I’ve been trying to understand what each number represents across all the suits and it’s driving me a bit crazy. Maybe more than a bit… I know the Three of Cups and Three of Swords are completely different, but there must be some core meaning to “three” that connects them?
When people start talking about numerology and sacred geometry, I get lost pretty quickly. Like really lost.
Does anyone have a straightforward way of understanding how all the fives connect to each other? Or what makes a seven a seven whether it’s wands or pentacles?
I’m still learning and finding it hard to get clear answers on what the numbers mean independent of their suits. Would love to hear how others approach this.
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The early cards (2s, 3s, 4s) seem to line up with cardinal sign energy from astrology. Like you’ve got the 3 of Wands with its Aries adventure thing going on. The 3 of Cups feels more Cancer-ish, gathering people together and all that.
Move up to the middle numbers and they get more fixed - 5 of Pentacles has that Taurus stubborn streak when things get tough, 6 of Wands wants recognition like a Leo.
Same numbers across different suits but the astrological feel carries through somehow.
The 1-10 structure comes from the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. I tried explaining this at a party once and people suddenly remembered they had somewhere else to be.
The court cards follow that King (passive masculine), Queen (passive feminine), Knight (active masculine), and Page (active feminine) formula. Basically, everyone gets assigned a personality type whether they like it or not. Pull four Knights in a reading and you’re in for chaos.
Maybe have some tea ready. If you catch yourself mapping all 78 cards to your life at 3 am, that’s probably a sign you need sleep more than another reading.
You don’t really need to examine into numerology to get tarot numbers. The pattern is pretty straightforward, odd numbers (3, 5, 7, 9) usually bring chaos and movement while even numbers (2, 4, 6, 8) are more stable and balanced.
You can feel how a seven always creates some kind of test or decision point. Look at the Seven of Wands where you’re defending your ground, or the Seven of Cups with all those choices. No sacred geometry needed to pick up on that pattern.
Like anything in reading Tarot, I think your intutive reading is what really matters. There are no hard rules for how you use the numerology (or if you use it at all). I like to keep it simple.
Maybe seeing the numbers as steps in a story. Every card adds to the story within its suit, giving different but linked chapters.
When you get really into the numbers side of things, tracking every digit, pattern, calculation, it can overshadow the intuitive part of tarot.
This is happening in my own readings. I’ll be so focused on the numerical meanings that I miss what my gut is trying to tell me. Each card pull becomes this weird tug-of-war between analyzing the numbers and just feeling what the cards mean.
whenever I pull a five in tarot OR oracle, something always comes in from outside and shakes things up.
Five of Cups, you’re mourning something. Five of Wands, competitive chaos everywhere. They all bring some kind of disruption that makes you face what you’ve been avoiding. My oracle decks have the same pattern, with their challenge cards often being 5s too.
Made me see fives as wake-up calls basically. Once I patterned it, it helped me understand them better in all the suits.
I started using numbers as energies interacting with the element of each suit.
The Three of Cups (emotional celebration) and Three of Swords (mental conflict) both started making sense as expressions of how ‘three’ creates group dynamics in different elements. Kind of like the same actor in different movies, you can see the core personality but the context changes everything.
Don’t force rigid definitions and just let the numbers work within their elements the patterns get clearer.
I had a moment when I kept drawing multiple fives in a week. The Five of Cups was about disappointment, the Five of Pentacles pointed to financial worry, and the Five of Wands dealt with conflict. It dawned on me that they all highlighted my struggle with instability, just in different ways.
My grandmother always said ‘trouble comes in threes’, but with tarot, it feels like the same lesson keeps appearing in different suits until you get it. I started seeing the numbers as parts of a story that unfold across all four suits. It made sense, like how all the threes involve some form of collaboration and growth, whether it’s celebrating with friends (Cups) or dealing with heartbreak that needs support (Swords).
Just pull out all the 3s or all the 7s or whatever number you’re working with. Seeing them together shows you the different ways that energy can manifest. Wands might show the action side, cups the emotional angle, swords the mental aspect, and pentacles the physical.
Been doing this for years and it works better than trying to memorize what all the books say about number meanings.
Numbers are weird. Sometimes a 3 means creativity, other times it’s about communication or growth. Depends on the cards around it and what question you’re asking.
I think I agree that it really depends on your intuition. Same as the meaning of the cards really, what you see in the message is what the cards are trying to tell you.
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life connection is interesting, but it’s kind of an old-school way of looking at tarot. Been that way since after the Golden Dawn period. For beginners, it’s probably too much. Simple number meanings work better (just the basics from 1 to 10. No need to dive into Hebrew mysticism or all that ceremonial magic stuff right away.
I tend to focus more on the elemental progression myself. I see the numbered cards in groups ( 2-4 as early development (like spring), 5-7 as the challenging middle phase (summer’s peak), and 8-10 as completion (autumn harvest).
As for astrology, I connect Aces with cardinal energy since they’re initiating forces. The 2,3,4 cards feel more like fixed signs establishing stability. And 8,9,10 work as mutable signs, transitioning to the next cycle.