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There are 22 major arcana cards, which stand outside of the suits. These are the cards with big names which represent the biggest moments in life.
In Divination RPG, the major arcana cards drive some of the key worldbuilding of the game. Eight of the cards represent the playable Aspects, the archetypes which make up the game’s shared Hero. The remaining 14 are grouped into seven pairs and become the Roads and Sources, which define the types and styles of magical ability (known as the Art) practiced in the game.
The cards of the major arcana are traditionally numbered from 0 to XXI, a sequence commonly referred to as the Fool’s Journey. We have chosen not to include these numerals on the Divination Deck to avoid undue confusion when the cards are divided into Aspects, Roads, and Sources. However, our card descriptions are listed here in the traditional order and with their numerals.
0. The Fool
The Fool is both ignorance and innocence, a young spirit with fresh eyes, optimism, curiosity, courage and naïveté.
The Fool is the symbol of childhood’s courage and confidence. The Fool throws themselves at the world, embracing what comes naturally and learning from their mistakes. They’re the beginning of all understanding and growth, the energy to seek something—even when they’re not looking where they’re going.
Our Fool is an Aspect card, meaning it’s one of the cards representing a player’s role in the Hero’s mind and in the game. This one takes the form of a hat, clothes, bag, and phone—all the stuff of youth. They’re not looking where they’re going; in fact, they’re busy taking a selfie and casting a wink at the camera, not noticing the signs of danger all around them.
The Fool is accompanied by a companion (traditionally a dog), a symbol of their innocent and trusting nature. Ours is a plushie, tucked into the Fool’s bag. They’re along for the ride, and maybe even imply that the Fool is a bit squishy themselves, and not likely to get too hurt from the fall they’re about to take.
The Fool is a sign of new beginnings. Drawing the Fool in a reading may imply new lessons, ignorance, or innocence, and always reminds you to enjoy that feeling while it lasts. You can’t get innocence back; you may lose it.
I. The Magician
The Magician is the symbol of the mind’s decisive, creative power, with grand ambitions and unbreakable resolve. They represent the combined effort of skill and willpower that results in timeless achievements, grand quests, and fruitful endeavors. The Magician uses the forces of the world as their tools, commanding them into the shapes they desire.
The Magician represents what the Fool aspires to one day be: a symbol of action, mastery, and decisive force. The Magician is not the curiosity of the Fool; they’re the consequences of curiosity and the decision about what to do with those consequences. The Magician is choice, personified. They are ego, will, and self.
The Magician in our deck is a surreal image of a being who is both chemist and chemistry. They’re one of the eight playable Aspects of the game, and as such, they are a representation of thought: what the Magician can mean in the mind of the Hero. This one is a creator and observer—a mind interested in studying how things work in order to better shape the world. All magicians have a table, their tools (the suits), and the infinity symbol. Ours wears the infinity as spectacles. The process of learning and will is more than a never-ending concept; it’s the lens through which this Magician sees the world.
The Magician is a sign that the time has come to use your cosmic ability to act. Choose, aspire, and above all: do. Use what you know to make the world into the shape you want it to be using every tool at your disposal.
II. The High Priestess
The High Priestess is a symbol of conscience, intuition, and morality. She is God in her feminine form, the cosmic law that emanates from within each of us, speaking through our minds and hearts.
The High Priestess lives on the edge of our world and the world of the mind. She is the part of you that knows when danger is close, or a person is telling the truth, or when you’re about to do something you know you shouldn’t do. She’s at the edge of light and dark, sensing what is just, what is fair, what is good, and what is dangerous.
Our High Priestess is a stately pool in the center of a chamber through which figures pass in and out. They carry their secrets through her mind, but it’s impossible to tell which side they enter or exit from. The High Priestess is calm here, poised between a dark world and a light one, representing the veil between knowledge and intuition. She holds in her hands a tablet of secrets, locked to the world. The visitors that find her way into her mind leave secrets and take them, and this tablet holds the record of all that she learns. She guards it carefully.
