Tarot Reading What lies in my future?
Reading Performed 08/17/2015 at 12:01 PM
Click or scroll down for the meaning of each position and the interpretation of its card.
Visual Layout
Card One
Four of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit's repose, exile, tomb and coffin. It is these last that have suggested the design.
Card Description
The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb.
Card Two
The Hermit from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Concealment, disguise, policy, fear, unreasoned caution.
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
Card Three
Ace of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof.
Card Description
The waters are beneath, and thereon are water-lilies; the hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to place the Wafer in the Cup; the dew of water is falling on all sides. It is an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana.
Card Four
Three of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.
Card Description
A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff\'s edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them.
Card Five
King of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Fair man, man of business, law, or divinity; responsible, disposed to oblige the Querent; also equity, art and science, including those who profess science, law and art; creative intelligence.
Card Description
He holds a short sceptre in his left hand and a great cup in his right; his throne is set upon the sea; on one side a ship is riding and on the other a dolphin is leaping. The implicit is that the Sign of the Cup naturally refers to water, which appears in all the court cards.
Card Six
The Sun from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
The same in a lesser sense.
Card Description
The naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a red standard has been mentioned already as the better symbolism connected with this card. It is the destiny of the Supernatural East and the great and holy light which goes before the endless procession of humanity, coming out from the walled garden of the sensitive life and passing on the journey home. The card signifies, therefore, the transit from the manifest light of this world, represented by the glorious sun of earth, to the light of the world to come, which goes before aspiration and is typified by the heart of a child. But the last allusion is again the key to a different form or aspect of the symbolism. The sun is that of consciousness in the spirit - the direct as the antithesis of the reflected light. The characteristic type of humanity has become a little child therein--a child in the sense of simplicity and innocence in the sense of wisdom. In that simplicity, he bears the seal of Nature and of 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 in its renewal leads forth the animal nature in a state of perfect conformity.
Card Seven
Three of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Mediocrity, in work and otherwise, puerility, pettiness, weakness.
Card Description
A sculptor at his work in a monastery. Compare the design which illustrates the Eight of Pentacles. The apprentice or amateur therein has received his reward and is now at work in earnest.
Card Eight
Eight of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Great joy, happiness, feasting.
Card Description
A man of dejected aspect is deserting the cups of his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern.
Card Nine
Two of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Imposture, falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty.
Card Description
A hoodwinked female figure balances two swords upon her shoulders.
Card Ten
Two of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Between the alternative readings there is no marriage possible; on the one hand, riches, fortune, magnificence; on the other, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification. The design gives one suggestion; here is a lord overlooking his dominion and alternately contemplating a globe; it looks like the malady, the mortification, the sadness of Alexander amidst the grandeur of this world's wealth.
Card Description
A tall man looks from a battlemented roof over sea and shore; he holds a globe in his right hand, while a staff in his left rests on the battlement; another is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lily should be noticed on the left side.
Card Eleven
Queen of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Good, economical, obliging, serviceable. Signifies also--but in certain positions and in the neighbourhood of other cards tending in such directions--opposition, jealousy, even deceit and infidelity.
Card Description
The Wands throughout this suit are always in leaf, as it is a suit of life and animation. Emotionally and otherwise, the Queen's personality corresponds to that of the King, but is more magnetic.
Card Twelve
King of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, evil intention.
Card Description
He sits in judgment, holding the unsheathed sign of his suit. He recalls, of course, the conventional Symbol of justice in the Trumps Major, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death, in virtue of his office.
Card Thirteen
Queen of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Opulence, generosity, magnificence, security, liberty.
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.
Card Fourteen
The Magician from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Physician, Magus, mental disease, disgrace, disquiet.
Card Description
A youthful figure in the robe of a magician, having the countenance of divine Apollo, with 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-cincture, the serpent appearing to devour its own tail. This is familiar to most as a conventional symbol of eternity, but here it indicates more especially the eternity of attainment in the spirit. In the Magician\'s right hand is a wand raised towards heaven, while the left hand is pointing to the earth. This dual sign is known in very high grades of the Instituted Mysteries; it shews the descent of grace, virtue and light, drawn from things above and derived 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 counters before the adept, and he adapts them as he wills. Beneath are roses and lilies, the flos campi and lilium convallium, changed into garden flowers, to shew the culture of aspiration. This card signifies the divine motive in man, reflecting God, the will in the liberation of its union with that which is above. It is also the unity of individual being on all planes, and in a very high sense it is thought, in the fixation thereof. With further reference to what I have called the sign of life and its connexion with the number 8, it may be remembered that Christian Gnosticism speaks of rebirth in Christ as a change "unto the Ogdoad." The mystic number is termed Jerusalem above, the Land flowing with Milk and Honey, the Holy Spirit and the Land of the Lord. According to Martinism, 8 is the number of Christ.
Card Fifteen
Page of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.
Card Description
A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form.
