Rider Waite Tarot
Rider Waite Tarot Interpretations
While there are many different ways to read and interpret tarot cards, the Rider Waite Tarot and its interpretations are the most widely used, commonly accepted version of the tarot internationally. Feel free to shuffle the deck below to practice your interpretations. Remember, tarot isn’t final and the Universe doesn’t make mistakes! 😉
Major Arcana
0. THE FOOL—Folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, betrayment. Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.
1. THE MAGICIAN—Skill, diplomacy, address, sickness, pain, loss, disaster, self-confidence, will, the Querent himself. Reversed: Physician, Magus, mental illness, disgrace, disquiet.
2. THE HIGH PRIESTESS—Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed, the woman who interests the Querent; the Querent silence, tenacity; wisdom, science. Reversed: Passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, surface knowledge.
3. THE EMPRESS—Fruitfulness, initiative, action, long days, clandestine, the unknown, difficulty, doubt, ignorance. Reversed: Light, truth, the unraveling of involved matters, public rejoice, also, vacillation.
4. THE EMPEROR—Stability, power, aid, protection, a great person, conviction, reason. Reversed: Benevolence, compassion, credit, also confusion to enemies, obstruction, immaturity.
5. THE HIEROPHANT—Marriage alliance, captivity, servitude, mercy and goodness, inspiration, the man to whom the Querent has recourse. Reversed: Society, good understanding, concord, over-kindness, weakness.
6. THE LOVERS—Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome. Reversed: Failure, foolish designs.
7. THE CHARIOT—Succor, providence, also war, triumph, presumption, ven-geance, trouble. Reversed: Riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, defeat.
8. STRENGTH—Power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity. Reversed: Abuse of power, despotism, weakness, discord.
9. THE HERMIT—Prudence, also and especially treason, dissimulation, corruption, roguery. Reversed: Concealment, disguise, policy, fear, unrea- soned caution.
10. WHEEL OF FORTUNE—Destiny, fortune, success, luck, felicity. Reversed: Increase, abundance, superfluity.
11. JUSTICE—Equity, rightness, probity, executive. Reversed: Law in all departments, bigotry, bias, excessive severity.
12. THE HANGED MAN—Wisdom, trials, cir- cumspection, discernment, sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy. Reversed: Selfishness, the crowd, body politic.
13. DEATH—End, mortality, destruction, corruption. Reversed: Inertia, sleep, lethargy, petrifaction, somnambulism.
14. TEMPERANCE—Economy, moderation, frugality, management, accommodation. Reversed: Things connected with churches, religions, sects, the priesthood, also unfortunate combinations, disunion, competing interests.
15. THE DEVIL—Ravage, violence, force, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, fatality, that which is predestined but not for this reason evil. Reversed: Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.
16. THE TOWER—Misery, distress, ruin, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception. Reversed: According to one account, the same in a lesser degree, also oppression, imprisonment, tyranny.
17. THE STAR—Loss, theft, privation, abandonment, although another reading suggests hope and bright prospects in the future. Reversed: Arrogance, impotence, haughtiness.
18. THE MOON—Hidden enemies, danger, calamity, darkness, terror, deception, error. Reversed: Instability, inconstancy, silence, lesser degrees of deception and error.
19. THE SUN—Material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment. Reversed: The same in a lesser sense.
20. JUDGMENT—Change of position, renewal, outcome. Reversed: Weakness, pusillanimity, simplicity, also deliberation, decision, sentence.
21. THE WORLD—Assured success, route, voyage, emigration, flight, change of place. Reversed: Inertia, fixity, stagnation, permanence.
Minor Arcana
WANDS
KING OF WANDS—The physical and emotional nature to which this card is attributed is dark, ardent, lithe, animated, impassioned, noble. He uplifts a flowering Wand and wears, like his three correspondences in the remaining suits, what is called a cap of maintenance beneath his crown. He connects with the symbol of the lion, which is emblazoned on the back of his throne. Divinatory Meanings: Dark man, friendly, countryman, generally married, honest and conscientious. Reversed: Good, but severe; austere, yet tolerant.
