· GLOSSARY ·
The terms that quietly steer every tarot reading.
Latin for “secret.” The two halves of the tarot deck: Major (22 archetypes) and Minor (56 suit cards).
The 22 archetype cards (Fool → World) tracing the soul's journey and life's pivotal thresholds.
The 56 suit cards (four suits × Ace–10 + four courts) tracking daily events, choices, and character.
The 16 Page / Knight / Queen / King cards — personalities, maturity levels, or modes of engagement.
The numbered Minor Arcana (Ace–10). Maps everyday situations and numerological stages.
One of four Minor families: Wands (fire), Cups (water), Swords (air), Pentacles (earth).
A deck designed and fully illustrated by Rachel Pollack — originally Shining Woman Tarot (1992), retitled Shining Tribe in 2001.
In tarot, a minor-arcana card numbered Ace–10 — and especially the Marseille-style pip, which shows only suit symbols without a scene.
The Marseille-standard deck engraved in 1760 by Nicolas Conver, whose woodblocks seeded more than a century of European reprints.
A 2000s restoration of the Conver Marseille deck by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin, recovering the original colour and line.
The tarot deck conceived by Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris 1938–1943; published posthumously in 1969.
Hermann Haindl's 1988 deck, a German-lineage Thoth-adjacent design that weaves Norse, Vedic, and Native American symbolism into a systematically occult scaffold.
One of four classical elements (fire, water, air, earth) assigning each card its fundamental temperament.
How adjacent cards' elements strengthen, weaken, or ignore one another in a spread.
Element of will, inspiration, drive. Suit of Wands. Sanguine, ascending, outward.
Element of emotion, relationship, the unconscious. Suit of Cups. Receptive, flowing, reflective.
Element of thought, language, discernment. Suit of Swords. Clear, cutting, communicative.
Element of body, resource, craft, time. Suit of Pentacles. Grounded, slow, material.
A ten-degree segment of a zodiac sign. Each Minor pip 2–10 rules one decan of the zodiac.
Cardinal / Fixed / Mutable — how a zodiac sign initiates, sustains, or adapts.
The active/receptive pair assigned to each card (or sign / element). Not masculine/feminine in a gendered sense.
The twelve signs (Aries–Pisces). Each Major or Minor can be assigned one sign via Golden Dawn correspondences.
One of seven traditional (or ten modern) bodies. Each Major Arcana is attributed a planet, sign, or element.
Saturn → Jupiter → Mars → Sun → Venus → Mercury → Moon. The traditional planetary order by apparent speed, used to rule the 36 decans.
The grouping of the twelve zodiac signs into four elemental triads — fire, earth, air, water — each triad sharing an element across three modalities.
Two zodiac systems — tropical (anchored to the equinoxes, used in Western astrology and tarot) vs sidereal (anchored to the fixed-star constellations, used in Vedic astrology).
Cardinal fire, ruled by Mars. The opening spark of the zodiac wheel. Tarot correspondence: IV The Emperor; decans → 2/3/4 of Wands.
Fixed earth, ruled by Venus. Slow, sensory, rooted. Tarot: V The Hierophant; decans → 5/6/7 of Pentacles.
Mutable air, ruled by Mercury. Pairing, exchange, speech. Tarot: VI The Lovers; decans → 8/9/10 of Swords.
Cardinal water, ruled by the Moon. Home, memory, protective shell. Tarot: VII The Chariot; decans → 2/3/4 of Cups.
Fixed fire, ruled by the Sun. Radiance, authorship, heart. Tarot: VIII Strength; decans → 5/6/7 of Wands.
Mutable earth, ruled by Mercury. Precision, service, craft. Tarot: IX The Hermit; decans → 8/9/10 of Pentacles.
Cardinal air, ruled by Venus. Balance, partnership, weighing. Tarot: XI Justice; decans → 2/3/4 of Swords.
Fixed water, ruled by Mars (classical) / Pluto (modern). Depth, transmutation, taboo. Tarot: XIII Death; decans → 5/6/7 of Cups.
