Learning to Read the Fool
The “Learning to Read the Major Arcana” series 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. You can read more about the premise behind this structure in the introductory post on the “Learning to Read the Major Arcana” series.
Since the Fool is the first of these and the Fool holds such possibilities, it’s a lot to take in all at once. Don’t be afraid to skip around and come back to it paragraph by paragraph as needed.
Keywords
Hopefully this is a given, but these keywords are examples and not exhaustive of all possible meanings of the Fool. Remember to take what works for you and question what doesn’t. I’ve tried to arrange these keywords by broad concept to help organize them and make them easier to learn, including more esoteric associations at the end.
Beginnings, Fresh starts, Leaps of faith
Possibility, Freedom, Impulse
Risk, Thrill-seeking, Gambling
Novelty, Ignorance, Childlike wonder
Whimsy, Mind expansion, Daydreams
Madness, Chaos, Delirium
Source, Air, Uranus, Divine androgyne
In Context
The two most obvious candidates for considering the Fool in context are the Magician and the World, the cards on either side of the Fool. While I don’t always consider cards in relation to their direct neighbors, it seems fitting given the structure of the Fool’s Journey and the nature of these two cards in particular. They aren’t the only cards for comparison of course, but they provide a strong foundation.
Compare the Fool first to the Magician. The Magician demonstrates the power of initiative and of taking action to affect the world, to make things happen. So what energy does the Fool have if not initiative to start the journey in the first place? The Fool’s energy, by contrast, suggests a looser and unstructured approach to the journey. Yes, the Fool begins the Fool’s Journey, and it would often appear to be a leap of faith. But it’s just as often an accident as a decision. The Fool doesn’t exert willpower to make things happen in the way that the Magician does; the Fool seems to go with the flow and let things happen to them. And yet that doesn’t feel quite right to me.
That’s because the Fool follows the World. The Fool may be tied, esoterically, to the divine source of things, but in our everyday experiences, even spiritual experiences, the Fool comes from somewhere. The Fool comes from the end of the World’s journey to start over, either to start completely fresh or to start with a new take on life, even if the Fool still possesses the knowledge and experience of the past. The Fool’s journey could go anywhere, so the card is full of potential. And I think that potential is in large part because of experience gained from the World.
That’s probably enough of a start for new tarot readers, but if you want to think about other majors, you can go further by comparing the Fool to the other majors by its number and by its element or astrological correspondence. Of course, we could compare the Fool to all majors, but it’s helpful to have some guiding framework before things just get too overwhelming. Even just this is a lot because the Fool is surprisingly complicated.
If you take the Fool as the number 0, it has no numerical relation, so there’s a sort of freedom to find your own way forward that is, in itself, very instructive for understanding the Fool’s energy.
We could consider the Keys 10 and 20 since those both have the number 0 in them (forget for a moment that majors’ numbers are typically expressed in Roman numerals). That would mean the Wheel of Fortune and Judgment. With assistance from the Wheel, you can see the potential for all things, as well as the interplay of risk and reward. And in Judgment, you can see the idea of rebirth and the awakening that precedes an important journey, as well as (depending on your views of the Book of Revelation) madness.
We could also consider Keys 4 and 13, the Emperor and Death, since the Fool is sometimes thought to be Key 22, which reduces to 4. The Emperor with his structure, seriousness, and obvious display of experience and authority stands in stark contrast to the Fool, who is immature and chaotic. And in fact, you can see visual similarities between the Fool and Death in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (both have feathers in their headpieces) and in the Tarot de Marseille where both the Fool and Death have slightly hunched postures as they step forward. Death can offer a useful contrast in that it’s a card of endings, but it’s also similar to the Fool in that Death also signals a transition or transformation. Like Death (and the Wheel and the World), the Fool can be the sign of a turning point coming out of some prior existence. But the Fool’s transition feels less natural (or inevitable) and thus more exciting and, frankly, fun.
And following the idea of the Fool as 22, we might consider Justice (or Lust/La Force) as the only other major arcanum numbered with repeated digits (again ignoring the issue of Roman numerals), but since Justice is an Air card, like the Fool, we might as well consider Justice in relation to the other airy cards. How might the Fool relate to Lust (Thoth) and La Force (Marseille)? All three of those cards have enormous power that could easily go wild if not properly directed. That’s part of the risk of them, but it’s part of their appeal as well.
While we’re working with numbers, let’s consider the Fool in relation to the Sun, which in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck shows a child with a red feather in its hair, much like the Fool’s feathered cap, so we can see the youthful ignorance of the Fool exaggerated in the child of that Sun card. But numerologically, the number of the Sun card (19) reduces to 10 and then to 1 in any deck, so it is associated with the Magician and the Wheel. Since those were discussed in relation to the Fool, it’s worth considering the Sun for the sake of completing the task. And indeed there are some valuable comparisons there: the Sun is a card of joy and innocence, but it’s also a powerhouse of potential, much like Lust or La Force. This is because the sun is the center of the solar system, around which the planets orbit and on which all life depends. And yes, even though astrology is geocentric, not heliocentric, the Sun is still central within astrology and tarot systems. The organization of the planets and of the Qabalistic Tree of Life puts the Sun in the middle, but now we’re getting off topic. The point is that the Sun is a powerhouse of potential for anything to happen.
