Six of Pentacles: weighed, then given

Start with the picture: scales in one hand, coins from the other

Waite describes the Six of Pentacles in two sentences. A person in the guise of a merchant weighs money in a pair of scales and distributes it to the needy and distressed. It is a testimony to his own success in life, as well as to his goodness of heart.

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BaZiFlow original Six of Pentacles: scales, a reaching hand

The RWS original has the merchant at the center in a red robe. One hand holds the scales, the other lets a few coins drop toward a palm held up from the lower left; a cloaked figure kneels on either side of him, and six pentacles hang overhead. The BaZiFlow drawing is simpler: one figure stands with raised scales, one kneels with a hand out, and the coins form an arc. Both pictures share one feature. The standing figure has an instrument for measuring; the kneeling side has no instrument, only open hands.

What Waite lists: gifts, vigilance, and "now is the accepted time"

The list of meanings opens with presents, gifts and gratification. Another account gives attention and vigilance, then adds: now is the accepted time, present prosperity. The reversed entry is a run of feelings: desire, cupidity, envy, jealousy, illusion.

Presents, gifts, gratification; another account says attention, vigilance; now is the accepted time, present prosperity... Reversed: Desire, cupidity, envy, jealousy, illusion.

The word to read side by side is "present". The other account in the main entry says now is the accepted time, present prosperity. The additional meanings, from other readers, say the present must not be relied on. The two point opposite ways and Waite sets them next to each other without reconciling them. So the card does not promise that today's ease will last; it carries two attitudes toward "now" at once.

Scales, coins, the one below: who said what

The picture has few symbols, and three deserve separating: the scales, the falling coins and the figure reaching up from below. For the first two Waite gives only an action and not a symbolism.

Later teachers like to call the scales "the standard" and the low figure "the request": you need a standard before you can weigh, and a request before anyone reaches out. The frame is handy, though borrowed, so say so when you use it instead of attributing it to Waite.

How to read it: split a handover into weigh, give, receive

The card carries three actions of its own: the scales weigh, the coins fall, the hand takes. Moved to a small everyday matter, they become three steps. Suppose you are passing a treadmill you have used for two years to a neighbor in the same building:

1. 1

   Weigh: what goes on the scales?

   What gets weighed is what you can say aloud: how long it was used, where it is worn, whether the accessories are included. The scales are in the giver's hand, so this is the step most easily done by feel. Write each item down first.

2. 2

   Give: which thing is handed over?

   A coin falling from a hand is a concrete act: a price or free, which day the pickup is, who carries it down. If one of those three is unsaid, the handing over is not finished.

3. 3

   Receive: what lands in the other hand?

   The open hand in the picture stands for what the other person actually gets. Ask them to repeat it in their own words, and see whether what they think they are getting is what you think you are giving.

Reversed and neighboring cards: a run of feelings, and a present you cannot lean on

The reversed word list of the Six of Pentacles is almost all feeling: desire, cupidity, envy, jealousy, illusion. Any of them could turn up on either side of a handover, but Waite does not say which; reading it as "comparisons bend an exchange out of shape" is a teaching choice. In the additional meanings the reversed entry is a check on the Querent's ambition, a line from other readers.