Pamela Colman Smith · RWS deck
The Major Arcana
Temperance
- Hebrew Letter
- SAMEKH
- Element
- SAGITTARIUS
- Path
- Tiphereth ↔ Yesod
- State
- Mediating / Withdrawn
Upright · Mediating
The angel actively bears weight between the spiritual and the material. Water moves cleanly from cup to cup, nothing spilled, nothing wasted.
Reversed · Withdrawn
The angel is still doing what it can, but the querent is either not listening or asking for something that does not fit into either world.
The image
A winged angel pours water between two cups, one foot on land, one in a pool, a path leading off toward distant mountains. Samekh’s own name is the Prop, meaning something that bears weight between two things that would otherwise stand apart.
This path runs from Tiphereth, identity, down into Yesod, the foundation. The pathway and the angel upon it is actively mediating. The weight or tension they are creating is keeping the lines of communication open between the spiritual realm and the material world. This allows for one to sense what is occurring beyond the veil and what can actually be used in the physical world.
Learn how to read Temperance in a spread
This page shows you what Temperance means. Knowing how to read it — how it shifts next to the other cards, what the reversal is really telling you, and how to turn a spread into a clear answer — is what the RWS Decoded course and book teach, card by card.
