TAROT BASICS- get to know your deck

Tarot and Other Systems

A traditional Tarot deck contains 78 cards

There are 56 Minors:

These are divided into 4 suits. Each suit has ten numbered Pips and four Court cards.

There are 22 Majors or Trionfi:

These are usually divided into a First Line and Second Line of ten cards each with the Fool (card 0) and the World (card 21) at either end.

The Four Suits

The four suits correspond to the four ancient elements of fire, water, air and earth. When you look up the meaning of any card here at Daily Practice Tarot it will include keywords for the suit.

WANDS (Rods/Staves/Staffs) is the suit of FIRE and is usually ordered first among the minors. It is the suit of desire, ambition, action. Striving competitive energy is always moving in the suit of Wands, and we do mean moving. The spark of life has a hard time stopping or even slowing down. We climb mountains, run races and push past obstacles with Wands energy. This suit also governs electric non-rational flashes of insight.

CUPS (Chalices/Vessels) is the suit of WATER and usually ordered second among the minors. Water is the emotions and the stirring of soulful deep feeling. When we feel an emotional connection with another, or sense a voice in our soul that gives meaning to our experience; we are in the suit of Cups. While it lacks the flash and dazzle of Wands’ fire, water is a powerful force- feeding life and shaping our landscape in ways we don’t always notice.

SWORDS (Blades/Arrows) is the suit of AIR and in most decks are ordered third among the minors. Air is thought, reason and clarity. In it’s pure form, it governs cerebral and cognitive processes. The gift of reason has allowed man to to accomplish the near miraculous. But thought can become compulsive or rigid, leading to depression, anxiety or inflexible ideology. Great moments of clarity are not always pleasant- sometimes the truth hurts. These not-so-nice aspects of seeing the world as it is lead to Swords association with discord and conflict as well as laws and contracts.

DISKS (Pentacles/Coins/Stones) is the suit of EARTH and in most decks are ordered last among the mnors. It is a complex and multi-layered suit, perhaps best expressed by the two other names by which it is commonly known: Coins and Pentacles. The ordinary pedestrian qualities of a coin and the esoteric magical qualities of a pentacle do not contradict each other in this suit, but coexist and enhance each other. On the most basic level Earth as an element grounds us and nurtures us, hosting everything we can see, touch, taste and hear. It is solid, certain, even a bit common: the ground beneath our feet and the dirt under our fingernails. It is our material wealth, the solidness of our body, and all other indicators of mundane certainty and stability. But Earth is also a ball with a molten core rotating at 1000 mph, hurtling at dizzying speed in an orbit around a massive fission reactor. The molten core erupts and subsumes, moving entire continents. Life developed here and created an atmosphere that allowed more life to grow. The movement of the planet is so fast, but we don’t feel it. The shaping of the continents is so slow, but we can’t stop it. Our physical body functions without our conscious thought, yet every minute of every day millions of chemical and physical processes reveal the body as a work of genius. So in the suit of disks we see a lot of the everyday and the tangible: exchanges of money, material craftsmanship, the physical body, farming. But the Tarot wants you to look closer. Just as that ordinary dirt under your feet is a miraculous heavenly body speeding around the sun; there is an inherent magic in the everyday.

The Pips

Each suit has ten numbered Pip cards. These cards have meanings that usually pertain to everyday situations and moods, though some have much deeper and complicated aspects. Just as each suit represents a certain quality, so does each number. When you look up the meaning of any Pip here at Daily practice Tarot it will include keywords for that number.

The Courts

Each suit usually has four Court cards. In the most traditional decks these cards are named Page, Knight, Queen and King. A lot of modern decks have given them alternate naming systems such as Princess, Prince, Queen and King; or Daughter, Son, Mother, Father.

The Courts tend to frustrate newcomers to Tarot. Some practitioners believe them to represent specific individuals in a person’s life, others associate them with different levels of mastery in the given suit, or ways of approaching a problem. It can get confusing. Luckily, we have a little primer on court cards here.

