by Marcus Katz
In depicting this card as the practical potato rather than the mystical rose, Pamela provides us opportunity to ask in a reading, “If your whole crop fails, what are you going do?”
Queen of Wands
It is not only the minor arcana that Pamela took a massive stride in her designs for the deck. In Book T, the Queen of Wands is “the Queen of the Throne of Flames” and she embodies “steady rule, great attractive power, power of command, liked notwithstanding. Kind and generous when opposed.”
Pamela depicts this energy well in the Waite-Smith Queen of Wands. She places upon the throne her great friend, Edy Craig, daughter of renowned stage actress, Ellen Terry. At the foot of the throne, Pamela replaces the leopard of the Golden Dawn with Snuffles, Edie’s black cat. This is very much a humorous depiction, demonstrating personal connections for Pamela at Smallhythe cottage.
In a reading regarding confidence and how best to handle yourself in a social situation, the suggestion would be that the client needs to have a confident outlook and adopt a confident persona. In fact, it would indicate to go totally contrary to social expectations, as did Edy Craig throughout her life.
6 of Cups
Pamela did not just use Shakespeare and the local environment at Smallhythe for her inspiration but also other theatrical references and plays with which she was familiar. The strange figures in the 6 of Cups have long been the subject of speculation, as they are so specific yet without any immediate reference. In Book T we have the card as the “Lord of Pleasure,” and it speaks of “commencement of steady increase, gain and pleasure; but commencement only.”
We see how Pamela portrays the two curious characters in a very sentimental way in her 6 of Cups, seizing upon the gift of the present. The little lady is being presented with a chalice that contains a white star flower by a male character. This image is very like what was used in a stage play, Nance Oldfield, the female lead played by Ellen Terry. The storyline of the play centered around an older lady who was an actress (based upon the real-life stage actress Nance Oldfield) who attracts the attentions of a young poet and the complications this entails. The theme being “beguiled by glamour.” The Golden Dawn Book T speaks of “contention and strife arising from unwarranted self-assertion and vanity” which relates to the young male poet in the play.
If this card presents itself in a relationship reading, it could be warning of the dangers of superficial relationships, and that all is not as it appears. The advice would be to work towards a relationship that offers long-term security, rather than be waylaid by the passion of the moment.
7 of Wands
Book T ’s description is “the Lord of Valour,” and it speaks of “possible victory, depending on the energy and courage exercised; valour, opposition, obstacles and difficulties, yet courage to meet them … victory in small important things; and influence of subordinates.”
Pamela expresses the Lord of Valour sentiment of the 7 of Wands with a swashbuckling energy in the form of the character Petruchio from Shakespeare’s comedy play, Taming of the Shrew, specifically act III, scene 2. In that scene, Petruchio is standing his ground in a show of valour and swagger to impress his reluctant bride-to-be and yet make fun of the whole show. If we note the mismatched footwear drawn so clearly on the card, this is written into the scene. It is all part of turning up at the wedding so badly dressed and over-the-top that he can show his influence and control his new bride in the relationship.
Pamela was drawing upon her experience in the world of theatre at the time; the attire of the young man very much resembles that of the stage actor of the time, Oscar Ashe, dressed as Petruchio with the same mismatched footwear. It means that the card also signifies a war of words, fighting to protect your value or to bring someone down.
In a reading about a potential relationship, the advice would be to stand one’s ground where a relationship is in doubt. Effort must be spent, however, as the querent may have a battle ahead. He should resort to a war of words and be prepared to give a bit of a performance to attain success. This relationship will certainly be guaranteed to keep him or her on their toes.
9 of Pentacles
In Book T, the card is the “Lord of Despair and Cruelty,” and yet it speaks of the complete realization of material gain, good, riches; inheritance; covetous; treasuring of goods; and sometimes theft and knavery. The whole interpretation is according to dignity, i.e., the cards surrounding the 9 of Pentacles.
Pamela’s 9 of Pentacles shows Rosalind from As You Like It, another Shakespeare comedy, particularly as played by Ada Rehan, and with the Snail on the image coming from a speech in Act IV, scene 1:
Ay, of a snail, for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head—a better jointure, I think, than you make a woman. Besides, he brings his destiny with him.
Pamela’s choice also then stresses the sense of security and self-sufficiency Rosalind embodies in the play, matching Book T’s “complete realization of material gain.”
In readings about love and emotional investment or love and security, this card indicates a need to have your eyes wide open to the practical side of life. To always make sure you have an equal balance of the two, to ensure a happy and prosperous life. If this came up in a reading about finances, this would be advising you to take the safe option; do not take risks. It could suggest investment in property rather than stocks and shares. All this comes from the original text of Book T and Pamela’s choice of illustration.
