Ace of Wands: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Ace of Wands upright means: Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers which result in these; principle, beginning, source; birth, family, origin, and in a sense the virility which is behind them; the starting point of enterprises; according to another account, money, fortune, inheritance. Reversed: Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish; also a certain clouded joy.

The picture

“A hand issuing from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers which result in these; principle, beginning, source; birth, family, origin, and in a sense the virility which is behind them; the starting point of enterprises; according to another account, money, fortune, inheritance.

Waite's additional meanings: Calamities of all kinds.

Reversed

Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish; also a certain clouded joy.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: A sign of birth.

In one line

Creation and beginning: the source of new enterprise. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Ace of Wands is the first card of the suit of Wands, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Aces: Ace of Cups, Ace of Swords, Ace of Pentacles.

In Esbat

Esbat deals a card of the day, face down until you turn it, and holds all 78 cards in the 1910 pictures with Waite's meanings, upright and reversed. The Ace of Wands can be shared as a picture. All 78 tarot card meanings.

Sources

Meanings and picture descriptions: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), public domain, checked against the Wikisource transcription. Picture: Pamela Colman Smith, 1910, public domain. Like the app, this page records what the book says; it does not promise outcomes.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

Esbat: Tarot & Book of Shadows, on Google Play

A card of the day, face down until you turn it, and all 78 cards in the 1910 pictures with Waite's meanings, upright and reversed. For Android.

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