Tarot Card Number Meanings

Before I had ever begun reading tarot cards, I was already heavily involved and incredibly familiar with Numerology. Naturally, I noticed patterns within tarot cards, based on their number, due to this knowledge. Luckily, I felt that this had given me a leg-up when learning tarot.

For many people, they seem to learn the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana pretty quickly. Once they get to the Minor Arcana, however, they become stumped and overwhelmed. That’s because there are fifty-six cards in the Minor Arcana!

Considering I feel that learning tarot cards is much easier if you have this insight, I’d like to share it with you. In this post, we’ll learn the very basics of Numerology with relevance to tarot. Then, we’ll examine each number individually.

The Connection Between Numerology and Tarot

In Numerology, there are nine, basic numbers. These numbers are simply the numbers one through nine. Sometimes, there are also master numbers, which are eleven and twenty-two. Today, we’re going to leave out the master numbers as they don’t really apply to our topic.

In the Major Arcana, there are twenty-two cards, while there are fifty-six cards in the Minor Arcana. The Minor Arcana, however, can be further split into four different suits. Each of those suits have fourteen cards each. Four suits multiplied by fourteen cards in each suit equals fifty-six cards in the Minor Arcana.

The fourteen cards within each suit are numbered ace (one) through ten plus four court cards, which aren’t numbered and do not apply to numerology either. This means we’ll be subtracting sixteen of the fifty-six cards from the Minor Arcana. Today, we’ll learn a little about forty of them, since forty are numbered and sixteen are not.

Now, we’re left with four aces, four twos, four threes, and so on. For example, we have a Six of Wands, a Six of Pentacles, a Six of Cups, and a Six of Swords. Notice that each six is within a different suit, which obviously gives them different qualities, but since each of them are sixes, it also means they have similarities.

The Difference Between Numerology and Tarot

Something that you may have noticed was that earlier on, I mentioned that numerology focuses on having meanings for the numbers one through nine. Tarot, on the other hand, has ten numbered cards in each suit. So, does that mean there isn’t a meaning for all the cards numbered ten?

In Numerology, zero represents wholeness and completion, while one is about leadership and beginnings. This means that the ten in the tarot suits represent both endings and beginnings. Because the one alone is only a beginning and the zero suggests a type of finish line, putting them together blurs the line of metaphorical death and rebirth.

Number Meanings