The Rider-Waite Tarot: The 22 Major Arcana

Published in 1909 by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn member Arthur Edward Waite and illustrated by the visionary artist Pamela Colman Smith, the Rider-Waite tarot redefined the art of card reading for the modern era. For the first time, every one of the 78 cards — including the 56 minor arcana pip cards — received a fully illustrated scene, dense with Kabbalistic, astrological, and hermetic symbolism. Smith, a trained artist and theatre designer who worked with extraordinary speed, channeled an iconographic language so precise and so resonant that virtually every tarot deck produced in the century since has drawn from it. These are the 22 Major Arcana: the soul's journey from innocent beginnings through every possible human experience toward integration and wholeness.

The complete 22 Major Arcana of the Rider-Waite tarot — painted by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909, published by the Rider Company

The Fool (0) — the unnumbered wanderer stepping off the cliff with a white rose and a small pack; the soul at the beginning of its journey, pure potential, before experience

The Magician (I) — one hand pointing to heaven, one to earth: 'as above, so below.' The four tools on his table (cup, wand, sword, pentacle) represent the four suits and the four elements

The High Priestess (II) — seated between the pillars of Boaz and Jachin (the Temple of Solomon), the scroll of hidden wisdom in her lap; guardian of the threshold between known and unknown

The Empress (III) — the crowned goddess of nature and abundance, the twelve stars of the zodiac in her crown; the fertile creative force, the great mother archetype

The Hermit (IX) — the old man on the mountain peak, lantern raised; the six-pointed star within the lantern is the Seal of Solomon; the light that guides from within rather than from without

The Wheel of Fortune (X) — the great wheel inscribed with alchemical and Kabbalistic symbols, turned by the Sphinx at the top; the four fixed signs of the zodiac guard the corners

Death (XIII) — the skeleton knight carries a white rose banner; the sun rises between the pillars in the background; this card rarely means physical death — it means transformation, ending, and passage

The Tower (XVI) — lightning strikes the crown from the tower, figures fall; the sudden collapse of what was built on false foundations; destructive but liberating, the card of necessary catastrophe

The Star (XVII) — the naked figure pours water from two jugs under a sky of eight-pointed stars; the card of hope, renewal, and the calm that follows the storm of The Tower

The Moon (XVIII) — the crayfish emerges from the pool, the wolf and dog howl at the moon; the card of illusion, the unconscious, and the terrifying beauty of what cannot be clearly seen

The Sun (XIX) — the naked child rides a white horse under the full radiance of the sun; joy, vitality, clarity, and the return to the innocence of The Fool — but now illuminated by experience

The World (XXI) — the dancing figure within the laurel wreath, the four fixed signs at the corners; completion, integration, the end of the journey that is also a new beginning