Meaning
Smith's Justice is a crowned figure in red seated between two pillars, a purple veil hung between them, with a sword held upright in one hand and a pair of scales in the other. Waite says the design follows the traditional symbolism and adds only that the justice it shows, which gives to each according to their works, is not the same as the higher mystery of grace.
The Golden Dawn gave the card Lamed, a simple letter glossed as ox-goad, and the sign Libra, and titled it the Daughter of the Lords of Truth, the Ruler of the Balance. On the order's tree Justice is path 22.
We read the card as the weighing of things: fairness, consequence and the clear decision, with the sword as what follows the weighing. Waite's fortune-telling list for it ends with the success of the deserving side at law; we quote it below as his and never read a card as a legal forecast.
Why it is XI here
The Marseille decks number Justice VIII and Strength XI. The Golden Dawn exchanged them, because in its table Leo's letter Teth comes before Libra's letter Lamed, and Waite's deck of 1909 was the first published pack to print the change. Crowley's Thoth deck changed the numbers back and renamed the card Adjustment, while keeping Libra.
In the birth cards
Justice belongs to Greer's second constellation, with the High Priestess, 2, and Judgement, 20. It is the Personality card of everyone whose total is 11, with the High Priestess as Soul card, on 4.2 percent of the days from 1900 to 2030, and the Hidden Factor of a 20-2 and of a single 2, on 6.9 percent. The person in Figure 1 of the Tarot page is an 11-2: Justice and the High Priestess, with Judgement as Hidden Factor.
No birth-card method leaves 11 unreduced: Greer reduces every total above 22 and reads 11 as Justice. With the Marseille numbering the same total would give Strength.
As a natal-chart card Justice is the Sun-sign card of Libra. As a year card it comes 12 times in the 201 years from 1900 to 2100 for a 15 June birthday.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Golden Dawn title (Book T)
- “The Daughter of the Lords of Truth; the Ruler of the Balance” sourced
- Waite's fortune-telling list (1911), upright
- “Equity, rightness, probity, executive; […]”, quoted as history, with its item on the law left out; Waite called such meanings artificial and arbitrary sourced
- Greer's name for the constellation
- Balanced Judgment through Intuitive Awareness (1987, 2021) sourced
- Our line for the birth-card chain
- 11-2: Inner truth, fairly weighed our construction
- Number
- XI in the Golden Dawn and the 1909 deck; VIII in the Marseille and Thoth decks disputed
- Thoth deck name
- Adjustment, VIII sourced
- Sun-sign card
- For the Sun in Libra; also the Moon card and the Rising card for Libra sourced
How the schools read it
- Game decks (15th to 18th century)
- La Justice, numbered VIII: a seated figure with sword and scales, one of the virtues that stood among the trumps.
- Golden Dawn, Book T
- Lamed, the ox-goad, a simple letter, and the sign Libra; path 22. Book T titles it the Daughter of the Lords of Truth, the Ruler of the Balance.
- Waite and Smith (1909 to 1911)
- Follows the traditional picture; Waite adds only that this moral justice, which gives each according to their works, is not the higher mystery of grace.
- Mary K. Greer (1984 to 2021)
- In the constellation of 2 with the High Priestess and Judgement. The Personality card of an 11-2, and the Hidden Factor of a 20-2 and of a single 2.
- Crowley, Thoth deck (1944)
- Renamed Adjustment and numbered VIII; Lamed and Libra stay with it.
- EsoTerrier
- Read here as the weighing of things: fairness, consequence and the clear decision, with the sword as what follows the weighing.
Claims about it
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Waite moved Justice to XI.
disputedWhat the record shows: The Golden Dawn did, so that Leo's card comes before Libra's; Waite's 1909 deck was the first published deck to print it.
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Eleven is a master number and is sometimes left unreduced.
falseWhat the record shows: A numerology idea that no birth-card method uses. In Greer's sum 11 is Justice and reduces to 2, the High Priestess.
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Justice foretells the outcome of a lawsuit.
falseWhat the record shows: Waite's fortune-telling list mentions law. We quote it as history.
