Seven of Cups

What it is

The Seven of Cups is one of the numbered cards in the cups group of the tarot's Minor Arcana. Decks of this kind are used for readings, a practice placed alongside occult work and fortune telling. The picture shows seven vessels resting on a cloud. Each holds something different: a head, a snake, a dragon, a wreath, treasure, a building and a glowing shrouded form are among them. Readers take the scene as a card of visions, of imagining a wished-for result, and of the muddle that can come with it. Its meaning is treated as a matter of opinion, though the wider tarot community has settled on a broad reading.

Where it comes from

Playing cards of the tarot kind are recorded in Italy from the fifteenth century. The deck most readers know took shape later, in Britain, between the late 1880s and the 1930s. Arthur Edward Waite, a British poet and scholar of occult and esoteric writing, was central to that work and co-created the Rider-Waite deck. He took material from folklore and cultural studies, including Arthurian literature and Celtic myth, and reworked the pictures according to his own ideas. Pamela Colman Smith drew the illustrations, and the deck appeared in 1910. Tarot users still recognise it today.

How it is done

The card has no rite of its own. It is used inside a tarot reading, in which cards are drawn and interpreted for a querent, the person asking. Waite's account treats the picture as a series of visions and reads the card by what those visions suggest. When the card turns up reversed, that is, upside down in the layout, he gives it a different sense. Writers on the card disagree about what each separate symbol means, and some hold that the conjuring itself matters more than the exact contents of the cups.

Tools and materials

The card belongs to a printed deck. Its picture, by Pamela Colman Smith, is among the best known in tarot: seven chalices, which Waite called strange chalices of vision, set on a cloud. Inside them are a human head that may point to Medusa, a shrouded figure glowing with light that may stand for the higher self, a snake that sheds its skin, a dragon said to rule the four elements, a wreath in a cup marked with a skull, treasure, and a building. The cloud may suggest that such visions are passing or impractical.

What it is for

In readings the card is taken as a sign of vision and imagining. Waite lists gaining favours, a time of reflection, a fresh view of a situation, imagination, and new confirmation of something already suspected. Others sum up its mood as wishful thinking, and the cloud under the cups is read as a hint that such pictures may be fleeting or unworkable. Turned upside down, the card is said to speak of wanting a particular result, of the will to bring one about, or of a project that presents itself.

Who does it

Readings are given by tarot readers, people who work with the cards and are often described as fortune tellers. The meanings are not fixed by a single authority: readers draw on handbooks and on a shared body of interpretation, and the wider tarot community has broadly agreed on a range of readings. Waite was a scholar and writer of occult subjects. His book on the tarot sets out his own reading of each card, and his views, with Smith's pictures, shaped how later readers approach the Seven of Cups.

Peoples and places

Tarot playing cards are recorded first in Italy, in the fifteenth century. The version that carries this card was put together in Britain between the late 1880s and the 1930s, and the 1910 Rider-Waite deck is the one most readers meet. Classifications also group the card with Italian and Spanish playing cards alongside the Minor Arcana. The deck remains well known among tarot users and travels well beyond the two countries where it was made and drawn.

What people believe

The reading rests on the idea that a drawn card can speak to a person's situation. Within the picture, some symbols carry their own suggested meanings: a shrouded, glowing figure may stand for the higher self, and a dragon may stand for rule over fire, water, earth and air, or for a ruler whose power reaches back to the beginning of time. A head in one cup may refer to Medusa of Greek myth. How far a reader takes these links is left open.

Compare and confuse

Within tarot, the Seven of Cups belongs to the cups group of the Minor Arcana, alongside the other numbered cups. Card classifications also place it with Italian and Spanish playing cards. Its best-known form is the Rider-Waite picture, and the symbols inside the cups are read differently by different people. Waite's handbook gives one settled account of the card, which later readers may follow or argue with.

Today

The 1910 Rider-Waite deck, with Smith's drawings, is still one of the decks tarot readers know best. The Seven of Cups keeps its place in readings and in the common stock of card meanings that the tarot community shares. Waite's book The Key to the Tarot sets out his reading of the card, and that reading, with Smith's picture, is the one most often met.

Questions people ask about Seven of Cups

Good reading and sources

• Seven of Cups on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data