The Queen of Swords
Another queen is also based on a character in a play and an actress Pamela would have known well. In Book T, the Queen of Swords is the “Queen of the Thrones of Air,” described as “a graceful woman with wavy, curling hair, like a Queen seated upon a Throne and crown. Beneath the Throne are grey cumulus clouds. Her general attire is as that of the Queen of Wands, but she wears as a crest a winged child’s head. A drawn sword in one hand, and in the other a large, bearded, newly severed head of a man.” Her mood is “intensely perceptive, subtle, quick and confident: often preserving, accurate in superficial things, graceful, fond of dancing and balancing.”
However, Pamela has not chosen the depiction of a bloody head, but rather decided to paint the Queen of Swords as Hjördis, a Viking warrior-woman whose name means “sword goddess.”
Pamela’s Queen of Swords is depicted in a specific gesture which immediately connects it to the images we have of Ellen Terry playing Hjördis in the play, The Vikings of Helgeland, by Henrik Ibsen. She is very much the “graceful woman with wavy, curling hair.” She is the “sword goddess” who is quick to respond in movement and thought. However, she can be “accurate in superficial things” in that there could be an obsessive side to her nature and that she can fixate and hold a grudge easily. The card thus signifies a character who is proud and stately and/or suppressed and controlling.
In the play, she is first mentioned as encouraging her husband to war with “scornful words” that hinder peace, perfectly fitting this card’s usual readings.
If this card came up in reading about work and career, it could be a warning about becoming too sharp or calculating and the tendency to be overly critical of others in the workplace. It can result in disharmony in the workplace. As we are only too aware, nothing impinges on work productivity more than disharmony in the workplace.
9 of Cups
In the last of this selection of cards we will look at through the work of Pamela Colman Smith, we meet Falstaff in the 9 of Cups. In Book T, the card is the complete and perfect realization of pleasure and happiness, almost perfect; “self-praise, vanity, conceit, much talking of self, yet kind and lovable, and may be self-denying therewith. High-minded, not easily satisfied with small and limited ideas. Apt to be maligned through too much self-assumption. A good and generous but sometimes foolish nature.”
Pamela’s 9 of Cups demonstrates indeed that a picture can speak a thousand wor
ds; the character Pamela has portrayed has the look of all these things; he is a man who gives the impression of thinking very highly of himself, he looks like he is confident and he never does anything by half. However, this is his opinion only—his act does not always equate with actual action.
The 9 of Cups is almost certainly Pamela’s rendition of Falstaff, a character in three Shakespeare plays: The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV parts 1 and 2. Theatre-goers of the day would have easily recognised the figure as Falstaff. If you asked a Shakespeare scholar in contemporary times to decide which characters the cards represented, they would likely agree—especially if they were aware of the actors and actresses of Pamela’s time in addition to the plays themselves.
So, Pamela concentrates on the card as showing over-indulgence, laziness, and a forgetfulness of one’s original values. Henry says of Falstaff in Henry IV, act I, scene 2:
Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know.
Analyzing this quote, we can see that there is much that matches the image Pamela conjures in her 9 of Cups; she has drawn Shakespeare’s old sack (beer) with the nine cups. Pamela’s indulgent-looking gentleman, with his top button loose and casual necktie, is a man who is replete and content with his lot. He sits upon a bench, utterly reminiscent of Falstaff’s “unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon benches after noon.”
This appearance of this card in relation to a business venture warns against relying too much on what people say they are going to do. The advice would be to only commit to something when you have all the facts and details—and to ensure you ask for references to support the claims of an individual. Otherwise, you may find yourself with a business colleague who is all talk and does little work. Mind your expenses too!
Regarding a relationship question, this card warns against becoming involved with somebody who is untrustworthy, only out for a good time. The indication could also be a warning of getting caught up in a rocky relationship that will not bode well for long-term stability.
This card may also indicate a person with an addictive personality. In discovering more about the choices Pamela made to illustrate the card meanings, we find they are increasingly powerful and flexible in our readings.
Three Ages of Interpretation
As we are now more than halfway through our time-travel journey, we can now compare three different periods of reading cards and demonstrate how meaning is layered across time.
Let us imagine that we are performing a simple three-card past/present/future reading and draw:
Past: 7 of Wands
Present: 9 of Cups
Future: 9 of Pentacles
If we were to read this in the time of the Golden Dawn, we would use Book T and read it as follows.
Past
7 of Wands: In the past, there has been a situation of where courage has been required. Where we have had a state of “possible victory, depending on the energy and courage exercised, valor, opposition, obstacles, difficulties, yet courage to meet them, quarreling, ignorance, pretence, wrangling, and threatening.”
Present
9 of Cups: As we have seen, this is “the Lord of Material Happiness.” In the present this is very favorable; the Golden Dawn describes this very beautifully as “complete and perfect realization of pleasure and happiness almost perfect.” However, there is a caution against “self-praise, vanity, conceit, much talking of self … too much self-assumption foolish nature.” So it could be that in the present the person is resting on their laurels and becoming self-indulgent because of a victory achieved in the past.
