting an enclosure-as it might be, a walled garden-wherein are two children, either naked or lightly clothed, facing a water, and gambolling, or running hand in hand. Eliphas Levi says that these are sometimes replaced by a spinner unwinding destinies, and otherwise by a much better symbol-a naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a scarlet standard.
Card Description
A naked child mounted on a white horse displays a red banner. The sun shining above represents consciousness in the Spirit—with direct, as opposed to reflected, light. The archetype of humanity has become a little child beneath its rays—a child in the sense of simplicity, with innocence in the sense of wisdom. In that simplicity, he bears the seal of Nature and Art; in that innocence, he signifies the restored world. When the self-knowing spirit has dawned in the consciousness above the natural mind, that mind is renewed and directs the animal nature in a state of perfect conformity.
Card Sixteen
The Magician from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Skill, diplomacy, subtlety; sickness, pain, loss, disaster, the traps of enemies; self-confidence, will; the Querent, if male.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The Magus, Magician, or juggler, the caster of the dice and mountebank, in the world of vulgar trickery. This is the colportage interpretation, and it has the same correspondence with the real symbolical meaning that the use of the Tarot in fortune-telling has with its mystic construction according to the secret science of symbolism. I should add that many independent students of the subject, following their own lights, have produced individual sequences of meaning in respect of the Trumps Major, and their lights are sometimes suggestive, but they are not the true lights. For example, Eliphas Levi says that the Magus signifies that unity which is the mother of numbers; others say that it is the Divine Unity; and one of the latest French commentators considers that in its general sense it is the will.
Card Description
A youthful figure in the robe of a magician, having the appearance of divine Apollo, with a smile of confidence and shining eyes. Above his head is the mysterious sign of the Holy Spirit, the sign of life, like an endless cord, forming the figure 8 in a horizontal position. About his waist is a serpent-sash, the serpent appearing to devour its own tail. This is familiar to most as a symbol of eternity, but here it indicates the eternity of attainment in the Spirit. In the Magician's right hand is a wand raised toward heaven, while the left hand is pointing to the earth. This dual sign indicates the descent of grace, virtue and light, drawn from things above and passed to things below. The suggestion throughout is therefore the possession and communication of the Powers and Gifts of the Spirit. On the table in front of the Magician are the symbols of the four Tarot suits, signifying the elements of natural life, which lie like tools before the adept, and he uses them as he wills. Beneath the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley (see Song of Solomon 2:1), changed into garden flowers, depicting the culture of self-improvement. This card signifies the divine motive in man, reflecting God.
Card Seventeen
Two of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Conformity and the equilibrium it suggests, courage, friendship, peace in a state of arms; to some extent, harmony: however, swords do not generally symbolize benevolent forces in human affairs.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Gifts for a lady, influential protection for a man in search of help.
Card Description
A blindfolded woman balances two swords upon her shoulders.
Card Eighteen
Queen of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Malice, bigotry, conspiracies, prudishness, antagonism, deceit.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A bad woman, with ill-will towards the Querent.
Card Description
Her right hand holds her weapon vertical, and the hilt rests on an arm of her throne. Her left hand is extended, the arm raised. Her expression is stern but humble; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. It does not represent mercy, and despite her sword, she is not a symbol of power.
Card Nineteen
Nine of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Mischief, deception, failed project, bad faith.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
Prompt fulfillment of what is presaged by neighbouring cards. Reversed:Vain hopes.
Card Description
A woman with a bird on her wrist stands among an abundance of grapevines in the garden of a mansion. Behind her is a wide landscape, suggesting plenty in all things. Possibly, the land is her own possession, and testifies to material well-being.
Card Twenty
Five of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Material trouble; destitution.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Conquest of fortune by reason.
Card Description
Two beggars in a snowstorm pass a lit stained-glass window.
Card Twenty One
Five of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Deterioration, destruction, revocation, disgrace, dishonor, loss.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
An attack on the fortune of the Querent.
