← Encyclopedia of Tarot · lesson 69/121
Five of Pentacles
The Five of Pentacles describes a hard patch: material strain, poor health, or simply feeling shut out and alone. It is the card of going without — but it is also, quietly, a card about help that is nearby and not yet asked for. It describes a passage through difficulty, not a sentence.
The image
Two poor figures struggle through the snow, one on crutches, the other wrapped in a thin shawl. They pass beneath a lit church window showing five pentacles. They do not look up. The window is usually read as shelter, community or support within reach, unnoticed by those who need it most.
Upright
Upright, the card is read as hardship, insecurity and isolation. Waite wrote that it speaks of "material trouble above all", while noting that some readers took it as a card of lovers and affinities. Today it most often points to a period of scarcity or worry, and to the importance of not facing it alone. It is not a forecast of ruin.
Reversed
Waite's reversed meanings were disorder, chaos and discord. Many modern readers instead see the reversal as the worst beginning to pass: recovery, help accepted, a door found open. Some readers do not use reversals.
Correspondences
A Minor Arcana card, the Five of Pentacles, element Earth. In the Golden Dawn's attributions, which most English-language decks follow, it is the Lord of Material Trouble: Mercury in the first decan of Taurus, 0°–10°, in Geburah, the fifth sephirah.
In a reading
In the past it can describe a lean time that shaped someone; as an obstacle, a feeling of exclusion or lack. As advice it often says: look for the lit window, and ask. Followed by the Six of Pentacles, it is commonly read as help arriving.
In astrology
The Golden Dawn's correspondences, which most English-language decks follow (French, Marseille-based tradition differs for some Major Arcana).
Decan: Mercury in Taurus, 0°–10°
Element: Earth — the element of Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn
Mode: Fixed — Taurus is a fixed sign