Two of Pentacles
The Two of Pentacles is the second numeral card of the Pentacles suit. It is associated with balancing multiple material or financial demands occurring at once.
Last reviewed: 2026-07-22
Historical fact
In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (1909), the Two of Pentacles shows a young man dancing while balancing two pentacles connected by a green ribbon shaped like an infinity loop (lemniscate), with two ships tossing on a rough sea in the background. In decks predating the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition, numeral cards like this one showed only two pentacles arranged in a decorative pattern, without any human figure or scene. Illustrating a specific narrative scene for each numeral card of the Minor Arcana was Pamela Colman Smith's 1909 innovation, which became the predominant standard in later decks.
Interpretation — Rider-Waite-Smith / Golden Dawn
In the Rider-Waite-Smith / Golden Dawn tradition, the Two of Pentacles represents the ability to balance multiple material priorities at once — usually financial, work-related, or time-related matters. It is read as a card of adaptability and flexibility amid changing circumstances, though it can also indicate being overextended. Reversed, it commonly signals disorganization, dropped commitments, or genuine difficulty keeping up with everything.
Interpretation — Thoth (Aleister Crowley)
In the Thoth deck, this card belongs to the suit Crowley renamed Disks, and carries the title 'Change,' associated with Jupiter in Capricorn. The emphasis is on the natural rhythm of expansion and contraction in material fortune — cycles of gain and loss following one another — rather than the specific juggling scene of the Rider-Waite-Smith version.
Curiosities
- Art historians including Stuart R. Kaplan trace much of the visual inspiration for Pamela Colman Smith's Minor Arcana scenes to the Sola-Busca tarocchi, a 1491 Italian deck — the earliest known tarot to illustrate every numeral card with a narrative scene rather than plain suit symbols — which Smith is believed to have studied before designing the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
- The Golden Dawn assigned each of the 36 numeral Minor Arcana cards (2 through 10, across all four suits) to one of the 36 decans of the zodiac — a system dividing each sign into three 10-degree segments that originated in ancient Egyptian astronomy and was later adopted by Hellenistic astrology, as in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos.
This section presents one tradition's interpretation, not a verifiable fact.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the Two of Pentacles mean in Tarot?
- It represents the effort of balancing two or more material priorities — such as work, money or time — at once, usually with adaptability in the face of change.
- Why does Thoth call this card 'Change'?
- Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn tradition assigned each numeral Minor Arcana card a title and an astrological decan association. The Two of Disks corresponds to Jupiter in Capricorn, and the title 'Change' reflects the fluctuating character of that combination.
Sources
- Michael Dummett. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City (1980).
- Arthur Edward Waite. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910).
- Aleister Crowley. The Book of Thoth (1944).
- Stuart R. Kaplan. The Encyclopedia of Tarot (1978).