What is Tarot Reading? - Tarot Cards, Their Meaning, and Your Fortune

If you're someone who's interested in tarot card readings, then surely you want to have your own fortune read at least once? However, there are so many tarot cards and methods of reading that it's hard to know what's what and which to choose... In this article, we're going to be delving deep into all of the types, cards, and their meaning to explain them in an easy-to-understand fashion.

What is Tarot Card Reading?

Using tarot cards to read someone's fortune is called simply that, "Tarot Card Reading".

The cards themselves are actually extremely simple, so if you understand the meaning of the card you're being shown, you're able to tell the fortune of the person you're doing the reading for.

While things such as Western astrology or Four Pillar astrology aim to tell your fortune over a long period of time, tarot cards aim to tell you issues and other such things which may arise in the near future.

For example, instead of something like "You will get married at x years old", tarot cards give readings such as "You will succeed in your current workplace", it aims to give readings that will span into the next few months rather than the new few years.

What are Tarot Cards?

A collection of cards is called a deck, and a typical deck of tarot cards contains a total of 78 cards.

If you split the tart cards into their main groups, you have the "Major Arcana" and the "Minor Arcana" cards.

There are typically a total of 22 major arcana cards which are the most important, with the minor ones building the world with the 4 elements, fire, earth, wind, and water, that are sorted into 4 groups of 14 "Wands", "Goblets", "Swords", and "Coins". 

Typical Tarot Card Structure - What is Arcana?

Each and every card has a face and reverse, with the face typically holding a good meaning, and the reverse holding an undesirable one.

What are Major Arcana?

Major arcana are the most important tarot cards and are numbered from 0 to 21.

There are certain decks where certain cards have their numbers switched.

Mixing them with the minor arcana cards can then be called a full set, however, each major arcana card holds many different meanings, meaning you can actually tell someone's fortune with just the major cards.

What are Minor Arcana?

Each minor arcana type also has a specific meaning.

・Wand

Wands represent "Fire".

Sometimes, instead of wand, these can also be called "Rods".

The characteristics that wands and fire hold are fiery passion, Intuition, creativity, and strong feelings.

・Coins

Coins represent "Earth". 

This group is often called "Coins" or "Pentacles".

When it's "pentacles" instead of "coin" it represents a talisman that wards off evil, however, it also has monetary properties which is why some people choose to call this group "coins".

Coins are the most realistic group out of the 4, representing work and money, stability, the 5 senses, steadiness, and greed.

・Swords

Swords represent "Wind".

Most tarot decks call this group swords.

Similar to spades in cards, these typically hold negative characteristics and meanings.

Swords represent wind due to the sound they make as they cut through the air, they represent sociability, words, knowledge, and sharp decision making.

Due to the ability of swords being able to wound and kill, it is said that these cards hold sharper nuances when compared to the other groups.

・Goblet

Goblets represent "Water".

Some tarot card decks call this group "cup".

These cards are similar to the heart's suite in playing cards, representing love.

The characteristics of these cards include relationships with others, abundant feelings, affection, subjectiveness, and the past.

How to Tell a Fortune with Tarot Cards

3 Steps before Making the Spread

1. Shuffle the Cards: Place the deck of cards face down in front of you, then shuffle with both hands. Finally, think of the question in your head and spread the cards clockwise using both your hands.
2. Collect the Cards: Once you think you've shuffled the cards enough, bring them back into 1 pile. If you placed the cards sideways, ensure the card's left side will be up.
3. Cut the Cards: Take the mountain of card, while thinking of the question break the cards into 3 stacks, then return them back into 1. The order you return them in is up to you. If you're telling the fortune of someone else, have them cut the cards, and then re-stack the cards together.

A Tarot Card Fortune Telling

1. Ask questions that can be answered with yes or no.
2. Spread the cards in a way that fits the style of questions being asked, think in your head, and while thinking of the questions, shuffle the cards.
3. Split the cards into 3 piles.
4. Re-stack the 3 piles into 1.
5. Place the cards down according to the spread method.
6. Make a memo of the meaning of the cards received.

One Oracle Fortune Telling

1. After shuffling, cutting, and restacking the cards, place the cards face down and spread them horizontally, placing all 78 cards an equal distance apart.
2. Pick 1 card while thinking of the question, and flip to check which card was chosen.

The simplest spread method out of the ones we've previously introduced is the "One Oracle" method.

You can receive a fortune through just a single card, meaning it's great for telling fortunes in a short amount of time, and all the questions being a yes or no make it very easy to understand.

Thanks to picking the card through feeling here, the time required for shuffling is also shortened. Make sure to concentrate when choosing the card though.

Let's go ahead and check the results of this one oracle method of fortune-telling. If you want to know if something is a yes or no, check the below table, ◎・◯ mean yes, and △・× mean no.

About the Tarot Cards & Their Meanings

Major Arcana