Tarot lesson
How many cards are in a tarot deck?
A standard tarot deck has 78 cards. They fall into two parts, the 22 Major Arcana and the 56 Minor Arcana, and the Minor Arcana split again into four suits. Once you see that structure, every card has an address, and the deck stops looking like 78 things to memorise.
The short answer: 78 cards in two parts
Almost every tarot deck sold today has the same 78 cards, whatever the artwork. The Major Arcana are 22 named cards, from The Fool to The World. The Minor Arcana are 56 cards in four suits of fourteen, much like a deck of playing cards with one extra court card in each suit.
| Part | Cards | What is in it |
|---|---|---|
| Major Arcana | 22 | Numbered 0 (The Fool) to XXI (The World) |
| Minor Arcana | 56 | 4 suits × 14 cards: Ace to Ten, Page, Knight, Queen, King |
| Whole deck | 78 | 22 + 56 |
The 22 Major Arcana
The Major Arcana carry names and numbers rather than suits: The Magician, The Lovers, Death, The Tower and so on. Read in order, they are often described as a journey from The Fool’s first step to The World’s completed cycle.
In a reading, a Major Arcana card points to a large theme or a turning point, something that shapes the situation rather than a passing detail. Several of them in one spread usually mean the question touches more than the everyday.
The 56 Minor Arcana: four suits of 14
Each suit has ten numbered cards, Ace to Ten, and four court cards: Page, Knight, Queen and King. The numbers describe how far a matter has developed, from the spark of an Ace to the full weight of a Ten. The court cards often stand for people, or for the way someone is handling the situation.
Each suit also has its own field of life, and most modern readers link it to one of the four classical elements. The suit tells you what area a card is talking about before you look up a single keyword.
| Suit | Cards | Element | Usually about |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wands | 14 | Fire | Energy, drive, work and plans |
| Cups | 14 | Water | Feelings and relationships |
| Swords | 14 | Air | Thoughts, conflict and decisions |
| Pentacles | 14 | Earth | Money, body, home and practical matters |
Rider–Waite–Smith, Marseille and Thoth
The Rider–Waite–Smith deck, drawn by Pamela Colman Smith for Arthur Edward Waite and published in 1909, gave every Minor Arcana card an illustrated scene. That makes it easier to learn from at a glance, which is why most books and websites, this one included, describe its images.
The older Tarot de Marseille has the same 78 cards, but its numbered Minor Arcana show only arranged suit symbols, such as seven cups on a plain ground, so readers lean more on number and suit. It also numbers Justice VIII and Strength XI, the other way round from Rider–Waite–Smith.
The Thoth deck, designed by Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris, also has 78 cards but renames some of them: Strength becomes Lust, Temperance becomes Art, Pentacles become Disks, and the court cards are Princess, Prince, Queen and Knight. Whatever you learn on one of these decks carries over to the others.
How to learn the deck without memorising it
Start with the structure, not the 78 meanings. If you know that a card is a Major Arcana, a Five or a Queen of Cups, you already know its scale, its stage and its field. Then add two or three keywords per card as you meet them in real readings.
Every card page here gives the keywords, the upright and reversed meanings and notes on love and work, so you can look a card up the moment it comes up.