14. King of Pentacles

Rank: King
Card Title: King of Pentacles
Esoteric Title: Prince of the Chariot of Earth
Astrological Attribution: Taurus (fixed earth)
Decans: The Hierophant
Dates & Timing: 20° Aries to 20° Taurus
Corresponding Trump: April 11 to May 10
Elemental Attributions: Air (hot,wet) of Earth (cold, dry)
Elemental Combination: The Intellect transforms the Senses
Qabalistic World: Tipareth in Atziluth
Translation of World: The Beauty of Emanation
Suit Color: Pentacles – Green

Keywords: Friendly, Dependable, Practical, Responsible, Loyal, Solid, Steady, Hardworking, Successful, Clever, Reliable, Generous, Patient, Purposeful.

Ill-Dignified:Heavy, Dull, Material, Laborious, Lazy, Corrupt, Jealous, Grasping, Wasteful, Disorganized, Thriftless, Bribable, Shallow, Untrustworthy, Corrupt.

Interpretation

Temperament: Practical, Responsible, Solid And Steady. Understands Practical And Business Matters. Loyal Dependable, Generous, Friendly, Affectionate Financially Stable. Man Of Means. Mathematical & Accounting Skills.

Professions: Businessman Of Means, Merchant, Boss, Banker, Real Estate Agent, And Stockbroker.

Starting: Drawing up plans for a new business, new thoughts on how to make money or craft something. Perhaps building a new house.

Meanings: Sound financial advice. Powerful new friend. Upturn in business. Reached financial goals. Get professional advice.

Reversed Interpretation

Temperament: Disorganized, Thriftless, Unreliable, Wasteful, Disorganized, Lacks Business Sense But Is Very Money Oriented, Thriftless, Easy To Bribe, Shallow, Opinionated, Untrustworthy, Bribable, Opinionated, Easily Led.

Meanings: Untrustworthy business associate. Not good time for financial speculation. Skimming the surface. Perverse use of talents and abilities. Poor business sense. Laziness, corruption, jealousy.

Rider-Waite Imagery

The suit of pentacles represents the Physical World, Material Matters, Health Issues and Finances. The King is Masculine, Mature and Stable. Court cards can represent your personality, someone close to you and situations you find yourself in. Usually they describe all three at once.

Shown on this card is a man with a crown sitting on a throne in rooftop garden. His crown is made up of roses and lilies which suggest he rules with passion and hope. The King is holding an orb and scepter. They are symbols of the authority of a King. The scepter is a pentacle which represents his authority is of the pentacles and that which pentacles represent. The King is well of and very successful in the physical world.

As aspects of your personality the King of Pentacles is stable, earthy and protective. This is the clever and reliable part of you. The King of Pentacles likely also refers to a husband or father in your life. As a situation when the King of Pentacles comes up there may be a concern about being able to provide for oneself and family. Do you have any concerns about moving away from your children despite they are old enough to be on their own?

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

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. Divinatory Meanings: Valor, realizing intelligence, business and normal intellectual aptitude, sometimes mathematical gifts and attainments of this kind; success in these paths. Reversed: Vice, weakness, ugliness, perversity, corruption, peril.

4 Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana

King.–A rather dark man, a merchant, master, professor. Reversed: An old and vicious man.

The Recurrence of Cards in Dealing

In the Natural Position: 4 Kings = great honour; 3 Kings = consultation; 2 Kings = minor counsel.
Reversed: 4 Kings = celerity; 3 Kings = commerce 2 Kings = projects.

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.

KING OF PENTACLES. A fair man, inimical or indifferent. 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

64. King of Pentacles.–A dark Man, Victory, Bravery, Courage, Success; R. An old and vicious Man, a Dangerous Man, Doubt, Fear, Peril, Danger.

Additional Remarks

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

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.