A tarot deck contains 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana cards representing universal life themes and archetypes, and 56 Minor Arcana cards across four suits (Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles) covering everyday situations. Tarot is used as a reflective tool for self-examination, not literal fortune-telling.
- All 78 tarot cards divide into two groups: 22 Major Arcana (archetypal forces) and 56 Minor Arcana (everyday life across four suits).
- The Major Arcana runs from The Fool (0) to The World (21) and maps a symbolic arc of human experience sometimes called the Fool's Journey.
- Each Minor Arcana suit corresponds to an element: Wands (fire), Cups (water), Swords (air), Pentacles (earth).
- Tarot originated as a card game in 15th-century Italy; its use as a divination system did not emerge until 18th-century France.
- The Rider-Waite-Smith deck (1909) established the visual vocabulary that most modern tarot decks still follow.
What Are Tarot Cards?
A tarot deck is a set of 78 cards divided into two distinct sections. The first is the Major Arcana, 22 cards numbered 0 through 21, each depicting a named archetype or symbolic figure. The second is the Minor Arcana, 56 cards arranged across four suits that address the texture of daily life.
Tarot is not, in any rigorous sense, a fortune-telling system. Contemporary practitioners and scholars tend to describe it as a projective symbolic tool: the cards present imagery that prompts the reader to reflect on their circumstances, values, and choices. The meaning arises in the interaction between the symbol and the reader's own situation.
This distinction matters because it shifts tarot from a passive oracle into an active practice. You are not asking the cards what will happen. You are asking yourself what you notice, and why.
The Structure of a Tarot Deck
The 22 Major Arcana cards carry names and are considered to represent larger, more significant forces: The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, and so on through The World. When a reading draws heavily from the Major Arcana, many practitioners read that as a signal that significant or lasting themes are at play.
The 56 Minor Arcana cards are organized into four suits, each containing 14 cards: an Ace, cards numbered 2 through 10, and four Court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, King). The suits are Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles, each associated with an element and a broad domain of human experience.
Tarot cards first appeared in northern Italy in the early 15th century, most likely in Milan or Ferrara, as a card game called tarocchi. These early decks were hand-painted luxury objects commissioned by aristocratic families. The famous Visconti-Sforza deck, produced around 1450, is among the earliest surviving examples. At this stage, tarot had nothing to do with divination.
The association between tarot and esoteric meaning did not emerge until 18th-century France. In 1781, the Swiss clergyman and amateur antiquarian Antoine Court de Gebelin published an influential essay claiming that the tarot was a remnant of ancient Egyptian wisdom preserved by the Romani people. This claim is historically without foundation, but it proved enormously influential. It gave tarot a mythological origin story that captured the imagination of French occultists.
Shortly after Court de Gebelin's publication, a wigmaker and cartomancer using the name Etteilla became the first known professional tarot reader and published the first tarot-specific divination guide. He also redesigned a deck specifically for occult use. From this point forward, tarot's life as a divination system was effectively separate from its life as a card game. The two traditions coexisted but evolved independently.
By the late 19th century, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in Britain had incorporated tarot into its system of Kabbalistic and astrological correspondences. This synthesis produced the most influential tarot deck in history, the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, published in 1909.
The 22 Major Arcana
The Major Arcana cards are the symbolic heart of the tarot. Each one carries a name, a number, and a layered set of associations built up over centuries of use and interpretation. The sequence from The Fool to The World is sometimes read as the Fool's Journey, a metaphorical arc through the stages of human experience.
What follows is a reference guide to all 22 cards, with core keywords for upright interpretation. Reversed meanings (when cards appear upside-down) vary by tradition and reader preference; many experienced readers do not use reversals at all.
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck was published in December 1909 by the Rider Company in London. Its intellectual architect was Arthur Edward Waite, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and a prolific writer on Western esotericism. The artist was Pamela Colman Smith, also a Golden Dawn initiate, who painted all 78 cards in a single year.
