Tarot cards are used for divination and are little, paper cards that come in a deck, similar to playing cards. A different archetypal entity or lesson is represented by each card. The cards are first dealt out in a Tarot card spread after being dealt and shuffled. Any scenario can benefit from a person receiving a crucial message or embracing a fresh viewpoint when they are aware of what each Tarot card represents as it is shown.
In This Article...
How can I determine which tarot card I have?
The technique that was created with The Tarot School is the one that I was first exposed to and with which I am most familiar.
- In order for you to add these two-digit numbers together, we first divide your birthdate into 4 groups of 2 digits each. YY + MM + DD + DD + YY
- Add the numbers together if the total is a two-digit number. Your first birth certificate is here. To obtain your second birth certificate, reduce this to a single digit.
- Ex: 11 + 22 + 20 + 00 = 53
- Strength – First Card: 5 + 3 = 8.
- The Star – Second Card: 8 = 1 + 7 = 17
- Add the first two digits to the third digit if the sum is a three-digit number. Your first birth certificate is here. To obtain your second birth certificate, reduce this to a single digit.
- Ex: 07 + 20 + 19 + 89 = 135
- Moon – First Card: 13 + 5 = 18.
- Hermit – Second Card, 1 + 8 = 9.
- When your total equals 19, there is an exception to all of these laws. Those with this much will have three cards, compared to the average person’s two. This is due to the fact that 1 + 9 = 10 and 1 + 0 = 1, creating your cards. The Magician, The Wheel, and The Sun
What do the tarot cards mean?
There are 78 cards in the Tarot deck, each with unique imagery, symbolism, and narrative.
The karmic and spiritual lessons of life are represented by the 22 Major Arcana cards. They represent a route to spiritual self-awareness and show the several phases we go through as we look for deeper insight and significance. The Major Arcana cards contain profoundly important truths on a soul level in this way.
The 56 Minor Arcana cards are a reflection of the difficulties we face every day. These Tarot cards emphasize life’s more practical components and can allude to current events that have a fleeting or insignificant impact.
There are 16 Tarot Court Cards in the Minor Arcana, each of which represents a distinct personality trait that we may choose to display at any given time. Along with the 40 numbered cards, there are also the four suitsCups, Pentacles, Swords, and Wandseach having ten cards, reflecting the numerous scenarios we face on a daily basis.
Tarot cards may be viewed by some as little more than ink on paper. But here’s what I’ve learned from daily Tarot card reading for more than 20 years:
What kinds of tarot cards are there?
Despite their vastly different designs, all tarot decks share a few characteristics. Each one has 78 playing cards, divided into the main and minor arcana. The major arcana, which are the deck’s 22 trump cards, generally allude to bigger influences and disclosures when they are revealed during a reading. These cards stand alone without a suit and represent key occasions or people in a person’s life.
In contrast, the minor arcana refer to influences and issues that are more commonplace. Wands, swords, pentacles, and cups make up the four suits that these 56 cards are divided into. (Occasionally, tarot decks will use different terminology, such as “Pentacles for coins, but they are exact equivalents to the four original divisions.) A different aspect of life is represented by each outfit. Wands typically represent imagination and passion, swords intelligence, pentacles work and wealth, and cups emotion. Additionally, each suit is associated with a certain set of astrological signs, such as wands being associated with fire, swords with air, pentacles with earth, and cups with water.
Since we’re beginners, the meanings you’ll most frequently refer to are the functional definitions, albeit these meanings can be used when cards symbolize people and their zodiac signs. For example, a three-card spread with three pentacle cards strongly denotes a financial concern. (More on the various spreads will follow.)
While much of this is up to the deck’s owner and what resonates with them, there are a few conventions that apply to the majority of tarot readings. If you’re reading cards for someone else, you should ask them to provide you with a question or suggest something they’re interested in, and keep that question in mind while you shuffle the deckalso referred to as “removing the effects of earlier research and readings. (An illustration would be, “When will I discover love?” Am I pursuing the correct career? “How can I get through my block?
Then you could query the person you are reading for (also known as “cutting the deck, once more concentrating on the querent. Although some readers will cut the deck for the querent, we prefer this option since it gives the querent a chance to feel linked to the deck personally. In any case, you will draw the necessary number of cards for your spread and, if you’re reading for yourself, place them between you and the querentor directly in front of you.
Can you interpret tarot cards for yourself?
It’s normal to be a little clumsy when you first start practicing the tarot. Tarot study is similar to learning a new languageit takes time to become proficient. But what happens if you no longer require the booklet and have intimate familiarity with the deck? Are you able to read yourself? No, except for a few rare instances. Simply put, it’s a horrible idea.
