Tarot Card Meanings
Each card has a variety of symbolic meanings that have evolved over the years. Custom or themed tarot decks exist which have even more specific symbolism, although these are more prevalent in the English-speaking world. The minor arcana cards have astrological attributions that can be used as general indicators of timing in the year, based on the Octavian calendar, and the court cards may signify different people in a tarot reading, with each suit’s “nature” providing hints about that person’s physical and emotional characteristics.
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Tarot has a complex and rich symbolism with a long history. In the past, many occult- or divination-oriented authors claimed that the symbolism’s origins are lost in time and/or postulated or claimed as fact non-historical theories. Some authors such as Rachel Pollack have written that tarot origin myths have their own significance and value and that the reader can find a study of such myths enriching while at the same time being aware that they aren’t factually true.
Interpretations have evolved together with the cards over the centuries: later decks have “clarified” the pictures in accordance with meanings assigned to the cards by their creators. In turn, the meanings come to be modified by the new pictures. Images and interpretations have been continually reshaped, in part, to help the Tarot live up to its mythic role as a powerful occult instrument and to respond to modern needs.
See, for example, the Rider-Waite-Smith Strength card. We can know more about the symbolic intentions of the designer here, since he conveniently wrote many books on the subject on occultism and symbolism and a handbook specifically for this deck titled The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). As with its ancestor in the Tarot de Marseilles, the Strength trump shows a woman holding the jaws of a lion, but the Rider-Waite-Smith picture is far more elaborate. The woman’s hat of the Marseilles card has been interpreted as a lemniscate: the sideways-figure-eight representing infinity, or, according to Waite, the Spirit of Life. Other symbols are included: a chain of roses symbolizing desire or passion, against a white robe symbolizing purity. The mountains in the background demonstrate another kind of strength.
Another example of the preservation of designs from one deck to another can be seen via the incorporation of the ribbon design found on the Deux de Deniéres in a Swiss-style deck originally published by Müller & Cie. of Schaffhouse into the of The Book of Thoth Tarot’s Two of Disks.
There are numerous published books that discuss the usage of the tarot for divination. In many systems, the four suits are associated with the four elements: Swords with air, Wands with fire, Cups with water and Pentacles with earth. The numerology of the cards is also considered significant. The tarot is considered to correspond to various systems such as astrology, Pythagorean numerology, the Kabalah (where each of the major arcana represent a path on the tree of life), the Aura-Soma and others.