Tarot is a deck of 78 illustrated cards used for reflection and divination. Each card stands for an experience that every person recognizes: a beginning, a loss, a hard choice, a stroke of luck. Laid out together, the cards tell a story about a situation, and that story helps you to think.
How the deck is built
The 78 cards fall into two groups.
The Major Arcana is a set of 22 numbered cards, from the Fool to the World. These show the large themes and turning points of a life.
The Minor Arcana is a set of 56 cards in four suits, much like ordinary playing cards. Each suit runs from Ace to Ten and then has four court cards: Page, Knight, Queen, and King. These show everyday events and the people involved in them.
The four suits
| Suit | Element | Area of life |
|---|---|---|
| Wands | Fire | Action, ambition, creativity, and energy |
| Cups | Water | Feelings, relationships, and intuition |
| Swords | Air | Thought, communication, conflict, and truth |
| Pentacles | Earth | Work, money, the body, and the home |
The suits match the four elements, which makes them easy for a witch to remember. Note that tarot gives Wands to Fire and Swords to Air, which is the reverse of the wand and the athame in our elements table. Both arrangements are traditional. Some decks call the suits by other names, such as Staves, Chalices, Blades, and Coins.
Reading the numbers
You do not need to memorize 56 separate meanings. Combine the number with the suit.
| Card | Theme |
|---|---|
| Ace | A new beginning, the pure potential of the suit |
| Two | Choice, balance, partnership |
| Three | First results, growth, cooperation |
| Four | Stability, rest, structure |
| Five | Conflict, loss, disruption |
| Six | Recovery, harmony, help given or received |
| Seven | Testing, reflection, perseverance |
| Eight | Movement, effort, change |
| Nine | Near completion, the suit at full strength |
| Ten | Completion, an ending, the start of a new cycle |
| Page | A student, a message, curiosity |
| Knight | Action, movement, pursuit |
| Queen | Maturity turned inward: care, understanding, influence |
| King | Maturity turned outward: authority, responsibility, leadership |
The Three of Cups, for example, is growth in the realm of feeling: friendship and celebration. The Five of Pentacles is disruption in the realm of money and the body: hardship.
The Major Arcana
| Number | Card | Key themes |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | The Fool | Beginnings, trust, a leap into the unknown |
| 1 | The Magician | Skill, will, using what you have |
| 2 | The High Priestess | Intuition, mystery, inner knowledge |
| 3 | The Empress | Abundance, nurture, the natural world |
| 4 | The Emperor | Structure, authority, stability |
| 5 | The Hierophant | Tradition, teaching, shared belief |
| 6 | The Lovers | Union, values, a meaningful choice |
| 7 | The Chariot | Determination, direction, self-control |
| 8 | Strength | Courage, patience, gentle power |
| 9 | The Hermit | Solitude, reflection, inner guidance |
| 10 | Wheel of Fortune | Cycles, change, turning points |
| 11 | Justice | Fairness, truth, consequences |
| 12 | The Hanged Man | Pause, surrender, a new point of view |
| 13 | Death | An ending that makes way for something new. It very rarely refers to physical death. |
| 14 | Temperance | Balance, moderation, patience |
| 15 | The Devil | Attachment, habit, feeling trapped |
| 16 | The Tower | Sudden upheaval, the collapse of something false |
| 17 | The Star | Hope, healing, renewal |
| 18 | The Moon | Uncertainty, dreams, things half seen |
| 19 | The Sun | Joy, success, vitality |
| 20 | Judgement | Awakening, reckoning, a call to change |
| 21 | The World | Completion, wholeness, arrival |
In some decks, Strength and Justice exchange places, so that Justice is 8 and Strength is 11.
A very short history
Tarot cards first appeared in northern Italy in the fifteenth century, where they were used to play a card game. Nobody connected them with fortune telling for another three hundred years. In late eighteenth-century France, writers on the occult began to claim that the cards held ancient secret wisdom, and the practice of reading them spread from there.
Most modern decks follow the pattern of one published in London in 1909, the first widely available deck in which every card, including the numbered cards of the suits, carried a full illustrated scene. If your deck has pictures on every card, it almost certainly descends from that one.
How to do a reading
- Settle. Sit somewhere quiet and take a few slow breaths.
- Ask a question. Open questions work best: "What should I understand about this situation?"
- Shuffle in any way that is comfortable, while keeping the question in mind. Stop when it feels right.
- Draw and lay out the cards in the positions of your chosen spread.
- Look before you read. What is happening in the picture? What do you notice first? How does it make you feel? Only then consult the meanings.
- Tell the story. Link the cards together in answer to the question.
- Write it down, with the date.
Two spreads to begin with
The daily card. Draw one card each morning and ask what you should be aware of today. In the evening, note how the card showed up. This is the best way to learn the deck.
The three-card spread. Lay three cards in a row. Read them as past, present, and likely direction, or as the situation, the action to take, and the probable result.
Reversed cards
A card that appears upside down is called reversed. Some readers give reversed cards a blocked, delayed, or inward version of the usual meaning. Others turn every card upright and ignore reversals altogether. Both approaches are common. As a beginner, read all the cards upright until you know them.
Myths you can ignore
- Your first deck must be a gift. It need not be. Choose one that you like. See choosing your first tarot deck.
- Nobody else may touch your cards. That is a personal preference and not a rule.
- The cards are dangerous. They are printed cardboard. What they stir up is already in you.
- The cards show a fixed fate. They show where things stand and where they are heading. What you do next is up to you.