The High Priestess is a sign that you should trust your instincts and intuition. When the voice in one’s heart speaks, it’s best to listen. Sometimes she represents the most psychic person you know. Often, she’s saying: listen to yourself.
III. The Empress
The Empress is the cosmic feminine: the force of nature that nourishes humanity from within. She is love and the richest aspects of the soul, along with all the beautiful things that come from nurturing that force. She is culture, and community, and celebration, and abundance. All beings experience this force, no matter their gender. She is the ache in each heart that reminds us of what life is for.
The Empress is both a companion and cosmic opposite of The Emperor, twin forces present in every person. She, like he, aspires to govern and lead humanity. Where he uses power to govern the external world, she uses love to nurture an internal one. By enriching her love and her soul, she gathers souls together, leading them in celebration, creating family, and giving people a reason to exist.
Our Empress is a village preparing for celebration. She, the rolling hills of this world crowned in a glowing sun, is both the world and the joy that suffuses it. As one of the eight playable Aspects, she’s the Hero’s love and feminine strength, manifested here as a gorgeous summer day; the perfect day to celebrate life’s pleasures.
Unlike the Emperor, our Empress is entirely comfortable with herself. The Empress lounges, all rolling hills and gentle fields. She’s home to many.
The Empress is a sign of the cosmic feminine force acting in the world. This could mean celebration, pregnancy, love, or community gathering in order to mark time with joy and purpose. She’s a sign to embrace the feminine force within you—no matter who you are—and to love, share, and take pleasure in being alive.
IV. The Emperor
The Emperor is the cosmic masculine: the force of nature that empowers humanity and encourages it to make a better world. He is power, and he is also the knowledge that power is the law of creation; the knowledge that everyone is using power all the time, whether you use it or not. The force of the Emperor can be felt in everything living, no matter their gender. He can be felt in the urge to dominate and defend. The Emperor is the urge to pick up a weapon, no matter the reason.
Unlike the Empress, the Emperor is not comfortable. He cannot allow himself to rest—the consciousness of power forces him to always seek it or make sure he’s safe from it. The Emperor is about control as well as power. To feel safe, he must be far from the world, able to monitor it, keep it under his command. He cannot celebrate like the Empress; he’s always on call. He’s the seat of power. He’s cities, with many people to lead, govern, dominate, and contend with. An Emperor is power amongst others: as a guardian, as a leader, and as an oppressor. He is the shape raw power takes in our actions and behaviors.
Our Emperor is shown as a satellite. He monitors the world from above, far larger than makes sense—but as an Aspect of thought, what makes sense is relative. The Emperor monitors the world, but is he controlling it or protecting it? It’s impossible to tell. The world rests in his hand to govern or crush. Our Emperor has a crown bristling with gestures that evoke the original Pixie card. Ankhs, symbols of life, may be seen amongst its tines. He’s stony, mechanical and plated. Not comfortable like the Empress, because he can’t afford to be.
The Emperor is one of the eight playable Aspect cards, and as such, he’s a being of thought, one part of the Hero’s mind. This one might be the part that keeps the Hero vigilant, caring for his world—and perhaps might be the part that makes the Hero a little controlling too.
The Emperor is a sign of power. Power always comes with caution: how do you want to wield it? Do you want to shut something down? Draw a line someone can’t cross? The Emperor is a call for force, or a warning against it.
V. The Hierophant
The Hierophant is a symbol of inherited wisdom, knowledge passed down through time, and the growth of humankind in steps of understanding. He is God in his masculine form, the cosmic improvement of humanity across generations, and the structures greater than our lives that represent this growth.
The Hierophant exists in the living, breathing, working world of humanity. He’s why we keep getting smarter and more capable of creating greater and greater wonders. We save what we learn because of him. We teach it to others. We seek it out and tap into the true cosmic resource: knowledge. He isn’t the voice in your heart like the High Priestess; he’s the voice of humanity’s other Hierophants, sharing the vastness of what they’ve already learned.