Card Description
A scornful man watches two retreating and dejected figures, whose swords lie on the ground. He carries two others on his left shoulder. A third sword in his right hand points to earth. He is the master in possession of the field.
The Meanings of these Tarot Cards
Card One
Eight of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
The decline of a matter; something thought to be important is really of slight consequence—either for good or evil.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Marriage with a fair woman.
Card Description
A dejected-looking man abandons the cups of his celebrations. They symbolize an enterprise, undertaking, or previous concern.
Card Two
Seven of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Money, business, barter.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Improved position for a lady's future husband.
Card Description
A young man leans on his staff, and looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a plant on his right. It looks as if these were his treasures, and as if his heart were there.
Card Three
The Heirophant from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude; also mercy and goodness; inspiration; the man to whom the Querent has recourse.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The High Priest or Hierophant, called also Spiritual Father, and more commonly and obviously the Pope. It seems even to have been named the Abbot, and then its correspondence, the High Priestess, was the Abbess or Mother of the Convent. Both are arbitrary names. The insignia of the figures are papal, and in such case the High Priestess is and can be only the Church, to whom Pope and priests are married by the spiritual rite of ordination. I think, however, that in its primitive form this card did not represent the Roman Pontiff.
Card Description
He wears the triple crown and is seated between two pillars, but not those of the Temple guarded by the High Priestess. In his left hand he holds a scepter ending with the triple cross. With his right hand he gives the well-known ecclesiastical sign of esotericism, distinguishing between the surface and concealed parts of doctrine. At his feet are the crossed keys, and two priestly ministers in albs (priestly robes) kneel before him. He is the ruling power of external religion, as the High Priestess is the prevailing force of the esoteric power.
Card Four
Strength from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Tyranny, abuse of power, weakness, discord, sometimes even disgrace.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
Fortitude. This is one of the cardinal virtues, of which I shall speak later. The female figure is usually represented as closing the mouth of a lion. In the earlier form which is printed by Court de Gebelin, she is obviously opening it. The first alternative is better symbolically, but either is an instance of strength in its conventional understanding, and conveys the idea of mastery. It has been said that the figure represents organic force, moral force and the principle of all force.
Card Description
A woman, over whose head is the same symbol of life seen in the Magician card, closes the jaws of a lion. Her benevolent strength has already subdued the lion, which is being led by a leash of flowers. Fortitude, in one of its most exalted aspects, is connected with the Divine Mystery of Union. It connects also with untouched innocence, and with the strength that resides in contemplation. These higher meanings are hinted at in a concealed manner by the leash of flowers, which signifies the sweet yoke and the light burden of Divine Law, when it has been taken into the heart of hearts. The card has nothing to do with ordinary self-confidence—it concerns the confidence of those whose strength is God and have found their refuge in Him. In one sense, the lion signifies the animal passions, and the lady called Strength signifies the higher nature of Man in his liberation. The higher nature of Man has walked upon the asp and the basilisk and has trodden down the lion and the dragon (see Psalm 91:13).
Card Five
Ten of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Whole-hearted peace and contentment; also perfection of human love and friendship; a person who is taking charge of the Querent's interests; also the town, village or country inhabited by the Querent.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
For a male Querent, a good marriage and one beyond his expectations.
Card Description
Above are ten cups in a rainbow. This vision is contemplated in wonder and awe by a husband and wife below. His right arm is around her, his left raised upward. She raises her right arm. Two children dancing near them have not observed the miracle, but are happy in their own play. There is a home on the horizon.
Card Six
Nine of Wands from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Obstacles, adversity, disasters.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
Generally speaking, a bad card.
Card Description
A man leans upon his staff with an expectant look, as if awaiting an enemy. His build indicates that he may prove a formidable opponent. Behind are eight other staves—upright, in orderly arrangement, like a fence.
Card Seven
Four of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Novelty, premonition, new learning, new relationships.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Presentiment.