Smith's most significant innovation was illustrating the numbered pip cards of the Minor Arcana with full narrative scenes rather than the abstract arrangements of suit symbols found in older decks. This made the cards far more accessible to readers working intuitively, because each card offered a human situation to interpret rather than a pattern to count. The deck became the standard against which nearly all subsequent English-language decks were measured.
Waite encoded Golden Dawn attributions throughout the imagery: Kabbalistic references on The Magician, astrological symbols on The World, Hermetic iconography throughout. For readers who want to pursue tarot as a system of esoteric study rather than simply as a reflective tool, the Golden Dawn layer of the RWS deck opens into a rich tradition of Western occult philosophy.
All 22 Major Arcana Cards and Their Meanings
| No. | Card | Core Meanings |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | The Fool | New beginnings, innocence, spontaneity, taking a leap of faith, openness to experience |
| I | The Magician | Willpower, skill, concentration, manifestation, using available resources effectively |
| II | The High Priestess | Intuition, mystery, inner knowing, the unconscious mind, patience and restraint |
| III | The Empress | Fertility, abundance, nature, creativity, nurturing energy, sensory experience |
| IV | The Emperor | Authority, structure, stability, fatherhood, order, the establishment of systems |
| V | The Hierophant | Tradition, spiritual guidance, institutions, shared belief, conformity, ritual |
| VI | The Lovers | Relationships, choices, personal values, alignment, significant partnerships |
| VII | The Chariot | Determination, control, victory, willpower directed outward, overcoming opposition |
| VIII | Strength | Courage, inner strength, patience, compassion, gentle mastery of impulse |
| IX | The Hermit | Solitude, inner guidance, reflection, withdrawal for contemplation, seeking wisdom |
| X | Wheel of Fortune | Cycles, fate, turning points, the shifting of circumstances, change that arrives from outside |
| XI | Justice | Fairness, truth, accountability, cause and effect, legal matters, balance of action and consequence |
| XII | The Hanged Man | Surrender, new perspective, suspension, voluntary pause, seeing from a different angle |
| XIII | Death | Endings, transition, change, the close of one chapter before another opens (rarely literal death) |
| XIV | Temperance | Balance, moderation, patience, blending opposites, integration over time |
| XV | The Devil | Bondage, materialism, shadow self, addiction, patterns that feel inescapable but are not |
| XVI | The Tower | Sudden change, upheaval, revelation, structures that collapse to make way for something new |
| XVII | The Star | Hope, renewal, inspiration, calm after difficulty, trust in what is coming |
| XVIII | The Moon | Illusion, fear, the unconscious, confusion, things that are not yet fully visible |
| XIX | The Sun | Joy, success, vitality, clarity, optimism, the pleasure of being fully present |
| XX | Judgement | Awakening, redemption, evaluation, a call to rise, accounting for past actions |
| XXI | The World | Completion, integration, wholeness, the successful end of a cycle, full embodiment |
Reading the Death Card
The Death card (XIII) is perhaps the most misunderstood in the deck. It almost never refers to physical death. In practice, it indicates an ending significant enough that what follows will be genuinely different from what came before. Think of it as the card of thresholds: a job ending, a relationship concluding, a phase of life completing itself.
The Rider-Waite-Smith image reinforces this interpretation. The skeletal figure on horseback moves through a scene that includes both fallen figures and, in the background, a sun rising between two towers. The card acknowledges what is finished while pointing toward what is beginning.
Reading The Tower
The Tower (XVI) is another card that produces anxiety in new readers. It depicts a tower struck by lightning, with figures falling from its heights. Its meaning is sudden, often unwelcome change: a disruption to something that felt stable. The key interpretive point is that The Tower typically refers to structures that were not as sound as they appeared. The disruption reveals something that was already unstable.
Experienced readers often note that The Tower, while uncomfortable to receive, can indicate necessary clearing. What falls was ready to fall.
The 56 Minor Arcana Overview
The Minor Arcana covers the details of lived experience: the arguments and reconciliations, the work and rest, the decisions made under pressure and the quiet satisfactions of daily life. Where the Major Arcana addresses overarching themes, the Minor Arcana addresses the specific texture of circumstances.
