Major Arcana: definition

The major arcanum is a card belonging to the group of the twenty-two major arcana of the Marseille Tarot, bearers of the deck's great symbolic structures.

They run from the Magician to the World, with the Fool added, a card without a number. They express fundamental dynamics: beginning, decision, transformation, mastery, crisis, fulfilment and passage, among others.

Unlike the minor arcana, tied to the concrete areas of life, the majors point to great universal figures of human experience, with a particular symbolic density.

In Tarot Nova, the major arcana form the core of the pedagogical and interpretive work: they serve as the basis for the spreads, the method and the symbolic study of the Marseille Tarot.

They can be read as a coherent series —a path of maturation from the Fool to the World— and not only as independent cards, which opens readings in the key of an initiatory journey or individuation.

When a major arcanum appears in a spread, it usually marks a strong point: it indicates that an underlying dynamic is at play, a major theme rather than a circumstantial detail of the situation.

Because of their density, the major arcana reward patient study: each is a symbolic world that gradually reveals itself with time, meditation and the practice of spreads.