The strength on the picture of the Tarot card seems delicate: A maiden pure at heart holds the jaws of a lion, making it harmless. That’s real strength, far beyond what mere muscles can accomplish. It’s so powerful because it has an ideal. It’s very significant that on the Tarot Strength card image, she masters the lion not by forcing its jaws apart, like any Tarzan would, but by keeping them together, hiding its teeth. The lion has become harmless and its tongue suggests that it enjoys this. So, it’s the strength of neutralizing strength. A beneficial paradox. Some would say that the Tarot Strength card is not about strength at all, but the path away from it. Maybe so. But strength is a force that tends to yield only to superior strength. Therefore, it can only be pacified by being defeated… The lion has mighty muscles by which to close its jaws on a prey, but not nearly as much strength to open them. Evolution slipped on that detail. Real strength is to make use of such weaknesses. That way, little strength is needed and still not even the strongest in the world can resist… If the Tarot Strength card refers to a person, it’s someone who knows how to apply the resources to where they accomplish the most. Such strength is power. You should make that person an ally and learn from the experience. But remember that there are also other ways entirely to solve problems, than any kind of strength… If the Strength card refers to an event, it would be one where victory goes where it seems the least likely. Strength, as most things human, is in the mind. The problem at hand needs true strength, not just struggling with all your might. Find the smooth application of your abilities… If the Tarot Strength card has a position in the divination spread referring to you, then you tend to utilize strength before considering other solutions. You have it, so you hurry to make use of it. That’s really a weakness. It may be temporary, upon meeting a problem that frustrates you to begin with, or it is the way you tend to react. In any case, consider when strength of any kind is appropriate and when it is not. Quite often it is not, even when it seems to be needed…
First Appearance Ducal courts of northern Italy (c. 1440)
First Publisher ○
Appearance List Sola Busca (1490s) — earliest surviving deck [Open Culture] [WaiteSmith.org]; Monde primitif… (Vol. 8: “Du Jeu des Tarots”) (1781) by Antoine Court de Gébelin; Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées Tarots (1783–1785) by Etteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette); Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (1856) by Éliphas Lévi; The Tarot: Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling, and Method of Play (1888) by S. L. MacGregor Mathers; Le Tarot des Bohémiens (1889) by Papus (Gérard Encausse); Rider Waite Tarot (1909) by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith [WaiteSmith.org]; The Tarot of the Bohemians (1910) by A. P Morton [Internet Archive]; The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911, 1959) by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith; Le tarot des imagiers du moyen âge (1926) by Oswald Wirth; The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians (1944) by Aleister Crowley; Le Tarot de Marseille (1949) by Paul Marteau; The Tarot Revealed (1960) by Eden Gray; Tarot Cards for Fun and Fortune Telling (1970) by Stuart R. Kaplan; The Encyclopedia of Tarot (Vol. 1) (1978) by Stuart R. Kaplan.
Sample Read The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911, 1959) by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith [Internet Archive]
Description The strength on the picture of the Tarot card seems delicate: A maiden pure at heart holds the jaws of a lion, making it harmless. That’s real strength, far beyond what mere muscles can accomplish. It’s so powerful because it has an ideal. It’s very significant that on the Tarot Strength card image, she masters the lion not by forcing its jaws apart, like any Tarzan would, but by keeping them together, hiding its teeth. The lion has become harmless and its tongue suggests that it enjoys this. So, it’s the strength of neutralizing strength. A beneficial paradox. Some would say that the Tarot Strength card is not about strength at all, but the path away from it. Maybe so. But strength is a force that tends to yield only to superior strength. Therefore, it can only be pacified by being defeated… The lion has mighty muscles by which to close its jaws on a prey, but not nearly as much strength to open them. Evolution slipped on that detail. Real strength is to make use of such weaknesses. That way, little strength is needed and still not even the strongest in the world can resist… If the Tarot Strength card refers to a person, it’s someone who knows how to apply the resources to where they accomplish the most. Such strength is power. You should make that person an ally and learn from the experience. But remember that there are also other ways entirely to solve problems, than any kind of strength… If the Strength card refers to an event, it would be one where victory goes where it seems the least likely. Strength, as most things human, is in the mind. The problem at hand needs true strength, not just struggling with all your might. Find the smooth application of your abilities… If the Tarot Strength card has a position in the divination spread referring to you, then you tend to utilize strength before considering other solutions. You have it, so you hurry to make use of it. That’s really a weakness. It may be temporary, upon meeting a problem that frustrates you to begin with, or it is the way you tend to react. In any case, consider when strength of any kind is appropriate and when it is not. Quite often it is not, even when it seems to be needed…
