Learning to Read the Major Arcana Well
Learning to read tarot well is all about the personal touch.
When first learning tarot, the major arcana can seem overwhelming—Death and the Devil, but also the Hierophant—yet also simple—at least they have names, right? In some ways, that hasn’t changed for me now that I've gotten to know them better: the major arcana represent karmic archetypes, and those by definition are both overwhelming and simple. They create immediate reactions that are often quite energizing, and such shortcuts (short-circuiting?) can cause a different kind of overwhelm.
If you’ve read my book Tarot Tableau or even just watched some of the free supplemental training videos, then you’ll know that I find value in reading the major arcana in terms of keywords. But coming up with keywords that work for you is not as simple as it may seem. Yes, you can use the little white book that comes with your deck, but you’ll find greater relevance and confidence in your readings once you develop a personal connection to them. Reading a major arcanum (the singular form of major arcana) in the context of all the other majors can help you refine your views of that card. (Two things to note: first, I need to tip my hat to my friend Jai, @TheJofHeartz, who made me think of this while we were chatting live on Instagram the other day; and second, your interpretations of the majors can and probably will change over time—mine do—and that’s part of the learning process but also part of your own personal connection to the cards, psychologically and/or spiritually.)
Over the next few months, I’ll be introducing how I read each of the major arcana in relation to each other. I don’t want you to rely on my (or any one person’s) interpretations, and I can’t do the work of finding personal connection for you. What I can do is show you how I think about the cards in relation to each other and let that serve as an example for how you can connect. And if you need help with the work or you want personalized attention when learning tarot, you can now book time with me to talk tarot and work through your questions about the tarot through my Private Tarot Lessons. These can be conversational or structured as a lesson, whatever suits your learning needs best.
Structure of the Posts
This series on the major arcana presents some ways that I like to think about each of the majors with the hope that it helps you learn more about or think differently about these cards. In each of these posts, I provide an overview of how I read the relevant major arcanum through a few different lenses: with keywords; in the context of other majors; and through visuals.
Keywords: I include some of the keywords that I use in Tarot Tableau: The Fool’s Journey, but they are just examples. Although I rarely read using only keywords, I find keywords to be a useful teaching tool. They seem simple, but they’re actually a useful challenge. What do you include? What do you leave out? They’re also an important cross-training tool as you start to work with multiple decks. Having a set of broad and personal keywords in your tarot lexicon lets you bring something familiar to the cards even when a deck represents something completely unfamiliar.
Context: The major arcana can be thought of as a Fool’s Journey through different realms of the tarot represented by the archetypes of the major arcana. Whether these realms are spiritual or mundane is up to you—both are supported by the cards. But unless you want to specifically limit the type of querents and questions you address with tarot, you should start to consider both aspects. And whether you see this journey as a literal progression or just a random collection of ideas is also up to you, but you can explore meanings by putting the majors next to each other. Is the Fool being presented with a similar lesson in different forms? Are the archetypes complementary or outright in conflict?
Visuals: I will be showing one example of each of the majors from a different deck and explain how I use those visuals to help learn more about that particular instance of the card. That meaning may or may not transfer to other decks’ interpretations of the cards. The creators, artists, and editors of tarot cards make decisions about what to include and what not to include in a given card. Many decks may seem “derivative” of a master deck (typically of the three “deck families” of Marseille, Rider/Waite, and Thoth), but they still make choices about what is depicted and how. Even a text-based deck makes choices about what is shown and how it’s shown. And those decisions shouldn’t be ignored if you choose to use that deck.