The traditional tarot deck is made up of 78 cards, which are broken into the Major Arcana (22 cards) and the Minor Arcana (56 cards). The Major Arcana is typically what people think of when they think of the tarot. They’re the big picture cards, the ones like Death or The Devil that get drawn at the start of a scary movie. It makes a certain amount of sense that these cards are used in stories this way, given that the focus on the big archetypal energies at play in our lives, though I will say Death and The Devil are hardly the terrifying cards pop cultures make them out to be. (The award for the scariest card in Major Arcana goes to The Tower, by the way. But that, too, has its gift: burning anything that doesn’t serve us to the ground).
The Major Arcana likewise represents the Fool’s Journey, which I often consider a contrast to Joseph Cambell’s hero’s journey. The traditional hero’s journey tends to be more masculine-focused and rather too linear, with its emphasis on leaving home and later returning to it (I’m essentializing a lot here). What I love about the Fool’s Journey, in comparison, is that it honors the fact that we are always both at the end of one journey and starting another. Life is a series of beginnings and endings, not a linear thing.
Like writers, we are always wrapping up one story and always starting a new one, always searching for new horizons and always returning home. The Fool’s Journey likewise emphasizes the metaphysical journeys we all go on—we might not leave our literal homes, but we can journey into the unconscious, the creative realm, and the dreamworld and be transformed.
The Cards in the Major Arcana
Each card in the Major Arcana represents an archetypal figure that helps The Fool learn something about himself or the universe as he continues his journey. It’s significant that this set starts at zero, with The Fool, and ends with 21, The World, signifying that the ultimate journey for The Fool is to be at home in The World.
The Fool is zero, or starting with nothing. He represents a blank slate, childlike in his innocence. Each figure he meets along his journey is essential to his transformation into a man of the world. Below are the cards that make up the Major Arcana and the archetypal energy they represent (links to each card coming soon).
Card Archetypal Energy
The Magician Manifestation
The High Priestess Intuition
The Empress Abundance
The Emperor Security
The Hierophant The Sacred
The Lovers Union
The Chariot Determination
Justice Accountability
The Hermit Interiority
The Wheel of Fortune Luck
Strength Confidence
The Hanged Man Surrender
Death Endings
Temperance Balance
The Devil The Shadow Self
The Tower Necessary Destruction
The Star Nourishment
The Moon Lunacy
The Sun Happiness
Judgment Awakening
The World Wholeness
Themes of the Major Arcana
The Major Arcana also focuses on the larger story arcs in our lives, the archetypal and ancestral forces, the big-picture events, and the things we are fated to live out. We have free will, sure, but lately, I’ve begun to explore the idea that some things in our lives are fated. These ideas on fate have come to me specifically because of my work with the tarot and how it has helped me better understand things in my life that seem more fixed or, in some cases, destined to be.
Think of fate as the stories written in our DNA, the stories written in our natal charts, if you are astrologically inclined, or things that get passed down to us blood memory, ancestry, and our own personal mythology. Often, we think of fate in negative ways—the terrible things that were doomed to happen—as a way to make sense of difficult situations. But I think there’s another side to fate. It’s our story, and the tarot can help us understand our individual path and love and appreciate it.
So when Major Arcana cards appear in our readings, they give us a big-picture perspective of our lives, helping us better understand who we are, what our stories are, and how to lean into our fate. They represent our unique Fool’s Journey, inviting us to journey deeper into self and flow with the universe.
Works Consulted
Bridgit Esselmont’s Intuitive Tarot
Eden Gray’s A Complete Guide to the Tarot
The Bruja’s Guide to Tarot is the divination sister to the scholarly The Bruja Professor, a witchy take on literature, the occult & pop culture, and Enchantment Learning & Living, an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you.
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