A tarot deck is seventy-eight cards in two unequal halves: twenty-two numbered trumps that belong to no suit, and fifty-six suit cards in four suits of fourteen. That division is the first thing a reader uses - trumps are the large impersonal movements of a life, suit cards the texture of ordinary days. Below you will find every card's upright and reversed meaning with the book it comes from, the elements and departments of the four suits, how the numbers move from a seed to a limit, why the court cards are people, where Waite and Mathers disagree about reversals, and a plain account of what this module refuses to do and why.
A 78-card deck in the standard English structure - 22 numbered trumps, and four suits of fourteen - with meanings drawn from the public-domain handbooks of Waite (1911), Mathers (1888) and Papus (1889).
Why there are no pictures. The illustrations most people picture when they think of tarot were drawn in 1909 and are out of copyright in India, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States - but not in every country this site can be opened from, and almost every scan circulating online is taken from a 1971 edition that carries a fresh copyright of its own. Several famous deck names are also registered trademarks, which do not expire the way a copyright does. So this deck carries a house name, every card is drawn here in type and structure rather than copied from anyone's artwork, and original illustration is being commissioned. The card MEANINGS are a different matter: they come from books published in 1888, 1889, 1911 and 1920 that are public domain everywhere, and each one is cited.
Seventy-eight cards in two unequal halves. Twenty-two are numbered trumps - the Fool, the Magician, the Tower, the World - and they belong to no suit. The other fifty-six are an ordinary playing pack with one extra court card: four suits of fourteen, Ace to Ten, then Page, Knight, Queen and King.
The division is the first thing a reader uses. Trumps are read as the large, impersonal movements of a life - the things that happen to you. Suit cards are read as the texture of ordinary days, the things you do. A spread of mostly trumps and a spread of mostly suit cards are answering the same question at different altitudes.
Papus reads the twenty-one numbered trumps as three groups of seven, with the Fool standing outside the count. The first seven (I–VII) are the human faculties: skill, intuition, fertility, authority, teaching, choice, mastery. The second seven (VIII–XIV) are the tests those faculties meet: endurance, withdrawal, chance, consequence, suspension, ending, proportion. The third seven (XV–XXI) are the forces that are not yours to manage: bondage, collapse, hope, uncertainty, clarity, reckoning, completion.
This is why the number on a trump carries information before you know which card it is. A trump in the twenties is late in the sequence and reads as an outcome; a trump in the single figures reads as a capacity you are being asked to use.
Older French decks number Justice VIII and Strength XI. Waite's 1911 book prints them the other way round, and every deck descended from it follows. The swap was made to line the trumps up with the zodiac - Leo for Strength, Libra for Justice - and Case's 1920 table is the earliest public-domain printing of the attributions that motivated it.
This deck uses Waite's numbering, because its meanings come from Waite's book. If you learned the older order, the cards are the same and the numbers are swapped - nothing else changes.
Each suit governs a department of life. Wands are fire: enterprise, energy, work begun. Cups are water: love, friendship, feeling. Swords are air: thought, speech, conflict and difficulty. Pentacles are earth: money, craft, the body and the household. Papus makes the elemental reading explicit; Waite gives the suits their departments when he sets out how a spread is read.
Which suit dominates a spread is therefore information in itself, and it is often the first useful thing you notice. A money question that comes back full of Cups is telling you the matter is not really about money.
Within a suit the ten numbered cards move from a seed to a limit. Ace to Three is the opening - something has started and has not been tested. Four to Seven is the middle, where the effort and the friction are. Eight to Ten is the culmination, where the suit's quality reaches its extreme, for better or worse: the Ten of a suit is always that suit at full volume.
That is why the Ten of Cups is contentment and the Ten of Swords is the bottom of the suffering: both are their suit taken as far as it goes.
Page, Knight, Queen and King are read as somebody rather than something - a person in the situation, or a way of behaving that the situation is asking for. Pages bring news and are learning; Knights move, arrive and depart; Queens hold and understand; Kings decide and are answerable.
Two or more court cards in a spread usually means other people are doing a large part of the work in this situation - which is a useful thing to notice before you make a plan that depends only on you.