Future
9 of Pentacles: The “Lord of Material Gain.” In the future, things look good materially, according to our Golden Dawn reader. There is to be “complete realization of material gain,” but also a warning about “covetousness, treasuring of goods and sometimes theft.”
In summary, the Golden Dawn tarot reader would say that this is someone who has struggled against adversity to get where they are but is becoming self-indulgent in their wealth. This good fortune will continue but again, they could lose it if they keep their vanity.
Next, we will move to Eden Gray (1901–1999), whose work in the late 1960s influenced so many of the authors and teachers who followed that time.
Past
7 of Wands: In the past, there has been “a man holding his own against adversaries,” there has been “strife, stiff completion is business, war or trade; success against opposition; courage in the face of difficulties.” We can see how this follows the Golden Dawn interpretation.
Present
9 of Cups: We are presented here with “material success, assured future, physical satisfaction for the subject of the reading. Victory well-being, robust physical health.” Again, this follows the Golden Dawn but is now given a more practical and down-to-earth interpretation.
Future
9 of Pentacles: In the future, there is reassurance, of “plenty in all things,” there is “completion. Material well-being, success, accomplishment, prudence and safety, solitary enjoyment of all the good things in life.” This again is a more accessible tone to the same interpretation given in the Golden Dawn material.
We see again that the Golden Dawn material was simply being re-presented to a new generation in a more contemporary and practical tone. We now see how Pamela perfectly illustrated this text and thus created a deck that would be the standard design for a century.
Past
7 of Wands: In the past, we see a young man standing up for himself; he is fending off any newcomers who stand in his way. As Petruchio, he is using all his abilities, courage, and wit to put on a performance that will impress the object of his desire. He is a peacock and a showman. This carries the meaning and adds a narrative layer and a psychological profile, opening it up to interpretation by the reader beyond the stark “seven staves” of previous designs.
Present
9 of Cups: If we consider the character of Falstaff, who was once brave but is a type of “fallen hero” we again see how the design of this card not only carries original meanings but adds a layer on top. This is so powerful that for a century even though the world forgot the basis on which Pamela had drawn these images, they still held their place as conveying the meaning.
Future
9 of Pentacles: As the character of Rosalind, who dresses as a man in the play As You Like It and is self-sufficient, we are given advice as to how to be proactive through Pamela’s design. Rather than the fatalistic designs of the earlier decks, we now have a sense of narrative and therefore choice in Pamela’s illustrations.
We could imagine this reading as being an improvisation exercise where an actor must move between playing Petruchio, Falstaff, and Rosalind in a single scene. This would dramatically show the energies and influences the cards are conveying in their passage between past, present, and future.
Having looked at Pamela’s designs, we will next return to the practical matter of reading reversals and provide a list of suggested interpretations for reversed tarot cards.
Reversals through Time
A third of tarot readers read reversed cards, a third do not, and the remaining third sometimes do and sometimes do not. So there really is no common rule about using reversals; whichever you choose, you will be on an equal side of the tarot readers consensus.
At the time of Minetta and her book showcasing divination with playing cards, What the Cards Tell, she says to avoid confusion “beginners and non-clairvoyants should mark those cards which are the same both ways, as reversed their meanings are changed.” 147
In The Sacred Tarot (1967), C. C. Zain writes of reversals when he talks about the “broader significance of the card” in relation to the kings, queens, and yout
h. He says that if the picture on the card is that of a man, it represents a man when right-side up and a woman when reversed. If the picture is that of a woman, it represents a woman when right-side up and a man when reversed.
He then looks at the majors and the influence the reversal has on the meaning, explaining:
Some of the cards will be found right end up, and some reversed. But this reversal of ends does not reverse the meaning, as it is sometimes thought. Instead it makes the card somewhat less fortunate than it is when right end up, just as a planet is less fortunate when it receives a bad aspect, or as a sign is less fortunate when its ruler receives an inharmonious aspect. For instance, Saturn can hardly be considered a benefic plane when well-aspected and Arcanum XV is never a good card, even when right end up; but when reversed it is more like Saturn afflicted by a discordant aspect. On the other hand, Jupiter, even when much afflicted, is never very malefic; therefore, Arcanum V, even when reversed can signify very little evil, although it is not so good as right end up. 148
Eden Grey in The Tarot Revealed (1960) says of reversals, when you shuffle the cards thoroughly “some of the cards fall naturally into an upside-down position; therefore, the meaning of the card in reversed position is also given.” 149 For example, for the 4 of Swords she gives the interpretation for its upright meaning as “rest from strife, retreat, solitude” whereas the reversed meaning is given as “activity, social unrest.”
We will now provide some of our reversed meanings, derived from a survey of hundreds of contemporary readers.
Reversals
Pentacles
Key theme for Pentacles: Resources
Ace of Pentacles: The Seed of Resource
