Card 1. The Magician: Start of something. Beginner’s luck. Having various tools and means at our disposal. Use of supernatural forces. Creating reality with mind power. Training and acquisition of practical skills. Improvisation. Display or show for other people.
Inverse: Tricks, sleight of hand, cheating. Showing off, pretending. Lack of self-awareness about body, sexuality or basic motives. Near miss due to inexperience or inaccuracy.
Message: create a new reality.
Card 2. The Popess: Wisdom combining intellect and intuition. A spiritual mother. A woman hiding her strengths in a world of men. Modesty. Secrets, something hidden, mystery. Getting a hint of something which remains largely unknowm. Impossible to give a definite answer now.
Inverse: Need to hide our true nature behind the conventions of normal society. Conservative approach to sex and the body. Emotional blockage.
Message: know how to set boundaries.
Card 3. The Empress: Abundance, growth and productivity in practical matters. Something natural within an artificial framework. Emotional intelligence. A powerful mother figure. Protection and care. Strong feminine identity.
Inverse: Impulsive behavior, someone difficult to reason with. Over protectiveness, excessive involvement in the life of others. Problems with a strong mother figure.
Message: act from the guts.
Card 4. The Emperor: Practical and material achievements. Matters relating to the workplace or source of income. Authority and control, a commanding position. A protective father figure, patron or sponsor. Assertiveness. Military affairs.
Inverse: Belligerence, violence, trying to solve things by brute force. Dictatorship. Possibility of sexual abuse. Difficulty in coping with a dominant father figure. Denial and hiding of internal weaknesses.
Message: show leadership and responsibility.
Card 5. The Pope: Teacher, instructor or counselor. Education and knowledge, Academic expertise. Organized religion, conventional medicine or psychology. Spiritual father. Consultation or treatment by a specialist. Marriage.
Inverse: Excessive adhesion to conventions and outdated norms. Bureaucracy, an oppressive establishment. Hypocrisy, discrimination. Divorce.
Message: respect knowledge and education.
Card 6. The Lover: Love, amorous relationship. Emotional entanglement. Need to make a choice, or to disengage oneself from past influences. Inclinations of the heart correspond to the will of heaven. Small steps actually taken are the visible signs of inner desire.
Inverse: Complex relationship between several people, e.g. a romantic triangle or a tension between mother and wife. Hesitation, quandary. Confusion as to one’s own feeling and will.
Message: follow the path of the heart.
Card 7. The Chariot: Victory or an achievement putting the querent in a strong and protected position. Ambition, energy, motivation to move forward. Public honor. Power and high status.
Inverse: Inner weakness hidden behind external show-off. Arrogance, vanity. Over-protectiveness, emotional closure. Confusion about one’s goals. Losing the simple touch with people and reality.
Message: dare and win.
Card 8. Justice: Law and order, legal and court issues. A fair and balanced judgment. A developed conscience. Rationality, reasoning by clear rules and common norms. Touch of grace and humanity beyond the objective considerations.
Inverse: Petty accountability, a critical and judgmental attitude, guilt feelings. Repressive control of self and of others. Negative ideas blocking change and advance.
Message: act with reason and by the accepted norms.
Card 9. The Hermit: A quest for truth or for spiritual understanding. Concentrating on a clear purpose. Caution, careful examination. Self-privation for the sake of a meaningful cause. Loyalty to principles, strong faith.
Inverse: A closed and reclusive attitude. Isolation, loneliness. Fixed ideas. Excessive caution and suspicion, a critical approach looking for defects. Hidden and denied desires.
Message: look for the essence of things.
Card 10. The Wheel of Fortune: Change in circumstances and position. A rise after a fall. Gambling, putting faith in capricious luck. Life cycles, closure of circles. Adapting to the routine of everyday life. A hint to previous incarnations.
Inverse: A decline after a period of rising. Danger lurks for those at the summit. Repeating patterns, moving in a closed circle. Capricious mood changes. Being carried along by external circumstances, feeling powerless to affect one’s situation.
Message: accept life’s ups and downs.
Card 11. The Force: Power and courage to face challenges. Controlled expression of creative urges, drives and desires. Mobilization of inner resources towards a common goal. Taking a risk.
Inverse: Need to keep things under control leads to constant tensions. A risk of losing one’s grip. Internal conflicts and unrealistic assessment of one’s own forces may lead to failure.
Message: take control of yourself.
Card 12. The Hanged Man: Seeing things from a unique point of view. Enduring difficulties for a worthy cause. A period of deep self examination. Passivity, acceptance of reality even if it is the inverse of what is expected.
