The Tarot Deck Explained: Major Arcana, Minor Arcana and Court Cards
A tarot deck has 78 cards, but its structure is simple once you see it. Learn the pattern, and you can make a good guess about almost any card before you look it up.
The Major Arcana: 22 big lessons
The Major Arcana run from 0, The Fool, to 21, The World. Many readers see them as a journey: The Fool sets out, meets teachers such as The Magician and The High Priestess, faces tests such as The Tower, and finds renewal in The Star and The Sun. In a reading, a Major Arcana card points to a bigger theme: a turning point, a lesson or a chapter of life rather than a passing mood.
The Minor Arcana: four suits of everyday life
The other 56 cards are split into four suits of fourteen. Each suit is linked to an element and an area of life:
Wands (fire): action, ambition, creativity and passion. Cups (water): feelings, relationships, intuition. Swords (air): thoughts, words, conflict and decisions. Pentacles (earth): money, work, the body and the material world.
If you know the suit, you already know what area of life a card is talking about.
The numbers tell the story
Within each suit the numbered cards follow a rough arc. Aces are beginnings and raw potential. Twos are choices and partnerships. Threes are first results and growth. Fours are stability, sometimes stagnation. Fives are challenge and loss. Sixes bring recovery and exchange. Sevens test your resolve. Eights are movement and mastery. Nines are near-completion, and tens are the full cycle, for better or worse.
So the Five of Cups is a challenge in the area of feelings (grief, disappointment), and the Ten of Pentacles is the full cycle of material life (family, legacy, security).
The court cards: people and attitudes
Each suit has four court cards. Pages are students and messengers, curious and new to things. Knights are action, sometimes too much of it. Queens are mature, inward mastery of the suit; Kings are outward mastery and leadership. A court card can describe a person in your life, a role you’re playing, or an attitude the situation asks of you. The Queen of Cups, for example, may be a caring friend, or a reminder to treat yourself with the same empathy.
Putting it together
When you meet an unfamiliar card, ask three questions: Major or Minor? Which suit and element? Which number or court rank? “Eight of Wands”: Minor, fire, movement. Fast-moving action and news. That’s almost exactly its traditional meaning. Then look at the picture, and read the card’s full meaning to add the details.
Try it now
Frequently asked questions
Why are there 78 cards?
Tarot grew out of 15th-century Italian playing cards: four suits of fourteen plus a set of trump cards that became the 22 Major Arcana.
Which cards should I learn first?
Start with the 22 Major Arcana and the four Aces. Then learn the suits through their numbers and court cards.
Are some cards “bad”?
No card is simply good or bad. Even The Tower or Death speak about change that clears the way for something new.
More guides: How to Read Tarot Cards: A Beginner’s Guide, How to Ask Tarot a Question (With 30 Examples), Reversed Tarot Cards: What They Mean and How to Read Them, Yes or No Tarot Card Meanings: The Full List of 78 Cards, Tarot Card Combinations: How Cards Change Each Other, Tarot Spreads for Beginners: Which One to Choose, How to Keep a Tarot Journal (and Why It Helps).