Tarot Card Meanings

About the Tarot

Tarot (Tar-oh) is a system of symbolic images on cards. Whatever their original significance, the cards have been used since they first surfaced as much for divinatory purposes as for trick-taking card games. Tarot is currently also used as tool for reflection on one’s personal life, as well as an aid to meditation. Tarot is usually embodied in a deck of 78 cards, similar to a set of playing cards. In the English speaking world, tarot is widely regarded as a form of cartomancy. In France, the word tarot also describes a trick-taking card game; see Tarot (game). Tarot has long been regarded as taboo, due to obscure associations that predate its 19th-century occult associations. Roman Catholic sermons inveighing against the evil inherent in playing cards (though not necessarily tarot reading) can be traced to the 14th century.

The conventional 78-card deck is structured into two distinct sets. The first, called the Major Arcana, consists of 22 cards without suits typically referred to as “trumps”. The second, called the Minor Arcana, consists of 56 cards divided into four suits. The cards in each suit are numbered 2 through 10 with four court cards or face cards and an Ace (not dissimilar from the structure of playing cards). Arcana is the plural of the Latin word arcanum, meaning “hidden truth” or “secret knowledge”. Alternate names are the Minor Trumps and Major Trumps, or simply the Minors and the Trumps. The traditional Italian suits are Swords, Batons, Coins and Cups, although in modern decks Batons are commonly called Wands or Staves, and Coins are often Pentacles or Discs.

Tarot Texts

The best known Tarot deck is the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. There are hundreds of others, but the images of the RWS Tarot are the ones which are instantly recognizable. This page has abundant detail about the history and significance of the RWS deck, as well as other texts about Tarot divination.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by A.E. Waite [1911]
This is the essential Tarot reference by the designer of the best known Tarot deck.

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]
This is a detailed study of the esoteric roots of the Tarot.

The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]
This is a short essay on the Tarot, by a prominent occultist of the 19th Century. Mathers also wrote The Kabbalah Unveiled.

The Symbolism of the Tarot by P. D. Ouspensky [1913]
An evocative inner journey through the Major Arcana of the Tarot.

Other Resources

Get a Tarot Reading This is a frames-based JavaScript-powered Celtic spread Tarot generator. The Tarot reading application is presented for entertainment purposes only. We cannot answer any questions about its results or outcome.

Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck Copyright FAQ
Strangely enough, “what is the copyright status of the Tarot deck?” is the most commonly asked question about this section. This FAQ attempts to address this complicated issue.

Tarot Card Cross-reference. This is an index of all of the Tarot Card images at sacred-texts. Currently this includes the color 1909 RWS deck, the greyscale RWS images from the Pictorial Key, and the Wirth and Marseilles images from Tarot of the Bohemians.

Tarot Card Comparison, by J.B. Hare
This presents high resolution images of three cards from the 1909 Tarot deck and the US Games deck. Are they different? You be the judge.

NOTE ON THE COLOR TAROT CARD IMAGES: Holly Voley has graciously scanned a set of vintage Tarot cards for this site, the earliest in her collection. These images can be viewed when you click on any of the black and white thumbnails in the Pictorial Key to the Tarot, or in the right-hand frame in the Tarot card reader. They can also be viewed sequentially in the Tarot Card Cross-reference. These Tarot card images are unambiguously in the public domain in the United States, and differ only slightly from the US Games Tarot deck. This deck is the one known as the ‘Pamela-A’ deck with the dried mud pattern on the back of the cards. There are also high resolution images of three of the Pamela-A cards available below in the Tarot Card Comparison essay.