Major Arcana · 20
Judgement
Le Jugement (Tarot de Marseille) · L'Angelo (Italian tarocchi) · Spirit of the Primal Fire (Golden Dawn) · The Aeon (Thoth Tarot)
An angel sounds a trumpet from the clouds as naked figures rise from coffins with arms raised. In the Waite–Smith tradition Judgement stands for awakening, renewal and answering a call.
Upright awakening · renewal · calling · reckoning · absolution · rebirth · decision
Reversed self-doubt · harsh self-judgement · ignoring a calling · regret · fear of change · delayed decision
- Astrology
- Fire (Pluto in some modern systems)
- Element
- Fire
- Hebrew letter
- Shin
- Number
- 20
- Golden Dawn title
- Spirit of the Primal Fire
- Yes or no
- Yes
Upright
Judgement is the card of the summons. In the Waite–Smith tradition it signifies awakening, renewal and a moment of reckoning in which the past is reviewed and something new is called forth. It suggests rising to a higher version of oneself in response to an inner or outer call.
Love and relationships: a decisive moment — reconciliation, a fresh start on a new footing, or an honest review of where a relationship stands.
Work and money: a vocation recognised, an important decision, or results being assessed. Readers favour it for career changes undertaken with a sense of purpose.
Advice: listen for the call and answer it. Forgive what can be forgiven, including in yourself, and leave behind the coffins of old habits. The card asks for honest self-assessment, but readers usually stress that its spirit is release rather than condemnation.
Reversed
In reverse, Judgement suggests the call unheard or unanswered. Readers describe self-doubt, reluctance to make an important decision, or a tendency to judge oneself or others too harshly. Another meaning is regret: dwelling on the past instead of learning from it and moving on. It can also describe a verdict reached under pressure rather than from conviction.
In relationships it can show old grievances revisited. At work, a vocation postponed through fear.
Many readers do not read reversals; those who do often treat this as a reminder that renewal requires self-forgiveness.
The image
Smith's Judgement shows a great winged angel, usually identified as Gabriel, leaning from a bank of clouds and blowing a long golden trumpet. From the trumpet hangs a white banner bearing a red cross. Below, on a grey sea, float open coffins from which naked, grey-skinned figures rise with arms outstretched or raised in wonder: in the foreground a man, a woman and a child, and more figures behind. Snow-capped mountains stand in the distance.
History
The card shows the Last Judgement of Christian tradition, when the dead rise at the sound of the angel's trumpet. The Italian decks called it the Angel or Judgement, and the Visconti-Sforza card shows God above angels with trumpets. The Tarot de Marseille's Le Jugement has an angel with a trumpet and banner above a man and woman rising beside a figure emerging from a tomb.
Occult writers read it as resurrection in a spiritual rather than a literal sense. The Golden Dawn assigned it to the Hebrew letter Shin and the element of Fire. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) describes the card as the summons to the inner self and a call to rise. In the Thoth deck Aleister Crowley replaced the scene with the Aeon, to announce the new age of his religion Thelema.
Symbolism
The trumpet is the call of spirit, and the red cross on white the union of matter and spirit, or of sacrifice and purity. The grey bodies suggest beings that have been lifeless in some sense and now return to colour; the coffins floating on water connect the card with the unconscious from which the risen emerge. The family group of man, woman and child echoes the Waite–Smith concern with human life in its full range.
Shin, one of the three mother letters of the Sefer Yetzirah, is attributed to Fire; its three prongs suggest the flame of spirit, and some writers add Pluto as a modern planetary attribution. On the Tree of Life the path runs from Hod to Malkuth. Twenty reduces to two, the number of the High Priestess, and readers sometimes contrast her hidden law with Judgement's revelation.
In a reading
Readers associate Judgement with turning points of conscience and vocation. With the Wheel of Fortune it points to a decisive phase in a cycle; with Justice, a fair reckoning; with the Six of Cups, the past revisited for healing. As an outcome it suggests renewal following honest reflection.
Sources and further reading
- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite, 1910
- The Book of Thoth — Aleister Crowley, 1944
- The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City — Michael Dummett, 1980
- Tarot for Your Self — Mary K. Greer, 1984