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Six of Pentacles

pentacles · 6

Six of Pentacles

Lord of Material Success · Success

The Six of Pentacles tarot card meaning runs through both orientations: upright, generosity, giving and receiving, charity; reversed, unequal exchange, strings attached, indebtedness. Below, its imagery across the Rider–Waite–Smith, Thoth, and Marseille decks, and what the tradition’s writers said about it.

Element
Earth
Planet
Moon
Zodiac
Taurus
Numerology
6
Timing
Taurus season; the harvest phase.

Upright

  • generosity
  • giving and receiving
  • charity
  • balance of power in giving
  • fairness

Reversed

  • unequal exchange
  • strings attached
  • indebtedness
  • power dynamics in giving

Six of Pentacles Tarot Card Meaning

Upright

[object Object]

Reversed

[object Object]

The image, three ways

Rider–Waite–Smith

A wealthy merchant in red robes drops coins into the hands of two beggars kneeling at his feet. He holds golden scales in his other hand.

Four ways a reversal speaks

After Mary K. Greer, Tarot Reversals (2002)

  1. 01 · opposite

    Imbalance — debt where the seeker should be giving, or excessive giving where receiving was due.

  2. 02 · shadow

    Control through giving; the gift with strings; charity that elevates the giver.

  3. 03 · blocked

    Stuck on one side of the scales; chronic giver or chronic receiver, can't switch.

  4. 04 · karmic

    Inherited patterns of indebtedness or financial control structuring current relationships.

What the tradition says

  • Aleister Crowley · 1944

    The Book of Thoth

    Success — Moon in Taurus; the lunar grace entering the fertile field; abundance in healthy circulation.

  • Rachel Pollack · 1980

    Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom

    Pollack reads the Six of Pentacles as the merchant with scales — generosity made visible, weighed, public. The card holds the question of whose hand holds the coin and whose receives it; today's giver may be tomorrow's needful, and the dignity of both positions matters.

  • Mary K. Greer · 1984

    Tarot for Your Self

    Greer's question for the Six: are you giving in a way that respects the receiver's dignity, or are you giving from a position that buys your sense of superiority? The card refuses charity that elevates the giver at the cost of the recipient.

  • Eden Gray · 1960

    The Tarot Revealed

    Gray reads the Six as the proper distribution of resources — generosity met with gratitude, financial obligations honored, the fair exchange. Often a bonus, a gift, or a debt repaid.

Shadow

The transactional giver; the one who keeps score; the receiver who refuses dignity.

More from the suit of Pentacles

Six of Pentacles combinations

Bring this card into a question

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