Eight of Disks definitions

Rider-Waite: 8 of Pentacles

An artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies.

Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage.

Reversed Card meanings

Voided ambition, vanity, cupidity, exaction, usury. It may also signify the possession of skill, in the sense of the ingenious mind turned to cunning and intrigue.

Additional Meanings: The Querent will be compromised in a matter of money-lending.

Book of Thoth - Prudence - 8 of Disks

The Eight of Disks is called Prudence. This card is a great deal better than the last two, because, in purely material matters, especially those relating to actual money, there is a sort of strength in doing nothing at all. The problem of every financier is, first of all, to gain time; if his resources are sufficient, he always beats the market. This is the card of "putting something away for a rainy day".

Its attribution is Sol in Virgo; it is the card of the husbandman; he can do little more than sow the seed, sit back, and wait for the harvest. There is nothing noble about this aspect of the card; like all the Eights, it represents an element of calculation, and gambling is securely profitable if one has adjusted the cagnotte properly.

There is yet another point which complicates this card. The Eight of Disks represents the geomantic figure Populus, which is an easy-going figure, and at the same time stable. One thinks of Queen Victoria's time, of a man who is "something in the City" rolling up to Town with Albert the Good advertized by his watch- chain and his frock-coat; on the surface he is very affable, but he is nobody's fool.

More information

Golden Dawn - Lord of Prudence

Family obligations fulfilled bring bounty to all; family obligations ignored bring destruction; wise rule; control of a situation used or misused. Excellent skill.

Mathers: 8 of Pentacles

A dark Girl, Beauty, Candor, Chastity, Innocence, Modesty

Reversed Card meanings

Flattery, Usury, Hypocrisy, Shifty.

Etteilla: 8 of Disks

A Dark Girl, Passive, Great Night.

Reversed Card meanings

Lack of Ambition, Avarice, Usury.

Thierens: 8 of Disks

TRADITION

A dark girl, honest girl. Reversed: usury, voided ambitions, vanity, cupidity, avarice. W. says: "Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business." Another version has also: abundance, hospitality, politeness, kind reception, majority, augmentation, etc.

THEORY

It is the Fire on the Twelfth house. This has not much to do with useful work directly, nor with employment, but very much with skill and ingenuity, genial finding-out of the nature of things, so 'craftsmanship' may stand. For the rest, it is the house of offering, devotion, self-undoing, imprisonment and treason. The combination of the fire of the heart with it produces very different effects. Above all it gives skill and bravery, far above the average, outdoing the commonplace, neglecting fashion, sinning against tradition but widening the views and outlook. Dexterity will ensue from it. In matters of the heart it always tends to the unusual, superhuman, exotic, wayward, strange or dreamy. The illustration of the card is to be taken more as a warning against the dangers of this house than as a direct descriptive image of its nature; as a sort of hint: keep to your work, do not let yourself be led astray or misguided. It is also the house of the sick, the hospital and the addiction of 'hospitality' may well allude to this fact. Charity comes under it. That ambitions are wrecked in this house is correct in general, still the pentacles are never strong in any evil sense, and they are apt to wreck fortunes or bubble reputations rather than ambitions. With 'avarice' it has nothing to do whatever, as far as we can see. The 'dark girl' is another question: apart from the court-cards the ace is very often taken to indicate a boy or youth, the eight a girl. The cups are generally taken to denote fair people, the pentacles dark people. Apart from this Eteilla makes the cards of wands — ace to ten — stand for young people, from one to twenty years of age. The reason for this we have not found out. If the eight always indicates a girl (which may be so because the eight always falls upon a house of water, which is entirely feminine in its nature), and the fiery pentacles must relate to dark-haired or even dark-skinned people, then the indication is right, and we shall accept it as far as it goes.

CONCLUSION

Devotion to what is not a prescribed duty, charity, skill, artistic ability, work done under inspiration, dexterity, uncommon qualities, perhaps geniality or even genius. Researches into the mysteries of Nature; nursing, work in hospitals or sanatoria, and these institutions themselves. In weak cases misleading appearances, making a useless show of activity. In very strong cases there is an artistic or genial ability, which will be only appreciated later. There will generally be sacrifice accompanying a work. Work for hospitals or prisons. Good card for a medical man or a clergyman. In weak cases there may be Bohemian love ending in degradation, depravation, waste of money, etc., though never by this card alone. On the contrary, it may indicate the conversion of a good-for-nothing to labour. Dark girl.