How to Learn Tarot
What to learn first and what to learn later: people take two opposite paths, each with good reasons, and which one you choose is mostly a matter of personal preference.
A common path: start with the story of the major cards
- First learn the core meanings and rough order of the 22 major cards (the "Fool's Journey" narrative in The Major Arcana is the best thread to remember them by). This narrative is often further split into three groups of seven. Apart from card 0, the Fool, cards 1–7 focus on the "self" (family of origin, authority, early relationships); cards 8–14 turn to the "social" level: morality, rules and balance with others; and cards 15–21 enter the "spiritual" level of awakening and integration beyond worldly judgment. This three-part division is not an official rule of the tarot system. It is a teaching framework many teachers use. One version compares it to the three classes of society in Plato's Republic, matched with temperance, strength and justice, and also to Freud's id, ego and superego; this is not a consensus view among tarot scholars. The correspondence goes like this: the common people at the bottom correspond to temperance (keeping to their place and not causing trouble for society), the warriors in the middle correspond to strength, and the philosopher-kings at the top correspond to prudence (wisdom). When all three classes do their proper work, the highest virtue the state as a whole displays is justice. This is the specific basis for reading the second group (VIII–XIV) as the stage of "fitting into society and learning balance."
- Next, learn the minor cards by suit. Grasping "what this suit cares about" plus "what stage this number describes" is far quicker than memorizing 56 separate meanings.
- Learn the court cards last, because they combine two systems (The Court Cards) and need the earlier groundwork.
- Add advanced material such as reversals, elemental dignities and the Kabbalah once you know the basic meanings well.
The opposite approach: build confidence with a few minor cards
disputed There is also a teaching approach that runs the other way. You start by practicing readings with only two suits, Wands and Cups, so you don't get overwhelmed by too many meanings at once. Once you're steady, you add Swords and then Pentacles, and you leave the major cards for last (and even the major cards can be split, learning 0–11 first and then 12–21 once you're steady). The reasoning is that the minor cards can fairly quickly give the querent a basic analysis, while the major cards have to explain why events happen, which is harder for a beginner and easier to absorb at the end. This is the reverse of the path that starts with the major cards and builds an overall framework through the "Fool's Journey." Whether you want a big-picture framework first, or would rather build confidence from a small amount of workable material, each teaching method has supporters in different books, and which one you choose is mostly a matter of personal preference.
Ways to make it stick
A few methods that have nothing to do with learning order but help just as much with memory: color in the illustrations on the cards, which forces you to notice details in the images that are easy to overlook. Set aside a regular time each week to go over all the meanings in one suit, until you can come up with the keywords as soon as you see a card. When you practice readings, work from memory first and check against the book afterward, instead of flipping through it as you go. This lets you test honestly what you have actually remembered, and it keeps you from becoming too dependent on reference books.
Four ways into a card
When you're unsure about a card, you can take it apart on these four levels in turn, instead of memorizing one fixed definition:
The name: The card's name is often the most direct clue. "The Sun" suggests radiance, brilliance and brightness; "Death" suggests fear, destruction and endings. The card's meaning is rarely far from this intuitive association.
The number: Numbers carry meanings of their own (see Numbers in Tarot). Whether you use Western numerology or the Chinese tradition of number symbolism as your framework depends on your own habits; whichever one works for you is the right one.
The overall image and its colors: First notice what feeling the card gives you at first sight. Color is a layer of clues that often gets overlooked:
Color Element / meaning Red Fire: passion, drive, courage Blue Water: inner feelings, tenderness, the unconscious Yellow Air: reason, wisdom, the divine Green Earth: harmony, ease, abundance, security Purple Mystery, nobility White Purity, inner beauty Black Feminine qualities, sorrow, negativity Gray Neutrality, loneliness, hiding oneself Orange Sunniness, positivity, optimism The same color can carry slightly different meanings depending on where it appears on a figure. Red on a hat or the head, for example, usually points to "an active mind that works quickly," while red on the shoes or legs points more to "someone who really does act right away." Only when both appear together does it show the type of person who "acts as soon as they think of something, with both courage and drive."
Small symbolic details: Specific objects, animals and postures that recur on the cards often carry extra meaning. Even when the original creator never explained them, you can offer a reasonable reading based on your own impressions.