The Moon Tarot definitions

Deception, chaos and confusion are the order of the day. If this card comes up in relationships, expect a foggy picture - does the client have a boyfriend? She isn't sure. Does she want the man? She isn't sure. Does she want to keep him? She isn't sure. What is he up to? She isn't sure. Whatever the case, lower your expectations of bringing clarity, however long the reading. Boundaries are ill-defined, vague or non-existent. The solution is usually to work on the client so that she can see certainty in terms of her own life, rather than what other may or not be doing.

Of course, deception, chaos and confusion can also work to the client's benefit, so if she does not want people to know what she is up to, the Moon is an excellent sign she will not be discovered. This card is good for spies, illusionists, stage magicians, politicians, and anyone else who do not want others to know what they are really doing.

• Rider-Waite: The Moon

  The distinction between this card and some of the conventional types is that the moon is increasing on what is called the side of mercy, to the right of the observer. It has sixteen chief and sixteen secondary rays. The card represents life of the imagination apart from life of the spirit. The path between the towers is the issue into the unknown. The dog and wolf are the fears of the natural mind in the presence of that place of exit, when there is only reflected light to guide it.

  The last reference is a key to another form of symbolism. The intellectual light is a reflection and beyond it is the unknown mystery which it cannot shew forth. It illuminates our animal nature, types of which are represented below - the dog, the wolf and that which comes up out of the deeps, the nameless and hideous tendency which is lower than the savage beast. It strives to attain manifestation, symbolized by crawling from the abyss of water to the land, but as a rule it sinks back whence it came. The face of the mind directs a calm gaze upon the unrest below; the dew of thought falls; the message is: Peace, be still; and it may be that there shall come a calm upon the animal nature, while the abyss beneath shall cease from giving up a form.

  Hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error.

  Reversed Card meanings

  Instability, inconstancy, silence, lesser degrees of deception and error.

• Book of Thoth: The Moon

  Let the Illusion of the World pass over thee, unheeded,
  as thou goest from the Midnight to the Morning.

  Illusion, deception, bewilderment, hysteria, even madness, dreaminess, falsehood, error, crisis, "the darkest hour before the dawn", the brink of important change.

  The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

  More information

• Golden Dawn - Ruler of Flux and Reflux, Child of the Sons of the Mighty

  Dissatisfaction, voluntary change. Error, lying, falsity, deception.

• Mathers: The Moon

  Twilight, Deception, Error.

  Reversed Card meanings

  Fluctuation, Slight Deceptions, Trifling Mistakes.

• Etteilla: The Moon

  COMMENTS Symposium, Conversation, Discourse, Discussion, Speak, Prattle, Chat. Malicious Gossip, Calumny, Decree, Deliberation. Moon.

  Reversed Card meanings

  Fluid Water, Dewy, Rain, Sea, Stream, River, Spring, Torrent, Fountain, Brook, Lake, Swamp, Water Hole, Sheet of Water, Pond. Humidity, Mist, Smoked, Mercury, Waters of Chaos, Philosophic Water. Odor, Wintry Weather, Snow, Exhalation, Evaporation. Instability, Fickleness, Silence. Murmur. Patience.

• Thierens: XVIII. The Moon.

  Everything that has been said in astrology about the Moon might be repeated here, as there exists no controversy whatever on the point of identity. "The card represents life of the imagination apart from life of the spirit." (W.)

  This card consequently means the life of the soul in particular, the feelings and sentiments, emotions (not only fear, etc.), changes wrought in existence by them, water and the female element in general. In the horoscopic figure it may be the mother or some other woman prominent in the life of the querent; it may signify women in general (and morally or psychically, while Saturn means physical woman). It is the sign of panta rei: everything passing, flowing or ebbing away in life, consequently uncertainty. It may relate to dreams, to exhibitions, popular plays, and games, theatres, and to the lower class of people. Physically it means the brain and the stomach.

  The hieroglyphic value of the Hebrew letter Tzaddi, connected with this card, "is the same as that of Thet (ninth card) . . . which perhaps may account for the relationship of the Moon with that house, as pointed out by us before. It should mean a term, an aim, an end." (P.) But this does not make it much clearer.

  P. has only one good thing on it, and after all this is only on a particular and not very high level: "Servile spirits (the dog), savage souls (the wolf), and crawling creatures (the crayfish) are all present watching the fall of the soul, hoping to aid in its destruction." That is true. And it may happen to us, that a lower current of the Moon brings our way people who have no higher aim than to 'aid in our destruction' even if we ourselves have no intention whatever of 'falling'.

• Ouspensky: Card XVIII - THE MOON

  The Astral World as it is seen by the artificial means of magic. “Psychic”, “spiritistic” world. Dreads of the night. The real light from above and the false representation of that light from below. Pseudo-mysticism.

  ---

  A desolate plain stretched before me. A full moon looked down as if in contemplative hesitation. Under her wavering light the shadows lived their own peculiar life. On the horizon I saw blue hills, and over them wound a path which stretched between two grey towers far away into the distance. On either side the path a wolf and dog sat and howled at the moon. I remembered that dogs believe in thieves and ghosts. A large black crab crawled out of the rivulet into the sands. A heavy, cold dew was falling.

  Dread fell upon me. I sensed the presence of a mysterious world, a world of hostile spirits, of corpses rising from graves, of wailing ghosts. In this pale moonlight I seemed to feel the presence of apparitions; someone watched me from behind the towers, - and I knew it was dangerous to look back.