03 Three of Wands
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Number: 3
Card Title: Three of Wands
Esoteric Title: Lord of Established Strength
Numerical Keywords: 3: Form, Container, Fertility
Numerical Attributions: Saturn, Black, Year, End
Intelligence: Sanctifying Intelligence
Element: Fire (hot, dry)
Elemental Keywords: Energy, Action, Inception
Elemental Attributions: South, Summer, Noon
Astrological Attribution: Sun in Aries
Dates & Timing: March 31 to April 10
Qabalistic World: Binah in Atziluth
Translation of World: The Understanding of Nobility
Suit Color: Wands-Red
Keywords: joining forces, power, enterprise, effort, trade.
Ill-Dignified:Pride, arrogance, conceit. Ulterior motives, creative block, daydreams, mistrust, fear of deception.
Interpretation: Ships have been launched. Have taken a calculated risk. Waiting to see what the results will be. Making a new idea work. Personal destiny under human control. Green: growth and freshness. Red: Will to action. Checkerboard: Stability. Yellow Sea: Conscious choice of action.
Reversed Interpretation: Difficulty or need to put plans in motion. Not being realistic about situation. Afraid to get started.
Rider-Waite Imagery
Card Image Description
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)
A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff’s edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them. Divinatory Meanings: He symbolizes established strength, enterprise, effort, trade, commerce, discovery; those are his ships, bearing his merchandise, which are sailing over the sea. The card also signifies able co-operation in business, as if the successful merchant prince were looking from his side towards yours with a view to help you. Reversed: The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.
4 Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana
Three.–A very good card; collaboration will favour enterprise.
The Recurrence of Cards in Dealing
In the Natural Position: 4 Threes = progress; 3 Threes = unity 2 Threes = calm.
Reversed: 4 Threes = great success; 3 Threes = serenity; 2 Threes = safety.
The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]
Signification of the Four Series of Minor Arcana in the Divining Tarot
SCEPTRES: Creation. Enterprise. Agriculture.
THREE. Realization of the commencement of the Enterprise. The basis of the work is now definitely established, and the undertaking can be fearlessly continued.
The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]
Meanings of the Cards
33. Three of Sceptres.–Enterprise, Undertaking, Commerce, Trade, Negotiation; R. Hope, Desire, Attempt, Wish.
Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa
Aries II
A woman, outwardly cloathed with a red garment, and under it a white, spreading abroad over her feet, and this image causeth nobleness, height of a Kingdom, and greatness of dominion:
Picatrix the Goal of the Wise by Ghayat Al-akim
Book "T" The Tarot
XLVI. The Lord of Established Strength
Three of Wands
A WHITE Radiating Angelic Hand, as before, issuing from clouds and grasping three wands in the centre (two crossed, the third upright). Flames issue from the point of junction. Above and below are the symbols Sun and Aries.
Established force, strength, realization of hope. Completion of labour. Success after struggle. Pride, nobility, wealth, power, conceit. Rude self-assumption and insolence. Generosity, obstinacy, etc.
Binah of HB:Y (Pride, arrogance, self-assertion).
Herein rule the Angels HB:HHShYH and HB:a’aMMYH.
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 Wands Energy, opposition, quarrel.
- 4 Threes Resolution, determination.
- 3 Threes Deceit
