The Major Arcana, consisting of 22 cards, plays a pivotal role in Tarot card readings, acting as the backbone of the Tarot deck and offering profound insights into the querent’s journey through life.
Unlike the Minor Arcana, which deals with the day-to-day aspects of our lives, the Major Arcana cards tap into broader themes, significant life events, and the deeper psychological and spiritual forces at play.
Each card in the Major Arcana is rich in symbolism and represents archetypal aspects of human experience, from birth to death, embodying lessons, challenges, and opportunities that shape our journey.
The Fool’s Journey
The Major Arcana tarot cards start with The Fool, numbered 0, and conclude with The World, numbered 21, depicting a journey from innocence and naivety through wisdom and understanding. This journey, often referred to as “The Fool’s Journey,” mirrors the hero’s journey in mythology, where the protagonist embarks on an adventure, faces and overcomes challenges, and returns transformed.
Role of Major Arcana Tarot Cards in a Tarot Reading
In a Tarot reading, the appearance of Major Arcana cards suggests significant turning points, lessons to be learned, or karmic influences affecting the querent’s life.
Each card within the Major Arcana encapsulates a standalone concept or principle but also contributes to the narrative arc of the entire deck. For example, The Magician represents manifestation and the creative use of one’s power, while The High Priestess symbolizes intuition and the unconscious mind. Further along, cards like The Lovers and The Tower deal with themes of relationship decisions and sudden, transformative change, respectively. The progression through the Major Arcana reflects the evolution of consciousness and the spiritual growth we undergo throughout our lives.
In Tarot readings, the Major Arcana can indicate overarching themes or critical influences overshadowing the querent’s current situation or question. For instance, The Emperor might highlight issues of power and authority, advising the querent to take control and establish order in their life. In contrast, The Hermit could suggest a period of introspection and solitude, urging the querent to look inward for answers.
The Major Arcana also serves as a mirror to the soul, revealing our deepest desires, fears, and aspirations. It can guide us through personal transformation, helping us understand our place in the world and our connection to the universal energies that shape our existence. When these cards appear in a reading, they encourage the querent to pay attention to the broader lessons at play, often pointing to areas of life that require acknowledgment, reflection, or a shift in perspective.
Furthermore, the Major Arcana can highlight karmic lessons or soul contracts—themes that recur throughout our lives until we recognize and learn from them. For example, The Wheel of Fortune may indicate cycles of fate and the ups and downs of life, reminding us that change is the only constant, and how we respond to change is within our control.
The Major Arcana Tarot cards provide insight into the querent’s spiritual journey, illuminating significant life lessons, archetypal energies, and karmic influences. These cards underscore the narrative of personal and spiritual growth, offering wisdom and guidance that can help the querent navigate life’s challenges and transitions with greater awareness and understanding. Through the Major Arcana, the Tarot deck offers a comprehensive tool for self-reflection, enabling individuals to explore the depths of their psyche and the universal truths that guide human existence.
The Major Arcana Cards
Below is a brief description of the main meaning of each of the Major Arcana cards with links to detailed articles about each of the Major Arcana cards and how it should be interpreted as part of a Tarot card reading.
0. The Fool: The Fool symbolizes new beginnings, innocence, and a leap of faith into the unknown. It represents the potential for adventure, personal growth, and the initial steps on a spiritual journey.
1. The Magician: The Magician stands for manifestation, resourcefulness, and the power to turn ideas into reality. It encourages the use of one’s skills and personal power to achieve goals.
2. The High Priestess: The High Priestess embodies intuition, mystery, and the subconscious mind. It suggests looking beyond the obvious to find deeper truths and trusting one’s inner voice.
3. The Empress: The Empress signifies fertility, abundance, and nurturing. It represents creativity, the beauty of life, and the nurturing of ideas and relationships.
4. The Emperor: The Emperor represents authority, structure, and stability. It symbolizes leadership, control, and the establishment of order and rules.
5. The Hierophant: The Hierophant stands for tradition, spiritual wisdom, and guidance. It suggests seeking knowledge and guidance from established institutions or belief systems.
6. The Lovers: The Lovers symbolize love, harmony, and choices. It represents relationships and the importance of making choices that are true to one’s values.
7. The Chariot: The Chariot signifies determination, control, and victory through willpower. It represents overcoming obstacles and achieving success through focus and discipline.
8. Strength: Strength embodies courage, patience, and inner power. It suggests mastering one’s instincts and facing challenges with compassion and perseverance.
9. The Hermit: The Hermit stands for introspection, solitude, and seeking inner wisdom. It represents a period of self-reflection and the pursuit of deeper understanding.
