Card Counting

There are 78 cards on a Tarot deck - 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana, divided into 16 Court cards and 40 Minor cards. In a reading of, oh let’s say, 10 cards, how many Major/Court/Minor cards would you expect to see?

With 78 cards, the percentage distribution is:

• 40 Minor - 51%, or about half of all the cards
• 16 Court cards - 20.5%, or about a fifth of the total number of cards
• 22 Major Arcana - 28.2%, or roughly half the number of Minor cards

In a reading of 10 cards, we should expect:

• 5 Minor cards - 1/2 (half) of all cards should be Ace through 10
• 2 Court cards - 1/5 (a fifth) of total number in the reading should be Page-Knight-Queen-King
• 3 Major cards - half the number of Minor cards should be the number of Major cards, so 2.5. We can’t (or shouldn’t) have half cards, so rounded up is 3 Major Arcana cards in a 10-card reading.

Since we’re dealing with percentages, numbers might not be exact - maybe you have one less Minor and one more Major, or one more Court and one less Major - but generally this should be the general balance. A strong inbalance to one side or the other can tell you a lot about what’s going on:

• Minor cards - These represent events under the control of the person, or actions that they can take. If there’s an excess of these, the more there are, the more control the person actually has over the matter, but also the more confusion they’re making for themselves - if someone is in denial about their responsibility over matters, Minor cards are going to rule.
• Court cards - These represent either the person themselves, other people, or an important message. An excess here indicates potentially how much the situation is being controlled by others - too many cooks in the kitchen, and hidden puppetmasters will show up here.
• Major Arcana - These represent events and situations out of the control of the person. The more Major Arcana show up, the more things are out of their hands - however much they try to move the steering around, it’s no longer connect to the wheels, and they’re right now along for the ride, wherever it may go.