Finally, let’s look at the elemental or astrological correspondences. The Fool is associated with Air or Uranus, an airy planet, so we should look to the airy signs represented by the Lovers (Gemini), Justice/Adjustment (Libra), and the Star (Aquarius). We don’t need to consider the only other airy planet, Mercury, because it's represented by the Magician, and we already discussed that connection. It’s a lot to parse, and there isn’t much obvious overlap despite them vaguely sharing the qualities of air, such as movement, communication, and facets of the mind. Instead, we can see them as complementary and working alongside each other rather than as clear matches, so I think of these cards as raising questions for the reader to consider.
The Lovers can be a card of decisions, much like Justice. Is the Fool making a decision to leap or does something force them into adventure? In the Waite deck’s Lovers card, the pair is about to be kicked out of Eden. They made a choice, but they couldn’t really predict the consequences. Is the Fool’s Journey a new adventure or a risky gamble (or both)? And if we think of the Fool as a literal fool or court jester, how does the Fool’s decision-making compare to that of Justice, who presides over a different kind of court? Justice is meant to be wise and objective. Is the Fool crazy and immature or wise in their own way?
The Lovers and Justice (or Adjustment) are also cards of balance, in addition to decision making. Like the Lovers, there’s a complementarity to the two lovers (or two options) and the balanced scales of Justice that seems missing in the Fool, who wanders alone. Is the Fool alone? Is the Fool one figure or a blank slate or a multitude of options? (Adjustment in the Thoth includes the same potential for everything that we’ve already discussed by weighing the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and ending, which also ties back into Death and the World.) One of the lessons of the Lovers is the need to distinguish self from other. Who is the Fool? Do we know yet, or is that part of the journey? This is one reason why it can be useful to use the Fool as a significator (the card that stands in for you) in certain readings.
The Star is a bit different from the other two air cards, and as the card associated with Aquarius, it can be tied closely to the Fool, who is seen as Uranus in modern astrological correspondences (Aquarius is ruled by Uranus in the modern system). The Star often shows a naked, seemingly pure woman offering guidance and direction for those on their journey. There’s a purity of intention to the card that can help the Fool on their journey as the end comes closer. Does the Fool know where they’re going? What is their intention, or do they not even have one? Although the Star is pure, she also has wisdom and experience, much like Justice. Does the Fool know what they’re doing? Do they know whom to trust or where to look when things get hard? And what does it mean that the Fool’s planet, Uranus, rules the Star’s sign, Aquarius? What could the Fool possibly have that is “above” the Star? Endless optimism? Curiosity to know more? As a card of astrology and the card representing Aquarius, there’s an intellectual curiosity and excitement that allows the Star to engage in thought experiments and scientific endeavors; it is the air card after all. The Fool seems a bad choice for a scientist, but maybe the Fool’s childlike wonder and willingness to fall into wormholes is exactly what is necessary for scientific genius; the rest is follow-through and paperwork which someone else, like the Hierophant, can do. Leave ideation to the Star and the Fool.
Visuals
For interpreting the visuals, I chose one of my favorite images of the Fool, which comes from M. M. Meleen’s Tabula Mundi Tarot. (You can read my interview with that deck here.) This depiction combines some of the key concepts behind this card in clear, if wild, ways.
This depiction of the Fool shows the potential for anything already within him even as he prepares to start his journey into the unknown. The leap may be freeing and exciting, but it is also kind of terrifying. The metaphorical cliff off of which he will leap bends backwards in space-time, suggesting not only that this journey could take him anywhere. A tiger and crocodile approach from either side, so there’s no choice but to jump. Still, you would have to be mad to take that leap without forethought, and this Fool wears a madcap’s clothes.
But it’s also important to note that this journey is circular. The wormhole “cliff” circles back on itself, and the serpents and checkerboard wormhole recall the World card (the Universe in the Thoth system) in this deck, showing that this beginning comes from a previous journey. Nothing comes from nothing. This Fool has a past, even if he begins again with a fresh start, much like the butterflies flitting about him; they used to be caterpillars after all. In one idea behind the Fool’s Journey, the Fool receives gifts or wisdom from the various majors, and he places them in the satchel he carries. But the sack looks weighted down already. It’s not full, but it’s not empty either. The pre-existing experience of the Fool is also written on his body. His left arm bears traces of the three main glyphs of alchemy, mercury, sulfur, and salt. And his chest is tattooed with a sun and a moon.
Another important element to this card is its association with the element of air. In the Thoth system on which the Tabula Mundi Tarot is based, three of the cards represent elements: the Fool is Air; the Hanged Man is Water; and the Aeon (Judgment in the RWS system) is Fire and Spirit. The fourth element, earth, is associated with the Universe (the World in the RWS) card, which is also tied to the planet Saturn. In this card, we can see Air not only in the leap about to be taken but also in the butterflies that flit about the card. We also have Air through the blending of water and fire, which together make air. Although we don’t see the steam forming, we do see twin trails of water and fire. Inevitably, they will be joined in Art (Temperance in the RWS system), where they also represent the masculine and feminine elements. So even though the figure of the Fool presents as masculine, there is a nod to the possibility of the androgyne.
The card pictured here is from the Tabula Mundi by M. M. Meleen, published by Atu House. See the Tabula Mundi website for more complete of information on the creator, her decks, and how to purchase this deck.
Did you learn something?
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