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Justice, from the Rider–Waite–Smith tarot of 1909

MAJOR ARCANA · TRUMP XI

Justice

Tarot card meaning

fairnesstruthconsequences

UPRIGHT

Fairness, truth, cause and effect, accountability.

REVERSED

Injustice, dishonesty, avoiding consequences.

The card

A crowned figure sits between two pillars holding an upright sword in one hand and balanced scales in the other.

Justice is trump XI of the twenty-two trumps of the Major Arcana.

In the Golden Dawn's attributions it carries the Hebrew letter Lamed (ל), “ox-goad”, and the sign of Libra. On the Tree of Life it is path 22, joining Geburah and Tiphareth.

In Aleister Crowley's Thoth tarot: Adjustment, VIII. It has the same order as the Marseille.

In Waite's words

Arthur Edward Waite designed the deck that Pamela Colman Smith drew, and explained it in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911). His text, with his spelling:

DIVINATORY MEANINGS Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law.

REVERSED Law in all its departments, legal complications, bigotry, bias, excessive severity.

The picture and its symbolism

As this card follows the traditional symbolism and carries above all its obvious meanings, there is little to say regarding it outside the few considerations collected in the first part, to which the reader is referred.

It will be seen, however, that the figure is seated between pillars, like the High Priestess, and on this account it seems desirable to indicate that the moral principle which deals unto every man according to his works—while, of course, it is in strict analogy with higher things—differs in its essence from the spiritual justice which is involved in the idea of election. The latter belongs to a mysterious order of Providence, in virtue of which it is possible for certain men to conceive the idea of dedication to the highest things. The operation of this is like the breathing of the Spirit where it wills, and we have no canon of criticism or ground of explanation concerning it. It is analogous to the possession

of the fairy gifts and the high gifts and the gracious gifts of the poet we have them or have not, and their presence is as much a mystery as their absence. The law of Justice is not however involved by either alternative. In conclusion, the pillars of Justice open into one world and the pillars of the High Priestess into another.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider & Son, 1911), Part II § 2 and Part III § 3. Public domain; text from the 1922 printing on Wikisource.

Related cards

The numbered cards it governs

Two of Swords: a decan of Libra · Three of Swords: a decan of Libra · Four of Swords: a decan of Libra

In three historical decks

The same card as it was painted in fifteenth-century Milan, printed in the French pattern of the Tarot de Marseille, and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith for the Rider–Waite–Smith deck.

Justice in the Visconti-Sforza tarot
Visconti-SforzaMilan, mid-15th century
Justice in the Tarot de Marseille tarot
Tarot de MarseilleParis (Lequart), c. 1890
Justice in the Rider–Waite–Smith tarot
Rider–Waite–SmithLondon, 1909

In the Tarot de Marseille: La Justice, VIII. The number differs from this deck's XI: the older order, and Crowley's, put Justice at VIII and Strength at XI.

Learn more in the lessons

Images: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909 (public domain); the RWS1909 scans on Wikimedia Commons. Lequart, Paris, c. 1890 (public domain); scans from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica), via Wikimedia Commons. Attributed to Bonifacio Bembo, mid-15th century (public domain); scans by David Madore, via Wikimedia Commons.