What Are Tarot Symbols?
Tarot symbols are the figures, objects, animals, plants, colors, letters and geometric forms that make an illustrated deck recognizable. They may serve several purposes at once: identify a card’s rank, refer to a historical allegory, evoke a religious or mythological image, or support a later occult interpretation. A cup, a star or a rose does not carry one timeless meaning across every tradition. Its role depends on the exact deck, the surrounding details and the period in which the image was designed.
A standard tarot pack has twenty-two trumps, or Major Arcana, and fifty-six cards in four suits, or Minor Arcana. The original European cards were used for games; their later use for cartomancy introduced additional symbolic systems. Modern readings therefore involve at least two different layers: what is visibly printed on a card and what readers, authors or occult schools have subsequently associated with it.
How to Identify a Symbol Before Interpreting It
- Name the object literally: sword, bird, pillar, crown, sun, wheel, vine or vessel.
- Notice its color, orientation, size and relationship to the main figure.
- Check the actual card and deck. An animal visible on the Thoth Fool may not appear on the Marseille Le Mat.
- Identify whether the association belongs to Renaissance allegory, nineteenth-century occultism or an individual artist’s interpretation.
- Use the question and spread position to choose among plausible readings rather than treating symbolism as a fixed prediction.
Symbols in the Four Tarot Suits
The earliest Italian-style tarot suits are Cups, Swords, Batons and Coins. In Rider–Waite–Smith, Batons are usually called Wands and Coins are Pentacles. In Thoth, Coins become Disks. Those names signal both continuity and important differences in design.
| Suit symbol | Common later element | Frequently explored themes | Historical detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cup or chalice | Water | Reception, emotion, relationship, ritual vessels | Repeated as pip emblems in Italian and Marseille decks |
| Batons or wands | Fire | Initiative, action, authority, creative impulse | Decorative crossed batons in Marseille numbered cards |
| Swords or blades | Air | Discernment, conflict, language, decision | Often arranged in interwoven patterns on Marseille pips |
| Coins, pentacles or disks | Earth | Resources, work, physical form, exchange | A historical coin is not automatically an occult pentagram |
The suit-element associations are common in modern Hermetic tarot but are not descriptions of what fifteenth-century card players necessarily believed. The Minor Arcana Meanings guide explains the numbered and court-card structure that accompanies these suit symbols.
Major Arcana Symbols and Their Historical Layers
The Major Arcana feature figures and scenes such as the Emperor, Lovers, Chariot, Wheel of Fortune, Justice and Death. Some draw on recognizably European political, moral and religious allegory. Others were reshaped by nineteenth- and twentieth-century occult writers. Interpreting them historically means distinguishing these periods instead of asserting that every picture originated in ancient Egypt.
The Crown, Throne, Scepter and Other Emblems of Authority
A crown may identify rank or legitimate power; a throne can suggest established office, institutional stability or the responsibility attached to authority. In an Emperor card, those objects do more than predict success: they establish a social and political identity within the image. Their meaning can change when the surrounding card shows an unstable ruler or contradictory emblems.
The Wheel, Scales, Sword and Pillars
The wheel can represent changing fortune, cyclical motion or a turning situation. Scales and a raised sword in Justice invite questions of judgment, procedure and responsibility. A pair of pillars may create an architectural boundary or suggest opposing conditions; in the Rider–Waite–Smith High Priestess, the letters B and J recall the named columns of Solomon’s temple. These details are better interpreted together than as isolated predictions.
The Sun, Moon and Stars
The Sun may illuminate a scene or associate it with visibility and vitality. The Moon can evoke night, fluctuation, timekeeping or an ambiguous landscape. A star may be a celestial point, a guiding image or an emblem with a specific number of rays. It is important to count visible points and examine the composition before claiming that an eight-pointed star always means one thing.
In the Rider–Waite–Smith Star, one large star and seven smaller stars occupy the sky; in Thoth, Crowley and Frieda Harris give the same trump a distinct image of Nuit. Those differences make deck identification essential.
Animals and Birds in Tarot Imagery
Animals are among the most frequent sources of oversimplification. A dog, lion, snake, horse or bird can have more than one cultural history. In some paintings it accompanies a human figure; in others it acts, threatens, guards or frames a spiritual reference. The important question is what the creature is doing within that card.
Dogs, Wolves and Companions
A dog beside the Fool can act as a companion or as a source of interruption; the visible pose and the reader’s chosen deck determine the emphasis. In the Rider–Waite–Smith Moon, dog and wolf stand on opposite sides of a path. That pairing can support a contrast between familiar and untamed responses, but this is an interpretation of a particular composition, not a universal zoological rule.
Lions, Horses, Serpents and Birds
The lion frequently appears near Strength, where its relationship with a human figure changes the entire image: control, persuasion and vulnerability may all be involved. Horses can symbolize movement, rank or transport according to the card. Serpents may recall transformation, danger or named deities in a specific mythological context. Doves, eagles and vultures should be identified in relation to the deck’s own texts rather than collapsed into one generic “spirit animal” meaning.
