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Learn Tarot: How Tarot Works

Everything you need to start understanding the cards: how the deck is built, how readings work and how to make sense of what you draw.

What Tarot is

Tarot is a deck of 78 illustrated cards. It began as a card game in 15th-century Italy and has been used for reflection and divination since the late 18th century. Today most people know it through the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of 1909, whose detailed scenes make every card readable at a glance. Read the full story in What Is Tarot?

How the deck is built

  • 22 Major Arcana – named cards from The Fool (0) to The World (XXI) describing life's big themes and turning points.
  • 56 Minor Arcana – four suits of 14 cards describing everyday situations: Wands (energy and ambition), Cups (emotions and relationships), Swords (thoughts and decisions) and Pentacles (work, money and the body).
  • Court cards – Page, Knight, Queen and King in each suit, describing people or ways of approaching a situation.

More detail: Major Arcana vs. Minor Arcana.

Every card has its own page in our Tarot card meanings: symbolism, upright and reversed meanings, love, career and money.

How a reading works

  1. A question. Clear, open and about your own situation. See how to ask better questions.
  2. A shuffled deck. Every card can appear, upright or reversed.
  3. A spread. Each position has a meaning – for example Situation, Challenge and Outcome.
  4. Interpretation. The card's meaning, its position and the story between the cards, connected to your situation.

Step by step: How Does Tarot Reading Work?

Upright and reversed cards

A reversed card is not simply "bad". It usually shows the card's energy blocked, delayed, turned inward or overdone. A reversed Star still speaks of hope – hope that feels harder to reach right now.

What Tarot can and cannot do

Tarot is a mirror for reflection. It can help you notice feelings, patterns and options, and decide on a next step. It cannot guarantee outcomes, read another person's mind with certainty or replace professional advice.

Guides to read next

Practise with a reading

The best way to learn is to read. Try a daily one-card reading to meet the cards one at a time, or a three-card reading about something on your mind.

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