The Majors/Trionfi

By far the most familiar cards in the deck are the Majors or Trionfi. Even people who’ve never glanced at a tarot deck have seen the Death card in a movie, or the Magician on the box of an RWS deck in a shop.

Each Major represents an archetypical theme or concept, and their meanings function on many levels from broad philosophical concepts to the concrete and practical. The sequence of cards from zero to 21 can almost read like a story. Understanding a Major card can be deepened by considering how it relates to the previous or following card.

The first and last card in this sequence are the Fool and the World respectively. The remaining 20 cards can be split into two parts, the First Line of Majors 1-10 placed directly above the Second Line of Majors 11-20. Each card’s relationship to the card directly above or below also helps to enhance and clarify its meaning.

Some see the First Line as a sequence of maturity unfolding in the outer world as the Second Line unfolds in the inner world. Some see the First line describing concerns of the first half of life while the Second Line describes the latter half. Still another view is that the First Line concerns itself with practical worldly concerns while the Second focuses on spiritual life. We don’t think it’s necessary to choose only one or any of these points-of-view. They can all be helpful and can enhance each other.

Some Variables Between Decks

One of the funnest things about tarot is how many different decks there are, with creative people putting out new ones all the time. There are decks inspired by Impressionist art and artists, by myths and folktales, even by films and television shows. Most keep to the format described on this page but there are some variations that might confuse a beginner.

The Strength-Justice Switch:

By far the most common format for a Tarot deck is the Rider-Waite-Smith, or RWS. Pamela Coleman Smith’s excellent illustrations, first published over a hundred years ago, have stood the test of time. However, Waite made a change to the Majors that not every deck since has maintained. For hundreds of years before RWS, Tarot decks placed Justice as the Major numbered 8, and Strength as the Major numbered 11. Waite switched them so that in the RWS deck Strength is numbered 8 and Justice 11. It is widely thought he did this in order to make correspondence between the Majors and the sequence of the Zodiac- how could the card with the scales on it not be Libra? Or the one with the lion not be Leo? Waite’s contemporary Aleister Crowley even theorized that these two cards must have been deliberately misplaced to trick those uninitiated to the secrets of Tarot (although in his own deck he kept the original sequence.)

At Daily Practice Tarot we generally support the original placement of Strength-as-11, Justice-as-8. But if you’re new to Tarot, don’t get too bothered about it. Look up the meaning of the card based on its name.

The Crowley Court:

Speaking of Crowley… his Thoth deck has a completely different system of Court cards than RWS, with a Princess, a Prince, a Knight, a Queen and no King. He also gives slightly different meanings for the Pips. If Thoth is the deck you want to use, learn it on it’s own terms.

The Sequence of the Suits:

The most common order in which the Suits are presented is Wands, Cups, Swords, Disks. Some deck designers put the Suits in different order. This is another variable a beginner shouldn’t get too hung up on. As you become more familiar with Tarot you’re likely to develop your own opinion on how they should be arranged.

Tarot and Other Systems

This site focuses on Tarot as a stand-alone device. There are many practitioners who find their Tarot practice enhanced by pairing it with other systems.

Astrology: As far back as the 15th century Tarot cards included symbols for planets and astrological signs. These symbols may have had different or lost meanings to people of that time. Many modern practitioners link certain cards to certain signs (Benebel Wen, author of Holistic Tarot, sometimes uses these associations as predictive of a certain time of year.) It was Waite’s desire to create a sequential representation of the zodiac that led him to make the controversial switch of Justice for Strength.

Qabbalah: It is unmistakable that both Waite and Crowley were interested in this discipline of Jewish mysticism and intentionally used its symbols and principles in designing their decks. It is a field that requires serious study and time commitment to understand. If you are looking for a good introduction to the relationship between the two systems, Paul Foster Case’s classic The Tarot: a Key to the Wisdom of the Ages is a great start.

Jungian Psychology/ Alchemy: Carl Jung’s theories of psychological types and the relation of ancient alchemical theory to psychological processes map nicely onto to the Tarot. Two places to learn more about this are Robert Wang’s The Jungian Tarot and Sallie Nichols’ Tarot and the Archetypal Journey.