Plants, Flowers and Landscape Symbols
Roses, Lilies and Pomegranates
Flowers can connect an image with beauty, sacrifice, fertility or ritual iconography. A white rose in the Rider–Waite–Smith Fool differs from the rose motifs embedded in the geometrical pips of the Thoth Tarot. Pomegranates may evoke fertility and myth, particularly where an artist explicitly invokes Persephone. A lily may signal a devotional or purity association in one scene without implying the same meaning elsewhere.
Mountains, Rivers, Gardens and Paths
A distant mountain may define a difficult destination or give a scene depth. Water can be a river crossed, a sea extending beyond the frame or liquid poured from a cup. A walled garden or cultivated field may suggest an ordered space; a winding path creates a visual sequence through which figures move. Read the landscape as part of the action, not as a separate list of keywords.
Colors and Numbers in Tarot Symbolism
Modern guides often assign red to passion, blue to intuition, yellow to clarity and green to growth. Such associations may be helpful as prompts, but there is no single historical color dictionary shared by every tarot deck. Printing technologies, available pigments, later recoloring and the artist’s chosen style can explain a color just as readily as an esoteric theory.
Numbers have a clearer structural role: Ace through Ten appears in every Minor Arcana suit. Readers may associate Two with a relation, Four with an arrangement and Ten with a completed cycle, but the suit and exact image qualify that pattern. The numbered Thoth cards also have distinct titles and planetary decans, while the historic Marseille numbered cards are largely pip compositions. A reader should not assume that a Thoth Seven and a Marseille Seven depict the same scene.
Repeated Shapes and Geometric Arrangements
Triangles, circles, crosses, squares and interlaced blades can express ordered relationships or competing directions. In Rider–Waite–Smith illustrations, people may form a visual triangle; Marseille cards may build a near-symmetrical pattern from suit emblems; Thoth cards can use overt geometries to represent a Qabalistic or planetary relationship. The interpretive value lies in how that structure changes across the actual pictures.
Astrological, Hebrew and Alchemical Symbols in Tarot
Modern occult tarot often adds planetary glyphs, zodiac signs, Hebrew letters, alchemical processes and references to the Hermetic Tree of Life. These systems were not printed as a complete standardized code in early Renaissance tarot. They entered tarot interpretation through later writers and movements, including French occultists, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley.
Zodiac and Planetary Correspondences
A visible astrological sign or a written planetary attribution may help interpret a Thoth trump or a numbered card. However, correspondences differ among traditions and should not be treated as proof about a person’s birth chart. The Thoth Adjustment and Art cards, for example, belong to Crowley’s distinct system of names and symbols.
Hebrew Letters and the Tree of Life
Some decks and commentary assign trumps to Hebrew letters and paths on a Qabalistic diagram. Crowley’s well-known exchange involving the letters Heh and Tzaddi for the Emperor and Star is an example of why attributions must be reported by system. They are the products of specific Hermetic interpretations, not the original rules of medieval tarot.
Alchemical Imagery
A cauldron, an emblematic marriage of opposites or colored animals can refer to alchemical ideas. The Thoth Art trump uses alchemical synthesis differently from the familiar depiction of Temperance pouring between vessels. To understand these images, study the artist’s original design and the surrounding occult literature rather than assuming every cup represents a literal alchemical vessel.
Reading Symbols Across Rider–Waite–Smith, Marseille and Thoth
| Deck | Visual language | Practical reading approach |
|---|---|---|
| Rider–Waite–Smith | Illustrated numbered-card scenes, costume, gestures, landscapes | Observe depicted action, then relate the story to the spread position |
| Tarot de Marseille | Allegorical trumps and patterned pip cards | Compare number, suit, placement and relative orientation |
| Thoth Tarot | Abstract color, planetary symbolism, Qabalistic correspondences | Check Crowley–Harris symbols and elemental dignities within their own scheme |
A card named Death is not required to look the same in all three. Nor does sharing a number force identical meanings. The historical tradition, its visual grammar and the exact question should be named before an interpretation is presented.
How to Interpret Tarot Symbols in an Actual Reading
Consider a three-card question: “What is blocking progress, and how might I respond?” You draw the Rider–Waite–Smith Two of Swords as an obstacle, Three of Pentacles as advice and the Star as a possible direction. The blindfold, crossed blades and still posture of the Two can suggest a delayed decision. The craftsmen and architectural plan of the Three direct attention toward collaboration. The Star’s open landscape and celestial light may support a more hopeful long-range view.
The result is a contextual interpretation: a decision needs clearer information, shared work can provide a way forward, and an improved outlook may follow. It is not a claim that a future result is guaranteed or that every visible object has an independent supernatural message.
- Start with what is drawn: identify figures, objects, gestures and direction.
- Locate the symbol: connect it to the named card and deck.
- Check its role: distinguish a historical emblem from a later esoteric attribution.
- Use the spread: explain how the symbol serves the card’s position and its neighbors.
- State uncertainty: avoid claiming that a symbol proves a secret intention or predicts an unavoidable event.
Explore Tarot Symbols and Related Guides
Continue with the Major Arcana Meanings for historical trumps, the Minor Arcana Meanings for suits and numbers, or How to Read Tarot Cards for a step-by-step practice. The broader Symbols and Meanings section covers related traditions without requiring that similarly shaped symbols share an origin.