Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot · Dreams & the Unconscious
Tarot · Major Arcana
The Magician
Manifestation, Power, Creation
Skill and will turned on the world — the same power that manifests can also manipulate.
What it meansOne hand to heaven, one to earth: the figure is a conduit, not a source. The four suit emblems lie ready on his table and the lemniscate floats above his head, so the power is borrowed and unlimited at once — which is why the same gesture reads as creation or as conjuring.
Tarot · Suit of Cups
Seven of Cups
Illusion and the Labyrinth of Choices
The dazzling and deceptive realm of the imagination, where myriad desires cloud spiritual discernment.
What it meansSeven cups rise on cloud, holding a face, a shrouded figure, a serpent, a castle, jewels, a wreath and a dragon. Waite calls them reflections. Not one of them is a thing in the world, and the card's warning is that desire renders its objects beautifully.
Tarot · Suit of Cups
Page of Cups
The Muse of the Subconscious
Insight that arrives before reason can justify it — trust it, but don't live inside the daydream.
What it meansA fish rises out of the cup and looks at him, and he looks back, entirely unsurprised. The Pages are the suit's beginnings, so this is the first form the inner life takes: something addresses you from a place you were not attending to, and the only skill required is not flinching.