Related Posts
Card Sixteen
Five of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
It is a card of loss, but something remains over; three have been taken, but two are left; it is a card of inheritance, patrimony, transmission, but not corresponding to expectations; with some interpreters it is a card of marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration.
Card Description
A dark, cloaked figure, looking sideways at three prone cups two others stand upright behind him; a bridge is in the background, leading to a small keep or holding.
Card Seventeen
Queen of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
The accounts vary; good woman; otherwise, distinguished woman but one not to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonour, depravity.
Card Description
Beautiful, fair, dreamy--as one who sees visions in a cup. This is, however, only one of her aspects; she sees, but she also acts, and her activity feeds her dream.
Card Eighteen
Ten of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Contentment, repose of the entire heart; the perfection of that state; also perfection of human love and friendship; if with several picture-cards, a person who is taking charge of the Querent's interests; also the town, village or country inhabited by the Querent.
Card Description
Appearance of Cups in a rainbow; it is contemplated in wonder and ecstacy by a man and woman below, evidently husband and wife. His right arm is about her; his left is raised upward; she raises her right arm. The two children dancing near them have not observed the prodigy but are happy after their own manner. There is a home-scene beyond.
Card Nineteen
Two of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
On the one hand it is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation and its connexions, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment.
Card Description
A young man, in the act of dancing, has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by that endless cord which is like the number 8 reversed.
Card Twenty
Nine of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Concord, contentment, physical bien-etre; also victory, success, advantage; satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the consultation is made.
Card Description
A goodly personage has feasted to his heart's content, and abundant refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him, seeming to indicate that the future is also assured. The picture offers the material side only, but there are other aspects.
Card Twenty One
Justice from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law.
Card Description
As this card follows the traditional symbolism and carries above all its obvious meanings, there is little to say regarding it outside the few considerations collected in the first part, to which the reader is referred. It will be seen, however, that the figure is seated between pillars, like the High Priestess, and on this account it seems desirable to indicate that the moral principle which deals unto every man according to his works--while, of course, it is in strict analogy with higher things;--differs in its essence from the spiritual justice which is involved in the idea of election. The latter belongs to a mysterious order of Providence, in virtue of which it is possible for certain men to conceive the idea of dedication to the highest things. The operation of this is like the breathing of the Spirit where it wills, and we have no canon of criticism or ground of explanation concerning it. It is analogous to the possession of the fairy gifts and the high gifts and the gracious gifts of the poet: we have them or have not, and their presence is as much a mystery as their absence. The law of Justice is not however involved by either alternative. In conclusion, the pillars of Justice open into one world and the pillars of the High Priestess into another.
The Meanings of these Tarot Cards
Card One
Four of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit's repose, exile, tomb and coffin. It is these last that have suggested the design.
Card Description
The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb.
Card Two
The Hermit from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Concealment, disguise, policy, fear, unreasoned caution.
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
Card Three
Ace of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof.
Card Description
The waters are beneath, and thereon are water-lilies; the hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to place the Wafer in the Cup; the dew of water is falling on all sides. It is an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana.
Card Four
Three of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.
Card Description
A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff\'s edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them.
Card Five
King of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Fair man, man of business, law, or divinity; responsible, disposed to oblige the Querent; also equity, art and science, including those who profess science, law and art; creative intelligence.
Card Description
He holds a short sceptre in his left hand and a great cup in his right; his throne is set upon the sea; on one side a ship is riding and on the other a dolphin is leaping. The implicit is that the Sign of the Cup naturally refers to water, which appears in all the court cards.
Card Six
The Sun from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
The same in a lesser sense.
Card Description
The naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a red standard has been mentioned already as the better symbolism connected with this card. It is the destiny of the Supernatural East and the great and holy light which goes before the endless procession of humanity, coming out from the walled garden of the sensitive life and passing on the journey home. The card signifies, therefore, the transit from the manifest light of this world, represented by the glorious sun of earth, to the light of the world to come, which goes before aspiration and is typified by the heart of a child. But the last allusion is again the key to a different form or aspect of the symbolism. The sun is that of consciousness in the spirit - the direct as the antithesis of the reflected light. The characteristic type of humanity has become a little child therein--a child in the sense of simplicity and innocence in the sense of wisdom. In that simplicity, he bears the seal of Nature and of 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 in its renewal leads forth the animal nature in a state of perfect conformity.
Card Seven
Three of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Mediocrity, in work and otherwise, puerility, pettiness, weakness.
Card Description
A sculptor at his work in a monastery. Compare the design which illustrates the Eight of Pentacles. The apprentice or amateur therein has received his reward and is now at work in earnest.
Card Eight
Eight of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Great joy, happiness, feasting.
Card Description
A man of dejected aspect is deserting the cups of his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern.
Card Nine
Two of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Imposture, falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty.
Card Description
A hoodwinked female figure balances two swords upon her shoulders.