Our Hierophant is a path, a stairway, and gateway to the light. He holds a tablet, and that tablet is the key to humanity’s ascendence. The written word is this particular Hierophant’s tool of choice; it starts as a tablet, but becomes the stairs by which his followers climb.
The Hierophant is an Aspect card, denoting him as one of the eight forces that may be at work in the Hero’s mind. This Hierophant might call that Hero to be a teacher, a researcher, a librarian, or a writer, always pointing them toward their highest ideals and the long path it takes to serve them.
The Hierophant is a sign to learn, to teach, and to work on projects that will outlive you. He calls you to serve the world; to hear the High Priestess in your heart speak as your conscience, and then to build something with that. He wants you to seek those who will teach you, and those who will share with you in exchange for the good you’ll do serving the ideals you learn.
VI. The Lovers
The Lovers card is a symbol of the natural force of Love, along with the circumstances that create Love: a safe, orderly, and serene world. First and foremost, the Lovers is a depiction of a garden, which is a place of rules and laws that create beauty. The heart of the card’s meaning isn’t true love, as you find that emotion well-depicted in the Cups cards. In fact, the Lovers card is a portrait of the complexity of order, sacrifice, and passion that lies at the heart of the human desire to create families and live in peace.
Sometimes the Lovers card is calling on you to make a sacrifice for others, so they can enjoy the benefits of Love. Sometimes the card calls on you to acknowledge the sacrifices others have made in for you order to experience Love. The garden is hard to maintain, even painful at times. But it’s only when someone sacrifices that the garden can be maintained.
In Divination, the Lovers card signifies the Garden Road. This is the Road of order, self-sacrifice, and devotion to stability; all the conditions required for true Love to flourish. As a Road card, what we’re seeing here isn’t real, but a symbiotic representation of the demands, challenges, and rewards of the Garden Road. The Garden Road asks its Gardeners to take after the Angel in our card, urging them to create stability and peace so that others may feel love and create family. It always urges them to give up more, to devote more, and to live life more for others. Ironically, these are the conditions that will create love, but that love isn’t meant for the Gardener to feel and experience; it’s there for them to protect.
Two lovers can be seen in their own little world, but their Gardener is keeping an eye on them, making space and keeping them safe. She has mixed feelings about this, as the love she protects isn’t love she gets to feel (when she gets to feel love, it means she isn’t serving the Garden, which requires more sacrifice than that). The portrait of the card shows this conundrum, along with the entity sneaking in whose intention is always to undermine: the snake.
The Lovers is a sign that you’re called to a moment of strong choice: to participate, or to sacrifice, or to make space for others to do so. It’s a sign that you may have weeds to pull in your life: places to make cleaner, more beautiful, and more safe; or perhaps a sign that the weeds others have already pulled have made your life easier to live.
VII. The Chariot
The Chariot is a symbol of balance and willpower. It represents the individual will to govern difficult opposing forces, and to master them in a state of equilibrium.
The Chariot is a rider on a difficult vehicle; one that requires strength and poise to drive. What you see is a stunt—a feat of ambition and ego, not of need. No one needs to drive a Chariot; it’s only to prove something to ourselves and others that one would choose to do so. And yet, so many are drawn to do so. There is little reward in balancing this way, except that doing so pushes the boundary on what we think is possible within ourselves, and of people generally.
In Divination, the Chariot represents the Road of Two Lands—the two lands depicted in the background of the card. These two Lands represent extremes: one, a land of self-indulgence, pleasure, and freedom, and the other a land of sacrifice, discipline, and service. To ride the Chariot and achieve the impossible, a Student on this Road must embrace both extremes. They have to feel pleasure performing the stunt of the Art, and they must express incredible discipline and self-control to be able to manage their forces of choice.