You see, the majority of us turn to astrology or tarot when we’re looking for clarity amid a period of ambiguity. In contrast to astrology, which is quite technical, our consciousness restricts our capacity to read tarot cards. Working with your personal interpretation of the cards, you are not constrained by short- and long-term cycles like the planets’ orbits. It might be tricky to go beyond your current circumstances while utilizing the tarot to better understand a trying scenario. Even if all the cards are spread out in front of you, putting them together requires such a broad perspective that it is all but impossible to fully understand the meaning of each card. Basically, any biases you already have will always be reflected in your tarot reading!
How can I determine the tarot card for the current year?
By the way, depending on where you think the parentheses in the math formula belong and the subsequent order of operations, I think I might be calculating the year card a little differently.
My strategy is to separate out three sums for a trinity that has spiritual significance. Your birth month and day are combined to create one number. If the year is your birth year or a transiting year for a Tarot Year Card calculation, add the digits for that year separately.
You have now completed two operations. When you combine the two together, you get the third order for that beautiful, tidy trinity. Theosophic reduction is only performed once three operations for the trinity have been completed (i.e., if the sum is over 22, add the digits together for a single digit sum).
That is the intriguing riddle with metaphysics.
There are numerous alternative methods and correspondence schemes. Consider my investigation of elemental directional correspondences and resolving the conflicts in a prior blog article.
It’s crucial to comprehend your justification and to choose a strategy or correspondence system that supports your personal philosophy.
You should do such procedures independently before combining them in a math problem where parentheses denote the separation of ideas (left to right). Since the idea of a Base Year has been established, it only makes sense to calculate the Base Year using a different order of operations. It supports the viewpoint that each Base Year is “predetermined to the point where, simply by adding up the numbers, we can predict what the Base Year tarot card will be.
The degree of the sun in astrology is equal to the month plus the day. That then becomes an idea in and of itself. What is the sum of our birthday’s month, day, and sun sign degree? “changes a Base Year determination’s overall generalities. Therefore, it makes sense that the degree of the sun sign, as an independent concept transferred to numerology for this purpose, would be its own distinct idea and require a different set of parentheses. It seems logical to me to carry out this step in a separate predetermined order of operation, and to combine the two preset sums in the third and last predetermined order of operation.
This technique of calculation produces three operations for a trinity, matching it with Hermetic and Neo-Platonic philosophytwo ideas that have a significant impact on esoteric tarot.
So that’s the justification behind my strategy. However, it differs from the conventional approach advocated by Archetypal Tarot and the literature on tarot birth cards.
My advice is to investigate the many strategies, choose the one that works best for you, and then stay with it, i.e., be consistent. The most important factor is ultimately personal consistency.
The Fool is card 22 in the Archetypal Tarot. Key 0: The Fool can be a birth card or, in the case of the practice in this workshop, a Tarot year card.
I don’t follow 22 because my own philosophy favors the continuity of trinities and the hallowed sevens. I perform the theosophic reduction if the total exceeds 21. I prefer to view The Fool card as a symbol. But this is solely a matter of personal taste. Just do what seems to work for you; there is no right or wrong answer here.
If your birthday occurs between January 1 and June 30, according to Archetypal Tarot, your Tarot Year Cycle is more likely to be felt from one January to the next, neatly aligning with the calendar year.
However, if you were born in a late calendar season, between July 1 and December 31, you are more likely to experience the Tarot Year according to the appropriate Major Arcana card from your birthday through the next birthday or solar return.
I suggested a three-card oracle reading when considering the lessons your Tarot Year Card will teach you, but you are welcome to approach the journaling prompts as you prefer. Yes, you could use a tarot deck for this, but I’ve found that using a non-tarot deck works far better. Pick your favorite modern oracle deck, like as Lenormand, Kipper, or another.
Because there is a wider range of artistic expression when you take your Tarot Year Card from many modern decks, this is an extremely enjoyable practice. I had a Key 20: Judgement year in 2021, so if I’m studying the Judgement card, I’ll take a Key 20 from one of the several tarot decks I own and lay it out in a spread.
If you have a sizable collection of tarot decks, choose your Tarot Year card from seven, eight, or even ten different decks, and arrange the cards in a spread as you respond to the journaling questions on the handout.
Tarot Year card variations should be read as their own spread, which means you should look for symbols that strike out to you and make a note of which signs or symbols are drawing your attention. Summarize the various ways that Major Arcana card has been interpreted. As you explore the Tarot Year, take a picture of the spread.
The Tarot Year Card is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can accomplish with it; birth cards, personality cards, soul cards, and other cards are all covered. Learn more about Base Years, Cycle Themes, and your Karmic Year while also reading about them. This book also has an amazing reference on how to interpret your Year Cards.
