What is tarot? How the deck is built and what the cards can do
Tarot is a set of 78 picture cards that lets you look at a question from the outside. The cards know nothing about you. But their images are designed so that you recognise yourself in them, and that is exactly what makes them useful. This article explains what a deck consists of, how the parts fit together and why we work with the Waite-Smith tarot of 1909 here on tarotlicht.de.
What tarot is
At its core, tarot is a system of images. Each of the 78 cards shows a scene, a figure or an arrangement of objects, and each one stands for a theme that has always occupied people: beginnings and farewells, work and love, conflict, calm, loss, courage. When you draw a card, you are holding one of these themes in your hand and asking yourself: what does this have to do with my situation?
The answer doesn’t come from the card but from you. The image gives you a nudge, and your own thinking supplies the rest. That is why the same card can mean relief on one day and an uncomfortable reminder on another. Tarot is a tool for self-reflection, not an oracle with access to hidden knowledge.
What tarot is not
Tarot does not predict the future. It doesn’t know whether you’ll get the job, whether someone will write back or when something will change. What it can do is show you how you are looking at a question right now, which possibilities you are overlooking and what you perhaps already know but aren’t yet ready to say out loud.
Nor does tarot replace professionals. With health complaints, legal questions or financial decisions, a person with the right training will help you, not a card. And tarot is not a religion or a creed. You don’t have to believe in anything to work with it; it is enough to be willing to look honestly.
The structure: 78 cards in two parts
A tarot deck consists of two groups of unequal size. The 22 Major Arcana (the word comes from Latin and means “secrets”) are the well-known picture cards with names such as The Fool, The High Priestess, The Tower or The World. The 56 Minor Arcana resemble an ordinary pack of playing cards, with four suits, number cards and court cards.
The Major Arcana: a journey through life in 22 stages
The Major Arcana are numbered from 0 to 21. Read in order, they tell a story: the Fool sets off without a plan, meets teachers and figures of authority (Magician, High Priestess, Empress, Emperor, Hierophant), has to make a choice (The Lovers), makes progress (The Chariot), learns patience and withdrawal (Strength, Hermit), goes through turning points (Wheel of Fortune, Justice, The Hanged Man), endings and new beginnings (Death, Temperance), entanglement and collapse (The Devil, The Tower), finds hope again (The Star, The Moon, The Sun), takes stock (Judgement) and arrives (The World). This is often called “the Fool’s Journey”.
In a reading, Major Arcana usually indicate that a theme carries weight. It is then less about a single day and more about a phase, an attitude or a lesson that can’t be cut short.
The Minor Arcana: four suits for four areas of life
The 56 Minor Arcana are divided into four suits, and each suit is linked to an element and an area of life:
- Wands (Fire): Drive, energy, projects, passion, will. What gets you moving.
- Cups (Water): Feelings, relationships, intuition, connection. What touches you.
- Swords (Air): Thinking, words, conflicts, clarity, decisions. What occupies your mind.
- Pentacles (Earth): Body, work, money, everyday life, possessions. What supports you.
Each suit has ten number cards, from the Ace to the Ten. The Ace is the pure impulse of the suit, the Ten its completion or its excess; in between, a small development unfolds. On top of that, each suit has four court cards: Page, Knight, Queen and King. They show people or roles in which the energy of a suit takes on a body, from the curious beginner to confident mastery.
In a reading, the Minor Arcana usually describe the concrete: the situation at the office, yesterday’s conversation, the worry about the rent. They are the fabric of everyday life in which the big themes show themselves.
Why the Waite-Smith tarot is the standard
Until the early 20th century, most tarot decks showed only what the number cards literally said: seven cups, five swords, neatly arranged as on a playing card. Anyone who wanted to interpret them had to know the meaning by heart or work it out from the number and the suit.
In 1909 a deck appeared in London that had been designed by Arthur Edward Waite and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. What was new about it: the 40 number cards show scenes too. On the Five of Pentacles, two figures trudge through the snow past a lit window. On the Three of Cups, three women raise their cups to each other. On the Ten of Swords, someone lies on the ground, but the horizon is growing light. You can see at once what it is about, even without any prior knowledge.
These illustrated number cards made tarot accessible. A great many later decks adopt Smith’s visual ideas, often down to the last detail; if you have learned with the Waite-Smith tarot, you will find your way around most modern decks. The images of 1909 are now in the public domain. That is why we work with them on tarotlicht.de: you learn from the original, and everything you pick up here carries over to other decks.
Where to go from here
You don’t need to know all 78 cards to get started. Draw a card of the day, take a calm look at the image and then read what the card dictionary says about it. If you want to know how the deck came about, our history series traces the long road from the Italian card tables of the 15th century to Pamela Colman Smith. And the next article in this series shows what every good reading begins with: the right question.