A card that comes out of the shuffle the other way up is read differently, and the two handbooks this deck rests on do not agree about how. Mathers, in 1888, reverses a card into something close to its opposite, almost mechanically. Waite, in 1911, is much less consistent: many of his reversed meanings are the same idea weakened, delayed or turned inward, and a few - the Four of Wands, the Sun - he leaves essentially unchanged.
This app renders the disagreement instead of settling it. The reversed meaning shown on each card is Waite's kind of reading - a weakening or a turning, not an automatic opposite - while the Yes / No tool flips a clear yes into a no, which is Mathers' kind. Both are named where they are used.
One practical consequence: a spread with no reversals in it is not a better spread, and a spread that is entirely reversed is not a disaster. Both are worth noticing precisely because each card has an even chance of falling either way.
The position is read before the card. A spread is a set of questions laid out in order, and the card is the answer to the question that its position asks - the same card means one thing under 'what is behind you' and another under 'what will come'. Reading the cards first and fitting them to the positions afterwards is the most common way to get a spread wrong.
Read the whole before the last card. Waite is explicit that the tenth card of the Celtic Cross is read in the light of the nine beneath it, and that if it is not intelligible the spread is laid again from that card. The outcome position is a conclusion drawn from the reading, not a headline that replaces it.
A good card in the crossing position is still an obstruction. This trips up almost everyone the first time: the second card of the Celtic Cross is what crosses you, so the Star landing there means help or hope arriving in a way that gets in the way - at the wrong moment, or from the wrong person.
Waite's own procedure: choose the significator, then shuffle and cut three times face down before a single card is turned.
Traditionally a court card is picked to stand for the person asking, and laid down before the spread. Waite selects it by the querent's sex and complexion, using a table that runs from very fair to very dark. That is a nineteenth-century racial typology with a technique's name on it, and this app does not use it.
Nothing in the spread depends on it. The ten cards carry the reading on their own, and Waite's method works unchanged without a significator on the table. Where the personalised report wants one anyway, it takes the court card of your birth sign and says plainly that this substitution is the app's, not the book's.
Waite, who wrote the book these meanings come from, thought very little of fortune-telling and said so in the same volume - he prints the divinatory meanings because readers expect them, while arguing that the value of the cards is symbolic. Citing him honestly means citing that too.
The practical version: a spread is a structured way of looking at a situation you are already inside. It is good at naming the thing you have been avoiding and bad at dates, diagnoses and other people's intentions. Where this app cannot ground a claim in a text, it says so on the screen rather than filling the gap with confidence.
The ten-card spread printed by A. E. Waite in 1911 - a cross of six cards around the matter itself, and a staff of four read upward from the querent to the outcome. It is the most demanding layout here and the only one with a citable origin.
The influence at work on the matter right now - the atmosphere the question is being asked inside.
“This covers him.”
The obstacle, laid across the first card. Waite is careful that a good card here is still an obstruction - help arriving at the wrong moment obstructs too.
“This crosses him.”
The aim: what may be reached but has not been reached yet. Placed above, because it is still overhead.
“This crowns him.”
The foundation - what has already happened and become part of the situation. This is the card that explains why the matter has the shape it has.
“This is beneath him.”
The influence just passing out of the picture. Waite places this on the side the Significator faces; with no artwork there is no facing, so it sits on the left here.
“This is behind him.”
The influence coming into action next - the near future, and the part of the reading you can still act on.
“This is before him.”
You, as you actually stand in this matter - your position and attitude, which is not always the one you would describe.
Your surroundings: the people around the matter and what they are pulling towards. Waite calls this position the querent's house.
What you want and what you dread - often the same card, because the thing you most hope for is usually the thing you are most afraid of getting wrong.
The outcome, read in the light of the nine below it. Waite's own instruction is that this card is not read alone - if it is unclear, the whole spread is laid again from it.
The seed of the matter - something has started, and is not yet tested.
The middle of the work - effort, friction, and the choices that decide it.
The matter reaching its limit - for better or worse, it is arriving.
A person, or a way of behaving - the court cards read as somebody, not something.