Behind the figure in our Chariot we see a glimpse of the Road of Two Lands’ greatest reward: the Flower Dream. The larger-than-life Artist depicted here is swept up with the thrill of this strange place, the greatest reward of their Road to experience. The Chariot speaks in the sweet pleasure-reward of success, which manifests in the minds and dreams of its Students as a Flower in a liminal space. The dew of that Flower and its impossible sweetness is the psychic reward most Students aspire to with each new feat of Artistic greatness they attempt.
The Chariot invites its querents to challenge themselves, and to seek balance as they do so. It says: you must prioritize yourself to accomplish your goals, and you must also sacrifice to accomplish your goals. The Chariot is an invitation to test your greatness and, ultimately, to either achieve what you aspired to and taste the sweet dew of victory, or to fail with glory, assured that only through failure can we determine what is truly possible.
VIII. Strength
The theme of the Strength card is an unusual and important one. It does not suggest physical strength, but emotional self-control and the constant reminder that you are made of the same “stuff” as every other living thing you meet. As such, an act of violence against another living being is an act of violence against yourself. Strength supposes that an act of peace is stronger than an act of brutality.
Each of us has a lion inside us, a beast waiting to erupt. We’re often taught that strength means using that beast to win fights and get us what we want. We’re shown countless heroes who use strength to dominate their foes, dodging bullets and looking incredible the whole time. This is fantasy. Each act of violence occurs against another being you’re intertwined with: socially, biologically, even in our molecules and atoms. If you acknowledge that you’re made of the same thing, how are you to treat the beings you encounter?
The Strength card says: control your anger, and operate under the premise of peace. You must tread peacefully, because when you tread on others, you’re treading on yourself. It invites you to consider yourself: the stuff you’re made of, and how you’re only borrowing it. It all used to belong to other living beings, and to the Earth itself. We’re all mixed together.
In Divination, Strength symbolizes the Road of the Infinite Loop, one of the Seven Roads through which the Art enters the world. Those who walk it, Travelers, excel at being anywhere and everywhere, both in the solid plane and on the Astral plane. The image on our Strength card represents this leveled up state as a puzzle of size. Who is the Artist in this portrait? Are they the lion, the person, the cat, or all three? The infinity symbol in the Lion’s nose—the loop from which the Road takes its name—implies that you’re all three at once. You’re on a Road that takes you through all three shapes, and you may never know which you are at any point.
Like the Strength card, the Road of the Infinite Loop urges its walkers to travel safely and gently. It invites them to encounter others and remember that they’re united already: in the past, in the present, and in the future.
The Strength card is an invitation to its querents to achieve emotional self-control by turning thoughts of “I” into thoughts of “we”. It reminds you that everyone is part of the same great organism, that you are less individual than you think you are, and that acts of anger hurt the ones who perform them.
IX. The Hermit
The Hermit is the quest for wisdom that takes place when one is alone. In solitude, the path of the mind may be walked without influence. Some Hermits get what they need from an hour at the gym, while some take up meditation or fly fishing or golfing. They are the quiet headspace you need to solve problems in new ways, or to consider the best course of action in a difficult circumstance. The Hermit is the reason you get that crossword puzzle answer correct while standing in the shower.
The Hermit has a spark—it appears as a lantern, but the spark inside the lantern is what matters. That’s the wisdom he’s earned. He may use it to light his path, allowing him to make his way to isolated places without risk. Despite his name, he may use it to light the way for others, too.
Like the Hanged One, the Hermit seeks “enlightenment”—a state of contentment, balance, and understanding. Seeking and articulating new philosophies, lessons, and connections gives his solitude purpose. The puzzles he solves are for everyone, and go back into the world through the Hermit and his actions. When he’s ready, the Hermit will take his staff and cowl and carefully make his way back to mankind with what he’s learned.
