What is Tarot?
An introduction to the world of tarot cards and their symbolic meaning for self-reflection and personal guidance.
Tarot is a deck of 78 illustrated cards that began as a card game in 15th-century Italy and is used today mainly for reflection: you draw cards, look at their images and ask what they bring up about a question in your life. The deck splits into 22 Major Arcana, which show big life themes, and 56 Minor Arcana, which show everyday situations in four suits. What tarot is not is a reliable way to know the future. Its value lies in giving you a structured, picture-based way to think about where you stand.
What Is Tarot? A Simple Definition
At its simplest, tarot is a set of symbols with a fixed order. Each card has a name, a number and an image, and over the past two centuries readers have attached fairly stable meanings to each one. The Hermit stands for withdrawal and inner searching, the Three of Swords for heartbreak, the Ten of Pentacles for family and long-term security.
A reading combines three things: a question, a few cards drawn at random, and positions that tell you how to read each card (for example "what helps" or "what is in the way"). The reader then connects the meaning of each card with its position and with the question. That last step is where the real work happens, and it is why two people can draw the same card and take away different things.
The History of Tarot: From Card Game to Divination
The earliest surviving tarot cards come from northern Italy. Painted decks made for the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan date to around the 1440s and 1450s. They were luxury objects for a trick-taking game called tarocchi, in which the picture cards worked as permanent trumps. For more than three hundred years, tarot was a game and nothing more, and versions of it are still played in parts of Europe.
The mystical reading of tarot started in France in the late 18th century. In 1781 Antoine Court de Gébelin argued that the cards preserved the wisdom of ancient Egypt. Historians have since rejected the idea, but it stuck in the popular imagination. Soon after, a Parisian occultist known as Etteilla published a deck and a system designed specifically for reading the cards.
The deck most people picture today appeared in London in 1909. It was drawn by Pamela Colman Smith under the direction of Arthur Edward Waite and is known as the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Its big innovation was giving every card, including the numbered ones, a full scene with people and action. That made the cards far easier to read intuitively, and most modern decks still follow its structure.
How Many Tarot Cards Are in a Deck?
A standard tarot deck has 78 cards:
- 22 Major Arcana, numbered 0 to XXI, from The Fool to The World
- 56 Minor Arcana, in four suits of 14 cards each
- In each suit: Ace to Ten, plus four court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, King)
Why 78? The number is inherited from the original Italian game: a regular four-suit deck with an extra court card per suit, plus a separate series of trumps and The Fool. Esoteric writers later found symbolic reasons for it, but the structure came first. You can browse all 78 cards with their meanings in the tarot card lexicon.
The Major Arcana: 22 Archetypal Cards
The Major Arcana are the trump cards. They describe turning points and long-running themes rather than single events. In order, they are: The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgement and The World. In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck Strength is number VIII and Justice number XI; older Marseille decks have them the other way round.
Many readers see the sequence as a journey. The Fool sets out with almost nothing, meets teachers and tests along the way, faces loss and upheaval with Death and The Tower, and arrives at a sense of completion in The World. When a Major Arcana card turns up in a reading, it usually signals that the question touches something bigger than a passing mood.
The Minor Arcana: Four Suits Explained
The Minor Arcana cover the texture of daily life. Each suit has its own area:
- Wands: energy, drive, projects and ambition (traditionally linked to fire)
- Cups: feelings, relationships and intuition (water)
- Swords: thoughts, conflict, decisions and communication (air)
- Pentacles: money, work, the body and practical matters (earth)
The numbers add a rough storyline: Aces are beginnings, the middle numbers bring tension and adjustment, and Tens show a cycle at its fullest. The court cards are often read as people in your life or as attitudes you are being asked to take on. The overview of tarot court cards explains how the Page, Knight, Queen and King differ.
How Does Tarot Work?
There is no evidence that shuffled cards know anything about your future, and this site does not claim otherwise. The cards are drawn at random. What makes tarot useful is the way your mind responds to the images. Faced with a picture and a question, you start to notice what you were already half aware of: a worry you had pushed aside, an option you had dismissed, a feeling you had not named.
Take a simple example. You ask about a tense situation at work and draw the Five of Wands, which shows five figures swinging staffs at each other. The card does not tell you what will happen. It might make you ask whether the conflict is a real fight or more of a noisy competition, and whether you are part of the noise. That question is the useful part. If you want to know why readings can feel so accurate without predicting anything, read why tarot is not a prediction.
Popular Decks: Rider-Waite-Smith, Marseille, Thoth
Three decks shape most of the tarot you will come across:
- Rider-Waite-Smith (1909): illustrated scenes on all 78 cards, clear symbolism, the usual choice for beginners. The card images and meanings on this site follow this tradition.
- Tarot de Marseille: the older French pattern. The Major Arcana are illustrated, but the numbered cards show only arranged suit symbols, so reading them relies more on numbers and suits.
- Thoth Tarot: created by Aleister Crowley with the painter Frieda Harris, full of astrological and esoteric references, with some cards renamed.
Most modern decks, from minimalist to fantasy designs, are variations on the Rider-Waite-Smith structure, so what you learn with one transfers easily to the others.
What Is Tarot Used For Today?
Most people who use tarot today do it for self-reflection rather than fortune-telling. Common uses include:
- a daily card as a short prompt for the day
- a reading on a decision, a relationship or a stuck situation
- journaling: drawing a card and writing about what it brings up
- creative work, as a source of characters and plot ideas
Tarot can help you sort your thoughts. It cannot replace medical, psychological, legal or financial advice, and it should never be the only basis for an important decision. If you would like to try it, a free online tarot reading lets you choose a topic and see how cards and positions work together. For a structured way to learn, continue with tarot for beginners.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does tarot have 78 cards?
Because the original Italian game used 78. It combined a four-suit deck of 56 cards, with four court cards per suit instead of the usual three, with 21 numbered trumps and The Fool. Later occult writers tied the number to symbolic systems, but the count comes from the game.
Where did tarot originate?
Tarot originated in northern Italy in the first half of the 15th century, where it was played as a card game called tarocchi. Its use for divination came much later, in late 18th-century France. The popular story of an ancient Egyptian origin has no historical basis.
Is tarot a religion or witchcraft?
No. Tarot has no doctrine, no deity and no required beliefs. It is a deck of cards with a long history of symbolic interpretation, and people of many faiths and of none use it as a tool for reflection. How you relate it to your own beliefs is up to you.
What are tarot cards used for?
Today they are mostly used for reflection: thinking through a question, exploring feelings, journaling or finding a fresh angle on a decision. Some people also use them for creative writing or simply enjoy the art. They are not a reliable tool for predicting events.