QUEEN OF WANDS—Throughout this suit, the wands are a suit of life and animation. Emotionally and otherwise, the Queen’s personality corresponds to that of the King but is more magnetic. Divinatory Meanings: A dark woman or a countrywoman, friendly, chaste, loving, honorable. If the card beside her signifies a man, she is well disposed towards him; if a woman, she is interested in the Querent. Also, love of money. Reversed: Good, economical, obliging, serviceable. Also signifies opposition, jealousy, deceit, and infidelity.
KNIGHT OF WANDS—He is shown as if upon a journey, armed with a short wand, and although mailed is not on a warlike errand. He is passing mounds or pyramids. Divinatory Meanings: Departure, absence, flight, emigration. A dark young man, friendly. Change of residence. Reversed: Rupture, division, interruption, discord.
PAGE OF WANDS—A young man stands in the act of proclamation. He is unknown but faithful, and his tidings are strange. Divinatory Meanings: Dark young man, faithful, a lover, an envoy, a postman. Beside a man, he will bear favorable testimony concerning him. He is a dangerous rival if followed by the Page of Cups. Has the chief qualities of his suit. Reversed: Anecdotes, announcements, evil news. Also indecision and the instability which usually accompanies it.
TEN OF WANDS—A man oppressed by the weight of the ten staves which he is carrying. Divinatory Meanings: A card of many significances, and some of the readings cannot be harmonized. I set aside that which connects it with honor and good faith. It is oppression simply, but it is also fortune, gain, any kind of success of these things. It is also a card of false-seeming, disguise, perfidy. The place which the figure is approaching may suffer from the rods that he carries. Success is stultified if the Nine of Swords follows, and if it is a question of a lawsuit— there will be certain loss. Reversed: Contrarieties, difficulties, intrigues, and their analogies.
NINE OF WANDS—The figure leans upon his staff and has an expectant look as if awaiting an enemy. Behind him are eight other staves erect, in orderly disposition, like a palisade. Divinatory Meanings: The card signifies strength in opposition. If attacked, he will meet the onslaught boldly. With this main significance, there are all its possible adjuncts, including delay, suspension, adjournment. Reversed: Obstacles, adversity, calamity.
EIGHT OF WANDS—The card represents motion through the immovable—a flight of wands through an open country. Divinatory Meanings: Activity in undertakings, the path of such activity, swiftness, as that of an express messenger; great haste, great hope, speed towards an end which promises assured felicity; that which is on the move, also the arrows of love. Reversed: Arrows of jealousy, inter- nal dispute, stingings of conscience, quarrels.
SEVEN OF WANDS—A young man on a craggy eminence, brandishing a staff, six other staves are raised towards him from below. Divinatory Meanings: It is a card of valor, for, on the surface, six are attacking one, who has, however, the vantage position. On the intellectual plane, it signifies discussion, wordy strife, in business—negotiations, war of trade, barter, competition. It is further a card of success, for the combatant is on the top and his enemies may be unable to reach him. Reversed: Perplexity, embarrassments, anxiety.
SIX OF WANDS—A laureled horseman bears staff adorned with a laurel crown; footmen with staves are at his side. Divinatory Meanings: The card has been so designed that it can cover several- al significations. On the surface, it is a victor triumphing, but it is also great news, such as might be carried in the state by the King’s courier. It is expectation crowned with its own desire, the crown of hope. Reversed: Apprehension, fear—as of a victorious enemy at the gate, treachery, disloyalty, as of gates being opened to the enemy.
FIVE OF WANDS—A posse of youths are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is mimic warfare, and hereto correspond the Divinatory Meanings: Imitation, for example, sham fight, the strenuous competition and struggle of the search after riches and fortune. Hence some attributions say that it is a card of gold, gain, opulence. Reversed:Trickery, Contradiction, litigation, disputes.
FOUR OF WANDS—From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended, two female figures uplift nosegays and at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house. Divinatory Meanings: They are for once almost on the surface—country life, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace, and the perfected work of these. Reversed: The meaning remains unaltered—increase, felicity, beauty, embellishment.