Card Description
A young man sits under a tree, contemplating three cups on the grass before him. An arm extends from a cloud to offer him another cup. His appears discontent, as if the wine of this world had barely satisfied him. Another wine—a fairy gift—is now offered to the vagabond, but he sees no consolation in it, either.
Card Eight
Death from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
End, mortality, destruction, corruption; also, for a man, the loss of a benefactor; for a woman, many inconsistencies; for a maiden, failure of marriage prospects.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Death. The method of presentation is almost invariable, and embodies a bourgeois form of symbolism. The scene is the field of life, and amidst ordinary rank vegetation there are living arms and heads protruding from the ground. One of the heads is crowned, and a skeleton with a great scythe is in the act of mowing it. The transparent and unescapable meaning is death, but the alternatives allocated to the symbol are change and transformation. Other heads have been swept from their place previously, but it is, in its current and patent meaning, more especially a card of the death of Kings. In the exotic sense it has been said to signify the ascent of the spirit in the divine spheres, creation and destruction, perpetual movement, and so forth.
Card Description
Death appears here as one of the apocalyptic visions rather than a grim reaper—to show change, transformation, and a passage from lower to higher. In the background lies the whole world of ascent in the spirit. In the foreground, the mysterious horseman moves slowly, bearing a black banner emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which signifies life. Between two pillars on the horizon shines the sun of immortality. The horseman carries no visible weapon, but king and child and maiden fall before him, while a bishop with clasped hands awaits his end. The natural transition of man to the next stage of his being is one form of his progress. While still in this life, the exotic and almost unknown entrance into the state of mystical death is a change in the form of consciousness. It is the passage into a state to which ordinary death is neither the path nor the gate.
Card Nine
Two of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Enforced fun, simulated enjoyment, handwriting, composition, payment by check.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Bad omen, ignorance, injustice.
Card Description
A young man dances with a pentacle in either hand. They are joined by an endless cord: the number 8 on its side.
Card Ten
Six of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Journey by water, route, travel, messenger, assistance.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The voyage will be pleasant.
Card Description
A ferryman carries passengers in his raft to the far shore. The course is smooth, and the freight is light; the work is not beyond his strength.
Card Eleven
Queen of Wands from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Good, economical, obliging, serviceable; depending on other cards, may also indicate opposition, jealousy, even deceit and infidelity.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Goodwill towards the Querent, but without the opportunity to exercise it.
Card Description
Emotionally and otherwise, the Queen's personality is dark, charismatic, magnetic.
Card Twelve
Ace of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
The same, but the results are disastrous; also conception, childbirth, development, plurality.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Marriage broken off, for a woman, through her own imprudence.
Card Description
A hand extends from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.
Card Thirteen
The Hermit from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Prudence, caution; also and especially treason, hypocrisy, mischief, 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
A star shines in the Hermit's lantern. This is a card of attainment, and to emphasize this idea the figure is seen holding up his beacon on a hill. The Hermit is not a wise man in search of truth and justice; nor is he particularly an example of experience. His beacon hints that "where I am, you also may be." (see John 14:3)
Related Posts
Card Fourteen
Seven of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Desire, will, determination, project.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Success, if accompanied by the Three of Cups.
Card Description
Cups holding strange visions are presented to a figure in the foreground, as if offering a choice.
Card Fifteen
The Sun from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Material success, fortunate marriage, contentment.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The Sun. The luminary is distinguished in older cards by chief rays that are waved and salient alternately and by secondary salient rays. It appears to shed its influence on earth not only by light and heat, but--like the moon--by drops of dew. Court de Gebelin termed these tears of gold and of pearl, just as he identified the lunar dew with the tears of Isis. Beneath the dog-star there is a wall suggesting an enclosure-as it might be, a walled garden-wherein are two children, either naked or lightly clothed, facing a water, and gambolling, or running hand in hand. Eliphas Levi says that these are sometimes replaced by a spinner unwinding destinies, and otherwise by a much better symbol-a naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a scarlet standard.
