Operational Tarot: Majors and Minors without Limits

Tarotists all learn that the Major Arcana cards contain the “Greater Secrets” of the Universe, and the Minor Arcana contain the “Lesser Secrets”.

When we learn tarot, and teach tarot, we discuss the Fool’s Journey through the Major Arcana as a journey toward spiritual enlightenment and attainment. We typically discuss the Minor Arcana from a more basic perspective.

The seeker may get the idea that, within a reading, Major Arcana cards speak only to larger, more spiritual issues. They may believe that the only function of the Major cards is to remind us of our spiritual nature, or to instruct or correct us in our thinking and attitudes.

Likewise, they may see the Minors as the only cards that can provide detailed information about practical happenings.

Many tarotists (even experienced readers) come to the cards with a very didactic sense that the Majors can only mean a certain type of thing, and Minors can only mean a certain other type of thing.

Often, you will hear and read statements like the two following.

Major Arcana cards indicate situations of fate which you can’t change; Minor Arcana cards indicate areas in life where you have control.

Major Arcana cards indicate spiritual matters; Minor Arcana cards indicate mundane matters.

It’s true that, when we learn the lessons of the cards and understand their archetypes, the Major Arcana cards offer deep and universal spiritual lessons. However, so do the Minor Arcana cards, if you look deeply enough.

Tarot is a book of spiritual wisdom to be studied and embraced. Tarot is also a tool of divination. Our relationship to the cards as messengers of wisdom may be radically different than our use of the cards in divination.

Everyone’s tarot practice is unique to them. There is no one correct way to read tarot, and no one correct way to interpret any particular card.

However, I’ve recently noticed that many tarotists seems to artificially limit what information they can receive from their cards by strictly defining the function of the Major and Minor Arcana.

In my experience, all seventy-eight cards are able to perform multiply duties, depending on what is needed. All cards, both Major and Minor, are capable of giving practical information about daily life and great spiritual wisdom, sometimes in the same reading.

If a reader can look beyond a dogmatic understanding of each card and be open to the context of the reading, the reader will notice that sometimes the Major cards will speak of mundane, practical things, and sometimes the Minor cards will reveal grand spiritual insight.

A similar thing can happen within the suits of the Minor Arcana.  A reader may believe that Pentacles can only speak about money, or that Cups can only speak about love, or that Swords are always unwelcome.

The reality is, any card might appear to comment on any aspect of life. As readers, we need to be able to interpret any card in any situation.

Sometimes it’s helpful in a reading to forget the rules of tarot structure, and simply read the cards.

For example, the Magician may remind you of your power, and instruct you to take an accounting of your personal tools. The Magician may also speak to attending a school.

The Hierophant may counsel you to seek higher spiritual knowledge. The Hierophant may also tell you to seek a medical doctor and begin a standard course of treatment. 

The Ten of Pentacles may predict that you will be buying or selling a house. The Ten of Pentacles may also instruct you to connect with your ancestors in spirit.

The Page of Cups may indicate your daughter. The Page of Cups may also be a directive to speak from a place of love, and to be a channel for the high vibration of unconditional love.

Learning about tarot structure helps us incorporate the wisdom of tarot into our lives. Sometimes, though, in a reading, it is best just let the cards speak without the limitations of structure.

Tarot only has seventy-eight images with which to describe every possibility of human existence. The less we limit what each card can and cannot do, the more information we can derive.

Aces, Tens and the Court: Tarot Exercises to Find your Path

Separate from your Minor Arcana the four Aces, four Tens, and all sixteen Court cards, separated by rank. As we explore each number and rank, consider how the suit/element is expressed in each card.

Aces: Aces are a new beginning, the source or the essence of their element. The Ace is the purest form of the element.

Shuffle your four Aces, and ask this question: What is a source of strength upon which I could draw more fully?

Pull one card to give your answer. What card did you receive? What does it mean to you?

Tens: Tens represent a fullness, or the completion of a cycle or a journey.

Shuffle your four Tens, and ask this question: What am I full of right now?

Pull one card to give your answer. What card did you receive? What does it mean to you?

Now look at your Ace and your Ten together. How does your Ace give you strength to help you with your Ten?

Pages: Pages refer to youth, learning and communication.

Shuffle your four Pages, and ask this question: What am I learning right now?

Pull one card to give your answer. What card did you receive? What does it mean to you?

How does the lesson of your Page tie in to the story told in your Ace and Ten?

Knights: Knights refer to coming of age, travel and pursuit.

Shuffle your four Knights, and ask this question: What should I be pursuing right now?

Pull one card to give your answer. What card did you receive? What does it mean to you?

Queens: Queens refer to mature feminine wisdom, and nurturance.

Shuffle your four Queens, and ask this question: What is my source of wisdom right now?

Pull one card to give your answer. What card did you receive? What does it mean to you?

Kings: Kings refer to masculine leadership, and authority.

