The Chariot: tarot meaning, upright and reversed

A crowned charioteer stands beneath a starry canopy above a dark and a light sphinx.

Upright

direction · resolve

Gather competing impulses into a chosen direction. Progress requires sustained command of attention.

Reversed

conflicting aims · force

Momentum can scatter or become coercive when the destination is uncertain.

In a reading

The position gives this card a particular task: a description of the situation, a challenge, or guidance. Read its image and meaning alongside the other cards and the question that brought them together.

Golden Dawn correspondence

Zodiac sign: Cancer. This is the attribution in Book T.

Sources

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. These notes are original interpretations of the Waite–Smith imagery, informed by that text.