Classic 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.

Concerning love, this card is clarified by: I realize that I am in love with this girl. It’s not that she’s a magazine cover beauty, it’s that when we’re talking, I feel like I’ve known her all my life.

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

Classic meanings: Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome.

In this tarot spread the card has complementary explanation: I could forget about everything when I was with him. I was in love. That’s the only thing that mattered.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: The sun shines in the zenith, and beneath is a great winged figure with arms extended, pouring down influences. In the foreground are two human figures, male and female, unveiled before each other, as if Adam and Eve when they first occupied the paradise of the earthly body. Behind the man is the Tree of Life, bearing twelve fruits, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is behind the woman, the serpent is twining round it. The figures suggest youth, virginity, innocence and love before it is contaminated by gross material desire. This is in all simplicity the card of human love, here exhibited as part of the way, the truth and the life. It replaces, by recourse to first principles, the old card of marriage, which I have described previously, and the later follies which depicted man between vice and virtue. In a very high sense, the card is a mystery of the Covenant and Sabbath.

The suggestion in respect of the woman is that she signifies that attraction towards the sensitive life which carries within it the idea of the Fall of Man, but she is rather the working of a Secret Law of Providence than a willing and conscious temptress. It is through her imputed lapse that man shall arise ultimately, and only by her can he complete himself. The card is therefore in its way another intimation concerning the great mystery of womanhood. The old meanings fall to pieces of necessity with the old pictures, but even as interpretations of the latter, some of them were of the order of commonplace and others were false in symbolism.

Classic meanings: Good, fair woman, honest, devoted woman, who will do service to the Querent, loving intelligence, and hence the gift of vision, success, happiness, pleasure, also wisdom, virtue, a perfect spouse and a good mother.

In addition, it means for love: Time for you will be measured by moments when you spoke, and moments when you longed to speak again.

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

Classic meanings: Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days, the unknown, clandestine, also difficulty, doubt, ignorance.

The signifficance for love is explained by specific arcanum: The space of her embrace is the doorway to heaven, her love is the pathway for many generations who await to be born.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: A stately figure, seated, having rich vestments and royal aspect, as of a daughter of heaven and earth. Her diadem is of twelve stars, gathered in a cluster. The symbol of Venus is on the shield which rests near her. A field of corn is ripening in front of her, and beyond there is a fall of water. The scepter which she bears is surmounted by the globe of this world. She is the inferior Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise, all that is symbolized by the visible house of man. She is not Regina coeli, but she is still refugium peccatorum, the fruitful mother of thousands. There are also certain aspects in which she has been correctly described as desire and the wings thereof, as the woman clothed with the sun, as Gloria Mundi and the veil of the Sanctum Sanctorum, but she is not, I may add, the soul that has attained wings, unless all the symbolism is counted up another and unusual way. She is above all things universal fecundity and the outer sense of the Word. This is obvious, because there is no direct message which has been given to man like that which is borne by woman, but she does not herself carry its interpretation.

In another order of ideas, the card of the Empress signifies the door or gate by which an entrance is obtained into this life, as into the Garden of Venus, and then the way which leads out therefrom, into that which is beyond, is the secret known to the High Priestess: it is communicated by her to the elect. Most old attributions of this card are completely wrong on the symbolism—as, for example, its identification with the Word, Divine Nature, the Triad, and so forth.

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.