Tarot: An overview of the meanings of the 78 cards

The 22 major cards are also called trump cards or the Major Arcana. When interpreting the tarot cards, it is important to remember that they are about you, your question, and your view of things. The same cards can therefore have a completely different meaning for someone else. The following meanings should therefore be understood as suggestions.

1. The Magician: This card stands for courage, creativity, a spirit of adventure, a new relationship, and a new job.
2. The High Priestess: She represents the inner voice, the soul, intuition, and inspiration.
3. The Empress: Love, feelings, fertility, and pregnancy are the meanings of this card.
4. The Emperor: In contrast to the Empress, the Emperor represents the father figure, masculinity, vitality, strength, and growing up.
5. The Hierophant: This card is also called the Pope, Master, or High Priest and expresses morality, religion, and tradition.
6. The Lovers: This card is about love, longing, partnership, and decisions.
7. The Chariot: The chariot of victory expresses success and new beginnings.
8. Strength: This card stands for vitality, joie de vivre, and enjoyment.
9. The Hermit: The Hermit can be interpreted as a retreat from everyday life, meditation, divine or cosmic powers.
10. Wheel of Fortune: The Wheel of Fortune indicates a new phase in life or a change in perspective.
11. Justice: This is about taking stock, making a judgment or decision, or accepting a result.
12. The Hanged Man: The Hanged Man represents a test of faith and a new perspective.
13. Death: Death represents the end of a phase of life, a new beginning, and a transformation.
14. Temperance: Facing transience, reconciliation, and moderation are possible interpretations of this card.
15. The Devil: The Devil is about selfishness, sexuality, addiction, attachment, and magic.
16. The Tower: This card, also known as Lightning or House of God, represents liberation, important events, and energy.
17. The Star: The Star represents clarity, transparency, truth, and beauty.
18. The Moon: The Moon expresses longing, dreams, and the state of the soul.
19. The Sun: The Sun signifies happiness, confidence, carefreeness, fulfillment, and warmth.
20. Judgment: This card represents revelation, resurrection, and detachment from the past.
21. The World: The World symbolizes our spiritual home, inner peace, but also awareness of boundaries.
22. The Fool: The Fool expresses indifference, freedom, and breaking free from constraints.

The 56 cards of the Minor Arcana are divided into four suits: Wands, Cups, Swords, and Coins. The suit of Wands represents the element of fire and generally stands for energy, creativity, power, commitment, identity, and success.

1. King of Wands:This card represents willpower, ambition, authority, and leadership, but also the man of your life.
2. Queen of Wands:She represents trust, security, and warmth, as well as openness and virtue.
3. Knight of Wands: He represents energy, commitment, and immediate action.
4. Jack of Wands: He symbolizes drive, a thirst for adventure, and new beginnings.
5. Ace of Wands: This card represents birth and new beginnings, but also creativity and energy.
6. Two of Wands: Contradiction, complementarity, or two possibilities are possible interpretations of this card.
7. Three of Wands: This card stands for breaking new ground and achieving goals.
8. Four of Wands: They stand for creating clarity, being open, and contributing one’s identity.
9. Five of Wands: This card indicates a challenge or competition that requires a lot of energy.
10. Six of Wands: They represent victory, recognition, and the harmony of strengths and weaknesses.
11. Seven of Wands: This card is about overcoming moral constraints, envy, and discouragement.
12. Eight of Wands: They express harmony with nature but also a state of limbo.
13. Nine of Wands: This card expresses overcoming fears, acknowledging the many opportunities one has, and fulfilling one’s desires.
14. Ten of Wands: They stand for responsibility, a life’s work, and a higher level.

In card reading, the suite of cups represents the element of water.

It expresses the unconscious, feelings, moods, meaning and significance, as well as joy and sorrow. Series of Cups

• Queen of Cups: She symbolizes honesty, wisdom, and gentleness.
• Knight of Cups: This card expresses idealism, inspiration, and harmony between knowledge and emotion.
• Page of Cups: He stands for a friendly gesture and a tangible event such as a marriage proposal.
• Ace of Cups: The card expresses festivity, growth, and fertility.
• Two of Cups: They represent an important encounter and the clarification of feelings.
• Three of Cups: The card expresses gratitude, recovery, happiness, and fulfillment.
• Four of Cups: They represent finding a way out of a crisis, processing something, regaining composure, and finding direction.
• Five of Cups: They signify loss, grief, and disappointment, but also a new beginning.
• Six of Cups: This card represents enjoyment, joy, memories, and nostalgia.
• Seven of Cups: This card expresses surpassing oneself and reaping the success one deserves.
• Eight of Cups: They represent taking stock, freeing yourself, and going your own way.
• Nine of Cups: Fulfillment, completion, relaxation, and joie de vivre are possible interpretations of this card.
• Ten of Cups: They represent a state of perfect contentment, energy, happiness, and joy.

The Swords suit symbolizes the element of air. The cards represent knowledge and insight, decisions and assessments, the intellectual, freedom, and learning.

1. King of Swords: He represents reason and intelligence, law, politics, and severity.
2. Queen of Swords: She stands for independence and solitude, for justice and reason.
3. Knight of Swords: He represents logic and arguments, criticism and rethinking.
4. Jack of Swords: He symbolizes news and plans, but also stands for espionage and observation.
5. Ace of Swords: This card represents clarity, triumph, and exaggeration.
6. Two of Swords: On the one hand, they represent conversations and discussions, but on the other hand, they also represent becoming aware of the unconscious.
7. Three of Swords: They can represent intellect and reason, but also separation and heartbreak.
8. Four of Swords: This card calls for taking a break and organizing your thoughts.
9. Five of Swords: They represent defeat and failure, but also a turning point and learning from the past.
10. Six of Swords: One meaning of this card can be to free yourself from constraints, reorient yourself, and set out on a new path.
11. Seven of Swords: They represent following your own path and freeing yourself, as well as unusual ideas.
12. Eight of Swords: They symbolize dependence, external control, and bias.
13. Nine of Swords: They express that fear and conflict should be ended.
14. Ten of Swords: They represent the end or a low point, but also a detachment from the past.

The coins series embodies the element of earth. It stands for the body, nature, products and material things, practical matters and work.

1. King of Coins: This card embodies a successful businessman, possessions and enjoyment, but also jealousy.
2. Queen of Coins: She also represents prosperity, but also tranquility, closeness to nature, healing power, and fertility.
3. Knight of Pentacles: He stands for hard work, diligence, and perseverance as well as responsibility.
4. Jack of Pentacles: He embodies a gift or an offer.
5. Ace of Coins: This card stands for contentment, prosperity, and wealth.
6. Two of Coins: This card stands for paying more attention to things and examining all aspects of a possibility.
7. Three of Coins:  They represent talents, career and vocation, as well as business matters.
8. Four of Coins: Financial security and the need for material security are possible interpretations of this card.
9. Five of Coins: They represent poverty, hardship, and suffering.
10. Six coins: Balance, relaxation, and luxury can be interpreted with this card.
11. Seven coins: Surprises or signs from the past want to be interpreted with this card.
12. Eight coins:  They represent productive work and success.
13. Nine Coins: They express hidden talents and the results of creativity.
14. Ten Coins: This card symbolizes practical skills, contribution to the world, stability, and security.