Justice (Tarot card)

Justice is a Major Arcana Tarot card, numbered either VIII or XI, depending on the deck. This card is used in game playing as well as in divination.

Justice (XI)

Description

The Justice card, as a member of the Tarot deck, appears in early Tarot, such as the Tarot de Marseilles. It is part of the Tarot's Major Arcana, and usually follows the Chariot, as card VIII, although some decks vary from this pattern. The virtue Justice accompanies two of the other cardinal virtues in the Major Arcana: temperance and strength.

The figure on the card holds a scale made of gold in their left hand, symbolizing a balanced decision.[1]

Interpretation

According to A.E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot, the Justice card carries several divinatory associations[2]:

11.JUSTICE.--Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law. Reversed: Law in all its departments, legal complications, bigotry, bias, excessive severity.

Numbering
Allegory of Justice, by Raphael. In the Italian Renaissance, Justice did not usually appear blindfolded.

Justice is traditionally the eighth card, and Strength the eleventh, but the influential Rider-Waite-Smith deck switched the position of these two cards in order to make them better fit the astrological correspondences created by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Today many decks use this numbering, particularly in the English-speaking world. Both placements are considered valid.

References
  1. Gray, Eden. "Complete Guide to the Tarot." 1970. Crown Publishers, New York, NY.
  2. Waite, Arthur Edward, 1857-1942. (2005). The pictorial key to the tarot. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-44255-1. OCLC 57549699.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1910 book Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite. Please feel free to update the text.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.