The Major Arcana: the Fool's Journey explained

The Major Arcana are the 22 picture cards that most people think of when they hear the word tarot: the Fool, the Lovers, Death, the Tower, the Star. They are numbered from 0 to 21 and they describe the big themes of a life. This guide explains what the Majors are, where they came from, how the Fool’s Journey works as a way to remember them, and how to read a Major when it turns up in your spread.

What the Major Arcana are

A tarot deck has 78 cards. Fifty-six of them are the Minor Arcana, four suits that look a lot like playing cards. The other 22 are the Major Arcana, also called the trumps. Each one has a name, a number and a single strong image.

When a Major appears in a reading, give it weight. It often names the chapter you are in: a beginning, a choice, a test, an ending, a recovery. It does not threaten you, and it does not lock in a fate. It tells you that the question touches something bigger than one ordinary day.

A simple way to hold the difference in mind: the Majors name the theme, and the Minors show how that theme is turning up in your emails, moods, money and conversations.

Where the trumps came from

Historical The first tarot decks were painted in northern Italy in the 15th century for a card game. The extra picture cards were called trionfi, triumphs, and in play they beat the cards of the ordinary suits. That is where the English word trump comes from. Early lists of the trumps from Italian cities do not always agree on the order, and the Fool was often unnumbered, more like a special card than a step in a sequence.

Later tradition The word arcana, meaning secrets, came much later. French occult writers of the 18th and 19th centuries began to treat the trumps as a book of hidden wisdom. Éliphas Lévi linked the 22 cards to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the Golden Dawn in London added astrology and the elements. A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith drew on that system for the deck published by Rider in 1909.

Modern Reading the 22 cards as one story, the Fool’s Journey, became popular in English guidebooks in the 20th century. Eden Gray’s books helped spread the idea. It is a teaching aid, not a hidden plan that the first painters meant, and it is a very good one.

The numbering: why Strength and Justice swap

In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck Strength is VIII and Justice is XI. In the Tarot de Marseille, and in the Thoth deck, it is the other way round: Justice is VIII and Strength is XI. Waite made the swap for his 1909 deck to fit the astrological order used by the Golden Dawn.

Neither order is wrong. If the numbers on your cards differ from a book or a website, read the card by its name. This site follows the Rider-Waite-Smith order.

The Fool’s Journey in three stages

The Fool’s Journey imagines the Fool, card 0, as a traveler who meets each of the other Majors in turn and learns something from each one. Books draw the lines in slightly different places, but a practical map has three stages.

Stage one: becoming a self (the Magician to the Chariot)

This is the stage of tools, intuition, care, structure, tradition, choice and will. The traveler learns how to act and how to belong. The Magician shows that you have what you need. The High Priestess teaches listening. The Empress and the Emperor are nurture and structure, the Hierophant is learning from a tradition, the Lovers is a real choice and the Chariot is the will to move forward.

Stage two: meeting the world’s tests (Strength to Temperance)

This is the stage of courage, solitude, change, fairness, surrender, endings and balance. The traveler learns limits, ethics and resilience. Strength is gentle courage, the Hermit is time alone, the Wheel of Fortune is change you do not control, and Justice is honest accountability. The Hanged Man asks for a new view, Death closes a door, and Temperance blends what is left into something new.

Stage three: seeing through and returning (the Devil to the World)

This is the stage of shadow, upheaval, hope and completion. The Devil shows what holds you, and the Tower breaks what was false. The Star brings hope after the storm. The Moon is uncertainty, the Sun is clarity and joy, Judgement is a call to rise and the World closes the circle.

The Fool stands at the start as openness, and the World stands at the end as wholeness. Then the circle can begin again. You can use this map when it helps you remember the cards, and drop it when a single card’s picture is doing clearer work on its own.

All 22 Major Arcana cards at a glance

Here are the upright keywords from my book for each card. Follow the links for the full meaning, the reversed meaning, the symbols in the 1909 picture and a spread for each card.

