King of Pentacles
Upright meaning
Stable stewardship of resources. Experience, reliability, and the ability to provide lasting material support.
Something to consider
Use what you have to create stability rather than simply to hold control. Ask what would make this arrangement dependable for everyone relying on it.
What is on your mind? Begin a reading →Historical texts
Waite: the card
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 the 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. In many old Tarot packs this suit stood for current coin, money, deniers. I have not invented the substitution of pentacles and I have no special cause to sustain in respect of the alternative. But the consensus of divinatory meanings is on the side of some change, because the cards do not happen to deal especially with questions of money.
Source: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite (1922) · Public domain
Waite: divinatory meaning
Valour, realizing intelligence, business and normal intellectual aptitude, sometimes mathematical gifts and attainments of this kind; success in these paths.
Source: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite (1922) · Public domain
Waite: reversed
Vice, weakness, ugliness, perversity, corruption, peril.
Source: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite (1922) · Public domain
Mathers: meaning
64. King of Pentacles.-A dark Man, Victory, Bravery, Courage, Success; R. An old and vicious Man, a Dangerous Man, Doubt, Fear, Peril, Danger.
Source: The Tarot: Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling, and Method of Play — S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1888) · Public domain