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Majors

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Families

The Marseille tarot has 78 cards (or arcana) divided between 22 major and 56 minor. In the tarot game, the majors have trump value and the minors are comparable to a classic deck of 52 cards to which 4 figures have been added: the knights. In terms of guidance, majors have a stronger symbolic significance than minors which are frequently used to clarify and/or confirm the trend indicated by a major.

Majors

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Majors

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Pentacles

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Pentacles

Cups

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Cups

Wands

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Wands

Swords

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Swords

The majors allow us to identify our state of mind and the predictable result of the actions we would take in response to our question. The majors are the perfect representation of the Universe. There are 22 of them, they form a symbolic alphabet, the combination of which creates a language in its own right. The vocabulary of the majors simultaneously borrows the visual codes of the original Marseille tarot, Arabic and Latin numerologies, a correspondence with the Hebrew alphabet, the astronomical placements of the solar system and the archetypes of 13-sign astrology. Originally, the major arcana draw their symbolic power from 22 archetypes or universal figures of our unconscious (the Sun, the Moon, the Star, Justice, etc.). This value of universality leads most tarot readers to favor them to identify the strong tendencies of a reading without resorting to minors. The majors are numbered from 1 to 21. The Mast traditionally has the value 0 or 22 and card no. 13 (the unnamed arcana) is not named.

Minors allow us to explore the more prosaic aspects of our daily lives. There are 56 of them, they are divided into 4 large families, or colors, of 14 arcana each. The 4 minor colors are: denarii, cups, staves and swords. Each suit is made up of 4 figures and 10 cards numbered from 1  (Ace) to 10. The figures are the same as for a traditional card game (jack, queen and king) to which 'adds the rider. In Tikkoun, the order of progression is page, queen, king and knight. In short, the coins represent the material world, the cups...the emotions, the sticks...creativity and passions...and the swords...the mind and reason. Figures are typically a representation of yourself or someone around you. And digital ones usually indicate your surrounding environment and the actions that can be taken.

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