Meet the 78 Tarot Cards: Major & Minor Arcana

One Deck, Two Worlds

Think of the 78 tarot cards as a storybook in two parts:

The Major Arcana (22 cards): numbered 0 to XXI, these cards deal with life's big themes, such as beginnings, choices, transformation, hope and completion.
The Minor Arcana (56 cards): four suits of 14 cards each, describing the people, events and details of everyday life.

The word "arcana" comes from Latin and means "secrets" or "mysteries." If the Major Arcana are the chapters of your life story, the Minor Arcana are the paragraphs inside each chapter.

In a real reading, the two usually appear side by side. The Major Arcana name the core lesson, while the Minor Arcana show how that lesson is playing out in your day-to-day life. Together they give a reading both depth and practical, down-to-earth detail.

The Major Arcana: A 22-Step Journey

The Major Arcana begin with The Fool at number 0, pass through figures such as The Magician, The High Priestess and The Empress, and arrive at The World, number XXI. Many teachers call this sequence "the Fool's Journey": an open-hearted traveler learns, is tested, loses something, is renewed and finally comes full circle.

When several Major Arcana cards appear in one reading, it usually means the situation carries deeper, longer-lasting significance for you. For the full story, read The Major Arcana.

The Minor Arcana: Four Suits × 14 Cards

Every suit contains:

Number cards (pips): Ace through Ten, ten cards that trace a situation from its first spark to its conclusion.
Court cards: Page, Knight, Queen and King, four cards that often stand for people, personalities or the attitude you bring to something.

Each suit speaks to a different area of life:

Wands: action, passion and creativity, as in the Ace of Wands.
Cups: emotions, relationships and intuition, as in the Two of Cups.
Swords: thoughts, communication and conflict.
Pentacles: money, work, the body and the material world.

You'll find more detail in The Four Suits and The Court Cards.

What Makes the Rider-Waite-Smith Deck Special

Before the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, many decks showed only a simple arrangement of suit symbols on the number cards, so the Three of Wands was literally three sticks. Pamela Colman Smith gave every number card a full scene instead. The Ten of Swords, for instance, shows a figure lying face down beneath a dark sky, yet the first light of dawn is breaking on the horizon. Because so much of the meaning lives in the picture, you can often understand a card just by looking closely, which is exactly why this deck is so friendly to beginners.

Remembering Cards with "Number + Suit"

Fifty-six minor cards can sound like a lot, but there's a clear pattern behind them. Combine two clues, the stage suggested by the number and the area of life ruled by the suit, and you can work out the heart of most cards on your own.

Fives, for example, tend to point to challenge and upheaval, while Swords concern the mind and conflict. Put them together and the Five of Swords suggests a clash where winning comes at a cost. For the full system, see Number Symbolism.

Memory tip: don't try to learn all 78 cards at once. Draw one card a day, study the picture and jot down a few keywords. In about three months, the whole deck will feel like an old friend.