Judgement
Judgement is the awakening call: a moment of reckoning and renewal in which we rise to answer a higher summons and begin life on a new level.
Major Arcana XX
Upright keywords
- awakening
- renewal
- reckoning
- calling
- absolution
- rebirth
Meaning when upright
An angel sounds the trumpet and the dead rise from their coffins with arms outstretched, answering a summons they cannot ignore. Judgement marks awakening: a realization that changes how you see your past and sets you on a renewed path. It can mean taking stock, forgiving yourself or others, and making a decisive shift, which Waite captures in change of position, renewal, and outcome. Something in you is being called to rise.
On the card
- angel in the clouds blowing a trumpet
- Waite's great angel sounding the summons of the Supernal, which is heard and answered from within.
- banner with a red cross on white hanging from the trumpet
- Waite notes the cross as usual displayed on the banner: resurrection and the meeting of spirit and matter.
- figures rising from coffins with arms outstretched
- Rebirth and response to the call; Waite says all the figures are as one in wonder and adoration.
- man, woman, and child in the foreground, the child's back turned
- Waite's woman, man, and child restored together: the whole self, or the whole human family, answering at once.
- coffins floating on the water
- Rising out of the waters of the unconscious; the past giving up what it held.
- more risen figures in the background
- Waite deliberately shows more than three restored: awakening that is universal rather than private.
- snow-capped mountains behind
- The heights of attainment toward which the awakened now turn.
In Waite’s words
I have said that this symbol is essentially invariable in all Tarot sets, or at least the variations do not alter its character. The great angel is here encompassed by clouds, but he blows his bannered trumpet, and the cross as usual is displayed on the banner. The dead are rising from their tombs—a woman on the right, a man on the left hand, and between them their child, whose back is turned. But in this card there are more than three who are restored, and it has been thought worth while to make this variation as illustrating the insufficiency of current explanations. It should be noted that all the figures are as one in the wonder, adoration and ecstacy expressed by their attitudes. It is the card which registers the accomplishment of the great work of transformation in answer to the summons of the Supernal—which summons is heard and answered from within.
Herein is the intimation of a significance which cannot well be carried further in the present place. What is that within us which does sound a trumpet and all that is lower in our nature rises in response—almost in a moment, almost in the twinkling of an eye? Let the card continue to depict, for those who can see no further, the Last Judgment and the resurrection in the natural body; but let those who have inward eyes look and discover therewith. They will understand that it has been called truly in the past a card of eternal life, and for this reason it may be compared with that which passes under the name of Temperance.
- Divinatory meaning
Change of position, renewal, outcome. Another account specifies total loss though lawsuit.
- Reversed
Weakness, pusillanimity, simplicity; also deliberation, decision, sentence.
Correspondences
- Element
- Fire
- Astrology
- Fire (element)
- Hebrew letter
- Shin (ש)
- Path on the Tree of Life
- Path 31: Hod – Malkuth
- Number
- Twenty (2 + 0 = 2) turns the High Priestess's hidden knowledge into open revelation; the veil lifts and the call is heard.
To reflect on
- What calling have I been hearing and not answering?
- What do I need to forgive myself for so I can move on?
- What would it mean to rise into a new version of myself?
In your readings
Hasn’t appeared in your readings yet.
Ask about this card
Marguerite, the traditionalist, answers from Waite’s text, what is drawn on the card and its correspondences. You can choose another reader in settings.