pentacles · 14

King of Pentacles

Knight of Disks (Thoth) · Lord of the Wide and Fertile Land

The King of Pentacles tarot card meaning runs through both orientations: upright, wealth, established success, generous patriarch; reversed, materialism, greed, stubborn. Below, its imagery across the Rider–Waite–Smith, Thoth, and Marseille decks, and what the tradition’s writers said about it.

Element: Earth
Zodiac: Leo 21° to Virgo 20° (Crowley's system)
Numerology: 14
Timing: Late summer into autumn; Leo-Virgo cusp.

Upright

wealth
established success
generous patriarch
businessman
the master builder
stability

Reversed

materialism
greed
stubborn
obsessed with status
controlling through wealth

King of Pentacles Tarot Card Meaning

Upright

[object Object]

Reversed

[object Object]

The image, three ways

Rider–Waite–Smith

A king sits on an elaborate throne in a vine-decorated bower. He is dressed in robes embroidered with grapes; his crown is heavy with leaves. He holds a scepter and a pentacle. A castle is in the background.

Four ways a reversal speaks

After Mary K. Greer, Tarot Reversals (2002)

01 · excessive
Greed; wealth crossed into accumulation as identity.
02 · shadow
Corrupt power; money used to control; the patriarch who buys silence.
03 · opposite
Financial collapse where empire was assumed; the king's holdings revealed as overextended.
04 · karmic
Inherited materialism; the family's worship of money continuing in this generation.

What the tradition says

Aleister Crowley · 1944
The Book of Thoth
Lord of the Wide and Fertile Land — fiery earth; the active, ruling intelligence of material mastery.
Rachel Pollack · 1980
Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom
Pollack reads the King of Pentacles as the established master — the entrepreneur whose first venture has matured into empire, the craftsman whose craft has become institution. His grapes show abundance; his throne shows it has not become rigid.
Mary K. Greer · 1984
Tarot for Your Self
Greer asks the King of Pentacles' querent: what is your wealth actually serving, beyond yourself? The card refuses accumulation as a final goal; mastery here means stewardship — the resources flow outward as well as remain.
Eden Gray · 1960
The Tarot Revealed
Gray reads the King as the successful businessman, the patriarch of the family enterprise, the financial elder. Often a particular man — established, generous within his sphere, someone whose word in financial matters is sound.

Shadow

The greedy patriarch; the wealth-as-identity man; the controller through money.

King of Pentacles combinations

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