Justice

  • Arcana Major
  • Number XI
  • Figure on this site Tyr's reckoning
Historical evidence

In the earliest decks

Justice is one of the trumps of the Tarot de Marseille, where it is numbered VIII and follows the Chariot. Jean Dodal’s Lyon deck of 1715 labels it “La Justice”. Justice is one of the four cardinal virtues, and Strength and Temperance, which sit near it in the order, belong to the same group.

Tarot began in northern Italy in the mid-15th century, and the order of the trumps was not the same everywhere. Michael Dummett sorted the regional orders into three families, from Bologna and Florence, from Ferrara and from Milan; the Marseille order descends from the Milan family. So the number on this card depends on which tradition a deck follows. The VIII of Marseille was not a universal rule.

The 15th-century Visconti-Sforza decks are unusual in other ways: the Cary–Yale set includes the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity, which appear in no other tarot of that era.

Historical evidence

The Rider-Waite-Smith card

The Rider–Waite–Smith deck was published by William Rider & Son of London, first in December 1909 in a very small printing and then more widely from 1910. Pamela Colman Smith drew it from A. E. Waite’s instructions, and both belonged to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

The most visible change to this card is its number. Waite swapped Justice and Strength, so Justice became XI and Strength VIII, to fit Golden Dawn astrological attributions, which tie Strength to Leo and Justice to Libra. The Cipher Manuscripts, the basis of the Golden Dawn’s tarot teaching, first suggested the switch. It was not entirely new: the Sola Busca deck also puts Strength in the position Waite chose.

The figure holds golden scales in the left hand and a sword in the right. In his own notes on the card, Waite says it follows traditional symbolism, and he remarks that the seated figure between pillars recalls the High Priestess.

Myth and literature · Quotation

Waite’s description

As this card follows the traditional symbolism and carries above all its obvious meanings, there is little to say regarding it outside the few considerations collected in the first part, to which the reader is referred. […] The law of Justice is not however involved by either alternative. In conclusion, the pillars of Justice open into one world and the pillars of the High Priestess into another.

Myth and literature · Context

Later meanings

These links were added long after the first decks and are not part of the card’s Italian origin. In 1781 Court de Gébelin claimed that tarot came from ancient Egypt; the claim has no support, and Dummett called the resulting occult myth-making a highly successful propaganda campaign.

The Golden Dawn’s attributions are better documented for this card: Justice goes with Libra, and Strength with Leo, which is why the two numbers were exchanged. Aleister Crowley, in The Book of Thoth (1944), also associates Justice with Venus and Libra. Scales and a sword are the card’s traditional emblems, and Libra’s scales fit them neatly, which may be why the link was easy to make.

Modern interpretation

As read on this site

This is the meaning used for readings here. Using the tarot to divine is a modern practice, and the Norse figure shown for each card is this site’s own association; the tarot began as an Italian card game. A short history is on the Tarot page.

Upright

Keywords: fairness, balance, consequence, integrity, lawful outcome

Tyr governed oaths and lawful combat — the kind of justice that costs something real even when it's correct. This card promises a fair outcome, but fairness isn't free; it asks for honesty about your own part in the situation, and sometimes for a price paid willingly because the alternative is worse. If you've been waiting for things to balance out, they're about to, but balance usually means everyone gets what they're actually owed, not just what they were hoping for.

In general: A situation resolves according to what's actually fair, which may not perfectly match what you wanted, but will be honest.

In love: A relationship reaching an honest accounting — what each person has given and received becoming clear, for better or worse.

In work: Recognition or consequence arriving in proportion to actual contribution. The scale settles where the evidence puts it.

Reversed

Keywords: injustice, imbalance, avoided accountability, unfair advantage

An imbalance ignored long enough stops being a minor unfairness and starts being the load-bearing structure of the whole arrangement. When this card reverses, it's a warning that the scale has been tipping for a while and someone's been quietly keeping count. Whether that someone is you or the other party, the reckoning is overdue, and the longer it's postponed, the less gentle it tends to be when it finally arrives.

In general: An unfairness has been allowed to persist past its limit. Someone is keeping score, even if it isn't being said aloud.

In love: An unequal give-and-take that's gone unaddressed too long. One person's needs have been quietly subordinated to the other's.

In work: Credit, compensation, or workload distributed unfairly, with the imbalance growing rather than self-correcting. It needs to be named.

Draw a card for a reading · How to read cards together · Reversed cards

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