The Yes / No leaning is this app's, not the sources'. Waite, Mathers and Papus all give each card a meaning; none of them prints a yes-or-no answer, and no consulted text contains such a table. The leaning here is read off the card's own divinatory meaning - cards of arrival and success lean yes, cards of pause, loss and delay lean no, and cards of ambiguity answer maybe. Treat it as a summary of the card, not as a verdict from a text.
Every card's upright and reversed meaning, its element and its source. The trumps' sign and planet attributions come from Case's 1920 table.
Case's 1920 table gives each trump a Hebrew letter and a sign, a planet or an element. Twelve trumps take their sign's element and three are elements outright; the seven planetary trumps have no element in the table, and the one shown here is this app's reading of the planet, not Case's.
78 cards
beginning, trust, the untested step
skill, will, the tools in hand
what is not yet said, patience, inner knowledge
abundance, growth, care given
structure, authority, boundaries
tradition, teaching, the accepted way
union, choice, what you value
drive, control, forward motion
patience, steadiness, quiet force
withdrawal, search, counsel
turning, chance, a change of phase
balance, consequence, a fair reckoning
suspension, reversal of view, waiting
ending, clearance, transformation
blending, moderation, the right proportion
attachment, bondage, the loose chain
sudden collapse, exposure, forced change
hope, healing, a clear night after a bad one
uncertainty, half-light, things not as they seem
clarity, success, things seen plainly
reckoning, a call answered, renewal
completion, arrival, a cycle closed
a beginning with energy in it
a plan made, not yet launched
ships sent out, waiting on returns
harvest home, a threshold crossed
competition, mock combat
victory and good news
holding the higher ground
speed, messages in flight
guarded strength, one more push
an overload carried too far
a messenger, a keen learner
departure, a change of place
a warm, capable, straightforward woman
an honest, established, decisive man
the full cup, feeling begun
a pact between two
celebration, a happy conclusion
discontent with what is offered
loss, and what is still standing
memory, an old kindness
too many possibilities, none tested
walking away from what you built
the wish granted, materially
contentment of the household
a gentle messenger, news of the heart
an approach, an offer carried to you
a woman of deep feeling and vision
a kindly man of responsibility
clarity that cuts
a stalemate held on purpose
the plain wound
enforced rest
a win not worth having
passage out of difficulty
a plan carried out quietly
bound, but loosely
the fear that comes at night
the bottom, and therefore the turn
one who watches
headlong bravery
perception, plain speech, judgement formed by loss
one who decides
a material beginning worth having
juggling two commitments
craft recognised, work commissioned
holding on tightly
outside the lit window
a gift, and the scales that measured it
waiting on what you planted
apprenticeship, repetition, getting good
the walled garden
family wealth, the long view
a student of the practical
slow, reliable progress
a generous, secure, practical woman
a man who makes money work
If you have read about tarot elsewhere you will look for some of the things below and not find them. Each one records what was searched and what was not found - or what was found and why it was refused anyway.
This one is not missing from the source - it is IN it, and it is refused anyway. Waite's own instruction for the Celtic Cross is to pick the court card that matches the querent's sex and complexion, with a table running from very fair to very dark. It is a nineteenth-century racial typology dressed as a technique, it does nothing the reading needs, and no part of the spread depends on it. Refusing a rule that the cited text does contain is a heavier decision than refusing one it does not, which is why it is written down here rather than quietly dropped.
Instead: The Celtic Cross here is laid without a significator, which Waite permits - the ten cards carry the reading on their own. Where a personalised report wants one, it uses the court card of the reader's birth sign, and labels that as this app's convention.
Waite's divinatory meaning for this card leads with widowhood and female sadness, and Mathers gives the same. Telling a woman that a card predicts the death of her husband is not a reading, it is a harm, and it belongs to the same family of claims this project already excludes on principle across its Vedic engine. The card keeps its other attested reading - perception, plain speech, judgement formed by experience - and both witnesses' reversed meanings, which are about malice rather than bereavement.
The rule everybody repeats - Wands means days, Cups weeks, Swords months, Pentacles years - is not in Waite's Pictorial Key, not in Mathers 1888 and not in Papus. It is a twentieth-century convention that circulates without an author. The app does not print a date from a card, because a date is exactly the kind of claim that would need a source and has none.
