Across the depth-psychology corpus, ‘Strength’ is not a simple attribute but a philosophically charged term whose meaning shifts decisively according to its relational context. In the Tarot literature, the card Strength — positioned by Waite at VIII and by the older Marseilles sequence at XI — stages the encounter between conscious will and instinctual energy as a drama of mutual recognition rather than domination: Sallie Nichols reads it through Jung as the anima’s mediation between ego and the lion of instinct, while Rachel Pollack frames it as the ‘feminine’ counterpart to the Chariot’s ‘masculine’ force of control. Jodorowsky elaborates a semiotic of balanced communication between intellectual and animal natures, figured in the infinite-loop gesture. In the I Ching traditions, particularly the Taoist commentaries of Liu Yiming and the Wang Bi lineage, strength (yang, qian) is the cosmological substrate of creation itself — the single energy expressed through the four seasons — but always requiring the discipline of timing: strength promoted excessively becomes pride; strength requiring flexibility becomes wisdom. Onians traces an archaic European locus of strength to the seed-bearing knees, grounding the concept in pre-Socratic vitalism. The central tension in nearly every treatment is between strength as sovereign force and strength as relational achievement — between the lion’s raw power and the lady’s transformative touch.
Problems belonging to the masculine, logos side of life will give way to the basic questions of instinctual nature, which belong to the realm of Eros, the feminine principle. This change is dramatized in card eleven, Strength.
Nichols argues that the Strength card marks a structural shift in the Tarot’s psychological narrative from logos-dominated ego development to the feminine, Eros-governed domain of instinct and relational integration.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980thesis
Strength teaches us that essential stakes are involved in this relationship with our animal nature and that we should not neglect this part of ourselves.
Jodorowsky reads Strength as an injunction toward conscious relationship with the animal unconscious, where repression and creative dialogue are the two poles of an irreducibly high-stakes encounter.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004thesis
Creation, development, fruition, consummation, the successive movements of the four seasons, all are carried out by one strength; the one is the body, the four are the function.
Liu Yiming’s Taoist commentary identifies strength as the single cosmological body whose fourfold seasonal expressions constitute the entire cycle of existence, grounding ‘strength’ in the primal yang energy shared by Heaven and humanity.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
Creation, development, fruition, consummation, the successive movements of the four seasons, all are carried out by one strength; the one is the body, the four are the function. The body is that whereby the function is carried out.
This parallel Taoist formulation posits strength as the unitary ontological ground from which all temporal functions derive, making it simultaneously cosmic principle and human inheritance.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
if she does not give the beast appropriate food, he will swallow her up, body and soul. Psychologically this could mean that the hero’s eros side, his capacity for relatedness, would be obliterated.
Nichols demonstrates that the Strength card’s meaning hinges on the ego’s adequate provision for instinctual needs, warning that neglect of the beast results in possession by archetypal affects that annihilate conscious relatedness.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980thesis
the ‘feminine’ qualities of intuition and spontaneous emotion are far from weakness. To release your deepest emotions with love and faith requires great courage as well as strength.
Pollack argues that Strength in the Tarot reframes cultural assumptions about power by presenting the feminine mode — intuitive, emotional, relational — as a form of courage equal to, and complementary with, rational-will mastery.
, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980thesis
The way to act with strength and use firmness requires appropriate timing. Creation, development, fruition, and consummation can then be strong everywhere, and strength cannot be damaged anywhere.
Liu Yiming insists that strength is not diminished by restraint but is in fact preserved and universalized through timely application — a critique of brute force in favor of aligned, rhythmic action.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
To be strong but violate decorum would result in misfortune, and, with misfortune, strength would be lost. Thus the noble man with his great strength remains obedient to the demands of decorum.
Wang Bi’s commentary on Great Strength establishes that ethical form — decorum — is not a constraint upon strength but its necessary condition; strength severed from rectitude destroys itself.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
The attribute of Thunder is motion, and that of Heaven is strength. This gua is a union of motion with strength, resulting in Great Strength.
Alfred Huang’s I Ching exegesis shows Great Strength as the structural union of two trigrams — motion (Thunder) and strength (Heaven) — such that true power is always dynamic, never merely static force.
, The Complete I Ching: The Definitive Translation, 1998supporting
strength and experience are required in dealing with instinctual drives if one is not to be overwhelmed or carried away. The lady pictured in Strength appears to possess the insight and fortitude needed to conquer the lion.