Get a copy of Archetypal Tarot: What Your Birth Card Reveals About Your Personality, Path, and Potential if you desire to use the tarot for introspective psychology work, journaling, and self-exploration. Theresa Reed, the Tarot Lady, wrote the Foreword for this edition from 2021.
The 2011 book Who Are You in the Tarot: Discover Your Birth and Year Cards and Uncover Your Destiny has been updated. I own both and adore them.
What kind of religion are tarot cards?
Tarot cards are frequently cited as a component of New Age thought and practice along with astrology, aspects of Buddhism, paganism, and First Nations teachings in the eclectic scholarly approach to the New Age.
How should I maintain my Tarot deck?
While rearranging the cards in the tarot deck is a good approach to purify and clear their energy, there are some circumstances in which you might wish to perform a more specialized ritual. If you’re just getting started with tarot, cleaning your deck can be an excellent place to start.
You might want to clean your tarot deck for a variety of reasons, including:
- beginning with a fresh deck
- readings for other people
- You think you need to recharge.
- Your card readings seem a touch “odd” or “disconnected”
- Your deck hasn’t been used recently.
- Your deck has been handled by others
- You think you’ve been utilizing your deck a lot. A LOT, especially for books with strong emotional content
Why should you cleanse or clear your tarot deck?
Tarot deck cleansing helps keep the energy flowing between you and your deck. Consider it as a little spiritual hygiene to maintain a strong and clear connection. It’s not necessary, but if you have any of the aforementioned symptoms, try a few of the energetic cleansing techniques listed below and note which ones seem to work the best for you.
How often should you cleanse your tarot deck?
This is another way of stating USE YOUR INTUITION: there are no hard and fast laws. Don’t stress if you don’t believe it is necessary for your deck. Alternately, if you like to cleanse them once per week or once per month, that’s great. If it feels appropriate to you, you can even place your favorite crystal on the balcony each night.
If you frequently place crystals on your deck and store it on an altar while not in use, you might not feel the need to cleanse it frequently because this quick ritual will likely be sufficient to keep your deck feeling nice.
There are numerous ways to cleanse your cards, just as there are numerous reasons why you might desire to do so.
Different ways to cleanse your tarot deck
Use holy smoke. Light a dried rosemary, lavender, cedar, sage, or palo santo cleansing wand until it begins to smoke. Hold the smoke a safe distance below the deck while holding the burning herbs in one hand and the deck in the other so that the smoke drifts upward onto the cards. Turn the deck so that the smoke covers it from all angles. Next, safely put your deck to the ground and put out the fire.
On the deck, set a selenite stone (or a black tourmaline or a transparent quartz). It works well to leave it like way for an hour, but I prefer to leave it overnight.
Set them on display during a new moon. The New Moon is energy of a blank slate; you can purify the deck by setting it on a window sill on a new moon night. At this moment, you can also make a brand-new intention for your deck.
Place the cards in a salty dish. A strong and stabilizing cleaner is salt. My preferred choice for a thorough cleansing is this. Allow it to sit anywhere from one to eight hours in a dry area.
Unorderly shuffle. Spread the cards out on the ground, then shuffle them around like a child playing in dirt. This method’s freedom and randomization serve as an excellent reset.
the shuffle and sort. Set up the deck in rows of seven cards across, commencing with the Major Arcana numbers 0 to 22. (see photo above). Next, arrange the cards, Ace through King, one for each suit, as follows: Swords, Pentacles, Cups, and Wands. View the deck in this configuration, then mix everything up (like the chaotic!) and shuffle it thoroughly.
There are how many tarot cards?
The major arcana, which contains 22 cards and is also known as the trumps, and the minor arcana, which has 56 cards, make up the 78 cards that make up this deck. Moon, card number 18 in the major arcana. The primary arcana cards feature images that stand in for a variety of energies, people, virtues, and vices.
What does the 22nd Tarot card mean?
One of the 78 cards in a tarot deck is The Fool. It is one of the 22 Major Arcana in tarot card reading, sometimes denoted by the numbers 0 (the first) or XXI (the last).
Questions you don’t really want answered
Even though it might seem apparent, it’s advisable to refrain from asking the tarot cards questions that you aren’t prepared to hear the answers to. That’s because answers to these questions can reveal information you’re just not quite ready to hear.
“Tarot can definitely come off as offensive if you’re not willing to hear the truth or consider an opposing opinion. Tarot reading Nicole Fortunaso
According to tarot reader and life coach Nicole Fortunaso, “tarot may truly come out as offensive if you are not willing to hear the truth of the problem or look at an alternate viewpoint.” She advises analyzing why you’re reacting the way you are in order to reflect on how to effectively address the underlying problem if you ask the question and aren’t satisfied with the response.

