The Tarot deck consists of two main groups of cards:
The
Minor Arcana, made up of 56 cards divided into four suits: Wands, Cups,
Swords and Coins (Pentacles). Also, each suit is made up of cards numbered from
1 to 10, plus four court cards: Page (Knave), Knight, Queen and King.
The Major Arcana, made up of 22 cards, whose images are symbolically represented by characters or significant concepts.
The
Minor Arcana came to Europe from China around the 14th century, like a
card game. But from a certain moment, these began to be used also for
divination; which led, later, towards the 15th century, to the
development of the Major Arcana to expand the deck and improve its use.
Until
the 19th century, the quality of the numbers from 1 to 10 was
represented graphically by their corresponding quantity. From that
number, due to the limited size of the cards and for practicality, the
quality of the numbers from 11 to 36 was represented by characters or significant concepts.
The suits are equivalent to the astrological elements (wands = fire, cups = water, swords = air and pentacles = earth),
while the numbers, ranging from 1 to 36, correspond to the harmonics in
astrology, from which the astrological aspects (conjunction,
opposition, trine, square, ...). As the number of the harmonic
increases, the strength of its effect decreases and the orb applied to
the corresponding aspects also decreases; therefore, the Major Arcana
are only represented once, without repeating for each suit like the
Minor Arcana.
The Major Arcana are arbitrarily numbered from 0 to 21, representing a process of development in stages, which begins as a latent potential with the Fool and passes sequentially through each of the Major Arcana, reaching the culmination of the process with the
World. This order has nothing to do with the harmonics to which each of
the Major Arcana is associated due to its symbolic quality:
H1 (conjunction)
H2 (opposition)
H3 (trine)
H4 (square)
H5 (quintile)
H6 (sextile)
H7 (septile)
H8 (octile = semisquare)
H9 (novile)
H10 (decile)
H11 - The Tower (undecile)
H12 - Queen (semisextile)
H13 - King (tredecile)
H14 - The Hanged Man (semiseptile)
H15 - Page (quindecile)
H16 - Knight (semioctile)
H17 - The World (septidecile)
H18 - The Moon (seminovile)
H19 - The Star (novidecile)
H20 - The Hermit (vigintile)
H21 - The Magician (unvigintile)
H22 - The High Priestess (semiundecile)
H23 - The Chariot (trevigintile)
H24 - Justice (taotile = quartisextile)
H25 - Judgement (quinvigintile)
H26 - The Lovers (semitredecile)
H27 - Temperance (septivigintile)
H28 - The Empress (cuartiseptile)
H29 - Strength (novivigintile)
H30 - The Sun (semiquindecile)
H31 - The Emperor (untrigintile)
H32 - The Fool (cuartioctile)
H33 - The Devil (tretrigintile)
H34 - The Hierophant (semiseptidecile)
H35 - Death (quintrigintile)
H36 - The Wheel (cuartinovile)
Although at first glance it may seem difficult, the quality of the numbers 11, 22 and 33 (associated with computer concepts such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and distributed computing) was easily represented through medieval images: The lightning bolt that hits the top of The Tower [H11] and instantly alters the situation, represents very well the binary polarity changes (between 0 and 1, and vice versa) of digital electronic circuits, which form the basis of computer systems.
The
book that the High Priestess [H22] has open in her hands, represents
very well the area in which quantum computing is very effective compared
to traditional computing: operations such as searching for a keyword in
a very long character string, which tends to infinity if you consider letters within a word, words within a line, lines within a page, pages within a book, and books on a library shelf (symbolically equivalent to statistical analysis of web page on the Internet or of social network databases).
The
Devil [H33] represents very well organized skin-games, in which several
people participate and each one intervenes in a specific area of the
process.
It
must be taken into account that when adding a symbolic image to
represent the quality of the number, it is represented, but new meaning
is also added in the case of the Major Arcana and court cards. For
example, the necessary care when
balancing a scale with a grain of rice represents the quality of the
number 24, but in addition, the scale also represents other things, not
related to the number 24, such as justice or consequences.
In the case of the Minor Arcana of more modern decks, such as Waite or Crowley, the elements chosen when designing the card --on the one hand, the
emotional expression and activity that the characters perform, and on
the other, the environment and the general tonality of color--,
contribute to the general meaning of the card, but also make it more
specific and orients it towards a positive, neutral or negative tone.
Which makes interpretation easier.
The prime numbers have their own meaning, while in the rest, their meaning results from the combination of its multiple numbers. For example,
the quality of the Major Arcana The Hanged Man, associated with the
number 14 (= 7 x 2), can be explained as the combination of the number 2, opposition or blocking, and the number 7, karma and spiritual enlightenment.
The group of number 1 is formed by the following card:
- A1 - The Ace [prime number]
The group of number 2 is formed by the following cards:
- H2 [prime number]
- H4 [= 2x2 = 2^2]
- H8 [= 2x4]
- H16 - Knight [= 2x8 = 4x4 = 4^2]
- H32 - The Fool [= 2x16 = 8x4]
The group of number 3 is formed by the following cards:
- H3 [prime number]
- H6 [= 3x2]
- H9 [= 3x9 = 3^2]
- H12 - Queen [= 3x4 = 6x2]
- H18 - The Moon [= 3x6 = 9x2]
- H24 - Justice [= 3x8 = 6x4 = 12x2]
- H27 - Temperance [= 3x9 = 3x3x3 = 3^3]
- H36 - The Wheel [= 3x12 = 9x4 = 6^2]
The group of number 5 is formed by the following cards:
- H5 [prime number]
- H10 [= 5x2]
- H15 - Page [= 5x3]
- H20 - The Ermit [= 5x4]
- H25 - Judgement [= 5x5 = 5^2]
- H30 - The Sun [= 5x6]
The group of number 7 is formed by the following cards:
- H7 [prime number]
- H14 - The Hanged Man [= 7x2]
- H21 - The Magician [= 7x3]
- H28 - The Empress [= 7x4]
- H35 - Death [= 7x5]
The group of number 11 is formed by the following cards:
- H11 - The Tower [prime number]
- H22 - The High Priestess [= 11x2]
- H33 - The Devil [= 11x3]
The group of number 13 is formed by the following cards:
- H13 - King [prime number]
- H26 - The Lovers [= 13x2]
The group of number 17 is formed by the following cards:
- H17 - The World [prime number]
- H34 - The Hierophant [= 17x2]
The
cards associated with the rest of the prime numbers --which have their
own meaning and which could also form their separated own groups if the Tarot deck
were larger-- are the following:
- H19 - The Star
- H23 - The Chariot
- H29
- Strength
- H31 - The Emperor
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