Mutable fire, ruled by Jupiter. Vision, journey, far horizon. Tarot: XIV Temperance; decans → 8/9/10 of Wands.
Cardinal earth, ruled by Saturn. Ascent, mastery, structure. Tarot: XV The Devil; decans → 2/3/4 of Pentacles.
Fixed air, ruled by Saturn (classical) / Uranus (modern). Distance, innovation, collective. Tarot: XVII The Star; decans → 5/6/7 of Swords.
Mutable water, ruled by Jupiter (classical) / Neptune (modern). Dissolution, compassion, dream. Tarot: XVIII The Moon; decans → 8/9/10 of Cups.
The 29.53-day cycle from one new moon to the next — the rhythm that drives every lunar ritual and farming calendar.
The second full moon to fall within a single calendar month — a timing oddity, not a color.
Hermetic mystical system mapping reality onto the Tree of Life. Tarot's deepest structural skeleton.
The Qabalistic diagram of 10 sephiroth + 22 paths. The tarot maps onto it completely.
One of the ten emanations on the Tree of Life. Plural: sephiroth. Each is a divine attribute and a stage of manifestation.
Atziluth / Briah / Yetzirah / Assiah — the four descending planes of manifestation in Qabalah.
Each Major Arcana is attributed one of the 22 Hebrew letters — mother, double, or simple.
One of the 22 connections between sephiroth on the Tree of Life. Each path is a Major Arcana.
The Crown — the first sephirah, pure will before form. All four Aces are attributed here.
Wisdom — the second sephirah, masculine prime mover. The four Twos live here.
Understanding — the third sephirah, feminine receptive. The four Threes live here.
Mercy — the fourth sephirah, expansive and generous. The four Fours live here.
Severity — the fifth sephirah, cutting and restrictive. The four Fives live here.
Beauty — the sixth sephirah, the solar heart of the Tree. The four Sixes live here.
Victory — the seventh sephirah, instinctive and emotional. The four Sevens live here.
Splendour — the eighth sephirah, intellect, speech, and order. The four Eights live here.
Foundation — the ninth sephirah, the unconscious and lunar reservoir. The four Nines live here.
Kingdom — the tenth sephirah, fully embodied earth. The four Tens live here.
The highest of the four worlds — Emanation, fire. Attributed to Wands.
The second world — Creation, water. Attributed to Cups.
The third world — Formation, air. Attributed to Swords.
The lowest of the four worlds — Action, earth. Attributed to Pentacles.
Aleph (א), Mem (מ), and Shin (ש) — the three Hebrew letters that govern the three elements (air, water, fire).
Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Peh, Resh, Tav — seven Hebrew letters that govern the seven classical planets.
The twelve remaining Hebrew letters, each governing one sign of the zodiac.
The first Hebrew letter (א), a mother letter. Governs Air; Golden Dawn attributes it to the Fool.
A mother letter (ש) governing Fire; attributed to Judgement in the Golden Dawn tarot.
An early Jewish mystical text (pre-10th century) that introduces the 10 sephirot and the 3/7/12 letter classification the Golden Dawn tarot inherits.
The symbolic meaning of numbers 0–10, applied to tarot pips and via digit reduction to Majors.
Adding the digits of a two-digit Major to find its echoing single-digit pip theme.
A fixed layout assigning meaning to each card position (e.g. Past / Present / Future).
A card drawn upside-down. Signals blocked, internalized, or excessive expression — not a simple opposite.
The person asking the question. In solo readings, the querent is the reader themselves.
A card chosen before the draw to represent the querent or the matter at hand.
A one-card draw at dawn or bed-time, the simplest spread. A compass, not a forecast.
The 1909 deck published by Rider, designed by A. E. Waite, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. The modern standard.
The 1909 RWS illustrator (1878–1951). Her 78 watercolors defined modern tarot imagery.
A family of historical European decks (17th–19th c.) with geometric pips and woodcut style.
