Classic 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.

A special insight for love: Believing the words of an eager lover is what got you into this situation.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: A young man on a craggy eminence brandishing a staff, six other staves are raised towards him from below.

Classic meanings: Arrival, approach—sometimes that of a messenger, advances, proposition, demeanor, invitation, incitement.

In addition, it means for love: I like the way you kiss – a couple of test kisses, then a huge kiss.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: Graceful, but not warlike, riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet, referring to those higher graces of the imagination which sometimes characterize this card. He too is a dreamer, but the images of the side of sense haunt him in his vision.

Classic meanings: Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage.

In relation to love and feelings, this card has additional arcanum: The years he’d spent looking for her had left permanent scars on his heart.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: An artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies.

Classic meanings: Stability, power, protection, realization, a great person, aid, reason, conviction, also authority and will.

In addition, it means for love: Your great granddad murdered people, so you could be born and make your choices. Make better ones.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: He has a form of the Crux ansata for his scepter and a globe in his left hand. He is crowned monarch—commanding, stately, seated on a throne, the arms of which are fronted by rams’ heads. He is executive and realization, the power of this world, here clothed with the highest of its natural attributes. He is occasionally represented as seated on a cubic stone, which, however, confuses some of the issues. He is the virile power, to which the Empress responds, and in this sense is he who seeks to remove the Veil of Isis, yet she remains virgo intacta.

It should be understood that this card and that of the Empress do not precisely represent the condition of married life, though this state is implied. On the surface, as I have indicated, they stand for mundane royalty, uplifted on the seats of the mighty, but above this there is the suggestion of another presence. They signify, also—and the male figure especially—the higher kingship, occupying the intellectual throne. Hereof is the lordship of thought rather than of the animal world. Both personalities, after their own manner, are “full of strange experience,“ but theirs is not consciously the wisdom which draws from a higher world. The Emperor has been described as (a) will in its embodied form, but this is only one of its applications, and (b) as an expression of virtualities contained in the Absolute Being—but this is fantasy.

Classic meanings: Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity.

In relation to love and feelings, this card has additional arcanum: Fortune favors the bold. One doesn’t win glory by hiding behind the lines.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: In this symbol I have again followed the reconstruction of Eliphas Lévi, who has furnished several variants. It is legitimate—as I have intimated—to use Egyptian symbolism when this serves our purpose, provided that no theory of origin is implied therein. I have, however, presented Typhon in his serpent form. The symbolism is, of course, not exclusively Egyptian, as the four Living Creatures of Ezekiel occupy the angles of the card, and the wheel itself follows other indications of Lévi in respect of Ezekiel’s vision, as illustrative of the particular Tarot Key. With the French occultist, and in the design itself, the symbolic picture stands for the perpetual motion of a fluidic universe and for the flux of human life. The Sphinx is the equilibrium therein. The transliteration of Taro as Rota is inscribed on the wheel, counterchanged with the letters of the Divine Name—to show that Providence is implied through all. But this is the Divine intention within, and the similar intention without is exemplified by the four Living Creatures. Sometimes the sphinx is represented couchant on a pedestal above, which defrauds the symbolism by stultifying the essential idea of stability amidst movement.

Behind the general notion expressed in the symbol there lies the denial of chance and the fatality which is implied therein. It may be added that, from the days of Lévi onward, the occult explanations of this card are—even for occultism itself—of a singularly fatuous kind. It has been said to mean principle, fecundity, virile honor, ruling authority, etc. The findings of common fortune-telling are better than this on their own plane.