Most people come to tarot out of plain curiosity. The deck has been in use for centuries, first as a card game, later as a way of looking at a question from a different angle.

What tarot cards are

A tarot deck holds 78 cards, each one with its own picture and meanings, divided into two parts.

The Major Arcana (22 cards)

These are the cards people recognise first: The Fool, The Empress, The Tower. They cover the large themes of a life, its beginnings and endings and long turns, and when several turn up in one reading there is usually more at stake than routine.

Major Arcana cards and their meanings

  • The Fool: new beginnings, impulse
  • The Magician: making things happen, resourcefulness
  • The High Priestess: intuition, the subconscious
  • The Empress: care, abundance
  • The Emperor: authority, structure
  • The Hierophant: tradition, teaching
  • The Lovers: a relationship, a choice
  • The Chariot: willpower, determination
  • Strength: courage, patience
  • The Hermit: solitude, wisdom
  • Wheel of Fortune: change, cycles
  • Justice: fairness, truth
  • The Hanged Man: a pause, a new angle
  • Death: an ending, transformation
  • Temperance: balance, measure
  • The Devil: addiction, materialism
  • The Tower: upheaval, revelation
  • The Star: hope, renewal
  • The Moon: illusion, fear
  • The Sun: joy, success
  • Judgement: reckoning, awakening
  • The World: completion, wholeness

The Minor Arcana (56 cards)

Fourteen cards in each of four suits: Cups, Pentacles, Swords and Wands. These cover ordinary life: feelings, money, thinking, effort. Where the Major Arcana describes the shape of a period, the Minor Arcana describes the days inside it.

Cups (emotions and relationships)

  • Ace: new love, compassion
  • Two: partnership, connection
  • Three: friendship, celebration
  • Four: apathy, rethinking what you have
  • Five: loss, grief
  • Six: nostalgia, childhood
  • Seven: too many options
  • Eight: walking away
  • Nine: contentment, gratitude
  • Ten: family happiness

Pentacles (money and material life)

  • Ace: opportunity, prosperity
  • Two: juggling, adaptability
  • Three: teamwork, skill
  • Four: security, holding on
  • Five: hardship, isolation
  • Six: generosity, balance
  • Seven: patience, investment
  • Eight: diligence, craft
  • Nine: independence, comfort
  • Ten: wealth, legacy

Swords (thought and conflict)

  • Ace: clarity, truth
  • Two: indecision, stalemate
  • Three: heartbreak, sorrow
  • Four: rest, recovery
  • Five: conflict, defeat
  • Six: transition, moving on
  • Seven: strategy, caution
  • Eight: restriction, self-imposed limits
  • Nine: anxiety, worry
  • Ten: an ending, collapse

Wands (energy, creativity and ambition)

  • Ace: inspiration, potential
  • Two: planning, decisions
  • Three: expansion, foresight
  • Four: celebration, community
  • Five: competition, friction
  • Six: recognition, success
  • Seven: holding your ground
  • Eight: speed, movement
  • Nine: persistence, boundaries
  • Ten: burden, hard work

How a tarot reading works

A reading means drawing cards and interpreting them together: the picture, the position, and how the cards sit with each other. It is not a forecast that locks anything in, more a prompt that helps you say out loud what you half know already.

Getting started

Choose a deck you actually like

Most people begin with the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. It has clear scenes, straightforward symbolism, and the largest body of guidebooks written around it. If another deck’s artwork pulls you in, start there instead.

Learn the deck slowly

Work through the cards one at a time. Notice who is in the picture and what they are doing before you read a meaning. Guidebooks help, but the point is to build your own sense of the card.

Practise with small draws

Pull one card a day and carry it through the day. When you want more, try three cards: past, present, future, or situation, action, outcome. Short readings done often teach faster than long ones done rarely.

Let your own response count

Memorising definitions only takes you so far. Notice your first reaction to a card, including the cards you dislike.

Common myths about tarot

You do not have to be psychic to read tarot. It is a skill, built the way any other skill is built.

The cards do not tell you what will happen. They describe tendencies and give you something to think with.

There are no rules you have to follow, only traditions you can borrow from, so read in the way that makes sense to you.

Why people keep reading tarot

It slows you down. You sit with a picture and a question and find out what you actually think, which is worth doing whether or not you believe anything mystical is going on.