The Minor Arcana: suits and numbers made simple

The Minor Arcana are the 56 cards that make up most of a tarot deck. They are arranged in four suits, and once you understand two simple ideas, the suit and the number, you can make sense of almost any of them without a book. This guide shows you how.

What the Minor Arcana are

The Minor Arcana are four suits of fourteen cards: Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles. Each suit runs from Ace to Ten and then has four court cards, the Page, Knight, Queen and King.

They are not lesser cards. They are closer to the texture of ordinary life: moods, conversations, work, money, conflict and timing. If the Major Arcana name the chapter you are in, the Minors describe the pages of that chapter.

Historical The suits are older than tarot. Playing cards reached Europe in the late 1300s with four suits of cups, coins, swords and batons, and Italian and Spanish cards still use them. Tarot added the trumps and an extra court card to that ordinary pack. In most decks before 1909 the number cards showed only a pattern of suit symbols, the way a playing card does. The Sola Busca deck from late 1400s Italy was the famous exception, with a scene on every card.

Historical Pamela Colman Smith gave all 56 cards of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck full scenes with people in them. That is why the deck is so easy to learn: you can often read a Minor card just by asking what the people in the picture are doing.

The four suits

Each suit has its own climate. If you forget a card’s keywords, go back to the suit first, then add the number.

Wands: fire, drive and creativity

Wands are drive, creativity, courage and momentum. They are the cards of passion projects, ambition, travel and competition. Too much fire becomes burnout. See the suit of Wands.

Cups: water, feeling and relationship

Cups are feeling, relationship and imagination. They cover love, friendship, family, dreams and intuition. Too much water becomes overwhelm. See the suit of Cups.

Swords: air, thought and truth

Swords are thought, language, conflict and truth telling. They cover decisions, arguments, worry and clarity. Too much air becomes overthinking. See the suit of Swords.

Pentacles: earth, body and resources

Pentacles are the body, work, money, skills and practical care. They cover health, home, craft and the things you build over time. Too much earth becomes inertia. See the suit of Pentacles.

Other names for the suits

Different decks use different names. Cups can be Chalices. Pentacles can be Coins or Disks. Wands can be Batons, Rods or Staves. Match the cards by meaning, and the rest of this guide still works.

Later tradition The pairing of suits with the four elements comes from occult writers of the 1800s and was fixed in its best-known form by the Golden Dawn. Most modern decks follow it. A few systems swap the elements of Wands and Swords, so if your deck’s guidebook says Swords are fire, follow your deck.

The numbers from Ace to Ten

The second key is the number. Each number has a shape that repeats in every suit. Here is a quick tour you can reuse.

• Ace: a seed, an offer, the suit’s energy in its rawest form.
• Two: polarity, a choice, a first partnership.
• Three: growth, expression, early teamwork.
• Four: foundation, structure and pause, sometimes stuckness.
• Five: conflict, loss, contest, an unstable middle.
• Six: repair, give and take, movement back toward balance.
• Seven: assessment, persistence, strategy and temptation.
• Eight: work, skill, speed, or a trap that is ready to open.
• Nine: the suit’s theme at its most personal and intense.
• Ten: completion, a full cycle, sometimes a heavy load.

Nine is not the same as Ten

This is one of the distinctions I come back to in my book. The Nine often feels like a personal culmination, a private moment of fullness or a vigil. The Ten more often shows a completed structure, a shared result or a load carried to its limit. Compare the Nine of Cups, private satisfaction, with the Ten of Cups, shared happiness. Or the Nine of Wands, tired but still on guard, with the Ten of Wands, carrying too much.

Putting suit and number together

Now combine the two keys. Take the number’s shape and set it in the suit’s climate.

• Five + Swords: conflict in the world of thought and words. The Five of Swords shows an argument won at a cost.
• Five + Pentacles: conflict or loss in the material world. The Five of Pentacles shows hardship in the cold.
• Ten + Cups: completion in feeling and relationship. The Ten of Cups shows a happy family under a rainbow.
• Ten + Wands: completion of drive and effort. The Ten of Wands shows someone carrying too many staffs.

Try it with any card in your deck before you look it up. You will be right more often than you expect, and when you are not, the difference will teach you something about that card.

The court cards

Each suit has four court cards. They can show a person, a part of you or an approach to a situation, whatever the gender or age of the figure on the card.

• Page: beginnings, messages, curiosity, the student.
• Knight: pursuit, movement, sometimes too much of the suit’s style.
• Queen: inner mastery, care and discernment.
• King: responsibility, direction, skill used for others.

Court cards sit outside the Ace to Ten count, so read their character first, not number symbolism. There is a full guide in Tarot court cards without confusion.

The Minors and an ordinary deck of cards

If you have played cards, you already know more about the Minor Arcana than you think. The four tarot suits match the four suits of a French playing card deck:

• Wands match clubs.
• Cups match hearts.
• Swords match spades.
• Pentacles match diamonds.

Historical The courts are where the two decks differ. A playing card deck has three court cards in each suit: Jack, Queen and King. A tarot deck has four, because it keeps the Knight, or Cavalier, between the Page and the Queen. The Page of tarot and the Jack of playing cards are the same figure, a young servant, which is why the French call both the Valet. Card games played with tarot decks are still popular in France and in parts of central Europe, where the deck is used for play and not for reading at all.

This matching is useful when you travel or when you only have a pack of playing cards at hand. You can practice suit and number readings with one, as long as you remember that it has no Majors and no Knights.

Reading Minors in a spread

When Majors and Minors appear together, let the Major name the theme and the Minors show where it is happening. A Tower with three Pentacles is a different story from a Tower with three Swords.

Look at the balance of suits, too. Many Cups suggest a question of feeling. Many Swords suggest thinking, worry or a hard talk. Many Pentacles point to money, work or the body, and many Wands point to energy and action. A suit that is missing can be just as useful to notice.

Finally, look at the numbers. Several Aces suggest new beginnings everywhere. Several Fives suggest a bumpy middle stretch. Several Tens suggest that a cycle is ending.

A simple way to learn all 56

You do not need to memorize every card. Try this plan over four weeks.

1. Week one: Wands. Lay out the suit from Ace to Ten and read it as a story.
2. Week two: Cups. Do the same, and notice where the numbers rhyme with Wands.
3. Week three: Swords. The hardest pictures live here, so go gently.
4. Week four: Pentacles. End with the steady suit, then lay all four Fives, all four Tens and so on side by side.

Common questions

How many Minor Arcana cards are there?

Fifty-six: four suits of fourteen cards. Each suit has an Ace, the numbers Two to Ten and four court cards.

What is a pip card?

A pip card is a numbered card from Ace to Ten. The name comes from playing cards, where the pips are the suit symbols printed on the card.

Do I need to learn astrology for the Minor Arcana?

No. Many decks add planets and signs to the Minors, a habit that comes from the Golden Dawn. It is an extra layer you can use or skip. The suit and the number are enough to start.

Keep learning

The Minor Arcana are covered in the lessons Suits and elements and Numbers one to ten of my free Tarot for Beginners course, with one lesson for each suit after that. Next, read The Major Arcana: the Fool’s Journey explained 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).
• Robert M. Place, The Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination (New York: Tarcher, 2005).
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot.