Five of Wands
Thoth: Strife
Marseille: Cinq de Bâtons
“Everyone pushes, and nobody is badly hurt. Is it sharpening or just noise?”
At a glance
Keywords
competition · friction · crossed purposes · rivalry · disagreement · small hassles
Yes or no
Lean no
Not smoothly: expect friction, and not all of it useless.
Keywords, reversed
a truce · buried resentment · an old quarrel reopened · avoided conflict · tired sides
Yes or no
Lean yes
A truce is possible, if you stop re-fighting what’s settled.
Advice for
Pick the battles that sharpen something. Agree on the goal, then argue about how to reach it.
Advice against
Don’t fight to feel alive or to be proven right, and don’t let small irritations steer the day.
Meaning
The Five of Wands is a room full of people who each think they know best. Nobody is badly hurt, and everybody is swinging. It’s the card of competition, crossed purposes and a thousand small irritations: a team with no shared plan, a family argument, a market where everyone is shouting, the days when every task meets some resistance.
The card isn’t necessarily bad news. Friction sharpens ideas and shows who is serious, and a contest can be how a group finds its leader. The question it puts is whether the clash is making something stronger or only making noise. If it’s noise, agree on one goal and on what winning would look like. If it’s sharpening, keep your sense of humour and keep playing.
In the Thoth deck
Crowley calls this one Strife and gives it a harsher edge: severity let loose in a fire sign, volcanic and without limits. He says it would be disastrous unless the force carries borrowed authority from above.
Reversed
Reversed, the fight goes quiet or goes inward. A truce may be near, with the sides tired and ready to listen. Or the conflict may have moved underground, into resentment, avoidance or an argument you’re having only in your head. It can also be a quarrel you keep reopening after it was settled. Look at which one this is. If it’s over, let it be over. If it’s buried, raise it once, calmly, with one clear request.
Shadow
Keywords
picking fights · winning as identity · drama as fuel · colleagues as rivals
A love of the contest can become a need for one. Some people feel most alive in a clash, and begin to start them: stirring a row to feel the energy, treating every colleague as a rival, mistaking being right for being strong. The fire of this card is useful. It isn’t a reason to be at war.
In your life
Love
Spirited disagreements, rivalry, or a couple learning to fight fair.
Reversed: a truce; resentment left unspoken.
Work
Competition, crossed purposes, a noisy team.
Reversed: a truce, or tension that goes underground.
Money
Competing offers, haggling, a crowded market.
Reversed: a dispute settled, or terms left unclear.
Health and energy
Wired, restless energy from a pressured stretch.
Reversed: tension you carry; time to wind down.
Inner life
Many voices, all insisting.
Reversed: the argument quietens, or goes underground.
Spiritual keywords
testing · friction as teacher · humility · play
Timing
Fast and untidy: a short rush of competition or clashing schedules. Its season is the first ten days of Leo, about 23 July to 1 August.
The image
Pamela Colman Smith draws five young men in bright tunics against a blue sky, each swinging or raising a staff so that the staves cross and clash between them. Their poses are loose and none is clearly winning. The ground beneath them is rough and uneven. Waite calls it “mimic warfare”, a sham fight that is also the struggle after fortune.
Crowley describes five wands in three ranks. One belongs to the Chief Adept, whose authority comes from above. Two belong to the Second Adept and carry phoenix heads, for burning away and rising again. Two belong to the Third Adept and are daughters of the wands in the Three. He adds that the Mother’s mercy softens the card.
Cinq de Bâtons. Five red batons: four cross in an X, two bundled on each diagonal, and a fifth stands upright through the middle, all knotted into a woven lattice. Curling leaves bend out at each side. Five is friction, and batons are action: efforts that cross and press against each other.
Place in the story
The Five tests what the Four built. Everyone who wanted a say gets one, and the order of the Four is shaken. The Six follows once the noise settles and one effort rises clearly above the rest.
Correspondences
Saturn in Leo rules the first ten days of the sign. Saturn is in detriment in Leo: a cold, heavy planet in a hot, proud sign, and the friction between them is the card’s whole story. The Five sits on Geburah, the sphere of severity and testing. The Golden Dawn calls the card the Lord of Strife, the heat that comes when strong wills meet.
| Card | Five of Wands |
|---|---|
| Element | Fire |
| Astrology | Saturn in Leo, 1st decan, 23 Jul to 1 Aug |
| Sephira | Geburah |
| Golden Dawn title | Lord of Strife |
| Card | Five of Wands: Strife |
|---|---|
| Element | Fire |
| Astrology | Saturn in Leo, 1st decan, 23 Jul to 1 Aug |
| Sephira | Geburah |
| Golden Dawn title | Lord of Strife |
| Card | Cinq de Bâtons |
|---|
The Marseille method uses no astrology or Kabbalah.
Card of the day
Today may bring friction: crossed wires, a competing agenda, small things going wrong. Treat it as a test rather than an insult. Before you fight, ask whether this contest is worth entering. If it is, say plainly what you want and play fair.
Journal prompts
- Where am I in a contest, and do I know what winning would mean?
- Which of my arguments is about the issue, and which is about being right?
- When has a good clash made my work better?
- Where do I stay out of an argument, and does my silence help the group or cost it?
Common misreads
“A violent or serious fight.” It’s a scuffle, closer to sport than war. The cost is noise and nerves, not harm.
“Always avoid it.” Some friction sharpens. The card asks which kind this is, and doesn’t ask you to retreat.
Associations
- Playing card
- Five of Clubs.
- Myth and archetype
- The tournament melee; the rowdy assembly; Eris rolling her apple among the guests.
Sources
RWS image and quotation: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Five of Wands; public domain. Details checked on the 1909 scan.
Thoth image and attribution: Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth (1944), Strife, Five of Wands.
Marseille: Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (1760), BnF btv1b10520316w, Cinq de Bâtons, four crossed batons and one upright.
Meaning in practice, Five of Wands: Waite’s divinatory meanings (1911); Joan Bunning, learntarot.com, Five of Wands; paraphrased.
For the Five of Wands, Saturn in Leo, Geburah and the Lord of Strife: Golden Dawn, Book T, as published by Regardie.
Practice: Arcanis Tarot, 5 of Wands, arcanistarot.com.