The Sevens

The Sevens are the seventh card of each suit of the Minor Arcana. After the harmony of the Six, the odd number unsettles things again — not with the open conflict of the Five, but with a test. Sevens carry uncertainty: a position to hold, options to weigh, a strategy to choose, a harvest not yet in. They tend to ask the querent to act, rather than tell them what has happened.

What the number means

Most readers see the Sevens as cards of assessment and challenge, where the outcome is still open:

• The Seven of Wands is standing your ground: one figure on high ground holding off six staves from below.
• The Seven of Cups is too many dreams: cups floating in the clouds, each with a vision in it, and the need to choose.
• The Seven of Swords is strategy, or stealth: a man slipping away with an armful of swords, cleverness that may or may not be honest.
• The Seven of Pentacles is patient assessment: a gardener leaning on a hoe, looking at a crop that is growing but not yet ripe.

In every suit, the Seven shows a moment of judgement in the middle of a process. That is why Sevens are often read as advice cards: defend, decide, be wary, be patient.

In the Golden Dawn

The Golden Dawn placed the Sevens in Netzach, Victory, the seventh sephirah of the Tree of Life, the sphere of Venus. Book T's description is the source of much modern reading of the number: the Sevens show "a force, transcending the material plane", "like unto a crown which is indeed powerful but requireth one capable of wearing it". So they "show a possible result which is dependent on the action taken" — and "depend much on the symbols that accompany them".

Each Seven takes the last ten degrees (20°–30°) of the fixed sign of its element, its third decan.

Three of the four titles carry a warning — success that is illusory, unstable or unfulfilled — and Crowley's Thoth deck is blunter still: Valour, Debauch, Futility and Failure. Modern readers in the Rider–Waite–Smith tradition are generally gentler, reading the same cards as tests that can be passed.

The Major Arcana of the same number

By number the Sevens echo VII, The Chariot — will steering opposing forces toward a goal. Readers who add the digits of larger numbers also pair them with XVI, The Tower. The link is a modern numerological one rather than part of the Golden Dawn system, but it suits the Sevens: drive and control on one side, the sudden upset that tests them on the other.

Several Sevens in one spread

The traditions gave each count its own meaning:

• Waite: four Sevens mean "intrigue", three "infirmity", two "news". Reversed, four mean "quarrellers", three "joy".
• The Golden Dawn's Book T: four Sevens are "disappointments", three "treaties and contracts".

These are old keywords, and they disagree; Waite's "infirmity" is a word from the fortune-teller's lists, not something to read as a statement about anyone's health. The lesson on the numbers also notes that some readers keep personal meanings for a number — one author reads Seven as joy. In broad modern terms, several Sevens suggest a period of testing and uncertainty, with choices to weigh and positions to hold, and outcomes that rest on how they are handled.

In a reading here

When a spread is interpreted here, two, three or four numbered cards of the same rank are picked out as a pattern and given Waite's meaning for that number and count. A pair is noted only in a spread of seven cards or fewer, where it is rarer and says more.

Related

• Numbered cards (pips)
• The Sixes
• The Eights
• The Chariot
• Seven of Cups
• Tree of Life