Nicolas Conver's 1760 Marseille deck. The template most "Marseille" decks today trace back to.
French for "trumps." The Marseille-tradition name for the 22 Major Arcana.
Aleister Crowley's deck (painted by Lady Frieda Harris, 1944). Dense, symbolic, Qabalistic.
Lady Frieda Harris (1877–1962), the artist who painted the Thoth deck from Crowley's detailed specifications.
Mixing the deck before a reading. Any method is valid — the point is to break pattern and set intention.
The non-verbal knowing that reads a card before the book does. A trained skill, not a gift.
A guided-imagination practice in which the reader walks into the card's landscape as if it were a room.
Using the discomfort a card triggers as an entry point to unacknowledged parts of the self — written, not clinical.
Placing a chosen card by the pillow before sleep, then recording the next morning's dream alongside it.
A defocused, unblinking look at a single card — eyes resting on the image without trying to interpret.
Alejandro Jodorowsky's therapeutic method of externalising inner conflict into a ritual act a client can perform.
A ceremonial practice from several North American Indigenous nations involving the smoke of specific dry herbs; the English word "smudging" has cultural-appropriation weight.
A sacred plant of several California Indigenous nations, native only to a narrow band between Santa Barbara and northern Baja California; commercial demand has driven large-scale poaching.
A fragrant wood from tropical dry forests of Peru / Ecuador, traditionally used by Indigenous communities; as of 2026 Bursera graveolens itself is not CITES-listed, but a distinct species sold under the same common name is.
A spread with a central card and radiating positions — oriented around integration rather than a linear next step.
How a spread position changes the way a card's core meaning is read — the same card in "obstacle" vs "invitation" reads very differently.
The three design dimensions every tarot spread decomposes into — position count, position function, and positional relations.
A universal pattern of human experience — the Mother, the Hero, the Trickster. Tarot's raw material.
The psychological mechanism by which we see our inner contents in outer images — tarot's working principle.
The disowned part of the self. Reversed cards and certain Majors (Devil, Tower, Moon) surface shadow work.
An occult tradition rooted in Hellenistic Egypt, centered on "as above, so below." The source stream of modern tarot.
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1888). Codified the tarot's modern correspondence system in Book T.
A framed, deliberate action that separates the reading from ordinary time — lighting, breath, question.
14th-century Egyptian playing cards whose structure — four suits of ten pips plus court figures — shaped the deck Europe would inherit.
Mid-15th-century hand-painted Milanese decks commissioned by the Visconti and Sforza courts. The earliest Major Arcana we can still see.
The Italian trick-taking card game from which the modern word "tarot" descends. A distant cousin of bridge: trumps, bluffing, and a permanent Fool.
Jean-Baptiste Alliette (1738–1791), a Parisian seed merchant turned cartomancer. He published the first deck designed specifically for divination.
Antoine Court de Gébelin (1725–1784). The French scholar who first tied tarot to ancient Egyptian wisdom — a claim the academic record has since refuted.
Alejandro Jodorowsky's therapeutic practice of symbolic acts. Tarot serves as the diagnostic map that prescribes the act.
One of the eight solar festivals of the modern Wheel of the Year — Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, Samhain, and the two solstices / equinoxes.
The Japanese autumn tradition of viewing the harvest full moon — usually on the 15th night of the 8th lunar month.
Late-19th-century English occult order whose tarot × Kabbalah × astrology correspondence system seeded nearly all modern Anglo-American tarot.
Internal Golden Dawn tarot teaching document containing decans, Hebrew-letter assignments, court-zodiac rulership, and related correspondences.
The goat-headed figure drawn by Éliphas Lévi in 1856 as a symbol of cosmic polarity — later widely misappropriated as a visual template of "Satan."
Joseph Campbell's 1949 claim that most world mythologies share one deep structure — call, departure, trial, return.
Adopting elements of a minority or Indigenous culture — especially sacred or ritual elements — without credit, consent, or understanding of context.
