Major Arcana Meanings: All 22 Tarot Trumps, from The Fool to The World

A Rider-Waite-Smith deck holds 78 cards: 56 Minor Arcana split into four suits, and 22 Major Arcana numbered 0 to XXI. The minors describe everyday life, the conversations, the bills, the arguments, the small wins. The trumps work on another level. They are archetypes, the great forces a person meets only a handful of times in a lifetime: love as a choice, the death of an old self, collapse, hope, fulfilment.

Twenty-two is not an arbitrary number. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith both learned their craft, tied each trump to one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and one of the paths on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The three mother letters (Aleph, Mem, Shin) took the elements, the seven double letters took the planets, and the twelve simple letters took the zodiac signs. Most of the correspondences readers still use come from that system.

In practice this means one thing: when a trump shows up, the matter carries more weight than it seems to. The Major Arcana make up 22 of 78 cards, just under 30 percent of the deck. One trump in a three-card spread is normal. Three at once tells you the question touches something fundamental.

The Fool carries the number 0, and in numerology zero is not a quantity but pure potential. That is why tradition does not put him at the head of the line but beside it. He is the traveller who walks through every other trump and finally returns, as the dancer on The World, to where he began, only now fully awake.

Pamela Colman Smith stitched the deck together with visual threads. The Fool's white rose reappears on Death's banner. The lemniscate over the Magician's head floats over the woman in Strength, and returns in the crossed ribbons of the World's wreath. The four winged creatures on the Wheel of Fortune are reading their books; on The World they simply watch, because the lesson is learned.

The remaining 21 cards fall into three rows of seven, often called septenaries. Rachel Pollack, in Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, laid them out in three lines and read them as three acts of one drama: the outer world, the inner world and the world of spirit. It remains the most useful way to learn the trumps, because it tells you not only what a card means but where the querent stands on the road.

The Magician, High Priestess, Empress, Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers and Chariot are the figures we meet while growing up. The Magician and High Priestess are two halves of consciousness, active will and receptive silence, standing like the two pillars of a temple. The Empress and Emperor are mother and father, nature and law. The Hierophant is school, religion and culture, everything the community hands us. The Lovers bring the first choice that is truly our own, and the Chariot shows the ego winning: the young hero in armour, success in the eyes of the world.

When this row dominates a reading, the story is playing out externally: in relationships, at work, in the family, in clashes with authority. Underneath sits a question about identity: who am I among these people, and what do I want for myself?

The Chariot conquers the outer world; Strength turns the work inward. The lion she soothes is the querent's own instinct, not an enemy. The Hermit walks away from the crowd to hear himself think. The Wheel of Fortune sits at the exact centre of the sequence, a reminder that fate turns regardless of plans. Justice asks for an honest look at the consequences of our choices. Then comes the Hanged Man, who flips perspective, Death, who ends the old self, and Temperance, who blends what remains into something new.

Cards from this row tell you the question is really about inner change. Even if the querent asked about a breakup or a job move, the heart of the matter lies in what needs to shift inside them.

The last act opens in darkness. The Devil is the shadow and the attachments we cannot see until someone names them. The Tower smashes whatever was built on a lie. After the collapse come the three celestial lights in order: the Star (hope), the Moon (the descent into dreams, fears and the unconscious) and the Sun (full clarity). Judgement is the wake-up call, and the World is integration. The dancer holds two wands because she has united what the Magician still held apart, one hand raised and one pointing down.

A spread full of these cards usually means the querent is going through something with a spiritual dimension, even if they describe it in ordinary words: burnout, a crisis, a fresh start.

The Golden Dawn gave every trump an element, a planet or a zodiac sign, and Waite built those attributions into his deck. Knowing them is one of the fastest ways to deepen a reading. The Emperor as Aries speaks of drive and leadership; Death as Scorpio of endings, sex, inheritance and rebirth; the Devil as Capricorn of matter, ambition and the structures that bind.

Elements (mother letters): The Fool is Air, The Hanged Man is Water, Judgement is Fire. The World is often given Earth as well.

Planets (double letters): The Magician is Mercury, The High Priestess the Moon, The Empress Venus, Wheel of Fortune Jupiter, The Tower Mars, The Sun the Sun, The World Saturn.

Zodiac signs (simple letters): The Emperor Aries, The Hierophant Taurus, The Lovers Gemini, The Chariot Cancer, Strength Leo, The Hermit Virgo, Justice Libra, Death Scorpio, Temperance Sagittarius, The Devil Capricorn, The Star Aquarius, The Moon Pisces.

The same system explains a swap that confuses anyone raised on the Tarot de Marseille, where Justice is VIII and Strength is XI. The Golden Dawn switched them so the trumps would follow the order of the zodiac: Leo (Strength) comes before Libra (Justice). Waite kept the change, so in the RWS deck Strength is VIII and Justice is XI. Both numberings are valid; you just need to know which deck you are reading.

The attributions also help with timing questions. If the Chariot lands in a future position, some readers take it as the Sun's passage through Cancer, roughly late June to late July. And the trump numbers connect to numerology: add the digits of your birth date and reduce to 22 or less, and you get your tarot birth card, a close cousin of your life path number.

A single trump works like a headline: it sets the theme, and the minors fill in the details. When several appear, read them as a story, not a list. These are the rules that hold up at the table:

In questions about the heart and money, some trumps come up again and again. Their nuances matter, because these are the topics where over-reading happens most.

The question: does this relationship have a future? Past, present, future: The Lovers, The Hanged Man, The Star. A reader would take it like this. At the root there is a real bond and shared values. Right now the relationship is suspended, and one partner is giving more than they receive. The Star in the future does not promise a quick happy ending; it promises renewal. After the waiting comes honesty and lighter air.

Notice that the three cards come from three different rows and run in ascending order (VI, XII, XVII). This is a process maturing, not one stuck in place. Had the Hanged Man come up reversed, the emphasis would move to a refusal to let go, and our guide to reversed tarot cards covers how to read that shift.

Death (XIII) does not predict physical death in any serious school of tarot. Look at the card: a king has fallen before the rider, meaning power and the old self; a child looks on without fear; and on the horizon the sun rises between two towers. Death closes a chapter to make room for the next. In a relationship reading it can mean a breakup, but just as often the end of one form of the relationship, like the dating phase giving way to a shared life. It hits hardest when someone clings to what is already over.

The Tower (XVI) is the one card that genuinely arrives without warning. The lightning knocks off the crown, the false belief the whole building rested on. The tower itself stands on rock and is solid enough; it was simply built in the wrong place. In a reading it means a jolt: a truth coming out, plans overturned, a fight that clears the air. Always look at the card that follows. A Tower followed by the Star, the Six of Swords or the Ace of Wands shows destruction that clears ground for growth.

The Devil (XV) mirrors the Lovers: the same couple, similar poses, but a horned figure where the angel should be. The chains around their necks are loose enough to slip off, and that is the key to the card. Attachment holds because we consent to it. Addiction, obsession, codependency, the job that pays too well to leave. The Devil also has a bright side: sexuality, ambition, earthy pleasure, the right to enjoy being alive. In an advice position he sometimes just says: admit to yourself what you actually want.

All three need context. To a closed question they usually answer no, or not in this form, which our guide to yes or no tarot explains card by card. In a past position they can be good news: the worst has already happened.