Inverse: Isolation. Emotional stance of a victim. Inability to act. Denying one’s own unique qualities, striving to be “normal” at all costs. Living in one’s private and imaginary reality.
Message: look at things from the opposite perspective.
Card 13. (no name): The end of something whose time has come. Cutting off past influences or attachment to dominant figures. Giving up the superfluous and keeping only the essential. Disintegration of the old gives space for the new.
Inverse: Difficulty in coping with loss or change. A challenging period, lack of resources, disintegration. Realization of a painful truth. Does not predict future death, but may reflect anxiety about dying or the mourning of a death which has already occurred.
Message: give up what is over.
Card 14. Temperance: Reconciliation, compromise, relaxation of tensions. Integration of opposites. Ability to do the seemingly impossible. A slow process of distillation and improvement. Patience, perseverance. Self-improvement.
Inverse: Going back and forth without making real progress. Losing patience with a process which takes a long time. Narcissism, emotional preoccupation with your own self.
Message: find the golden mean.
Card 15. The Devil: A burst of creativity. Paradoxes and contradictions revealed and accepted. Irony and mocking of common conventions. Acting from desires, passions and impulses. Moving on from a past family trauma.
Inverse: Temptation, attraction to the dark and forbidden. Exploitation, egotism, domination. Compulsive physical or sexual self-gratification. Senseless behavior has its price. Difficulty in detaching oneself from a perverse relationship.
Message: express passion and desire.
Card 16. The Tower: Breaking up of solid structures. Getting free from confinement. Sudden breakthrough after long preparations. Sparkling sexual encounter. Success lies in simplicity and modesty.
Inverse: Shock, collapse of projects or trusted structures. A fall from an apparently solid and secure position. Chaos, confusion, difficulty in understanding what is going on. Vanity and pride lead to failure.
Message: return to the solid ground of reality.
Card 17. The Star: Openness, simplicity, return to nature. Purity, honesty. Showing yourself “as you are”, accepting one’s body and desires. Generosity. Luck from heaven. Doing the right thing from natural gut feelings. Intuitive feeling of guidance or energy coming from a higher plane.
Inverse: Naive optimism and wishful thinking leading to disappointment. Exposing oneself to danger or abuse. Difficulty in setting proper boundaries. Squandering, wastefulness.
Message: flow from a pure source.
Card 18. The Moon: Deep emotions, perhaps related to a mother or feminine figure. A different experience of reality. Longing for the unreachable. Finding one’s own hidden strengths. Occupation with the remote past and its influences. A hidden treasure.
Inverse: Vague and disturbing feelings. Coping with emotional difficulties, a period of depression. Danger lurking under the surface. Retreat, the road ahead is blocked. Difficulty in finding a way.
Message: don’t be afraid to go deep down.
Card 19. The Sun: Light and warmth, abundance, blessings. Pleasant feeling, emotional or physical healing. Partnership, trust, sharing, brotherhood. Human touch. An ideal father figure. Matters relating to children. Setting limits in a moderate and non-oppressive way.
Inverse: Living in a limited space, difficulty to face reality “in the open”. Inability to act in a mature way. Dependence on others. Someone or something too intensive and energetic to feel comfortable with. An absent father.
Message: find suitable partners.
Card 20. Judgment: Revelation, enlightenment, a new understanding. A turning point in an emotional therapy process. Healing of a family relationship. Disclosure, secrets being revealed, publicity. Birth of a baby or of a new thing.
Inverse: Revelation of something that should have been kept hidden. Lack of privacy. Encountering an unpleasant truth. Problems related to child-parents relations. Too much noise and drama.
Message: awaken to spiritual reality.
Card 21. The World: Completion of a process. Balanced activity and achievements in various domains. Contact with far places. Harmony and correspondence between different planes. Pregnancy, something new is about to be born. The Dance of Life.
Inverse: Life in a bubble, difficulty to share your world with others. Disconnection of inner feelings from external life. Preoccupation with oneself, exaggerated self-image, inability to move forward.
Message: everything is perfect as it is.
(unnumbered) The Fool: Freedom from conventions and norms. Something or someone unique and exceptional. Options kept open. Giving up control, spontaneity. Uncertainty, attention to the here and now. Going on a trip.
Inverse: Difficulty in choosing and committing oneself to something stable. Restlessness. Lack of purpose. Getting lost. Foolish behavior. Eccentricity, lack of acceptance by the social environment. Difficulty in planning ahead.
Message: be on the move.