• 0 The Fool: new beginnings, freedom, innocence, curiosity
• I The Magician: skill, willpower, focus, resourcefulness
• II The High Priestess: intuition, mystery, patience, inner knowing
• III The Empress: abundance, creativity, nurture, pleasure
• IV The Emperor: structure, authority, stability, protection
• V The Hierophant: tradition, teaching, mentors, shared values
• VI The Lovers: love, union, choice, shared values
• VII The Chariot: willpower, direction, determination, victory
• VIII Strength: courage, patience, compassion, gentle strength
• IX The Hermit: solitude, reflection, inner guidance, wisdom
• X Wheel of Fortune: cycles, change, luck, turning points
• XI Justice: fairness, truth, accountability, cause and effect
• XII The Hanged Man: pause, surrender, a new perspective, letting go
• XIII Death: endings, transformation, transition, clearing
• XIV Temperance: balance, moderation, patience, blending
• XV The Devil: attachment, temptation, unhealthy patterns
• XVI The Tower: sudden change, upheaval, revelation
• XVII The Star: hope, renewal, inspiration, healing
• XVIII The Moon: intuition, dreams, uncertainty, illusion
• XIX The Sun: joy, success, vitality, clarity
• XX Judgement: awakening, reckoning, a calling, renewal
• XXI The World: completion, wholeness, achievement, arrival

How to read a Major Arcana card in a spread

Start with the picture. What is happening, who is there, and how does the scene feel? Then add the keywords, and only then fit the card to your question. This order keeps you from reading a list instead of a card.

Next, notice how many Majors there are. One Major in a three-card spread marks the main theme. Several Majors suggest that the matter is large or that a lot is changing at once. No Majors at all often means the question is about everyday things, which is useful to know too.

Then let the Major and the Minors talk to each other. The Tower next to three Pentacles is a story about money or work being shaken. The Tower next to three Swords is about beliefs or a painful conversation. Try saying the difference out loud. It is one of the fastest ways to get better at reading.

The hard cards are not curses

Beginners are often scared of Death, the Devil and the Tower. They are strong pictures on purpose, and they are also some of the most useful cards in the deck.

• Death is about an ending and the change that follows. It almost never means a literal death, and tarot cannot predict one.
• The Devil shows what holds you: a habit, a fear, a pattern. Look closely and you will see that the chains in the 1909 picture are loose.
• The Tower is a sudden change that breaks what was false. It is uncomfortable, and it often clears the ground for something more honest.

If a hard card leaves you anxious, pause. Ask what the card is asking you to notice or do. If you are worried about your health, your safety or the law, talk to a professional. A reading can wait.

Ways to learn the Majors

You do not have to memorize 22 cards in one week. Here are three gentle methods.

1. One card a day. Draw a single Major each morning. Write what you see before you look anything up, then compare it with the card page in the evening.
2. Three rows of seven. Lay the Magician to the Chariot in one row, Strength to Temperance in the next and the Devil to the World in the last, with the Fool above them all. Read across each row as a story.
3. Pairs. Some cards make useful pairs: the Empress and the Emperor, the High Priestess and the Hierophant, the Moon and the Sun, the Tower and the Star. Comparing two cards teaches more than reading one twice.

Common questions

How many Major Arcana cards are there?

Twenty-two, numbered 0 to 21, from the Fool to the World. They are also called the trumps.

Are Major Arcana cards more important than Minor Arcana cards?

They usually carry more weight in a reading because they name big themes. The Minors are not less important, though. They show how those themes play out in daily life.

Is the Fool card number 0 or 22?

In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck the Fool is 0 and is placed first. In some older games the Fool was unnumbered and worked like an excuse card, so it had no fixed place.

Can I read with only the Major Arcana?

Yes. Some readers use only the 22 Majors for big questions, and it is a good way to learn them. You lose the everyday detail of the Minors, so many people add the full deck later.

Keep learning

The Majors are covered in four lessons of my free Tarot for Beginners course, starting with The Fool’s Journey and continuing with the Fool to the Chariot, Strength to Temperance and the Devil to the World. Next, read The Minor Arcana: suits and numbers made simple, or browse all the card meanings. My book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot has the full entry for every card.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910).
• Michael Dummett, The Game of Tarot (London: Duckworth, 1980).
• Eden Gray, A Complete Guide to the Tarot (New York: Crown, 1970).
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot.