Understanding the Tarot Card Deck

Mission: Understanding the Tarot Card Deck

There's no doubt that the tarot holds a great deal of fascination for so many of us. After all, it can help us focus our concentration and powers of intuition on the life issues we face, and help us carve out a path that will lead to greater satisfaction.

However, when it comes to actually understanding the tarot card deck, many of us feel a bit flustered, preferring to rely on the skills of an experienced reader. Now, this doesn't necessarily have to be the case. All we need to do is break the deck down into its ordered divisions and begin familiarizing ourselves with them.

Although there are hundreds of different tarot decks in circulation, there are some basic things they all have in common. Let's take a closer look.

Breakdown of the Deck

To begin, every tarot deck has a total of 78 cards, and each of these cards falls into one of two basic categories: the Major Arcana or Minor Arcana.

Major Arcana

Think of this portion of the deck as the star of the show. Here you'll encounter the first 22 cards of the deck, and these cards hold the greatest importance in any reading, although the assistance of the rest of the deck is needed to help fully interpret their individual meanings.

Minor Arcana

The next 56 cards in this numbered deck make up the Minor Arcana. Although these cards may seem slightly less important than those that make up the Major Arcana, you cannot properly interpret a reading without them. Think of this portion of the deck as setting the stage for our "Major" players.

The Four Suits

Within the Minor Arcana, we'll find a further division of the cards into four basic suits, just as found in a normal deck of playing cards. In this case, these suits may have slightly different names according to which style deck you're using, but you should be able to identify the suits in your deck with the ones below.

• Wands: The focus of this suit is on action and personal development.
• Cups: This suit mainly pertains to matters of love.
• Swords: This suit centers on life changes and conclusions.
• Pentacles: The focus of this suit is on rewards, including personal comforts and money issues.

Each of these suits is similar to any playing deck, with a total of 14 cards each. You'll find the Ace opens each suit, followed by the numbered cards two through ten, as well as the royal face cards of the Page, Knight, Queen and King.

The suits serve to giver greater meaning to the overall context of the entire reading. Think of these cards as a director setting up a scene. For instance, if you notice an abundance of Pentacles in a given layout or "spread", you can assume that money/career and other physical rewards are going to be the main focus of the reading. Likewise, if you notice an overwhelming presence of Cups in the spread, this suggests that matters of romance/emotion are at the forefront of this particular reading.

Directions and Meanings

When drawing cards for a spread, it's important to understand that the directions the cards emerge in have a definite effect on their meanings. When a card is turned to face the reader, its meaning should be interpreted as the original meaning assigned to the individual card.

However, when the card is turned over and naturally faces away from the reader, the meaning is now interpreted as opposite from the card's original meaning. For example, The Fool (0) signifies innocence and enthusiasm, but when it faces away it can mean that innocence has been lost, and enthusiasm has dulled.

Conclusion

Hopefully, understanding the tarot card deck will instill you with enough confidence to explore further. Remember, no one becomes a tarot expert in a day, but if you apply yourself, you'll advance your skills and eventually become quite adept at interpreting the mysteries contained in every spread.

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