General Book of the Tarot: Pentacles: Five of Pentacles

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Five of Pentacles

TRADITION: Lover, mistress, also husband and wife, friend, beloved person. Accord, convenience, well-being, affinity. Reversed they give: Bad conduct, ruin even, confusion, disorder, discord, dissipation, chaos, profligacy. Mr. W. says: "It foretells material trouble above all."

THEORY: The latter saying of Mr. W. is probably correct in any case, but we do not agree that the different renderings "cannot be harmonised." The Fire of the heart on the Ninth house, that of Sagittarius, explains them all without difficulty. It is the emanation of love, which makes practically the lover and the mistress, e.g. husband and wife, when regularised by civil law, and friends, when between persons of the same sex, sympathy and popularity, enthusiasm, hopefulness, love of travelling, roaming about, which in weaker cases easily leads to Bohemian habits, carelessness, disorder and so on. Society will call this in many cases bad conduct, and find much to criticise. That the expansive nature indicated