The four suits each carry a primary element and a corresponding domain. Within each suit, the numbered cards (Ace through 10) trace an arc from pure potential through complexity to resolution or culmination. The Court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, King) represent types of people or aspects of personality and can refer to actual people in the querent's life or to modes of approaching a situation.
Wands: Fire and Action
Wands are associated with the element of fire and with action, ambition, creativity, and will. They speak to what drives you: your passions, your projects, your sense of purpose. Wands readings often arise when questions concern career, creative work, motivation, or conflict.
The Ace of Wands is pure creative spark, the sense that something new wants to be made. The progression through the suit moves through the challenges of sustaining momentum, competition, and the complexities of ambition, reaching the Ten of Wands, which depicts the burden of carrying too much for too long. Court cards in Wands tend to be energetic, direct, and sometimes impulsive.
Cups: Water and Emotion
Cups are associated with the element of water and with the emotional life: love, relationships, intuition, imagination, and the inner world. Questions about relationships, emotional wellbeing, creative sensitivity, and spiritual connection tend to draw Cups cards.
The Ace of Cups represents the wellspring of emotional possibility, often associated with new love or a heart opening. The suit passes through the warmth of the Two of Cups (partnership, mutual recognition) and the grief of the Five of Cups (loss, mourning what is gone) before reaching the fulfillment of the Nine of Cups, sometimes called the "wish card." The Court cards of Cups are often described as intuitive, empathic, and emotionally attuned.
Swords: Air and Thought
Swords correspond to the element of air and to the domain of mind: thought, communication, conflict, truth, and decision-making. Swords cards are often uncomfortable, because the suit deals honestly with difficulty, conflict, and the consequences of choices. This is also what makes it valuable.
The Ace of Swords offers the clarity and cutting edge of a new idea or a hard truth. The suit includes some of the deck's most challenging cards: the Three of Swords (heartbreak, grief), the Nine of Swords (anxiety, sleepless worry), and the Ten of Swords (a painful ending). But it also contains the Six of Swords, which depicts transition away from turbulence, and the Page of Swords, associated with intellectual curiosity and honest inquiry.
Pentacles: Earth and Material Life
Pentacles correspond to the element of earth and to the material world: work, money, health, home, and the physical body. They address how we sustain ourselves and build stability over time. Pentacles cards appear when questions concern finances, career in practical terms, property, health, and long-term planning.
The Ace of Pentacles offers the seed of material opportunity. The suit is notable for cards depicting steady, patient labor: the Three of Pentacles (skilled craft, collaboration), the Seven of Pentacles (pausing to assess long-term work), and the Ten of Pentacles (generational wealth and stability, the fulfillment of material life). Court cards in Pentacles tend to be reliable, methodical, and grounded.
The Court Cards
Each suit contains four Court cards: Page, Knight, Queen, and King. These sixteen cards are among the more interpretively flexible in the deck. They can represent actual people in the querent's life, aspects of the querent's own personality, or approaches and attitudes relevant to the question at hand.
Pages tend to represent beginners or messengers, someone new to the energy of the suit or bringing news related to it. Knights represent active, sometimes extreme expressions of the suit's energy: the Knight of Swords charging ahead, the Knight of Cups pursuing romantic ideals. Queens represent the suit's energy expressed with maturity and depth, often inward-facing. Kings represent mastery and outward authority within the suit's domain.
Carl Jung's concept of archetypes offers one of the most productive secular frameworks for understanding the Major Arcana. Jung proposed that the human psyche contains universal patterns of experience shared across cultures: the Hero, the Shadow, the Anima, the Wise Old Man. Many of these map recognizably onto tarot figures. The Hermit corresponds to the Wise Old Man archetype. The Shadow finds a home in The Devil and The Moon. The High Priestess aligns with the Anima or the principle of unconscious wisdom.
From a psychological standpoint, tarot functions as what researchers sometimes call a projective tool: an ambiguous stimulus that the viewer fills in with their own associations. The symbolic imagery of a tarot card provides a structure loose enough for the reader to project meaning onto it, and in doing so, may surface thoughts, feelings, or perspectives that were not consciously accessible. This is not mysticism; it is a well-documented feature of how humans process symbolic imagery.
