Half the difficulty of learning tarot is being told that every card means one thing. The other half is being told it can mean absolutely anything. Neither helps when three cards are on the table and you would quite like a place to begin.
The Major Arcana are the 22 named cards used for broad themes such as choice, change, responsibility and completion. The reference below gives each card a starting meaning, a possible complication and a question. It is written for a Rider–Waite–Smith-style deck; other decks may change the images, names or numbering.
Major Arcana meanings at a glance
Use these as interpretive prompts, not predictions. Read the card’s position and the actual image before deciding which possibility fits. In the usual Rider–Waite–Smith order, Strength is VIII and Justice XI; some other traditions switch them.
On a narrow screen, swipe the table sideways to see the questions.
| Card | Starting meaning | A complication to consider | Ask yourself |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 · The Fool | Beginning, openness, a step into uncertainty | Ignoring a practical risk or waiting for perfect certainty | What can I try while keeping a sensible safety net? |
| I · The Magician | Skill, attention, using the tools at hand | Performance without follow-through; scattered effort | Which resource could I put to work today? |
| II · The High Priestess | Observation, privacy, something not yet understood | Confusing a hunch with evidence; avoiding a needed conversation | What do I need to notice or verify? |
| III · The Empress | Care, creativity, conditions that support growth | Giving until depleted or expecting an instant result | What needs patient care, including in me? |
| IV · The Emperor | Structure, responsibility, boundaries | Rigidity, excessive control or a lack of workable rules | Which boundary would make this situation clearer? |
| V · The Hierophant | Learning, tradition, shared practice | Following a rule without understanding its purpose | Which teaching helps, and which needs questioning? |
| VI · The Lovers | Choice, relationship, alignment with values | Pleasing someone at the expense of an honest decision | What am I agreeing to, and do I mean it? |
| VII · The Chariot | Direction, disciplined effort, coordinating opposing pulls | Forcing progress or mistaking speed for direction | What deserves my effort, and what is pulling me away? |
| VIII · Strength | Courage, patience, a measured response | Suppressing every feeling or demanding force from yourself | What would steadiness look like here? |
| IX · The Hermit | Reflection, study, time apart | Isolation that no longer helps you understand anything | Do I need solitude, or a useful conversation? |
| X · Wheel of Fortune | Cycles, changed circumstances, a turning point | Expecting to control every variable | What can I influence within the change? |
| XI · Justice | Fairness, facts, accountability | Selective evidence or avoiding your part in an outcome | What would a fair account include? |
| XII · The Hanged Man | A pause, a different perspective, letting a process unfold | Waiting indefinitely or sacrificing more than is reasonable | What could a pause show me, and when should it end? |
| XIII · Death | An ending, a transition, a form that cannot stay the same | Holding on to a role after it has stopped fitting | What is ending, and what can I carry forward? |
| XIV · Temperance | Adjustment, integration, a workable balance | Swings between extremes or a compromise that solves nothing | What small adjustment would help this work? |
| XV · The Devil | Attachment, a compelling habit, an exchange with a cost | Shame that obscures practical choices | What does this pattern give me, and what does it cost? |
| XVI · The Tower | A disrupted assumption, exposure, sudden change | Escalating uncertainty into a story of inevitable disaster | Which assumption needs checking before I react? |
| XVII · The Star | Hope, openness, gradual renewal | Waiting for reassurance before taking any action | What would help me feel a little more able to continue? |
| XVIII · The Moon | Ambiguity, imagination, incomplete information | Projection or a fear presented as certainty | What do I know, and what am I supplying myself? |
| XIX · The Sun | Clarity, enjoyment, something visible and shared | Pressure to appear happy or gloss over complexity | What is working that I can actually acknowledge? |
| XX · Judgement | Review, recognition, answering a responsibility | Endless self-criticism without a next step | What have I learned, and what will I do differently? |
| XXI · The World | Completion, integration, reaching a threshold | Moving on before recognizing or finishing what matters | What would make this stage complete enough? |
These are original contemporary reading prompts, not quotations from a deck’s guidebook. The “complication” column can help explore a reversed card, but it also applies when an upright card expresses a difficult side of its theme.
A worked example: starting a creative project
Suppose your question is, “How can I begin the project I keep postponing?” Give three positions a job before drawing: what is present, what needs attention, and a useful next step. Imagine the cards are The Magician, The Moon and Strength.
- The Magician, what is present: list the resources already available. A notebook, an idea, a little experience. You may have enough to make a first attempt.
- The Moon, what needs attention: separate missing information from the story you are telling about failure. “I do not know which format to use” is a problem you can investigate. “Everyone will think I’m ridiculous” is a prediction you have supplied.
- Strength, a useful next step: choose a manageable session and a tolerable standard. Twenty minutes and a rough beginning. You do not have to win an argument with every doubt first.
The resulting action is specific: choose a format, set a timer, make an imperfect beginning. If the cards do not fit your situation, say so. A reading should leave you room to think rather than require you to manufacture an explanation.
What reversed cards can mean
A reversed card is one that appears upside down. Some readers use reversals; others read the full range of each card upright. Choose an approach before the reading so you are not changing rules to obtain a more comforting answer.
Instead of automatically making a reversed card its opposite, try one of these questions:
- Is this theme difficult to express?
- Is there too much of it?
- Is it happening privately rather than visibly?
- Is the issue already resolving?
For example, a reversed Emperor could prompt you to examine excessive control or missing boundaries. Those are different situations. The question and the evidence from your actual life help you choose an interpretation; the orientation alone cannot do it.
A seven-day practice that builds understanding
For one week, draw a single card each day. Write down the date, card and a detail in the picture before consulting a guide. Then choose one question from the table and answer it in three lines.
In the evening, add a sentence about what did—or did not—fit. Keep the misses. Otherwise you end up with a journal that remembers only agreement, which is a flattering but rather unhelpful collaborator.
At the end of the week, look for a question worth continuing. You do not need to memorize every possible meaning. Begin by learning how the images and questions behave in different contexts.
What beginners often want to know
Does Death predict a death?
No card establishes that someone will die. In this guide, Death is used to explore endings and transitions. If an interpretation frightens you, set it aside and return to what you actually know.
Is The Tower always bad?
It is a difficult image, but it does not prove that a disaster is coming. You can use it to examine an assumption, a change that has already happened, or a structure that needs attention. Avoid escalating an ordinary worry because of a card.
Are there only 22 tarot cards?
A standard tarot deck has 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. This page covers the Major Arcana. The V&A’s history of tarot cards explains the deck’s structure and its history as a card game before its later divinatory uses.
What if my deck has different names or numbers?
Use that deck’s guidebook and pictures. This chart is a starting reference for the Rider–Waite–Smith tradition, not a correction to every other deck. An artist’s changed symbol can be worth noticing rather than translating away immediately. For a historical reference, A. E. Waite’s own discussion of the Major Arcana describes the cards illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. Its period interpretations differ from the practical reflection prompts used here.
