12. Knight of Pentacles

Rank: Knight
Card Title: Knight of Pentacles
Esoteric Title: Lord of the Wild and Fertile Land
Astrological Attribution: Virgo (mutable earth)
Decans: The Hermit
Dates & Timing: 20° Leo to 20° Virgo
Corresponding Trump: August 12 to September 11
Elemental Attributions: Fire (hot, dry) of Earth (cold, dry)
Elemental Combination: The Will transforms the Senses
Qabalistic World: Chokmah in Assiah
Translation of World: The Wisdom of Manifestation
Suit Color: Pentacles – Green

Keywords: Responsible, reliable, plodding, able to follow through, helpful, dedicated, patient, handy, honorable, alert, steady, diligent, Protective.

Ill-Dignified:Miserly, critical, irresponsible, impatient, timid, insecure, dull, unprogressive, dissatisfied, myopic, stupid, grasping, jealous, cowardly.

Interpretation

Temperament: High energy, athletic, dynamic, strong, energetic, hasty, ardent, and impulsive.

Professions:

Travel: Travel on foot, hiking, walking, and cycling.

Meanings: Travel or change of residence. Spur of the moment decision. Dangerous adventures. Strong need for change. Change in conditions. At cross roads: living quarters, business arrangements, partners. Big decisions. Stress difficulty but eventual success. Creating abundance, physical balance and security. The ability to provide security and to be self-confident and responsible. Trusting our own skills and resources. Safe port in a storm. Having food, money, shelter, clothing, good companionship.

Reversed Interpretation

Temperament: Miserly, critical, irresponsible, impatient, timid, insecure, dull, unprogressive dissatisfied, over critical with details, worries about money.

Meanings: All work and no play,. Slowdown or delay in business matters. Wasted talents. Idleness causes stagnation. Hard knocks. Needs lots of support & encouragement. Looking for a fresh start. Arrested development. Someone who has withdrawn from live or relationships. Someone how caused us to take on life responsibilities before we are ready for them. Feeling stalled for blocked on our path of growth.

Rider-Waite Imagery

Court cards can represent your personality, someone close to you and situations you find yourself in. Usually they describe all three at once.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911

He rides a slow, enduring, heavy horse, to which his own aspect corresponds. He exhibits his symbol, but does not look therein. Divinatory Meanings: Utility, serviceableness, interest, responsibility, rectitude-all on the normal and external plane. Reversed: inertia, idleness, repose of that kind, stagnation; also placidity, discouragement, carelessness.

4 Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana

Knight.–An useful man; useful discoveries. Reversed: A brave man out of employment.

The Recurrence of Cards in Dealing

In the Natural Position: 4 Knights = serious matters; 3 Knights = lively debate; 2 Knights = intimacy.
Reversed: 4 Knights = alliance 3 Knights = a duel, or personal encounter; 2 Knights = susceptibility.

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]

Signification of the Four Series of Minor Arcana in the Divining Tarot

PENTACLES. Development. Money. Trade.

KNIGHT. A young, fair man. A stranger. An arrival.

The figures of the Pentacles are inverse to those of the Sceptres and Cups, and indicate all that comes from outside, from the country or abroad.

The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]

Meanings of the Cards

66. Knight of Pentacles.–A useful Man, Trustworthy, Wisdom, Economy, Order, Regulation; R. A brave Man, but out of Employment, Idle, Unemployed, Negligent.

Additional Remarks

The following additional remarks may be serviceable to the to the inexperienced Cartomancer. They are chiefly taken from Etteilla.

67. Knave of Pentacles.–R. Consult the following cards to see in what the person is prodigal. If 67 R., 57 R., it may simply mean that the person is too fond of giving advice, intermeddles too much with other people’s business.

The Court-Cards, and especially the Kings and Queens, may be taken to represent persons; in this case their additional meaning should not be read. The Swords represent very dark people; Pentacles, those not so dark; Cups, rather fair people; Wands or Sceptres, those much fairer, and so on. Many Wands together might signify feasting, many Cups lovemaking, Swords quarrelling and trouble, Coins or Pentacles money.

Where the mode of reading the cards requires that the person consulting should be represented, he should take one of the Kings to represent himself, according to his complexion. If a lady consults the cards, let her take one of the Queens; if she be rather fair, the Queen of Cups; if she be very fair, the Queen of Wands or Sceptres. If the inquirer be quite a youth or a boy, let him take one of the Knights; if a very young girl, let her take the Knave, etc. Etteilla’s plan was to take two of the Keys for Significators, that answering to the Pope for a man, that answering to the High Priestess for a woman; but I do not think this is so well. The worst of Etteilla’s system is that he so completely destroys the meanings of the Keys in his attempted rearrangement of them, as to make them practically useless for higher occult purposes.

Book "T" The Tarot

The Four Princes
These Princes are Figures seated in Chariots, and thus borne forward. They represent the Vau Forces of the Name in each suit: the Mighty Son of the King and Queen, who realizes the influence of both scales of Force. A Prince, the son of a King and Queen, yet a Prince of Princes, and a King of Kings: an Emperor whose effect is at once rapid (though not so swift as that of the Queen) and enduring. It is, therefore, symbolized by a Figure borne in a Chariot, and clothed in Armour. Yet is his power vain and illusionary, unless set in Motion by his Father and Mother.

Princes and Queens shew almost always actual men and women connected with the matter.

XIX. The Prince of the Chariot of Earth:
King of Pentacles

A WINGED Kingly Figure seated in a chariot drawn by a bull. He bears as a crest the symbol of the head of the winged bull. Beneath the chariot is land, with many flowers. In the one hand he bears an orb of gold held downwards, and in the other a sceptre surmounted by an orb and cross.

Increase of matter. Increases good or evil, solidifies; practically applies things. Steady; reliable.
If ill dignified he is selfish, animal and material: stupid. In either case slow to anger, but furious if roused.
Rules from 20 Degree Aries to 20 Degree Taurus.
Air of Earth

Prince and Emperor of the Gnomes.

Often the General signification of the Majority of a particular suit and of the particular signification of the either 3 of 4 cards of a sort in a reading:

  • A Majority of Pentacles Business, money, possessions.
  • A Majority of Court Cards Society, meetings of many persons.
  • 4 Princes Meetings with the great.
  • 3 Princes Rank and honour.