Dive deep into the Major Arcana
What do the majors mean in tarot?
The major arcana represent archetypes and universal forces, things that go beyond the individual. Although they sometimes look like people and can even represent people, these tend to be aspirational or nightmarish qualities that are brought out through specific actions or in response to events. They rarely represent the whole person or the whole event. Instead, they’re something more primal and bigger than us and our daily lives.
It’s easy to remember this if you think about tarot through card games—the origin story for tarot decks. In a game, the major arcana would be the trump cards, bigger and better than the minor arcana that represent us mere mortals (the court cards) and our everyday experiences (the numbered minor arcana). That’s why the majors are major, and the minors are minor.
Quick concepts for the major arcana
The Fool [0]: potential, innocence, beginnings, blank slate, risk, freedom, leap of faith, void, air, Uranus
The Magician/Magus/Bateleur [1]: manifestation, skill, individualism, early attempts, manipulation, intelligence, will, magic, writing, Mercury
The High Priestess/Popess [2]: intuition, secrets, counterculture, knowledge, divination, silence, heterodoxy, advisor, mysticism, the moon, cosmic mother
The Empress [3]: creativity, femininity, production, organic development, motherhood, chaos, love, nature, luxury, Venus
The Emperor [4]: authority, masculinity, order, artificial development, fatherhood, leadership, logic, structures, Aries
The Hierophant/Pope [5]: tradition, maintenance, religion, teacher, ancestor, experience, gatekeeping, hegemony, organization, Taurus
The Lovers/Lover [6]: romance, partnerships, decision-making, binaries, complementarity, siblings, individuation, communication, Gemini
The Chariot [7]: drive, willpower, control, opposing forces, recklessness, challenge, stretch goals, vehicles, protection, ownership, Cancer (the astrological sign)
Strength [8] or Lust/Force [11]: resilience, strength, persuasion, endurance, training, vitality, passion, energy, health, hobbies, pets, Leo
The Hermit [9]: introspection, isolation, guidance, boundaries, mentor, meditation, budgeting, criticism, wilderness, Virgo
The Wheel of Fortune [10]: fate, luck, prosperity, karma, cycles, universal flow, destiny, games of chance, taking the wheel, Jupiter
Justice [11] or Adjustment/Justice [8]: balance, justice, objectivity, truth, analysis, government, law, institutions, official relationships, harmony, Libra
The Hanged Man [12]: shift in perspective, patience, sacrifice, flexibility, enlightenment, suffering, stasis, strangers, water, Neptune
Death/The Unnamed One [13]: endings, death, harvesting, transformation, fears, physical illness, excision, release, ego death, Scorpio
Temperance/Art [14]: moderation, refinement, alchemy, blending of opposites, cleansing, full spectrum, holistic wellness, spiritual expansion, baking & cooking, Sagittarius
The Devil [15]: materialism, obligations, toxicity, pleasure, addiction, bonds, contracts, bad habits, end goals, Capricorn
The Tower [16]: cataclysm, destruction, ecstasy, course correction, rebuilding, hubris, intervention, violence, physical structures, Mars
The Star [17]: guiding light, hope, clarity, purification, innovation, inspiration, science, astrology, the future, Aquarius
The Moon [18]: dreams, illusion, fantasy, the unconscious, psychology, trickery, shadows, movies, oceans, Pisces
The Sun [19]: joy, light, innocence, positivity, openness, heat, outdoors, the zodiac, children, the sun, cosmic father
Judgment/The Aeon [20]: revelation, calling, resurrection, assessment, spiritual awakening, purpose, wake-up calls, fire, spirit, Pluto
The World/Universe [21]: maturation, completion, graduation, self-improvement, evolution, personal development, reflection, old age, earth, Saturn
Let’s dive deep into these cards
This is an ongoing series, and each post is a lot of work, so it’s a slow-going series. Bear with me as I work my way through these big cards and their many layers.
In the meantime, learn to read tarot deeply with my courses that go beyond the tarot basics.
Learn to read the Hermit using keywords, by putting the card in context with other majors, as well as by examining some of its visuals in the evocative Hermits of the Light Seer’s Tarot and Mary-El Tarot.