A permanent exclusion across this whole app, not a tarot-specific one. No card here names a condition, predicts one, forecasts a recovery or comments on a treatment. The wellbeing spread is about energy, rest, routine and attention, and its last position says in so many words that a symptom is a question for a doctor.
Prohibited in India by the PCPNDT Act, and excluded here regardless of the method - cards, chart or numbers. There is no version of this feature that this app will ship.
The 1909 illustrations are out of copyright in India, the UK, the EU and the US, and still in copyright in Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Jamaica and Cote d'Ivoire - all of which can open this page. Separately, nearly every scan in circulation derives from a 1971 edition that carries its own copyright as a derivative work. Neither problem is solved by attribution.
Instead: Cards render structurally - rank, numeral, suit and element set in type. Original illustration is being commissioned; when it exists it will be added above the structural face, which stays as the accessible fallback.
All four are public domain by age and may be quoted. Where this app has added a convention of its own, it renders with the 'no source located' marker instead of a citation.
A tarot deck is 78 cards: 22 numbered trumps that belong to no suit, and 56 suit cards in four suits of fourteen - Ace to Ten plus Page, Knight, Queen and King. Each suit carries an element and a department of life, and that pairing is the first thing a reader uses, because it places a card before you have learned its individual meaning. The assignments below are Waite's, from Part III of his 1911 handbook, and Papus reads the same four suits as the four elements.
The illustrations most people picture were drawn in 1909 and are out of copyright in India, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States - but not in every country this page can be opened from, and nearly every scan circulating online derives from a 1971 edition carrying a fresh copyright of its own. Several famous deck names are also registered trademarks, which do not expire the way a copyright does.
So this deck carries a house name, every card is drawn in type and structure, and original illustration is being commissioned. The card meanings are a different matter entirely: they come from books published in 1888, 1889, 1911 and 1920 that are public domain everywhere, and each one is cited on the card.
Papus reads the twenty-one numbered trumps as three groups of seven, with the Fool standing outside the count. The first seven, I to VII, are the human faculties: skill, intuition, fertility, authority, teaching, choice, mastery. The second seven, VIII to XIV, are the tests those faculties meet: endurance, withdrawal, chance, consequence, suspension, ending, proportion. The third seven, XV to XXI, are the forces that are not yours to manage: bondage, collapse, hope, uncertainty, clarity, reckoning, completion. So the number on a trump already tells you something before you know which card it is.
Inside a suit the ten numbered cards move from a seed to a limit, in four bands. Ace to Three is the opening, where something has started and has not been tested. Four to Seven is the development, where the effort and the friction are. Eight to Ten is the culmination, where the suit's quality reaches its extreme for better or worse - which is why the Ten of Cups is contentment and the Ten of Swords is the bottom of the suffering: both are their suit taken as far as it goes. Page to King are not stages at all but people, or ways of behaving that a situation is asking for.
The sources disagree, and this page shows the disagreement instead of settling it. Mathers (1888) reverses a card into something close to its opposite, almost mechanically. Waite (1911) is far less consistent - many of his reversed meanings are the same idea weakened, delayed or turned inward, and a few he leaves essentially unchanged.
No, and memorising them is the slow route. The meanings are generated by a structure: the suit gives the department of life, the number gives the stage, and the court rank gives a person. A reader who has the structure can make a sensible reading of a card they have never seen before.
Older French decks number Justice VIII and Strength XI; Waite's 1911 book prints them the other way round to line the trumps up with the zodiac, and every deck descended from it follows. The cards are identical and only the numbers are swapped.
Four, all public domain. A. E. Waite's The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911) is the primary witness for the upright and reversed meanings; S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1888) is cross-read against it, and is where the reversals differ most; Papus, The Tarot of the Bohemians (1889, Morton's English translation 1892) supplies the structural reading of the suits and the trumps; and Paul Foster Case (1920) supplies the elemental attributions of the trumps. Every card on this page shows which of them its meaning came from.
For educational purposes. Astrological interpretations are traditional and not a substitute for professional advice.