The Emperor

The Major Arcana are the core cards of any tarot deck, with each one telling a story about The Fool’s journey from naivety to enlightenment. The cards follow The Fool to the World, taking a route of development and discovery. This journey can be cyclical and you can follow it many times as you learn new things. Your relationships, projects, and studies – all of these can be seen through the prism of The Fool’s journey.

The twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana set important parts of a reading; the meat of the story, which can then be refined by the cards around it. Although you can make a reading with the Major Arcana alone, it is always better when supported by the minor arcana.

Note that each card carries two sets of interpretations: when one card is drawn reversed or in a blocking position you should consider its more negative or challenging aspects.

This is the start of a directory of each card in the Major Arcana and I’m using the images from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck as the index as they still seem to be the best known deck out there.

Each image will eventually lead to a page with the breakdown of that card and a gallery of all the card that I have in my collection, then these cards will eventually lead to a page breaking down that deck.

The Fool	The Magician	The High Priestess
The Empress	The Emperor	The Hierophant
The Lovers	The Chariot	Strength
The Hermit	Wheel of Fortune	Justice
The Hanged Man	Death	Temperance
The Devil	The Tower	The Star
The Moon	The Sun	Judgment
The World