Minor Arcana · Pentacles · Earth
Ace of Pentacles
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it. These are what two traditions wrote, not predictions.
In Waite's words: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911)
A hand— issuing, as usual, from a cloud— holds up a pentacle.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider & Son, 1911), public domain.
In the Golden Dawn's Book T (1912)
Root of the Powers of Earth
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.
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.
Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's). The correspondences are this site's compilation from Book T. Open it in the Golden Dawn deck.