Mystical Angels

A question for tarot readers?

Do you believe that any of the Major Arcana are more significant than others? Do you think any are less important? Could the amount of Major Arcana in a deck be reduced by combining two or more of cards with the simaler meanings? If so what would you call the replacement cards? Try to tackle this question as though you were creating a new tarot deck for yourself.

Public Comments

1. All of the tarot cards in a deck are there for a reason, and they each have their own significance or importance. I guess I don't really understand your last two questions.
2. Do some people really talk about tarot cards in the 21st century?
3. For some reason, the Sun, the Chariot and Strength have always seemed especially important to me, but that's a matter of personal taste. I think you're asking whether or not certain cards express concepts that are more relevant or powerful than others. I think you could say that the Fool card is uniquely significant because it's either unnumbered or numbered 0, which has some interesting implications. It seems that the Fool exists somehow outside of the conceptual landscape expressed by the remaining symbols. The World (or the Universe) seems especially significant, too--maybe because it's the culmination of the whole Major Arcana cycle. On the other hand, first and last things always seem more significant. I guess the number of Major Arcana cards could be reduced. I don't necessarily think they "should"--I like the arrangement of the 22 cards and there are also a lot of arcane magical systems based on the number of the cards and their sequence. (Crowley, of course, famously rearranged and renamed a few of the Major Arcana cards in his Thoth deck so they would correspond more closely with his philosophy of the New Age, causing some controversy.) But it's an interesting question. Which two cards could be combined into one, new card? Say, if you wanted for some reason to reduce the number of Major Arcana symbols, you might combine the High Priestess and Empress cards. Then, of course, you would be sort of obligated to also combine the Emperor and the Magician. Perhaps then you could name them "the Mother" and "the Father," "the Goddess" and "the God," or maybe something like "Wisdom" and "Power." I think, though, that there would be something lost, since really the HP and the Empress symbolize entirely different aspects of the feminine principle, as the Emperor and the Magician do of the masculine.
4. First off ALL of the cards live inside the Fool. So in some ways he is the ONLY card in the deck. It would however make it very hard to read :) While there are literally hundreds of decks out now, I have only found a few of them at all useful for reading. The corrospondences are very important for me and I use them for more than just divinatory purposes. While many of the decks are gorgeous if they do not follow a few basic guidelines for me, they do me no good other than as art. Each of the Trumps (from the Roman Triumps - parades) represent a Hebrew letter and a path on the Tree of Life. To combine them or to omit them would throw the whole process out of balance. There are 3 Mother Letters representing the 3 ancient elements. There are 7 double letters representing the 7 ancient planets. Then there are 12 single letters representing the zodiac houses. The court cards are elemental and the pips are the sephiroth on the Tree of Life. So to get rid of one would cause some issues! They are not abritrary but there for very good reasons. I read from the Thoth deck and while they may have been adjusted all are represented. A more important point of the Tarot is that each of the cards has an astral corrospondence. So each of those cards GOES somewhere. Somewhere specific.Moving them would cause serious issues. Good luck and enjoy the journey!
5. I think, to understand the true importance and individual meanings of each Tarot card, you need to meditate or concentrate on them succession. The Major Arcana is layed out like a journey. Some do have similar meanings or are developments of others. The only card that can be truly interjected anywhere in the sequence is the Fool. The first 9 numbered cards are represented by characters so they are easier, perhaps, to relate too. You can put the cards into sequence and imagine them as a series of rooms. Each room is an experience and has something different to tell you. You should also try to put away any preconcieved ideas and concepts when you do this, so as not to prejudice the contemplation. When dealing with the Minor deck there is no such thing as a good card or bad card, nor in the Major Deck has anyone more or less importance than another. Each one has a message of it's own. Temperance and the Star are very similar in appearance and pose, but the messages they give differ. Throw away the books, learn to interprete the symbols for yourself. Each time you look, you will then see them with a fresh "eye" and you will begin to see different aspects of the cards.
6. They have all the same weight in the deck and are supposed to follow the paths on the Tree of Life. I don't understand your question about "reducing" the amount of Major Arcana in a spread, usually having a lot of Major Arcana cards in a reading is good and shouldn't be reduced to a vague reading but read individually.