THREE OF WANDS—A calm, stately figure, 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. Divinatory Meanings: He symbolizes established strength, enterprise, effort, trade, discovery, commerce; those are his ships, bearing his merchandise, which are sailing over the sea. Reversed: The end of troubles, suspension or end of adversity, disappointment, and toil.
TWO OF WANDS—A tall man looks from a battlemented roof over sea and shore. He holds a globe in his right hand and a staff in his left rests on the battlement, another is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lily should also be noticed on the left side. Divinatory Meanings: Between the alternative readings there is no marriage possible, on the one hand, riches, fortune, magnificence. And 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. Reversed: Surprise, wonder, enchantment, emotion, trouble, fear.
ACE OF WANDS—A hand issuing from a cloud grasps a stout Wand or Club. Divinatory Meanings: Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers which result in these, principle, beginning, source, birth, family, origin, the beginning of enterprises, according to another account—money, fortune, inheritance. Reversed: Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish, also—clouded joy.
CUPS
KING OF CUPS—He holds a short scepter 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. Divinatory Meanings: Fair man, a 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. Reversed: Dishonest, double-dealing man, roguery, exaction, injustice, vice, scandal.
QUEEN OF CUPS—Beautiful, fair, dreamy woman (as one who sees visions in a cup). Divinatory Meanings: Good, fair woman, honest, devoted, who will do service to the Querent. Loving intelligence, and hence the gift of vision, success, happiness, pleasure, also wisdom, virtue. Reversed: The accounts vary; good woman, otherwise, distinguished woman but one not to be trusted, perverse woman, vice, dishonor, depravity.
KNIGHT OF CUPS—Graceful, not warlike, riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet, referring to the higher graces of the imagination which sometimes characterize this card. Divinatory Meanings: Arrival, approach—sometimes that of a messenger, advances, proposition, demeanor, invitation, incitement. Reversed: Trickery, artifice, subtlety, swindling, duplicity, fraud.
PAGE OF CUPS—A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. Divinatory Meanings: Fair young man, one impelled to render service and with whom the Querent will be connected, a studious youth, news, message, application, reflection, meditation—also these things directed to business. Reversed: Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.
TEN OF CUPS—Appearance of Cups in a rainbow, it is contemplated in wonder and ecstasy by a man and woman below, evidently husband and wife. His right arm is about her, his left raised upward as 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. Divinatory Meanings: Contentment, repose of the entire heart—the perfection of that state, 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. Reversed: Repose of the false heart, indignation, violence.
NINE OF CUPS—The goodly personage is feasting to his heart’s content, and abundant refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him. Divinatory Meanings: Concord, contentment, physical well being; also victory, success, advantage, satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the consultation is made. Reversed: Truth, loyalty, liberty. But the readings vary and include mistakes, imperfections, etc.
EIGHT OF CUPS—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, honor, modesty. Reversed: Great joy, happiness, feasting.
SEVEN OF CUPS—Strange chalices of vision. Divinatory Meanings: Fairy favors, images of reflection, imagination, sentiment, things seen in the glass of contemplation, some attainment in these degrees but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested. Reversed: Desire, will, determination, project.
SIX OF CUPS—Children in an old garden, their cups filled with flowers. Divinatory Meanings: A card of memories and of the past. For example, reflecting on childhood, happiness, enjoyment, but coming rather from the past, things that have vanished. Another reading reverses this, suggesting new relations, new environment and new knowledge. Reversed: Renewal, the future, that which will come to pass presently.
FIVE OF CUPS—A dark, cloaked figure looks at three prone cups; two other cups stand upright behind him. A bridge is in the background. Divinatory Meanings: It is a card of loss, but something remains; three have been taken, but two are left. It is a card of inheritance, transmission, and patrimony. It may be a card of marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration. Reversed: News, alliances, affinity, ancestry, return, false projects.
FOUR OF CUPS—A young man is seated under a tree and contemplates three cups set on the grass before him. He expresses discontent with his environment. An arm issuing from a cloud offers him another cup. Divinatory Meanings: Weariness, disgust, aversion, imaginary vexations—as if the wine of this world had caused satiety only. Another cup of wine, as if a fairy gift, is now offered him, but he sees no consolation therein. This is also a card of blended pleasure. Reversed: Novelty, omen, new instructions, new relations.
