Pentacles

Origin

The Coin suit, called denari in Italian, descended from the Mamluk suit of dirhams, gold and silver coins of the Egyptian and Syrian markets. Italian playing decks rendered them as round coins stamped with crosses, lions, or geometric devices. The Spanish oros retains the coin form to this day, while the French deniers evolved into the abstract diamond shape of the modern Anglo-American playing card. In the Tarot of Marseille the suit is rendered as ornate engraved coins arranged in flower-like patterns.

Arthur Edward Waite renamed the suit Pentacles to align it with ceremonial magic, where a pentacle is a wax or parchment disk inscribed with a five-pointed star and divine names, used to consecrate matter. Pamela Colman Smith's 1909 illustrations show the suit as gold disks engraved with pentagrams, scattered through scenes of work, garden and family life. Her Three of Pentacles depicts a stonemason at work in a cathedral; her Ten shows a multi-generational family in the courtyard of an estate. This convention is preserved in the modern Rider-Waite deck. The Thoth Tarot retains the older name Disks.

Meaning and function

Pentacles speak the language of substance. They are the suit of work, of money, of property, of body, of craft and of the slow accumulation that distinguishes a livelihood from a windfall. The Ace is the seed gift of new resource; the Two is balancing income and expense; the Three is skilled collaborative work; the Four is the grip on what one has; the Five is hardship and the cold outside the church; the Six is generosity and the right measure; the Seven is patient cultivation; the Eight is mastery through repetition; the Nine is solitary abundance in a walled garden; the Ten is multi-generational legacy.

When Pentacles dominate a reading, you are being told that the matter is incarnate. It will not be solved by feeling or thought alone; it requires money, time, body, and steady hands. Their shadow side is hoarding, materialism, narrow practicality, and the slow death of vision under spreadsheets. Pentacles paired with Wands often describe entrepreneurship; with Cups, the integration of love and the practical; with Swords, the world of contracts and law.

In practice

When you draw a Pentacle, ask: what is being grown, paid for, repaired, harvested, or inherited? In love readings Pentacles often describe the slow and stable building of a shared life, the moving in together, the saving for a home, the patient endurance of long marriages. In professional readings they describe craft, salary, contracts, real estate, and the kind of work that compounds over years. In a Celtic Cross a cluster of Pentacles around the outcome position promises tangible result.

In Rider-Waite readings, attend to whether the figures are tending the disks, holding them tightly, or scattering them. The dominant colours are green, gold, and earth-brown; the settings are gardens, workshops, marketplaces. A daily Card of the Day in Pentacles recommends that you do something physical, finish something half-built, attend to your accounts, or eat a proper meal. The Pentacle suit returns you to the body when the mind has wandered.

Symbolic depth

In the Hermetic system Pentacles belong to the world of Assiah, the active or material world, and to the final Heh of the divine name. Their astrological signs are the earth trigon: Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn. In the Golden Dawn's decanate scheme each numbered Pentacle is assigned to a ten-degree segment and a planet: the Three of Pentacles is Mars in Capricorn (Works in Crowley), the Eight is the Sun in Virgo (Prudence), the Ten is Mercury in Virgo (Wealth). The earth signs share a quality of patient making, even as their planetary rulers vary widely.

Mythologically the Pentacle is the loaf of bread, the wheel of the year, the hearth-stone, the philosopher's gold, the fig tree, the mustard seed of the parable. It is the receptive, feminine, material principle, the womb of matter that holds and nourishes. To work with the Pentacle suit is to learn the dignity of slow work and the spiritual weight of the everyday. As the kabbalists say, the highest crown is found in the lowest kingdom; the seed of all Major Arcana meaning is brought down to earth in the Pentacle's circle. Visit the glossary for the full elemental cycle.

Also known as

• Coins
• Disks
• Denari
• Oros
• Diamonds