Major Arcana · 14
Temperance Tarot Card Meaning
What the card shows
An angel pours water between two cups, one foot on land, one in the stream.
Upright meaning
Patient mixing rather than a sudden mix. Upright, Temperance favours the slow, steady middle path over any extreme.
If it's your card today
Good day to combine two things that seem opposed — work and rest, ambition and care — rather than pick one.
Commentary and alternative readings by context
Love and relationships
In love, Temperance suggests patience and balance — blending two different needs or personalities slowly rather than forcing quick compromise.
Work and decisions
For career, it points to pacing yourself and combining skills or roles thoughtfully rather than overextending.
As a person
Temperance as a person points to someone who can listen to competing needs and help people meet in the middle. They are patient and adaptable, though that patience can turn into postponing a necessary decision.
Reversed meaning
Excess in one direction, or impatience that skips the blending process entirely.
Where Tarot schools disagree
The main interpretation follows Rider–Waite–Smith. The Marseille and Thoth comparisons are attributed to named authors and works.
Temperance Tarot Card: Tarot de Marseille Interpretation
Tarot de Marseille — La Tempérance (Paul Marteau, 1949)
In Paul Marteau's named system in Le Tarot de Marseille (1949), La Tempérance represents adaptation to a new pursuit and the adjustment of material energy to spiritual energy. This is a specific twentieth-century interpretation, not an ancient meaning shared by every Marseille reader.
Temperance Tarot Card: Crowley’s Interpretation in The Book of Thoth (1944)
Thoth — Art, Atu XIV (Aleister Crowley, 1944)
Crowley's exact corresponding card in The Book of Thoth (1944) is Art, Atu XIV. Crowley renamed the card "Art" reframing it explicitly as an alchemical operation — skilled transformation, turning something plain into something precious — rather than the passive virtue "moderation" implies. He kept the Hebrew letter Samekh and the sign Sagittarius.
Why the interpretations differ
Rider–Waite–Smith, Paul Marteau’s Marseille method and Crowley’s Thoth use different symbolic grammars. They may point to the same broad theme, but they reach it through different images, arcana order, correspondences and authorial systems. The differences above are therefore differences of method, not competing claims about one fixed universal meaning.
Sources and method
A. E. Waite — The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) · Paul Marteau — Le Tarot de Marseille (BnF, 1949) · Marteau — attributed English translation · Aleister Crowley — The Book of Thoth (1944)
Automated factual and language passes completed 23 September 2026; no human native-language review is claimed.
Fire
Sagittarius
Frequently asked
What does the Tarot card “Temperance” mean upright?
Patient mixing rather than a sudden mix. Upright, Temperance favours the slow, steady middle path over any extreme.
What does the Tarot card “Temperance” mean reversed?
Excess in one direction, or impatience that skips the blending process entirely.
What does the Tarot card “Temperance” mean in love?
In love, Temperance suggests patience and balance — blending two different needs or personalities slowly rather than forcing quick compromise.
What does the Tarot card “Temperance” mean for career?
For career, it points to pacing yourself and combining skills or roles thoughtfully rather than overextending.
What kind of person does the Tarot card “Temperance” describe?
As a person, this card describes the same pattern in character: Patient mixing rather than a sudden mix. Upright, Temperance favours the slow, steady middle path over any extreme. Under pressure, its shadow may look like this: Excess in one direction, or impatience that skips the blending process entirely.
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