Shuffle your four Kings, and ask this question: Where should I take a leadership role right now?

Pull one card to give your answer. What card did you receive? What does it mean to you?

Now look at your Knight, your Queen and your King. How do these three energies support you in taking your next steps forward in life?

Take all six cards you have drawn today, and shuffle them. Pull one to give you a final thought. Pay special attention to it’s number/rank and it’s element. What direction does this card give you?

Answers to Your Questions about Tarot: How to Learn Tarot

Answers to Your Questions about Tarot

Today’s questions comes from Jean-Phylipe, a new tarot student working with Tarot de Marseille, and definitely on a spiritual journey. His questions are:

1. Learning tarot is somewhat lengthy. I can’t seem to read the tarot if I don't have the book with me. Do you have any tips on how to be able to use tarot, or learn it in a way that is simple and straightforward. I read for some friends and family, and pulling out the booklet seems to lose the tarot’s credibility for them.

2. While I love tarot, I’ve opened up to many different divinations. I was wondering if you use other tools during a tarot reading?  This is something I would love to do, since a book I translated is called Chinese Fortune Sticks, and I feel like I could adopt this as a second tool to enhance the reading. Is this something that is common with practitioners, or do most stick to one tool?

These are great questions. That you are asking these questions tells me you are really on a great path as a student of tarot and spirituality.

Yes, tarot is tough to learn. Heck, if it were easy, everyone would do it. Some may argue that your chosen deck, Tarot de Marseille, is harder to learn than a more fully illustrated deck would be.

I have four suggestions to help tarot students memorize the cards. The last suggestion is perhaps the most important, and addresses you comment about referring to the book during a reading.

Arguably, the hardest cards to memorize are the forty pip cards; the Minor Arcana.  Here is a hint to help with them.

First, think about numerology and the Four Elements. What does each number represent? What do each of the Four Elements represent? Then you can put it together. So, for example, if one, or Ace, is a new beginning, and Pentacles, or Earth, is about material matters, perhaps the Ace of Pentacles would be a new job or new money. If Cups, or Water, is about emotional matters, then the Ace of Cups might be about a new emotion, or a new relationship.

The second suggestion is to assign key words to each card, and create flash cards with the name of the card on one side, and the key words you’ve assigned to the card on the other. Memorizing key words to associate in your mind with a name of a card as well as a picture can be extremely helpful if you ever switch decks, or are caught without a deck and want to do a reading.

The third suggestion is to look at each image and associate the key words with the image by making specific connections. This is easier in a deck with fully illustrated pips, of course, but no matter how a card is illustrated you can look at shapes, colors and arrangements to draw a correlation to your card meaning.

The forth and most important suggestion is to do exactly what you have been doing, and refer to the book, or many books, or even “Google” the card on your smartphone.

If you are reading professionally, referring to the book is tacky. If you are a student, referring to the book is appropriate. But, how do you do this without, as you said, losing credibility?

The key to interpretive divination is interpretation. Each card has a variety of appropriate meanings. Cards are often placed in specific positions in spreads, or drawn to answer specific questions.

The books will only give you a jumping-off place. It is your job to take the possible card meanings, the position meanings, the context of the question, the trends within the cards as they appear in the spread and your own intuition to create an actual interpretation. Whether you get the card meanings portion of the interpretation from your memory, from a book or from several books doesn’t matter. What matters is how you take the book meanings and create a specific interpretation in the reading.

There are some methods of divination, such as I Ching, that always refer to a book. Still, the value of the divination is not just in reading the passage. The value is in discovering what enlightenment the passage brings when applied to the current question or situation.

By doing many practice readings where you refer to the written meanings and then perform the interpretation, you will learn the cards easily over time. You will remember the way the cards came up in previous readings, and learn how the cards speak to you.

To use the book in a reading without losing credibility, simply own it with confidence. Say, “The Five of Swords is in your past position, let’s see what the book says about the Five of Swords.”

Read the passage, and then allow your intuition and your understanding of the context to expand the written interpretation into an interpretation that really resonates.

Eventually, you will remember the cards and it will just be too much trouble to go to the book!

In answer to your second question, simply, yes! Most of us have other tools and other skills that we find ways to fit in to the structure of a reading. I sometimes like to incorporate some palmistry, pendulum, or maybe some oracle cards or even a second tarot deck!

It is fine to experiment, and allow intuition to lead you as you learn to integrate companion tools and skills into your tarot readings. Over time, the way you use companion tools and skills will help to define you unique tarot reading style.

Thanks for two great questions, enjoy the video, and blessings your tarot journey!

If you have a question about tarot, please send me an email

Christiana Answers Questions about How to Learn Tarot

Video of Christiana Answers Questions about How to Learn Tarot

One, Two, Three, Tarot Stories! Tarot Exercises for Groups and Individuals

Here are some great Minor Arcana exercises, appropriate for tarotists of all experience levels. I tried these with a group of fourteen, breaking them in to small discussion groups. It worked well!

