Western Tarot symbolism
Ace of Wands
The description gives the wand to a hand emerging from a cloud. Its primary meanings concern beginnings, creation and enterprise, with other assignments extending to family origin and inheritance. The additional list assigns calamities upright, contrasting with the initial emphasis on creation, and a sign of birth reversed. The two passages therefore resist a single settled positive keyword.
Loading your archive…
In the sources
The card account
LiteraryThe description gives the wand to a hand emerging from a cloud. Its primary meanings concern beginnings, creation and enterprise, with other assignments extending to family origin and inheritance.
Comparing the lists
LiteraryThe additional list assigns calamities upright, contrasting with the initial emphasis on creation, and a sign of birth reversed. The two passages therefore resist a single settled positive keyword.
Context & interpretation
The active library scan carries L. W. de Laurence’s name and reproduces material associated with A. E. Waite’s Tarot exposition. This entry follows that supplied edition’s card prose and supplementary lists. Historical divinatory assignments and period character labels are distinguished from the pictured symbolism and from independently supported judgements about people or future events.
Original passages
Source 1
The Illustrated Key to the Tarot: The Veil of Divination
A hand issuing from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club. Diz'inatory Meanings: Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers which result in these ; principle, beginning,Open this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: The Illustrated Key to the Tarot, supplied de Laurence edition; card description, active reader leaf 105
Exact supplied-edition extracted passage actually read; whitespace-normalised quotation anchor and original-leaf mapping checked. Image descriptions attributed to printed prose; no new full-plate visual inspection asserted.
- Edition
- IMJ-0149-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0149-E001-P0105
- Original scan leaf
- 111
- Recorded leaf number
- 111
- Current Reader position
- 105
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
Source 2
The Illustrated Key to the Tarot: The Veil of Divination
Ace.—Calamities of all kinds. Reversed: A sign of birth^ Cups. King.—Beware of ill-will on the part of a man of position, and of hypocrisy pretending toOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: The Illustrated Key to the Tarot, supplied de Laurence edition; additional meanings, active reader leaf 150
Exact supplied-edition extracted passage actually read; whitespace-normalised quotation anchor and original-leaf mapping checked. Image descriptions attributed to printed prose; no new full-plate visual inspection asserted.
- Edition
- IMJ-0149-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0149-E001-P0150
- Original scan leaf
- 156
- Recorded leaf number
- 156
- Current Reader position
- 150
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
Illustrations
Continue exploring
Eight of Wands
Flying wands carry the numbered suit into an image of swift motion.
Shared source pageFive of Wands
Five youths brandish staves in a scene described as mock combat.
Shared source pageFour of Wands
A garland joins four foreground staves beside a bridge and a house.
Shared source pageKing of Cups
A cup-bearing king sits amid sea imagery, with a ship and a leaping dolphin.