As an Aspect card, our Hermit depicts an Aspect of the Hero, an entity of thought inside the Hero’s mind. This one is both a puzzle-solving man in the woods, and a solitary camper at a fire on a starry night. His shirt, emblazoned with a star, hearkens on the spark of wisdom he’s constantly pursuing and how he might illuminate the world with what he finds.
Our Hermit is alone, and not alone. He sits by himself inside his mind, both indoors and outdoors simultaneously. He is in the darkness, but his wisdom provides him, and us, with light. As he solves the puzzles of the world, he sends the solutions back to us through his phone. He’s here to enlighten humanity. The irony of the Hermit is that their solitude is for the collective good. While he’s alone, he has a chance to discover things he could never find, caught up in the flow of the social world.
The Hermit is a sign to nurture the part of yourself that grows while alone. Taking time for yourself with the intention to see the world more clearly may give you the perspective you need to return, fully armed with wisdom.
X. The Wheel
The Wheel is the symbol of the structure of Fate, one of the fundamental forces at the heart of reality. The Wheel indicates the massiveness of the thing we all live in: time, destiny, and chance. We are all eternally at its mercy, one instant away from destruction or the wild beneficial consequences of luck.
The Wheel is a sign that you only have so much control over your life. We all ride the bumpy path the Wheel takes us on, and if disaster strikes, that’s just Fate.
In Divination, the Wheel symbolizes the Unwritten Road, the Road of Seers and Oracles. The Wheel reveals to them the Web of Fate, which allows them to rise above the structure of Fate and decide for themselves what befalls them. Seers pull on the strands of the Web of Fate (like our Artist on top of the wheel) pulling themselves toward the best outcomes or away from the worst for themselves and those they love.
Seers have to be careful, though. Writing one’s own path through Fate is not without its own perils. It’s easy to lose who you really are as you constantly write the best version of your life. Seers who lose too much of themselves may forget who they are and what to follow, until a day comes when their Road takes them over entirely.
Then, they’ve become the being on the underside of our Wheel: a Jackal. Jackals guard Fate by hunting down those who damage it, particularly Seers. They were all once Seers themselves. They’re a natural defense mechanism Fate employs to allow Artists to alter the Web of Fate without allowing them to entirely break it. If a Seer manages their destiny until they’re entirely out of step with Fate, they may become the target of a Jackal—or become one themselves.
When the Wheel comes up in a reading, it’s a sign to remind yourself that you’re a tiny dot in a massive ocean. You must be ready to expect sudden windfalls and tragedies alike. The Wheel is a sign that Fate’s hand is looming, ready to send you flying.
XI. Justice
Justice is the symbol of the concept of fairness itself. It’s the balanced state things find themselves in naturally, if given enough time to settle. It’s the peace that can be maintained, so long as things are generally fair.
Justice is the force that calls people to see those in power and scrutinize them. It sees the way power is transferred and what forms it takes, always seeking to judge its misuse. Justice is a sign that fairness is a force that motivates some people with near-divine purpose.
In Divination, Justice is a Road card, signifying the Road of Scale and Blade. This Road is a tough one. It encourages the living of one good life, followed by the reward for fairness: a pleasant afterlife. Its adherents are the most religious of the Artistic world, those who feel they hear the voice of God, and what he says is, “Establish fairness and judge the wicked.”
As a Road card, our Justice depicts the philosophy that this Road is a narrow one between dangerous drops. One missed step by our marching Artist would lead her to death. But still, she walks. She does so blindfolded, trusting in the sight that her Justice-sense lends her. She trusts her Road and uses its power to lead the people through the dangerous world safely.
Our Justice is balanced between her two tools: the blade, a tool of danger, and the scale, a tool that helps establish order in the world. Justice must wield both judiciousness and force in order to be what it is. It commands its adherents (Knights, in the Artistic world) to move through the jungle of reality, always forging the narrow path that keeps civilization thriving.
When drawn in a reading, Justice is a sign to search your heart for fairness, and the ways you may be blind to it. It reminds you that others will judge your behavior if it’s unfair, and that you’re part of the force being asked to keep the world fair for others.