THREE OF CUPS—Maidens in a garden celebrate with cups uplifted as if pledging one another. Divinatory Meanings: The conclusion of any matter. Plenty, perfection, merriment, happiness, victory, fulfillment, solace, healing. Reversed: Expedition, dispatch, achievement, end.
TWO OF CUPS—A youth and maiden are pledging to one another. Above their cups rises the caduceus of Hermes, between whose great wings there appears a lion’s head. Divinatory Meanings: Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sexual relations. That which nature has sanctified. Reversed: False love, folly, misunderstanding.
ACE OF CUPS—The waters are beneath, upon which 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 beak 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. Divinatory Meanings: True heart, joy, contentment, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility, holy table, felicity. Reversed: False heart, mutation, instability, revolution.
SWORDS
KING OF SWORDS—He sits in judgment, holding the unsheathed sign of his suit. Divinatory Meanings: Whatsoever arises out of the idea of judgment and all its connections—power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, offices of the crown, and so forth. Reversed: Cruelty, evil intentions, perversity, barbarity, breach of faith.
QUEEN OF SWORDS—Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair. The left hand is extended, the arm raised, her countenance is severe, chastened, and suggests familiarity with sorrow. Divinatory
Meanings: Widowhood, female sadness, and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation. Reversed: Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, deceit.
KNIGHT OF SWORDS—In the full course, as if scattering his enemies. Divinatory Meanings: Skill, bravery, capacity, defense, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance, ruin. Reversed: Imprudence, incapacity, extravagance.
PAGE OF SWORDS—A lithe, active figure holds a sword upright in both hands, while in the act of swift walking. Divinatory Meanings: Authority, overseeing, secret service, vigilance, spying, examination, and the qualities thereto belonging. Reversed: More evil side of these qualities, what is unforeseen, an unprepared state, sickness is also intimated.
TEN OF SWORDS—A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card. Divinatory Meanings: Whatsoever is intimated by the design— also pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. Reversed: Advantage, profit, success, favor, but none of these are permanent. Also power and authority.
NINE OF SWORDS—One seated on her couch in lamentation with the swords over her. Divinatory Meanings: Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair. Reversed: Imprisonment, doubt, suspicion, reasonable fear, shame.
EIGHT OF SWORDS—A woman, bound and hoodwinked, with the swords of the card about her. Divinatory Meanings: Bad news, violent chagrin, crisis, censure, power in trammels, conflict, calamity—also sickness. Reversed: Disquiet, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery, the unforeseen, fatality.
SEVEN OF SWORDS—A man in the act of carrying away five swords rapidly, the two others in the card remain stuck in the ground. A camp close at hand. Divinatory Meanings: Design, attempt, wish, hope, confidence—also quarrelling. A plan that may fail, annoyance. Reversed: Good advice, counsel, instruction, slander, babbling.
SIX OF SWORDS—A ferryman carrying passengers in his punt to the further shore. Divinatory Meanings: Journey by water, route, way, envoy, expedient. Reversed: Declaration, confession, publicity. One account says that it is a proposal of love.
FIVE OF SWORDS—A disdainful man looks after two retreating and dejected figures. Their two swords lie upon the ground. He carries two others on his left shoulder, and a third sword is in his right hand, point to earth. He is the master in possession of the field. Divinatory Meanings: Degradation, destruction, reversal, infamy, dishonor, loss. Reversed: The same—burial and obsequies.
FOUR OF SWORDS—The effigy of a Knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb. Divinatory Meanings: Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit’s repose, exile, tomb and coffin. Reversed: Wise administration, circumspection, economy, avarice, precaution, testament.
THREE OF SWORDS—Three swords piercing a heart, cloud, and rain behind. Divinatory Meanings: Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally. Reversed: Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion.
TWO OF SWORDS—A hoodwinked figure balances two swords upon her shoulders. Divinatory Meanings: Conformity and the equipoise which it suggests, courage, friendship, affection, concord in a state of arms, intimacy. Reversed: Imposture, falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty.
