What is the Major Arcana in Tarot? They’re the cards that represent major events and archetypes in our lives. Read on to find out more.
The Major Arcana cards are the heart of a tarot deck. It’s made up of 22 cards. The Major Arcana is not associated with suits or court cards like the rest of the Tarot Deck, but instead, the Major Arcana are represented by Archetypes in psychology as well as life and its cycles from birth to death. It symbolizes the physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional aspects of society and our relationships to ourselves and to each other.
For the archetypes, there is a nurturing mother, a commanding authoritative type, a traditional religious figure, a mystic spiritual figure and so on. These archetypes represent either literal or figurative people in our lives.
The artwork on a Major Arcana cards has scenes that have symbolic elements. There is so much symbolism! Within all of that symbolism, you find different meanings. This is what I love so much about Tarot. You can pick up on certain symbols for certain questions – this is where intuition comes in! You can’t just rattle of memorized keywords and have a deeply resonating reading.
The Major Arcana relates to our interactions with ourselves and others, but also our position in the universe and our higher purpose for being on the planet. It tells of our journeys in life especially in relation to personal development.
The Fool’s Journey
Now, the Major Arcana can be read and learned as a story. NO MEMORIZATION (Yayyyy)
The numbers on the card from 0 to 22 depict the fool’s journey from birth to death, and from innocence to wisdom and ultimately enlightenment. Although personally, I see the “Enlightenment” idea as acceptance. Peace after all you’ve been through and all you’ve learned. The Major Arcana shows the journey we have to take to reach that acceptance (or enlightenment) in our lifetime.
Go read about The Fool’s Journey here and then go through your cards and see how the story is told based on your intuition and your cards.
Overall, the Major Arcana represents several aspects of the human experience that we all experience in our lives. It shows us our spiritual selves, our hopes, our fears, our joys and sadness. And then it gives us guidance about what actions to take or what we need to accept or let go of in order to move on. Ultimately though, it only tells us what we already know. It shows us what we need to hear, but we’ve been hiding from ourselves. It’s a little bit of magic, and a lot of psychology.
What’s your favorite Major Arcana card? The one that makes you the most uncomfortable?
Mine is the Devil… for both.
