Major Arcana · 11
Justice
La Justice · La Giustizia · Adjustment (Thoth)
The Justice tarot card meaning runs through both orientations: upright, justice, truth, fairness; reversed, injustice, dishonesty, imbalance. Below, its imagery across the Rider–Waite–Smith, Thoth, and Marseille decks, and what the tradition’s writers said about it.
- Element
- Air
- Planet
- Venus
- Zodiac
- Libra
- Hebrew
- Lamed
- Numerology
- 11
- Timing
- Libra season (September–October); within months; legal timeframes; equinox energy.
Upright
- justice
- truth
- fairness
- law
- cause and effect
- accountability
Reversed
- injustice
- dishonesty
- imbalance
- evasion of responsibility
- corruption
Justice Tarot Card Meaning
Upright
[object Object]
Reversed
[object Object]
The image, three ways
Rider–Waite–Smith
A crowned figure sits between two pillars holding a sword upright in one hand and balanced scales in the other. Unlike Lady Justice in courthouses, she is not blindfolded — her eyes are open.
Thoth
Renamed Adjustment. A slender figure in elaborate dress poses on a tightrope, holding sword and scales in perfect balance — Crowley emphasizes Justice as cosmic equilibrium, not human verdict.
Marseille
La Justice — seated, crowned, sword raised in one hand, scales in the other. Numbered 8 in Marseille (Waite swapped 8 and 11).
Four ways a reversal speaks
After Mary K. Greer, Tarot Reversals (2002)
01 · opposite
Injustice felt or done; the scales tilted; the verdict wrong.
02 · shadow
Corrupt institutions; justice weaponized into punishment without proportion.
03 · karmic
Generational accounts coming due; injustice inherited or being repaid across lifetimes.
04 · denied
Accountability refused; truth-telling avoided; the books cooked.
What the tradition says
A.E. Waite · 1910
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot
Equity, rightness, executive; reasonable balance; triumph of the deserving.
Aleister Crowley · 1944
The Book of Thoth
Adjustment — the cosmic principle that every act sets up its compensation. Not punitive but homeostatic. The dancer on the tightrope.
Rachel Pollack · 1980
Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom
Justice is the moment when we see that what we have done has shaped who we are; the verdict is the recognition.
Mary K. Greer · 1984
Tarot for Your Self
Greer asks Justice's querent to make two columns: what they have given, what they have received. The card's clarity comes not from external fairness but from the seeker's own honest accounting of where the imbalance actually lives — usually closer to home than expected.
Lon Milo DuQuette · 2003
Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot
DuQuette unpacks Crowley's renaming of the card to Adjustment — the dancing figure on the tightrope is Maat, not the courthouse Lady Justice. The card is about cosmic homeostasis rather than verdict; the universe is constantly rebalancing itself, and the querent is being asked to dance with that, not to demand judgment.
Shadow
The self-righteous who weaponize 'truth'; the punitive ego dressed as justice; the one who calls vengeance justice.
Archetypal role
Lady Justice / Maat / The Judge / The Truth-Teller
Historical notes
Justice was traditionally numbered 8 in Marseille decks; Waite swapped Justice and Strength to align with the Golden Dawn's astrological correspondences (Justice → Libra, Strength → Leo). Egyptian mythology's Maat — the feather weighed against the heart of the dead — is the deepest mythic source. Crowley renamed the card Adjustment, emphasizing dynamic equilibrium over static verdict.
Neighbouring arcana
Justice combinations
Bring this card into a question
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