The Chariot

Quick answer

The core meaning of The Chariot is Willpower overcoming obstacles. Upright, it usually points to Victory, willpower, self-control, determination. Symbolizes uniting opposing for; reversed, it may suggest Loss of control, aggression, defeat, lack of direction. May indicate being torn .

Card imagery

A warrior stands in a chariot beneath a starry canopy, crescent moons on his shoulders. The chariot is drawn by two sphinxes, one black and one white, though no reins are visible. A river and a castle fill the background.

Upright meaning

Victory, willpower, self-control, determination. Symbolizes uniting opposing forces (the black and white sphinxes) through sheer will to overcome obstacles.

Reversed meaning

Loss of control, aggression, defeat, lack of direction. May indicate being torn apart by emotions or conflicting forces, sending the chariot of life off course.

Love, Career, Money and Growth

Love

In love, The Chariot points to Willpower overcoming obstacles. Read it back against how the relationship actually behaves and what you are both choosing.

Career

In career matters, The Chariot points to Willpower overcoming obstacles. Start by working out which resources you control and what your next move is.

Money

In money matters, The Chariot points to Willpower overcoming obstacles. Do not treat a symbolic reading as an investment conclusion — go by facts, budget and your own risk tolerance.

Personal growth

For personal growth, The Chariot points to Willpower overcoming obstacles. Write down the question it raises, then turn that into an action you can actually check.

Yes or No

Upright

Yes

Reversed

No

This is our own quick read, based on which way the card’s meaning leans. Traditions disagree about individual cards, and an "Undecided" needs to be weighed against the position in the spread and your actual situation rather than taken as a one-word answer.

Waite’s Original Text (1911)

Inner Symbolism (original)

An erect and princely figure carrying a drawn sword and corresponding, broadly speaking, to the traditional description which I have given in the first part. On the shoulders of the victorious hero are supposed to be the Urim and Thummim. He has led captivity captive; he is conquest on all planes—in the mind, in science, in progress, in certain trials of initiation. He has thus replied to the Sphinx, and it is on this account that I have accepted the variation of Eliphas Lévi; two sphinxes thus draw his chariot. He is above all things triumph in the mind.

It is to be understood for this reason (a) that the question of the sphinx is concerned with a Mystery of Nature and not of the world of Grace, to which the charioteer could offer no answer; (b) that the planes of his conquest are manifest or external and not within himself; (c) that the liberation which he effects may leave himself in the bondage of the logical understanding; (d) that the tests of initiation through which he has passed in triumph are to be understood physically or rationally and (e) that if he came to the pillars of that Temple between which the High Priestess is seated, he could not open the scroll called Tora, nor if she questioned him could he answer. He is not hereditary royalty and he is not priesthood.

Original Upright Meaning

Succor, providence; also war, triumph, presumption, vengeance, trouble.

Original Reversed Meaning

Riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, defeat.

Quoted from A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. The text is in the public domain.