Card Description
A naked child mounted on a white horse displays a red banner. The sun shining above represents consciousness in the Spirit—with direct, as opposed to reflected, light. The archetype of humanity has become a little child beneath its rays—a child in the sense of simplicity, with innocence in the sense of wisdom. In that simplicity, he bears the seal of Nature and Art; in that innocence, he signifies the restored world. When the self-knowing spirit has dawned in the consciousness above the natural mind, that mind is renewed and directs the animal nature in a state of perfect conformity.
Card Sixteen
The Magician from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Skill, diplomacy, subtlety; sickness, pain, loss, disaster, the traps of enemies; self-confidence, will; the Querent, if male.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The Magus, Magician, or juggler, the caster of the dice and mountebank, in the world of vulgar trickery. This is the colportage interpretation, and it has the same correspondence with the real symbolical meaning that the use of the Tarot in fortune-telling has with its mystic construction according to the secret science of symbolism. I should add that many independent students of the subject, following their own lights, have produced individual sequences of meaning in respect of the Trumps Major, and their lights are sometimes suggestive, but they are not the true lights. For example, Eliphas Levi says that the Magus signifies that unity which is the mother of numbers; others say that it is the Divine Unity; and one of the latest French commentators considers that in its general sense it is the will.
Card Description
A youthful figure in the robe of a magician, having the appearance of divine Apollo, with a smile of confidence and shining eyes. Above his head is the mysterious sign of the Holy Spirit, the sign of life, like an endless cord, forming the figure 8 in a horizontal position. About his waist is a serpent-sash, the serpent appearing to devour its own tail. This is familiar to most as a symbol of eternity, but here it indicates the eternity of attainment in the Spirit. In the Magician's right hand is a wand raised toward heaven, while the left hand is pointing to the earth. This dual sign indicates the descent of grace, virtue and light, drawn from things above and passed to things below. The suggestion throughout is therefore the possession and communication of the Powers and Gifts of the Spirit. On the table in front of the Magician are the symbols of the four Tarot suits, signifying the elements of natural life, which lie like tools before the adept, and he uses them as he wills. Beneath the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley (see Song of Solomon 2:1), changed into garden flowers, depicting the culture of self-improvement. This card signifies the divine motive in man, reflecting God.
Card Seventeen
Two of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Conformity and the equilibrium it suggests, courage, friendship, peace in a state of arms; to some extent, harmony: however, swords do not generally symbolize benevolent forces in human affairs.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Gifts for a lady, influential protection for a man in search of help.
Card Description
A blindfolded woman balances two swords upon her shoulders.
Card Eighteen
Queen of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Malice, bigotry, conspiracies, prudishness, antagonism, deceit.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A bad woman, with ill-will towards the Querent.
Card Description
Her right hand holds her weapon vertical, and the hilt rests on an arm of her throne. Her left hand is extended, the arm raised. Her expression is stern but humble; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. It does not represent mercy, and despite her sword, she is not a symbol of power.
Card Nineteen
Nine of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Mischief, deception, failed project, bad faith.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
Prompt fulfillment of what is presaged by neighbouring cards. Reversed:Vain hopes.
Card Description
A woman with a bird on her wrist stands among an abundance of grapevines in the garden of a mansion. Behind her is a wide landscape, suggesting plenty in all things. Possibly, the land is her own possession, and testifies to material well-being.
Card Twenty
Five of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Material trouble; destitution.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Conquest of fortune by reason.
Card Description
Two beggars in a snowstorm pass a lit stained-glass window.
Card Twenty One
Five of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Deterioration, destruction, revocation, disgrace, dishonor, loss.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
An attack on the fortune of the Querent.
Card Description
A scornful man watches two retreating and dejected figures, whose swords lie on the ground. He carries two others on his left shoulder. A third sword in his right hand points to earth. He is the master in possession of the field.
