Book T no. 4 · Ace of Pentacles · Earth
Root of the Powers of Earth
Ace of Pentacles · The Root of the Powers of Earth
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it.
Book T (1912)
A WHITE Radiant Angelic Hand, holding a branch of a Rose Tree, whereon is a large Pentacle, formed of Five concentric circles. The Innermost Circle is white, charged with a red Greek Cross. From this White Centre, Twelve Rays, also white, issue: these terminate at the circumference, making the whole something like an Astrological figure of the Heavens.
It is surmounted by a small circle, above which is a large white Maltese Cross, and with two white wings.
Four Crosses and two buds are shewn. The Hand issueth from the Clouds as in the other three cases.
It represents materiality in all senses, good and evil: and is, therefore, in a sense, illusionary: it shows material gain, labour, power, wealth, etc.
Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's).
In Book T's table
No. 4 of Book T's 78 titles · Ace of Pentacles · Earth
Correspondences
Kether in Assiah (the Material World). The Ace is the root and seed of the whole suit, the pure power of Earth before it divides. It rules, with its court, one quadrant of the heavens.
Waite, Pictorial Key (1911)
A. E. Waite, a member of the Golden Dawn, in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911) · public domain · he describes the Rider-Waite-Smith picture of this card, not Book T's
A hand— issuing, as usual, from a cloud— holds up a pentacle. Divinatory Meanings : Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy; also speedy intelligence; gold. Reversed : The evil side of wealth, bad intelligence; also great riches. In any case it shews prosperity, comfortable material conditions, but whether these are of advantage to the possessor will depend on whether the card is reversed or not.
Picture sets
Book T deck, SVG. PlayfulProcess (line art traced from the AI painting). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, painting (corrected). AI painting (gemini-2.5-flash-image) from Book T's words, prompt by PlayfulProcess; twelve rays repainted by PlayfulProcess (the model drew sixteen). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, painting as generated. AI painting (gemini-2.5-flash-image) from Book T's words, prompt by PlayfulProcess. CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, iconography. PlayfulProcess: glyphs drawn for this deck, composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_iconography.py) from the card's own metadata, placed as Book T (1912) places them. CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, full imagery. PlayfulProcess: parts drawn for this deck (tarot/book-t/parts, tarot/book-t/glyphs), composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_full_imagery.py) from a spec per card that follows Book T (1912). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, linocut. PlayfulProcess: a linocut printing of the full imagery, composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_linocut.py) from the same spec per card, which follows Book T (1912). CC-BY-SA-4.0.