I think these exercises will work equally well for the individual, as journaling prompts.

I would love to hear your experiences with these exercises!

Take the Ace, Two and Three from each suit, and arrange the twelve cards in a grid.

Answer the following questions.

Aces:

What do the four Aces have in common?

In what ways are they different?

What is the energy of “Ace”?

How do the four elements (suits) influence the Ace energy?

Twos:

What do the four Twos have in common?

In what ways are they different?

What is the energy of “Two”?

How do the four elements (suits) influence the Two energy?

Threes:

What do the four Threes have in common?

In what ways are they different?

What is the energy of “Three”?

How do the four elements (suits) influence the Three energy?

Stories:

Now look at the cards in numeric sequence.

What story do you see in the Ace-Two-Three progression of each suit?

Do any of those stories reflect stories in your own life?

What happens if you tell the stories starting with Three and ending with Ace?

Readings:

Shuffle the four Aces, and choose one at random. Let this card answer the question: What am I beginning?

Shuffle the four Twos, and choose one a random. Let this card answer the question: What am I choosing, or contemplating?

Shuffle the four Threes, and choose one a random. Let this card answer the question: What am I creating?

What story of your life is told when you put these three cards together?

A Tarot Story Told with Twos and Fives

The cards find ways to tell us stories – our stories. Sometimes the cards use number sets to let us know what’s going on. Here’s an interesting example I encountered this week. I’ll keep the details general to protect the anonymity of the person who received the reading. Their story is a common one.

When the reading began I knew nothing about the client – neither the question nor the situation.

When I begin a reading with a general overview I use an eleven-card Celtic Cross. While I do interpret the cards within the positions, I also simply look for trends within the cards and interpret those as well. I make my cards multi-task!

Within this person’s spread were three of the four Minor Arcana fives. Five of Swords and Five of Cups were reversed. Missing was the Five of Pentacles.

Also within the spread there were three twos. The Two of Swords and the Two of Pentacles were reversed. Missing was the Two of Cups.

Immediately I knew the problem.

My client was struggling (Fives) with a decision (Twos) regarding a love relationship (Twos).

Together, here’s what these cards told me.

My client had tried to compromise, and tried to make the best of the situation (Reversed Fives). Not seeing other options to end the difficult relationship (Five of Wands) the client made the decision to walk away (Reversed Twos) even though the client had hoped for a future together (Two of Wands). Now the client wondered if there could ever be any hope of working the relationship out. Did the client do the right thing in leaving the relationship? That was the question on the client’s mind.

My answer came from the cards that were missing. The Five of Pentacles can be the card of the missed opportunity. Because that card was missing from the set of Fives I felt there could be no opportunity to work this out.

The Two of Cups can be the card of perfect love and perfect partnership. Since the Two of Cups was missing from the set of Twos I felt there could be no hope of partnership here.

My client had made the right decision; the only decision possible. Now we could look to the cards to find a path of healing and closure.

The Minor Arcana Sevens

The Minor Arcana Sevens are all a bit daunting. They don't generally have the scariest pictures, but they often represent times of difficulty. Many tarot students find them confusing to interpret or mistakenly interpret them as entirely negative messages.

To find meaning in Minor Arcana cards by number it is often helpful to look at the corresponding number card in the Major Arcana. In this case the Chariot may be able to offer us some guidance.

The Chariot is all about personal mastery. The Chariot is about heroic action, being in the driver's seat and moving forward in accordance with your own will.

In all cases the Charioteer is the master of his own destiny. This mastery is born of his own doing - not the doing of anyone else. And that is a key to the Minor Arcana Sevens.

In each of the Minor Arcana Sevens we have a sense of individual responsibility. Each card depicts a situation that must be solved by a person on their own, without the aid or interference of anyone else. As with the Chariot, the Sevens reflect the inner journey that we each must take to discover our truth, to make our own decisions, to do our own work and to stand in defense of our own priorities.

Another key to understanding the Minor Arcana Sevens is to look at their suit element, and think of that in conjunction with the Seven's sense of personal responsibility and individual introspection.

The Earth Seven, Seven of Pentacles, is the tired gardener. He must, on his own, continue tending his garden until it bears fruit.

The Air Seven, Seven of Swords, is the thief. His sense of integrity, or lack thereof, is his own responsibility.

The Water Seven, Seven of Cups, is the card of illusion. He must choose between many possibilities as he separates reality from illusion.

The Fire Seven, Seven of Wands, is the card of defense. He successfully stands in defense of himself against enormous odds and with no outside help.

In medieval times the numbers three, four and seven were considered sacred. It is interesting to contemplate the Three and Four cards of each suit, and see how their energies are present in the Seven of the same suit.

Multiple Sevens in a reading generally refer to the need for introspection and independence.

It is always good to have the help of friends and family, but sometimes we need to stand on our own. That, more than anything, is what I see in the Sevens of the Minor Arcana.