Researchers in the field of narrative therapy have noted that card-based reflection exercises can help clients articulate concerns they find difficult to express directly. The card becomes a third object, something outside both therapist and client, that can be discussed at a slight remove from the personal. Whether or not one holds any metaphysical view of tarot, this projective function has practical value as a tool for self-examination.
How to Read Tarot
Learning to read tarot is less about memorizing 78 definitions and more about developing a relationship with the symbolic language of the cards. Most experienced readers develop their own interpretive voice over time, one informed by the traditional meanings but shaped by their own understanding and experience.
That said, there are practical methods that help beginners build confidence and skill. What follows is a straightforward approach suited to those just beginning.
Choosing a Deck
For beginners, the Rider-Waite-Smith deck or a close derivative is the most practical choice. Its illustrated pip cards make intuitive reading far easier than decks with abstract symbols. Once you have developed fluency with one deck's visual language, moving to other decks becomes much more manageable.
If the RWS imagery does not appeal to you aesthetically, look for decks explicitly described as "RWS-based" or "RWS-compatible." These follow the same compositional structure while offering different art styles, which means your growing knowledge of card meanings will transfer directly.
Framing a Question
The quality of a tarot reading often depends on the quality of the question. Vague questions produce vague readings. Overly specific yes/no questions can limit the cards' capacity to offer nuance. The most productive questions tend to be open-ended and reflective: "What do I need to consider about this situation?" or "What is this pattern asking me to look at?"
Avoid questions that outsource decision-making entirely to the cards. The goal is to use the reading as a prompt for your own thinking, not to replace it. Questions framed around your own perspective and choices generally yield more useful readings than questions framed around predicting what others will do.
Cleansing and Connecting with Your Deck
Many readers practice some form of cleansing ritual when they receive a new deck or between readings. Common methods include knocking on the deck three times, passing it through incense smoke, leaving it in moonlight, or simply shuffling it thoroughly with the intention of clearing previous energy. The specific method matters less than the act of deliberate, intentional attention.
Before a reading, many practitioners take a moment to handle the cards, shuffle them while holding the question in mind, and simply be present with the deck. This serves a practical function: it slows the reader down and creates a mental shift from ordinary activity to reflective attention.
The three-card spread is the best starting point for new readers. It is simple enough to interpret clearly, but rich enough to provide genuine insight. There are two common positional frameworks for this spread:
Past / Present / Future: Lay three cards from left to right. The first card addresses what has led to the current situation. The second addresses where things stand now. The third addresses where current patterns are pointing, or what may emerge if things continue as they are.
Situation / Action / Outcome: The first card describes the situation as it stands. The second suggests an action or approach that would be helpful. The third indicates a likely outcome if that approach is taken. This framing is particularly useful for practical questions about decisions and choices.
To begin: shuffle the deck while holding your question in mind. When you feel ready, cut the deck and draw three cards from the top. Lay them face-down in a row, then turn them over one at a time. Before consulting any reference, take a moment to simply look at each card: notice what you see, what draws your attention, what feeling the image evokes. Write down your immediate response before moving to the traditional meaning. Your intuitive reaction is part of the reading.
Common Spreads
Beyond the single card and three-card spreads, the Celtic Cross is the most widely used multi-card spread in tarot. It uses ten cards and addresses a situation from multiple angles: the central issue, crossing influences, past, future, the querent's perspective, external factors, hopes and fears, and the overall trajectory. It is more complex to interpret but offers considerably more depth.
Single-card draws are useful for a daily practice of reflection. Drawing one card each morning as a focus for the day builds familiarity with the deck quickly and helps readers develop their own relationship with each card's energy over time.
Choosing Your First Tarot Deck
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck remains the most recommended starting point for a straightforward reason: more tarot resources, books, courses, and guides use it as their reference than any other deck. When you are learning, having your deck match the imagery described in your reference materials is a significant advantage.
