Tarot consists of 78 cards, with the deck divided into twoseparate categories: Major and Minor Arcana. These cards surely have numbers tohelp symbolize or add meanings to each reading. Understanding the differencebetween Arcanas and their numerical correspondence can greatly improve yourability to understand Tarot readings that you might not fully understand.
The Major Arcana is somewhat like an archetype map withlarge paintings which signify important or pivotal moments in an individual'slife. These cards are often the key and have deeper psychological meaning.Major Arcana consists of 22 cards with the numbers 0-21. Symbolic heroes fromthe majors tell the story of our transition from childhood to innocence throughmaturity and enlightenment.
In Minor Arcana, we are dealing with the physical world.These cards are divided into four costumes and stand for will (wands),intelligence (swords), emotion (cups) and material (pentacles). The smallArcana resembles an ordinary deck of playing cards but contains a page as anadditional court card. Each Minor Arcana card is numbered from 1 to 10 and isappropriate for easy understanding.
Both the Minor and Major Arcana are numbered, giving eachcard a unique numerological meaning. This means that there are 5 cards thatmatch number 1. These are cards from Major Arcana's Magician and aces from wands,swords, cups, and pentacles in the Minor Arcana. Even though each of the fouraces and magus cards has a different meaning, they all share the same basicmessage: a new beginning.
Even numbers are often stable and permanent, whereas oddnumbers usually represent different conditions of change and instability. Tarotis indeed cyclic, so each end means a new beginning. Understanding tarotnumerology can be a very useful skill in order to gain expertise in Tarotreading. I see the repeating numbers 444 on a daily basis. Have you seen them?
Tarot numbers can sound scary to beginners, especially if weoften choose a deck based on certain images or vibrations. We are interested ina series of cards because this is usually the promise of a universe far fromcold rationalism and the limits of reality.
It doesn't matter that numerology appears in the tarotbecause all decks have one thing in common, regardless of different styles,color codes and sometimes the name of the card, number. You may have difficultyadding, subtracting, or learning their symbolism. However, there is an easy wayto start reading Tarot. You can start with the minor cards because they are theeasiest Tarot cards to dive into.