The Chariot

  • Arcana Major
  • Number VII
  • Figure on this site Sigurd's advance
Historical evidence

In the earliest decks

The Chariot is one of the trump cards of the Italian trionfi decks of the 15th century. The name comes from the Renaissance triumph, the public procession in which a victor rode in a wagon through the streets. In the surviving early decks the card is usually called a chariot (Il Carro in Italian), and in the standard later order it is numbered VII.

There was no single early design. In the Visconti-Sforza deck, made in Milan around 1450 and attributed to Bonifacio Bembo, a crowned woman sits on the chariot holding a globe topped with a cross, and it is drawn by winged horses. Some writers suggest she is Bianca Maria Visconti, but that is a guess, not a documented fact. A Florentine or Ferrarese card of the mid-15th century shows the chariot head-on, with a charioteer holding a globe and a sword. Other early cards show a man with a sword or an axe, with no canopy.

The Tarot de Marseille settled the image for a long time. The earliest known Marseille-pattern cards are by Philippe Vachier (1639), and Jean Dodal’s Lyon deck of 1715 labels the card “Le Chariot” and numbers it VII. It shows an armoured, crowned man, seen from the waist up, standing in a squarish canopied cart. He holds a sceptre and the cart is drawn by two horses seen head-on. One writer notes that the darker horse looks towards the lighter one and suggests a link with the chariot image in Plato’s Phaedrus; this is an interpretation, not something the decks state. The trump order varied by region and period, so VII is the Marseille convention, not a rule of every early deck.

Historical evidence

The Rider-Waite-Smith card

Pamela Colman Smith drew the deck under A. E. Waite’s direction, and William Rider & Son published it in December 1909. Its Chariot is not a copy of the Marseille card. Robert M. Place argues that it follows a design by the French occultist Éliphas Lévi, who in the 1850s replaced the horses with two sphinxes. Waite says in his book that he accepted this variation from Lévi.

Smith’s card keeps a standing, crowned charioteer and a square cart, but the horses are gone and the sphinxes face different ways. Place lists further differences from Lévi’s picture, such as a simpler wheel-and-axle symbol and a changed crown. Waite’s own text speaks of a drawn sword, which Smith’s picture does not show. Place also notes that Waite called sphinxes a later invention made to support a theory, which sits oddly with his choice of them.

Myth and literature · Quotation

Waite’s description

An erect and princely figure carrying a drawn sword and corresponding, broadly speaking, to the traditional description which I have given in the first part. On the shoulders of the victorious hero are supposed to be the Urim and Thummim. He has led captivity captive; he is conquest on all planes—in the mind, in science, in progress, in certain trials of initiation. He has thus replied to the sphinx, and it is on this account that I have accepted the variation of Éliphas Lévi; two sphinxes thus draw his chariot. He is above all things triumph in the mind.

It is to be understood for this reason (a) that the question of the sphinx is concerned with a Mystery of Nature and not of the world of Grace, to which the charioteer could offer no answer; (b) that the planes of his conquest are manifest or external and not within himself; (c) that the liberation which he effects may leave himself in the bondage of the logical understanding; (d) that the tests of initiation through which he has passed in triumph are to be understood physically or rationally; and (e) that if he came to the pillars of that Temple between which the High Priestess is seated, he could not open the scroll called Tora, nor if she questioned him could he answer. He is not hereditary royalty and he is not priesthood.

Myth and literature · Context

Later meanings

The attributions below were added to the Chariot centuries after the Italian decks, and none comes from the early players.

Court de Gébelin argued in 1781 that tarot came from ancient Egypt, a claim Egyptologists later rejected. Éliphas Lévi accepted the Egyptian idea and linked the trumps to the Hebrew alphabet; his chapter on the Chariot rests on the letter zain, “sword”. According to one account he followed Christian Kabbalists, not Jewish texts, which tie zain to Gemini. The Marseille tradition in France kept zain for this card.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded 1888) used a different system, putting the Fool first and giving the trumps Hebrew letters and zodiac signs. In that British tradition, which the Rider-Waite-Smith deck follows, the Chariot is given the letter Cheth and the sign Cancer. This is reported in modern secondary sources; no Golden Dawn document was checked for it. None of these links is a historical fact about the card; they are the systems of particular occultists.

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: willpower, determination, triumph through discipline, forward momentum

This is the moment the line moves forward — not because the obstacle has gotten smaller, but because the will to push through it has gotten larger. Sigurd's advance succeeds through discipline and sustained commitment, not luck or sudden inspiration. The energy here is forward, focused, unhesitating. If you've been gathering resolve, this is the card that says: it's enough. Move.

In general: Sustained effort is about to pay off, or needs to start paying off through one more committed push rather than a change in direction.

In love: Pursuing something with clear intent and follow-through — making the effort to show up, again and again, until it lands.

In work: A project moving forward through sheer disciplined persistence. The breakthrough comes from continuing, not from finding a shortcut.

Reversed

Keywords: lack of direction, scattered effort, stalled momentum, self-sabotage

Force aimed in two directions cancels itself out, no matter how much of it there is. The reversed shield-wall is wheels spinning in mud — visible effort, real exhaustion, no actual progress, because the will hasn't settled on a single direction yet. Before pushing harder, check whether you're pushing the same thing two different ways at once. The fix here usually isn't more force; it's choosing.

In general: Effort isn't translating into progress because it's being spent on competing goals. Pick one direction before applying more force.

In love: Wanting contradictory things from the same relationship — closeness and independence, security and excitement — without resolving the tension first.

In work: Working hard on a project whose actual goal hasn't been agreed on. Get alignment before adding more hours.

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