ACE OF SWORDS—A hand issues from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown. Divinatory Meanings: Triumph, the excessive degree in everything, conquest, triumph of force. A card of great force, in love as well as in hatred. Reversed: The same meanings, but the results are disastrous; another account says—conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity.
PENTACLES
KING OF PENTACLES—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 his 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. Divinatory Meanings: Valor, realizing intelligence, business, and normal intellectual aptitude, sometimes mathematical gifts and attainments of this kind—success in these paths. Reversed: Vice, weakness, ugliness, perversity, corruption, peril.
QUEEN OF PENTACLES—The face suggests that of a dark woman, whose qualities might be summed up in the idea of the greatness of soul. She has also a serious cast of intelligence—she contemplates her symbol and may see worlds therein. Divinatory Meanings: Opulence, generosity, security, magnificence, liberty. Reversed: Evil, fear, suspicion, suspense, mistrust.
KNIGHT OF PENTACLES—He rides a slow, enduring, heavy horse, to which his own aspect corresponds. Divinatory Meanings: Utility, serviceableness, interest, rectitude, responsibility. Reversed: Inertia, idleness, repose of that kind, stagnation— also discouragement, carelessness.
PAGE OF PENTACLES—A youthful figure, looking intently at the pentacle that hovers over his raised hands. Divinatory Meanings: Application, study scholarship, reflection. Another reading says news, messages and the bringer of rule, management. Reversed: Prodigality, dissipation, liberality, luxury, unfavorable news.
TEN OF PENTACLES—A man and woman beneath an archway which gives entrance to a house and domain. Divinatory Meanings: Gain, riches, family matters, archives, extraction, the abode of a family. Reversed: Chance, fatality, loss, robbery, games of hazard; sometimes gift, dowry, pension.
NINE OF PENTACLES—A woman, with a bird upon her wrist, stands amidst a great abundance of grapevines in the garden of a great house. Divinatory Meanings: Prudence, safety, success, accomplishment, certitude, discernment. Reversed: Roguery, deception, voided project, bad faith.
EIGHT OF PENTACLES—An artist in stone at work. Divinatory Meanings: Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business. Reversed: Voided ambition, vanity, cupidity, exaction, usury.
SEVEN OF PENTACLES—A young man, leaning on his staff, looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a clump of greenery on his right. One would say that these were his treasures and that his heart was there. Divinatory Meanings: These are exceedingly contradictory, in the main, it is a card of money, business, barter—but one reading gives altercation, quarrel, and another innocence, ingenuity, purgation. Reversed: Anxiety about money.
SIX OF PENTACLES—One in the guise of a merchant weighs money in a pair of scales and distributes it to the needy and distressed. Divinatory Meanings: Presents, gifts, gratification. Another account says attention, vigilance, now is the accepted time, present prosperity, etc. Reversed: Desire, cupidity, envy, jealousy, illusion
FIVE OF PENTACLES—Two mendicants in a snowstorm pass a lighted casement. Divinatory Meanings: It foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated, that is, destitution, or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers—wife, husband, friend, mistress— also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonized. Reversed: Disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy.
FOUR OF PENTACLES—A crowned figure, having a pentacle over his crown, clasps another with hands and arms; two pentacles are under his feet. Divinatory Meanings: The surety of possessions, cleaving to that which one has, gifts, legacy, inheritance. Reversed: Suspense, delay, opposition.
THREE OF PENTACLES—A sculptor at his work in a monastery. Divinatory Meanings: Métier, trade, skilled labor. Usually, however, regarded as a card of nobility, aristocracy, renown, glory. Reversed: Mediocrity in work and otherwise, puerility, pettiness, weakness.
TWO OF PENTACLES—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 eight reversed. Divinatory Meanings: It is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation, and its connections, which is the subject of the design. But it is read also as news and messages in writing, such as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment. Reversed: Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, letters of exchange.
ACE OF PENTACLES—A hand—issuing from a cloud—holds up a pentacle. Divinatory Meanings: Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy— also speedy intelligence, gold. Reversed: The evil side of wealth, bad intelligence. Also great riches.