"If in any divination the Tenth Card should be a Court Card, it shews that the subject of the divination falls ultimately into the hands of a person represented by that card, and its end depends mainly on him"
About this Quote
Tarot, in Waite's hands, is less a fortune-teller's parlor trick than a bureaucratic system for turning mess into narrative. This sentence reads like an instruction manual for destiny: if the final card is a Court Card, the matter "falls ultimately into the hands" of a specific kind of person, and the ending depends on "him". The intent is clarifying and stabilizing. Waite wants the reader to stop chasing cosmic fog and start locating agency inside the deck's cast list.
The subtext is control. A spread can feel like an open-ended poem; Waite insists on a legalistic closure clause. The "Tenth Card" functions as a verdict, not a vibe. And the Court Cards, those page/knight/queen/king archetypes, act as social actors rather than metaphysical forces. Your romantic crisis or career dilemma doesn't resolve because "the universe" decrees it; it resolves because someone with recognizable traits and power makes a move.
Context matters: Waite was a key figure in early 20th-century British occultism, shaping tarot into a standardized, text-backed practice (and, through the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, a mass template). That era loved esoteric symbolism but also craved systems that could be taught, repeated, and sold. His phrasing echoes that impulse: divination as method, not mystique.
The gendering ("depends mainly on him") quietly reveals the period's default assumptions about who counts as the decisive agent. Even when the cards include queens, authority is grammatically masculinized. The line promises certainty, then smuggles in a worldview: outcomes are personal, hierarchical, and finally decided by the figure who holds the last word.
The subtext is control. A spread can feel like an open-ended poem; Waite insists on a legalistic closure clause. The "Tenth Card" functions as a verdict, not a vibe. And the Court Cards, those page/knight/queen/king archetypes, act as social actors rather than metaphysical forces. Your romantic crisis or career dilemma doesn't resolve because "the universe" decrees it; it resolves because someone with recognizable traits and power makes a move.
Context matters: Waite was a key figure in early 20th-century British occultism, shaping tarot into a standardized, text-backed practice (and, through the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, a mass template). That era loved esoteric symbolism but also craved systems that could be taught, repeated, and sold. His phrasing echoes that impulse: divination as method, not mystique.
The gendering ("depends mainly on him") quietly reveals the period's default assumptions about who counts as the decisive agent. Even when the cards include queens, authority is grammatically masculinized. The line promises certainty, then smuggles in a worldview: outcomes are personal, hierarchical, and finally decided by the figure who holds the last word.
Quote Details
| Topic | Free Will & Fate |
|---|---|
| Source | Arthur E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (Rider, 1910), 'Divination' section — discussion of the Tenth Card when it is a Court Card and its implications. |
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