Card Ten
Two of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Between the alternative readings there is no marriage possible; on the one hand, riches, fortune, magnificence; on the other, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification. The design gives one suggestion; here is a lord overlooking his dominion and alternately contemplating a globe; it looks like the malady, the mortification, the sadness of Alexander amidst the grandeur of this world's wealth.
Card Description
A tall man looks from a battlemented roof over sea and shore; he holds a globe in his right hand, while a staff in his left rests on the battlement; another is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lily should be noticed on the left side.
Card Eleven
Queen of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Good, economical, obliging, serviceable. Signifies also--but in certain positions and in the neighbourhood of other cards tending in such directions--opposition, jealousy, even deceit and infidelity.
Card Description
The Wands throughout this suit are always in leaf, as it is a suit of life and animation. Emotionally and otherwise, the Queen's personality corresponds to that of the King, but is more magnetic.
Card Twelve
King of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, evil intention.
Card Description
He sits in judgment, holding the unsheathed sign of his suit. He recalls, of course, the conventional Symbol of justice in the Trumps Major, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death, in virtue of his office.
Card Thirteen
Queen of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Opulence, generosity, magnificence, security, liberty.
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.
Card Fourteen
The Magician from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Physician, Magus, mental disease, disgrace, disquiet.
Card Description
A youthful figure in the robe of a magician, having the countenance of divine Apollo, with 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-cincture, the serpent appearing to devour its own tail. This is familiar to most as a conventional symbol of eternity, but here it indicates more especially the eternity of attainment in the spirit. In the Magician\'s right hand is a wand raised towards heaven, while the left hand is pointing to the earth. This dual sign is known in very high grades of the Instituted Mysteries; it shews the descent of grace, virtue and light, drawn from things above and derived 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 counters before the adept, and he adapts them as he wills. Beneath are roses and lilies, the flos campi and lilium convallium, changed into garden flowers, to shew the culture of aspiration. This card signifies the divine motive in man, reflecting God, the will in the liberation of its union with that which is above. It is also the unity of individual being on all planes, and in a very high sense it is thought, in the fixation thereof. With further reference to what I have called the sign of life and its connexion with the number 8, it may be remembered that Christian Gnosticism speaks of rebirth in Christ as a change "unto the Ogdoad." The mystic number is termed Jerusalem above, the Land flowing with Milk and Honey, the Holy Spirit and the Land of the Lord. According to Martinism, 8 is the number of Christ.
Card Fifteen
Page of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.
Card Description
A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form.
Related Posts
Card Sixteen
Five of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
It is a card of loss, but something remains over; three have been taken, but two are left; it is a card of inheritance, patrimony, transmission, but not corresponding to expectations; with some interpreters it is a card of marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration.
Card Description
A dark, cloaked figure, looking sideways at three prone cups two others stand upright behind him; a bridge is in the background, leading to a small keep or holding.
Card Seventeen
Queen of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
The accounts vary; good woman; otherwise, distinguished woman but one not to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonour, depravity.
Card Description
Beautiful, fair, dreamy--as one who sees visions in a cup. This is, however, only one of her aspects; she sees, but she also acts, and her activity feeds her dream.
Card Eighteen
Ten of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Contentment, repose of the entire heart; the perfection of that state; also perfection of human love and friendship; if with several picture-cards, a person who is taking charge of the Querent's interests; also the town, village or country inhabited by the Querent.
Card Description
Appearance of Cups in a rainbow; it is contemplated in wonder and ecstacy by a man and woman below, evidently husband and wife. His right arm is about her; his left is raised upward; she raises her right arm. The two children dancing near them have not observed the prodigy but are happy after their own manner. There is a home-scene beyond.
Card Nineteen
Two of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
On the one hand it is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation and its connexions, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment.
Card Description
A young man, in the act of dancing, has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by that endless cord which is like the number 8 reversed.
Card Twenty
Nine of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Concord, contentment, physical bien-etre; also victory, success, advantage; satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the consultation is made.
Card Description
A goodly personage has feasted to his heart's content, and abundant refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him, seeming to indicate that the future is also assured. The picture offers the material side only, but there are other aspects.
Card Twenty One
Justice from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law.
Card Description
As this card follows the traditional symbolism and carries above all its obvious meanings, there is little to say regarding it outside the few considerations collected in the first part, to which the reader is referred. It will be seen, however, that the figure is seated between pillars, like the High Priestess, and on this account it seems desirable to indicate that the moral principle which deals unto every man according to his works--while, of course, it is in strict analogy with higher things;--differs in its essence from the spiritual justice which is involved in the idea of election. The latter belongs to a mysterious order of Providence, in virtue of which it is possible for certain men to conceive the idea of dedication to the highest things. The operation of this is like the breathing of the Spirit where it wills, and we have no canon of criticism or ground of explanation concerning it. It is analogous to the possession of the fairy gifts and the high gifts and the gracious gifts of the poet: we have them or have not, and their presence is as much a mystery as their absence. The law of Justice is not however involved by either alternative. In conclusion, the pillars of Justice open into one world and the pillars of the High Priestess into another.
