The Chariot
Upright meaning
Determination and forward movement achieved by bringing competing impulses under one direction.
Something to consider
Choose a direction before you spend more energy pulling in two directions. A manageable goal and a clear next step can help you find your footing.
What is on your mind? Begin a reading →Historical texts
Waite: the card
An erect and princely figure carrying a drawn sword and corresponding, broadly speaking, to the traditional description which I have given in the first part. On the shoulders of the victorious hero are supposed to be the Urim and Thummim. He has led captivity captive; he is conquest on all planes—in the mind, in science, in progress, in certain trials of initiation. He has thus replied to the sphinx, and it is on this account that I have accepted the variation of Éliphas Lévi; two sphinxes thus draw his chariot. He is above all things triumph in the mind. It is to be understood for this reason (a) that the question of the sphinx is concerned with a Mystery of Nature and not of the world of Grace, to which the charioteer could offer no answer; (b) that the planes of his conquest are manifest or external and not within himself; (c) that the liberation which he effects may leave himself in the bondage of the logical understanding; (d) that the tests of initiation through which he has passed in triumph are to be understood physically or rationally; and (e) that if he came to the pillars of that Temple between which the High Priestess is seated, he could not open the scroll called Tora, nor if she questioned him could he answer. He is not hereditary royalty and he is not priesthood.
Source: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite (1922) · Public domain
Waite: divinatory meaning
Succour, providence; also war, triumph, presumption, vengeance, trouble.
Source: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite (1922) · Public domain
Waite: reversed
Riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, defeat.
Source: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite (1922) · Public domain
Mathers: meaning
7. The Chariot.-Triumph, Victory, Overcoming obstacles; R. Overthrown, Conquered by Obstacles at the last moment.
Source: The Tarot: Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling, and Method of Play — S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1888) · Public domain