Drawing on mythological parallels (Europa, Leda), Nichols argues that conscious engagement with instinctual drives demands both experiential strength and insight — and that the Strength figure achieves this without suppression or merger.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
Using yang means using strength; the dragon, as the radiance of consciousness, changes unfathomably, able to ascend and able to descend, able to be large or small, able to hide or appear.
The Taoist text figures the proper use of strength through the dragon as consciousness — protean, context-sensitive, operating at the intersection of concealment and manifestation rather than through fixed assertion.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
In the Golden Dawn’s table of correspondences this card is linked with the astrological sign Leo, which is why Strength, with her lion, was placed here in what is the traditional position of Justice.
Place’s historical analysis traces the controversial positional swap of Strength and Justice in the Waite deck to Golden Dawn astrological correspondences, with interpretive consequences for the Platonic structure of the Major Arcana.
, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, 2005supporting
The two ways of reacting to the required change of course can be seen in the patriarchal and matriarchal manner of reading the following card (Strength).
Banzhaf identifies Strength as the card at which the hero’s journey demands a decisive attitudinal shift, and frames the two possible responses — patriarchal resistance or matriarchal acceptance — as structurally opposed orientations toward instinctual reality.
, Tarot and the Journey of the Hero, 2000supporting
In the beginning of nurturance of the great, if you promote strength there will be misfortune, if you still strength there will be good fortune; there is danger.
Liu Yiming’s paradoxical counsel reveals that in certain phases of cultivation, the active deployment of strength is itself the danger, while its deliberate stilling constitutes the higher exercise of yang energy.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
if fidelity in action has faults, there is no benefit. This is fidelity not knowing when enough is enough. The benefit of the path of fidelity is all a matter of gaining balance and correct orientation.
The text warns that strength applied with fidelity but without calibration becomes self-defeating, establishing balance and correct orientation — not force — as the ultimate criterion of genuine strength in cultivation.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
When one advances too speedily, one will also regress rapidly; this is like breaking one’s right arm. This is bringing failure on oneself, and is not the fault of anyone else. This is the richness of strength incapable of yielding.
This passage indicts a one-sided cultivation of strength that excludes flexibility, demonstrating that the failure to yield is not a sign of power but of a developmental incapacity that eventually dismantles the practitioner’s own achievement.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
The Emperor contributes security, Strength creative energy. Material and social power finds support founded on instinctive forces.
Jodorowsky’s combinatorial reading of Strength with The Emperor models strength as the instinctual-creative foundation that vitally animates — yet also tensions — the structures of social and material order.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
the belief that in them in a special degree is the strength. Hesiod seems to imply that the strength is in the liquid there which is also the seed.
Onians traces an archaic Greek physiological-vitalist conception in which bodily strength and generative seed share a common substrate localized in the knees, providing a pre-philosophical basis for the later metaphysical association of strength with life-force and sexuality.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
The paradox of The Chariot is that we must attend to the development of a strong ego, while battling with unconscious drives and impulses which can disturb or deform ego.
Hamaker-Zondag frames ego-strengthening as an inherently paradoxical process in which the very drives that threaten ego stability must be acknowledged and navigated rather than repressed, situating Strength’s thematic territory within the Chariot’s preparatory work.
, Tarot as a Way of Life: A Jungian Approach to the Tarot, 1997supporting
When strength is used flexibly, and one can store away the yang energy when yin energy has just arisen, this is being good at withdrawal, without personal entanglements.
This passage treats the timely concealment of strength — withdrawal executed with flexibility — as a positive expression of yang mastery rather than its defeat.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986aside
at the exact centre of the whole Major Arcana, lies Justice, carefully balancing the scales between inner and outer, past and future, rationality and intuition, knowledge and experience.
Pollack’s structural analysis of the Major Arcana positions the Strength/Justice transposition as a question about which principle — equitable balance or embodied courage — occupies the center of the soul’s journey.
, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980aside
Weakness overcome by strength, those without ability become capable. So in the path of practice of the Tao, it is not a matter of the level of people’s talents or qualities, but of whether or not they have determination.
Liu Yiming democratizes strength by subordinating native talent to determination, arguing that the will to cultivate — not innate capacity — is the decisive factor in whether weakness yields to strength.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986aside
Yielding docilely to accumulate strength, though firm one is still weak; the development is not great, the action is not far-reaching.
This passage cautions that passive accumulation of strength through docility, while preserving yang energy, remains insufficient for significant development without the complement of active, purposeful deployment.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986aside