The 22 Major Arcana Tarot Cards Explained

Tarot can be seen as a map, drawn from symbolic patterns and signs, marking milestones along the inner journey. When used well, it can offer profound insight into the unknown.

A traditional tarot deck contains seventy-eight cards: twenty-two Major Arcana (numbered 0 to 21), sixteen Court Cards, and forty Minor Arcana.

Major Arcana: The answers or messages from these cards address major themes or key situations in your life. They also convey universal, big-picture lessons that help you respond to the important questions you face now.

Court Cards: These cards often point to significant people in your life. They can indicate what you need to learn or hope to master, and they highlight particular qualities to develop.

Minor Arcana: These cards speak to smaller answers and secondary issues, usually tied to more immediate aspects of daily life. They are divided into four suits, each containing fourteen cards:

• Wands, governed by the element of fire. These cards represent creative life force and initiative (often the active/masculine principle) and are associated with perception, intuition, vision, and action.
• Swords, governed by the element of air. They reflect the realm of thoughts, truth, ideas, and communication, including clarity, analysis, conflict, and decision-making.
• Cups, governed by the element of water. This suit reflects your emotional and spiritual state—love, feelings, empathy, and contemplation. It is easily influenced by surrounding energies and shows how feeling-based energy can shape your life.
• Pentacles, governed by the element of earth. These cards point to external, material, and physical realities. These externals reflect your inner state and relate to health, the body, nutrition, clothing, wealth, poverty, and abundance.

Each tarot card carries symbolism that points to your inner thoughts, subconscious motivations, hidden fears and desires, as well as your personality, long-term path, and vulnerabilities.

Each tarot card also represents a journey filled with joy, pain, hope, change, and rebirth, reflecting the human experience—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Each tarot card can personify a character type, such as a warm and loving mother, a traditional and upright spiritual leader, an indomitable warrior, or a wise hermit. They portray real individuals and also represent parts of yourself.

Each tarot card has multiple meanings. For example, The Lovers can represent romance as well as choices in love; it can signify both physical love and spiritual love. Similarly, The Chariot can symbolize victory and conquest, as well as power and conflict.

Additionally, each tarot card carries both positive and challenging meanings, depending on whether the card is upright or reversed. For instance, The Moon upright can represent ideals, while reversed it signifies confusion; The Devil upright can represent temptation and downfall, while reversed it indicates liberation from bondage.

The twenty-two Major Arcana represent different stages of life, each with its own lessons, including:

• 0, The Fool: Embarking on the journey of life with innocence and fearlessness.
• 1, The Magician: Learning the art of communication and skillful expression.
• 2, The High Priestess: Filled with intuition and insight.
• 3, The Empress: Developing love and wisdom.
• 4, The Emperor: Exercising leadership and authority.
• 5, The Hierophant: Seeking the beliefs and traditions that guide life.
• 6, The Lovers: Developing relationships and making choices.
• 7, The Chariot: Overcoming difficulties and achieving victory.
• 8, Justice: Treating others with fairness and integrity.
• 9, The Hermit: Self-reflection and contemplation.
• 10, The Wheel of Fortune: Turning the wheel of fate and striving upward.
• 11, Strength: Resilience and the gentle exercise of strength.
• 12, The Hanged Man: Self-sacrifice and devotion.
• 13, Death: The end of a phase or experience.
• 14, Temperance: Bringing the past to completion and maintaining balance.
• 15, The Devil: The dangerous side of things or the dark side of the self.
• 16, The Tower: Breaking free from constraints after upheaval.
• 17, The Star: Igniting the flame of hope.
• 18, The Moon: Pursuing dreams.
• 19, The Sun: Achieving success.
• 20, Judgement: Exercising wise judgment.
• 21, The World: Creating a beautiful new world.