10. Wheel of Fortune: The Wheel of Fortune symbolizes cycles, fate, and the inevitability of change. It represents the ups and downs of life and the role of luck and karma.
11. Justice: Justice signifies fairness, balance, and the need for accountability. It represents the consequences of one’s actions and the pursuit of truth and fairness.
12. The Hanged Man: The Hanged Man embodies surrender, letting go, and seeing things from a new perspective. It suggests pausing to reflect and sacrificing short-term goals for long-term gains.
13. Death: Death symbolizes endings, transformation, and the need to let go of the old to make way for the new. It represents change and the natural conclusion of a phase or aspect of life.
14. Temperance: Temperance stands for balance, moderation, and harmony. It suggests finding middle ground and blending opposites to achieve peace and understanding.
15. The Devil: The Devil represents bondage, materialism, and the shadow self. It suggests the need to confront and overcome one’s fears, desires, and unhealthy attachments.
16. The Tower: The Tower signifies sudden change, upheaval, and the breakdown of structures. It represents the destruction of illusions and the opportunity for rebirth through truth.
17. The Star: The Star symbolizes hope, inspiration, and spiritual clarity. It represents healing, renewal, and the guiding light of one’s inner compass.
18. The Moon: The Moon stands for illusion, fear, and the unconscious. It suggests navigating through uncertainty and trusting one’s intuition to reveal hidden truths.
19. The Sun: The Sun embodies joy, success, and vitality. It represents clarity, vitality, and the warmth of positive energy and good fortune.
20. Judgment: Judgment signifies rebirth, self-evaluation, and awakening. It represents the call to review one’s life, make amends, and heed a higher calling.
21. The World: The World symbolizes completion, fulfillment, and unity. It represents the culmination of a journey, achievement, and the interconnectedness of all things.
Tarot Reading: Major Arcana and Minor Arcana
In a Tarot reading, the Major Arcana Tarot cards and Minor Arcana interact in a dynamic way, offering a nuanced and comprehensive insight into the querent’s life. The Major Arcana, with its 22 cards, represents significant life events, spiritual lessons, and karmic influences that shape our personal growth and development. These cards delve into the deeper, often spiritual or psychological facets of the human experience, spotlighting major transitions, challenges, and forces at work in the querent’s life.
The Minor Arcana, consisting of 56 cards divided into four suits (Cups, Pentacles, Swords, and Wands), complements the Major Arcana by providing detailed insights into the querent’s day-to-day activities, emotions, thoughts, and interactions. Each suit focuses on a different aspect of life:
1. Cups: Associated with the element of Water, the Cups suit reflects emotions, relationships, and connectivity with others. It deals with the emotional and relational aspects of the situation at hand, offering insight into the querent’s feelings and interpersonal connections.
2. Pentacles: Linked to the element of Earth, the Pentacles suit represents material aspects, such as finances, work, and physical health. It provides guidance on practical matters, grounding the more abstract lessons of the Major Arcana in the reality of daily life.
3. Swords: Corresponding to the element of Air, the Swords suit is concerned with intellect, communication, and conflict. It highlights the querent’s thoughts, beliefs, and challenges, offering clarity and insight into how these mental and communicative aspects influence the querent’s path.
4. Wands: Associated with the element of Fire, the Wands suit symbolizes creativity, action, and energy. It speaks to the querent’s ambitions, motivations, and the dynamic forces that drive them forward or impede their progress.
In a Tarot reading, the interaction between the Major and Minor Arcana can illuminate how broader themes and life lessons (Major Arcana) manifest in everyday experiences and choices (Minor Arcana). For instance, The Tower (Major Arcana) might appear in a reading to signify major upheaval or revelation, while subsequent cards from the Swords suit (Minor Arcana) could provide insight into the specific thoughts, communications, or decisions that are contributing to this dramatic shift.
Similarly, The Empress (Major Arcana) could indicate a period of growth and abundance, with cards from the Pentacles suit (Minor Arcana) offering practical advice on how to achieve financial stability or improve physical well-being during this fertile time. The Cups cards might then suggest how to nurture relationships and emotional well-being as part of embracing this period of abundance.
The Wands cards, when appearing alongside a card like The Chariot (Major Arcana), could underscore the importance of harnessing one’s willpower and creative energy to overcome obstacles and achieve victory. This combination highlights the dynamic interplay between the querent’s personal drive (Wands) and their journey toward success and mastery (The Chariot).
In essence, the Major Arcana sets the stage for the querent’s life narrative, outlining the overarching themes and lessons, while the Minor Arcana fills in the details, offering actionable insights and guidance. Together, they create a rich tapestry that reflects the complexity of the human experience, guiding the querent toward deeper understanding, personal growth, and practical solutions to their queries.
