I’ve been working with tarot for years now, and the way I see Major vs Minor Arcana is like this: Major Arcana cards are the big life themes playing out - think spiritual awakening, karmic lessons, those moments where everything changes. The Majors are numbered 0-21 and represent archetypal experiences every soul goes through.
Minor Arcana fills in the everyday details - your work stress, that argument with your partner, whether to take that trip next month.
When I pull The Fool (Major) with the Eight of Wands (Minor), I’m seeing a new spiritual journey beginning (Fool) that’s going to happen fast with lots of communication and travel (Eight of Wands). They work together beautifully - you don’t need to separate them unless you specifically want to focus on just spiritual lessons (Major only) or practical daily guidance (Minor only). Some readers use only Majors for spiritual questions and add Minors for practical detail, but personally, I find the combination gives the fullest picture - like getting both the weather forecast and what to wear for it.
Does anyone work with it differently?
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I was reading Rachel Pollack’s ‘Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom’ and there’s this chapter about how the Minor Arcana came before the Major in some old decks.
She talks about how playing card decks (which became the Minors) were around for centuries before anyone added the triumph cards (the Majors). Pretty interesting when you think about the timeline, the Minors were the original deck and the Majors came later as an addition.
I had this realization the other day about Major cards. When one shows up in a spread, everything else kind of revolves around it. It’s not that other cards do not matter - but the majors inform a lot of the meaning for those other cards.
The Minor cards end up playing backup, showing you the practical stuff while the Major card is basically shouting the main message. The Minor suits each have their own progression from Ace to King, which mirrors what the Majors do but in a more everyday way. When you see them together in a reading, the Major sets the tone and the Minors fill in the details.
Anyone here use quints from the Majors to set the overall theme? I’ve been using Minors for the practical stuff after that. Just wondering if others do something similar.
At my tarot table, I set up a simple altar with one Major in the middle for the month.
The Minors rotate weekly around it, so I have a fresh focus. I map suits to the directions-Wands south, Cups west. When a reading is heavy in one suit, I move that corner’s candle or tool to even things out. Not fancy, but it works for me.
The Major cards read like the big shared themes-The Fool starting out, that kind of thing.
The Minors are the day-to, day stuff in between. My grandma used to say, ‘every big story is made of little moments.’ Pretty much covers it.
You get the broad view and the bits people actually deal with.
The Major Arcana cards have way stronger colors. The Sun’s yellows and The High Priestess’s purples really pop out compared to everything else.
Minor Arcana cards tend to fade into the background with their muted colors. Fits with how they’re about everyday stuff rather than big life themes.
I hate how some people get so fixated on the majors though. You can’t have a proper Tarot reading without the minors. Arguably, they’re even more important than anything you could get from the majors because without them, there’s no meaning. Nothing to link them together.
I hate the terminology because it leads some people to think they’re just “not important” and they just stare at the major arcana cards when there’s a whole spread in front of them.
I was talking to a friend learning tarot and she asked if she had to memorize all 78 cards right away. I told her no, you can start with different sections of the deck.
The Major Arcana (22 cards from The Fool to The World) are the big life themes and turning points. You can use just these for deeper questions about where you’re at in life. The Minor Arcana has 56 pip cards (Ace through 10 in four suits).
Swords are thoughts and communication, Wands are passion and action, Cups are emotions and relationships, Pentacles are money/work/health stuff. These are good for everyday situations. Then there are 16 Court cards, which represent people or personality traits. You can use these to look at relationships or different sides of yourself. I usually use the whole deck, though.
You get majors showing the bigger picture, pips showing what’s happening day-to-day, and courts showing who’s involved.
Been going through my old Italian decks from the 70s. The minor suits in these are based on myths, Cups have Eros and Psyche, Pentacles show Daedalus, Swords depict Orestes, and Wands are the Golden Fleece. Kind of interesting how they tied the everyday cards to these stories.
I think they work well together, but there’s really no single way to approach it.
Some (probably most) readers use everything, others skip the court cards when they’re starting out - both can give you good results. When I get a major arcana card, it feels like that particular energy is being emphasized more. Like the difference between someone whispering something and saying it out loud - same message, but one gets your attention more.
The cards mean different things to different people though. Best thing is to develop your own feel for them rather than stick to rigid interpretation rules.
I tend to use zodiac/planetary rulers for timing with the Major Arcana and decans for the Minors. For instance, when the Emperor came up with the 3 of Wands in a reading, both Aries cards were present. My client launched their product during the first decan of Aries, just after the equinox. The timing matched up pretty well.
Never paid much attention to Court Cards before. They’re kind of in between the Major and Minor arcana though. Queen of Swords is a good example - she has that Major Arcana vibe but shows up in regular daily readings.
To me, the Majors flag the big themes. The Minors map the routine ups and downs.
I dont split my deck. Letting them mingle in a spread feels straightforward. When a Major lands among Minors, it stands out on its own and shows where the focus is. I note it and move on.
I look for spreads without any Major cards - that’s when I feel like I have some control over things. After that I draw one Minor card as my ‘homework’ to figure out what to actually do. If I don’t, I just end up wandering around aimlessly.