Major Arcana Meanings: All 22 Tarot Cards, Upright and Reversed
A standard tarot deck has 78 cards. Fifty-six of them, the Minor Arcana, deal with daily life in four suits. The other twenty-two are the Major Arcana: the big cards, the ones people remember, from The Fool at zero to The World at twenty-one. When one turns up in a reading it usually points at something larger than the day's events: a turning point, a lesson, a stage of life.
This guide goes through all twenty-two in the numbering of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which is the one most modern decks are based on. For each card you get the core upright meaning and the reversed meaning in a sentence or two. For a deeper look, three cards have their own guides: Death, The Moon and The High Priestess.
Where the Major Arcana came from
Tarot began as a card game. Decks called tarocchi were painted for noble families in northern Italy in the fifteenth century, and the extra trump cards that became the Major Arcana were part of the game. The idea that the trumps held hidden wisdom arrived in late eighteenth-century France, and the deck most English-speaking readers learn on was published in London in 1909, designed by A. E. Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. Knowing that history is useful: the meanings below are a living interpretive tradition, not a code handed down from antiquity. Our guide to using tarot in witchcraft covers the practical side.
The Fool's Journey: how the sequence works
Tarot candles for the Major Arcana
The easiest way to learn the Major Arcana is not as twenty-two separate definitions but as one story. The Fool, card zero, sets out with nothing, meets teachers and trials in the cards that follow, and arrives at The World. Read that way, the first seven cards are about the self and its early guides, the middle seven about testing and loss, and the last seven about the larger forces that remake a life. Once you see the story, individual cards stop needing to be memorised.
0 to 7: the self and its first teachers
0 The Fool
Upright: beginnings, trust, a leap without a map. Reversed: recklessness, or fear stopping a necessary start. A Fool tarot candle is a fitting light for new ventures.
1 The Magician
Upright: skill, will, having the tools and using them. Reversed: talent wasted, or manipulation. See the Magician candle.
2 The High Priestess
Upright: intuition, hidden knowledge, the value of silence. Reversed: ignoring your own inner voice. Her full guide is The High Priestess meaning.
3 The Empress
Upright: abundance, nurture, creativity, the body and the garden. Reversed: dependence, or creative block. See the Empress candle.
4 The Emperor
Upright: structure, authority, stability built on rules. Reversed: rigidity or control that has turned harsh.
5 The Hierophant
Upright: tradition, institutions, teachers, shared belief. Reversed: breaking with convention, or dogma questioned.
6 The Lovers
Upright: union, and above all a choice made from real values. Reversed: disharmony, or a choice avoided. See the Lovers candle.
7 The Chariot
Upright: determination, control of opposing forces, forward motion. Reversed: scattered energy, loss of direction. See the Chariot candle.
8 to 14: trials, turning and loss
More cards, more candles
8 Strength
Upright: courage, patience, gentle mastery rather than force. Reversed: self-doubt, or strength turned to harshness. See the Strength candle. Older decks number this card 11; the Rider-Waite-Smith deck swapped it with Justice.
9 The Hermit
Upright: solitude, reflection, searching for your own light. Reversed: isolation that has gone too far.
10 Wheel of Fortune
Upright: cycles, luck, a turn you did not choose. Reversed: resistance to change, a run of bad luck. See the Wheel of Fortune candle.
11 Justice
Upright: fairness, truth, consequences, clear decisions. Reversed: dishonesty or avoided accountability.
12 The Hanged Man
Upright: pause, surrender, seeing from another angle. Reversed: stalling, or a sacrifice that is not paying off.
13 Death
Upright: an ending that clears the way, transformation. It almost never means literal death. Reversed: clinging to what is already over. Full guide: Death tarot card meaning.
14 Temperance
Upright: balance, moderation, patient blending of opposites. Reversed: excess, imbalance, impatience.
15 to 21: the great forces
15 The Devil
Upright: attachment, compulsion, the chains we could take off. Reversed: breaking free, facing the habit.
16 The Tower
Upright: sudden upheaval, a false structure collapsing. Reversed: a disaster narrowly avoided, or change being resisted.
17 The Star
Upright: hope, healing, calm after the Tower. Reversed: discouragement, faith running low. See the Star candle and the Star necklace.
18 The Moon
Upright: intuition, dreams, illusion, the uncertain path. Reversed: confusion lifting, fears seen clearly. Full guide: The Moon tarot card meaning.
19 The Sun
Upright: joy, success, clarity, warmth. Reversed: joy delayed, or optimism overdone. See the Sun candle.
20 Judgement
Upright: awakening, reckoning, answering a call. Reversed: self-doubt, refusing the call.
21 The World
Upright: completion, wholeness, a cycle finished well. Reversed: loose ends, a journey not quite done. See the World candle.
What reversed cards actually mean
Not every reader uses reversals, and you do not have to. When they are used, a reversed card rarely means the exact opposite of the upright one. It more often means the card's energy is blocked, delayed, turned inward or overdone. Death reversed is not rebirth; it is refusing to let an ending happen. Read reversals as a question about what is getting in the way.
How to learn them without a list
One card a day
Draw a single Major Arcana card each morning, write down what you notice in the picture before reading any meaning, and check it against your day that evening. Twenty-two days and you have met them all.
Keep a tarot journal
A dedicated notebook turns scattered readings into a record you can learn from. The 106-page tarot guidebook is structured for exactly that, and if you prefer loose pages for a Book of Shadows, the Major Arcana meanings printable gives each card a page with upright and reversed notes to fill in.
Read the pictures, not the book
The Rider-Waite-Smith images were drawn to be read. Colours, directions, what is in the background: most of the meaning is on the card itself.
Give the cards a surface
A dedicated cloth for reading is traditional and practical: it keeps the cards clean and marks the table as a space for the work. The black moon phase tarot cloth is a quiet choice, and the wider altar cloth range has more.
Major Arcana and the moon
Several cards carry lunar meaning: The High Priestess is traditionally assigned to the moon, and The Moon card is the obvious one. Many witches time readings to the phases, drawing on the new moon for questions of beginning and on the full moon for questions of culmination. Our guide to reading tarot by moon phase goes into the method, and the Tarot of the Moon 2027 calendar sets each month of the lunar year against a card.
All 22 cards on paper
Frequently Asked Questions About the Major Arcana
How many Major Arcana cards are there?
Twenty-two, numbered from 0, The Fool, to 21, The World. With the 56 Minor Arcana cards they make up the standard 78-card tarot deck.
What is the difference between Major and Minor Arcana?
The Major Arcana deal with large themes, turning points and life lessons. The Minor Arcana, in four suits of cups, wands, swords and pentacles, deal with everyday events and situations.
Why do some decks number Strength and Justice differently?
Older decks such as the Tarot de Marseille place Justice at 8 and Strength at 11. The Rider-Waite-Smith deck of 1909 swapped them, and most modern decks follow that order.
Is the Death card bad?
No. It almost never predicts a physical death. It stands for endings and transformation, often the kind that clears space for something better.
Learn the story first and the cards follow. The Fool sets out, meets every teacher and every trial in the sequence, and arrives at The World. Every reading you do is a small part of that journey.
Related Reads
