Introduction to Tarot: The Major Arcana and Your First Step Into the Cards

Where to start: choosing your first deck

For those just starting out, the gentlest recommendation is to begin with the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Unlike older decks such as the Tarot de Marseille — where the Minor Arcana simply repeat suit symbols, like three cups or four swords, with no narrative scene — the Rider-Waite illustrated all 78 cards with full scenes. Draw the Three of Cups, for example, and you'll see three figures celebrating together — the meaning of friendship and celebration practically leaps off the card before you've studied a single thing.

It's no exaggeration to say that the vast majority of people studying tarot today start with this system, and that nearly every introductory resource — books, courses, videos — follows this same visual foundation. That doesn't make other decks 'wrong'; it just means the Rider-Waite offers a more intuitive way in, leaving more symbolic and abstract decks, like the Marseille, for a later stage of study.

How to study tarot in practice, step by step

There's no single correct way to learn, but a few approaches tend to work well for beginners:

• Start with the 22 Major Arcana, leaving the Minors for later — they hold the big themes and are fewer in number, which makes the early stages of study lighter.
• Look at the image before memorizing the meaning. Before opening a book, ask yourself: what does this scene make me feel? What colors, gestures, and symbols show up? Intuition is a study tool too.
• Follow the Fool's Journey in order, the way you'd read a novel — this helps you understand why each card exists in relation to the ones around it, rather than as an isolated, standalone meaning.
• Keep a tarot journal, writing down your own impressions of each card before consulting books. Compare them afterward — often your intuition was already on the right track.
• Draw one card a day as a reflection exercise, without grand questions — just to notice what energy is in conversation with your day.
• Don't rush the Minor Arcana. They gain much more meaning once you're already familiar with the big archetypes of the Majors.

A final invitation

Studying tarot is, at its core, an exercise in self-knowledge disguised as symbolic language. The Major Arcana aren't there to predict tomorrow with pinpoint accuracy, but to help us recognize which chapter of our own journey we're in — whether we're still The Fool about to set out, moving through the darkness of The Tower, or already feeling the quiet fullness of The World. Start slowly, with curiosity and no rush: tarot rewards those who treat it as a companion for reflection, not as a ready-made answer.