Minor Arcana Cards and Meanings

The Minor Arcana are the 56 cards that fill most of a reading. They work like an ordinary deck of playing cards: four suits, each with an Ace through Ten and four court cards, the Page, Knight, Queen and King. Before 1909 most decks showed the numbered cards as simple rows of cups or coins. Pamela Colman Smith gave every one of them a scene, which is why the Rider–Waite–Smith minors are so easy to read from the picture alone.

Each suit belongs to an element and a part of life. Wands are fire: energy, ambition and creative drive. Cups are water: love, friendship and feelings. Swords are air: thoughts, decisions, conflict and hard truths. Pentacles are earth: work, money, home and the body. The numbers add their own rhythm, with Aces as beginnings, Fives as trouble and Tens as a cycle completed, while the court cards often stand for people or for ways of acting.

Choose a suit, or a single card, below.