Six of Pentacles
Thoth: Success
Marseille: Six de Deniers
“Weighed fairly, given freely, and received without shame.”
At a glance
Keywords
generosity · giving and receiving · fairness · support · sharing · gratitude
Yes or no
Lean yes
Fair help and fair exchange are on offer.
Keywords, reversed
strings attached · debt · one-sided giving · stinginess · unfair terms
Yes or no
Lean no
Not if there are strings attached.
Advice for
Give what you can, fairly and without show. Accept what is offered without shame.
Advice against
Don’t give to be needed, or take help that comes with hidden terms.
Meaning
The Six of Pentacles is the flow of resources between people. Something is weighed out and handed on: money, time, help or attention. In a reading it points to help that is fair and kindly meant: a loan, a raise, a favour returned, time offered. You may be the one in a position to help, or the one who needs it.
Fairness matters as much as what is given. The card asks you to notice the balance: what is given, what is taken, and whether both sides are treated with respect. Give what you can without making a show of it, and take what is offered without shame. Success here is measured by what moves.
In the Thoth deck
This card is Success. Six disks form a hexagram around a rose-gold centre, and the Moon in Taurus makes that harmony a passing one. Read it as balance that is real and needs care to last.
Reversed
Reversed, the exchange tilts. Help comes with strings, a debt is held over someone, or generosity runs one way and never returns. It can also mean giving beyond your means until you’re the one who needs help.
Look at the terms. Say what you expect, or what you can afford to give, and make the arrangement honest before it goes on.
Shadow
Keywords
giving to be needed · charity as status · pity · keeping a ledger
Generosity can become a way to hold power. Giving makes you needed, lifts you above the other person, or buys loyalty, and the one receiving owes you for it. Sometimes the giving is for the audience.
In your life
Love
Giving and receiving in balance; support offered freely.
Reversed: one partner always giving, or keeping score.
Work
Fair pay, a raise, mentoring, a generous employer.
Reversed: unfair terms, or favours with strings.
Money
Lending, sharing, a payment owed.
Reversed: debt, or giving beyond your means.
Health and energy
Support from others; the load shared.
Reversed: giving until you’re drained.
Inner life
Gratitude, and being able to receive.
Reversed: feeling indebted, or resentful of giving.
Spiritual keywords
generosity · reciprocity · gratitude · compassion · humility
Timing
Steady, with give and take: help comes in and goes out in turns. Its season is the middle ten days of Taurus, about 30 April to 10 May.
The image
Pamela Colman Smith draws a figure in a red cloak and striped tunic, standing between two kneeling people, one in a patched yellow cloak and one in blue. In one hand he holds a pair of scales, and with the other he drops coins into an open palm. Six pentacles hang above them. Waite says he “weighs money in a pair of scales”.
Frieda Harris paints six disks in the shape of a hexagram, drawn in skeleton. At the centre a light rose-madder glow like dawn spreads through three rings of golden yellow, salmon-pink and amber. Crowley says the disks hold the planets, each lit by a Sun at the centre, shown as a Rose and Cross of forty-nine petals.
Six de Deniers. Six coins, each a rosette with a red heart, with no figure and no scene. Read it from the number and the suit: six is balance and coins are body, work and resources, so this is the material side of life kept in even measure.
Place in the story
The Five needed help from outside; the Six is where it arrives, and where you may be the one offering it. The suit turns from need to exchange. The Seven follows with a pause: you have given and received, so what grows from it?
Correspondences
The Moon in Taurus rules the middle ten days of the sign, and the Moon is exalted in Taurus: feeling at its most settled and generous. The six sits on Tiphareth, the sephira of balance at the centre of the Tree. The Golden Dawn calls the card Lord of Material Success.
| Card | Six of Pentacles |
|---|---|
| Element | Earth |
| Astrology | Moon in Taurus, 2nd decan, 30 Apr to 10 May |
| Sephira | Tiphareth |
| Golden Dawn title | Lord of Material Success |
| Card | Six of Disks: Success |
|---|---|
| Element | Earth |
| Astrology | Moon in Taurus, 2nd decan, 30 Apr to 10 May |
| Sephira | Tiphareth |
| Golden Dawn title | Lord of Material Success |
Crowley adds that this high point is passing, as the Moon always is.
| Card | Six de Deniers |
|---|
The Marseille method uses no astrology or Kabbalah.
Card of the day
Today, give something small and ask for nothing back: an hour, a favour, a kind word. If someone offers you help, take it without apology. Notice how the balance between giving and receiving feels in your body and your day.
Journal prompts
- Where in my life am I giving, and where am I receiving?
- When I help someone, what do I expect back, and do they know it?
- What help am I refusing, and what would accepting it cost me?
- What could I offer that no one else nearby can, and what keeps me from offering it?
Common misreads
“It’s always about charity.” The card covers exchange of any kind: pay, lending, time. Who decides what is fair is part of the meaning.
“You should give more.” Giving beyond your means isn’t the lesson. The card asks for fair measure on both sides.
Associations
- Playing card
- Six of Diamonds.
- Myth and archetype
- Saint Martin dividing his cloak; the scales of Justice; the good steward.
Sources
RWS image and quotation: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Six of Pentacles; public domain.
Thoth image and attribution: Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth (1944), Six of Disks.
Marseille: Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (1760), BnF btv1b10520316w. The Six of Deniers is missing from that scan, so the block gives only the coin count and the coin design seen on the other Deniers.
Practice meanings for the Six of Pentacles, paraphrased from Pollack, Greer, Bunning and Wen.
Six of Pentacles, decan, title and sephira: Book T (Golden Dawn), via Regardie.
Practice: Mark McElroy, A Guide to Tarot Card Meanings (2014, uncopyrighted), Six of Coins; Arcanis Tarot, 6 of Pentacles, arcanistarot.com.