The original RWS artwork was produced in 1909 and is now in the public domain. Several publishers produce faithful reproductions at various price points. The Pamela Colman Smith Centennial Edition (published by U.S. Games Systems) is widely regarded as a high-quality reproduction that stays close to the original artwork's colors and proportions.
Other Beginner-Friendly Options
The Modern Witch Tarot by Lisa Sterle reimagines the RWS imagery with contemporary figures and diverse representation. It follows the RWS structure card for card, making it fully compatible with RWS-based learning materials while offering a more modern aesthetic. It is an excellent choice for readers who find the original RWS imagery dated.
The Everyday Witch Tarot by Deborah Blake offers illustrated cards with a gentle, approachable style and includes a companion guidebook oriented toward beginners. The Radiant Rider-Waite Tarot brightens the original artwork's colors significantly, which some readers find makes the imagery easier to read at a glance.
Decks to Consider After the Basics
The Thoth Tarot, designed by Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris between 1938 and 1943, offers a more intellectually demanding system rooted in Golden Dawn Kabbalah and Thelema. It is rewarding for readers interested in esoteric depth but uses different card names and a different organizational logic from RWS. It is better approached after developing fluency with a standard deck.
The Marseille Tarot represents the older French tradition that preceded RWS. Its pip cards use abstract suit symbols rather than illustrated scenes, and its Major Arcana imagery is distinct from the RWS tradition. For readers interested in tarot's history as a card game and its early divinatory use, the Marseille tradition offers a fascinating alternative lineage.
The 78 cards of the tarot are a vocabulary. Like any vocabulary, you learn it gradually, through use and repetition, through the particular contexts in which you encounter each word. A card you first understood abstractly will take on a different texture when it appears in a reading about something you are actually living through.
The most effective approach is to begin simply. Choose a reliable deck, learn the two-part structure of Major and Minor Arcana, and start drawing single cards. Read slowly. Write down your observations before consulting meanings. Notice which cards appear repeatedly. Over time, the vocabulary becomes yours, and the readings become less an act of looking things up and more an act of genuine reflection.
Tarot is a practice, not a test. There is no final meaning to arrive at, only the conversation between the symbol and the moment in which you encounter it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are tarot card meanings?
Tarot card meanings are the symbolic interpretations assigned to each of the 78 cards in a tarot deck. The 22 Major Arcana cards represent major life themes and archetypal forces, while the 56 Minor Arcana cards address everyday situations across four suits: Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles. Meanings are not fixed rules but interpretive frameworks that the reader applies in the context of a specific question and situation.
How many cards are in a tarot deck?
A standard tarot deck contains 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana cards numbered 0 through 21, and 56 Minor Arcana cards divided into four suits (Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles), each containing cards Ace through 10 plus four Court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, King).
What is the best tarot deck for beginners?
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck is widely recommended for beginners because its cards feature fully illustrated scenes on every card, including the numbered Minor Arcana. This pictorial system makes intuitive interpretation far easier than older decks that use abstract pip symbols for the numbered cards. Most available tarot guidebooks and learning resources also reference RWS imagery, which makes it straightforward to use alongside study materials.
Can tarot cards predict the future?
Most contemporary tarot practitioners and scholars frame tarot as a reflective and symbolic tool rather than a literal fortune-telling device. The cards prompt self-examination by presenting symbolic imagery that the reader interprets in relation to their current circumstances and questions. A reading may suggest tendencies or likely directions based on current patterns, but it does not determine fixed outcomes.
What is the difference between Major and Minor Arcana?
The Major Arcana consists of 22 cards representing universal archetypes and significant life themes, such as The Fool, The Tower, and The World. These cards are considered to address larger, more lasting forces and turning points. The Minor Arcana consists of 56 cards across four suits that address day-to-day events, emotions, decisions, and practical matters. Both are essential to a complete reading.
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- Dummett, Michael. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City. Duckworth, 1980.
- Farley, Helen. A Cultural History of Tarot: From Entertainment to Esotericism. I.B. Tauris, 2009.
- Jung, C.G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Princeton University Press, 1959.
- Pollack, Rachel. Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom. Thorsons, 1980.
- Waite, Arthur Edward. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Rider and Company, 1911.