Classic meanings: Triumph, the excessive degree in everything, conquest, triumph of force. It is a card of great force, in love as well as in hatred. The crown may carry a much higher significance than comes usually within the sphere of fortune-telling.

In this tarot spread the card has complementary explanation: You have to appreciate where you have come from to know who you are in the present and whom you would like to be in the future.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: A hand issues from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.

Classic meanings: The card signifies strength in opposition. If attacked, the person will meet an onslaught boldly, and his build shows that he may prove a formidable antagonist. With this main significance there are all its possible adjuncts—delay, suspension, adjournment.

A special insight for love: You had talked too much. I had said too little.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: The figure leans upon his staff and has an expectant look, as if awaiting an enemy. Behind are eight other staves—erect, in orderly disposition, like a palisade.

Classic meanings: Prudence, circumspection, also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption.

A special insight for love: I think only when you are truly alone can you see you never were.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: 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 Lévi. 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.

Classic meanings: A card of many significances, and some of the readings cannot be harmonized. The chief meaning is oppression simply, but it is also fortune, gain, any kind of success, and then it is the oppression 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.

The card’s meaning for love is clarified by specific arcanum: He will hold you gently and closely like a violin.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: The card depicts a man oppressed by the weight of the ten staves which he is carrying.

Classic meanings: Economy, moderation, frugality, management, accommodation.

Additional omen for love: Isn’t that what true romance is supposed to be about? Finding the person who’s your soul mate?

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: A winged angel, with the sign of the sun upon his forehead and on his breast the square and triangle of the septenary. I speak of him in the masculine sense, but the figure is neither male nor female. It is held to be pouring the essences of life from chalice to chalice. It has one foot upon the earth and one upon waters, thus illustrating the nature of the essences. A direct path goes up to certain heights on the verge of the horizon, and above there is a great light, through which a crown is seen vaguely. Hereof is some part of the Secret of Eternal Life, as it is possible to man in his incarnation. All the conventional emblems are renounced herein.

So also are the conventional meanings, which refer to changes in the seasons, perpetual movement of life, and even the combination of ideas. It is, moreover, untrue to say that the figure symbolizes the genius of the sun, though it is the analogy of solar light, realized in the third part of our human triplicity. It is called Temperance, fantastically, because, when the rule of it obtains in our consciousness, it tempers, combines and harmonizes the psychic and material natures. Under that rule we know in our rational part something of whence we came and whither we are going.