XII. The Hanged One
The Hanged One represents wisdom gained through regular, challenging practice, the pursuit of enlightenment through abandonment, restriction as means of attaining growth, and loss, and letting go. They are suspended in an impossible state on a quest to change themselves, resetting their point of view so entirely it couldn’t possibly be more different from everyone else’s.
The Hanged One is in a state of constant growth. By twisting into a strange shape, they challenge their bodies in strange ways and experience understanding. When you’re twisting into strange shapes and feeling wisdom come in, that’s the gift of the Hanged One.
The Hanged One is a force of nature that causes life to act unusually, since life never knows which way strength lies. By bending into unexpected shapes, a human can increase their mobility and limit their pain. The same is true for our minds and spirits. By limiting, abandoning, letting go, or behaving against our instinct to cling, the Hanged One grows, becoming an ever-more complex being.
Our Hanged One is a labyrinthine city; an ever-building, ever-growing metropolis that defies both gravity and the mind. They’re an architect but also the architecture, the fusion of all the education it takes to become an architect, and all the discipline and hard work it takes to create skyscrapers. As the city becomes larger, more of the Hanged One is born. Always in a state of change, they gain new faces to match their new skills.
The Hanged One is a sign to let go and let yourself find wisdom in a new shape. The Hanged One has to constantly challenge their perspective to get a better sense of themselves, but the result will always be the same: growth. If you get out of your comfort zone the city of who you are will grow, gaining wings and streets based on the new things you learn.
XIII. Death
Death is tarot’s symbol for change; the total and complete transformation of something. For a living being, there can be no greater change than death.
This is the force that ages the world, that causes things to break and fall apart. This is what causes relationships to wane, and moments to pass, and for things to finally end. Death is pulling all of it into the Void—the distant absence beneath the solid plane, beyond the Astral plane, somewhere out there.
Our Death card is a close up of a young person in a black hoodie, hood turned up. They have a skeletal hand, pulling back the hood slightly. They have no face. Instead, they have a black hole—a Void, an oversized, yawning darkness where their face should be, sucking the light and color out of the rest of the card.
In Divination, Death is the card of the Shivering Road, the Road that requires one to die in order to walk it. The Shivering Road is named for the rope bridge that comprises it, always shuddering and shifting above the Void. It’s the structure that catches some lucky souls and allows them to walk back to the solid plane and go on, now more immune to the pull of the Void.
Our Death card shows such one of these Immortal Artists, one so deeply touched by the Void, they seem to be entirely made of it. They are the hand of death now, allowed to return to life in order to carry on changing, and to occasionally do the work of the Void itself.
Death is a sign that change is coming, or has arrived, and that there is nothing to do but embrace it. The Void is too large to fight with. If you’re spared it, all you can do is be grateful.
XIV. Temperance
Temperance is tarot’s symbol for equilibrium, and how everything has a preferred way it wishes to be. Every object and creature in nature is balanced as it is; but they’re not without motion. Everything is actually slowly flowing from one state to another. Living things age and die, slowly pulled to the Void. Structures crumble. While things exist, Temperance is the force that gives things shape. It’s the laws of physics and matter, the balancing act these forces establish in the world.
Temperance encourages a calmness to match the calmness of reality. The way most objects are at rest until they need to move, Temperance is a symbol to take the path of least resistance and to operate with the sense that everything should remain balanced.
In Divination, Temperance is a Source card, which means it represents one of the seven Arts, or ways an enlightened soul can alter reality. Temperance is the Source that teaches Transmutation, which breaks the rules that govern how objects behave. Transmutation allows an Artist to make one thing become another, flowing into a new state quickly and easily.
Our Temperance Card depicts an Artist with their Third Eye open. Like the angel in the Pixie Temperance Card, our Artist is “pouring” something liquid from one hand to the other, but in a slightly different way: they’re transforming the fabric of their scarf into water to feed the plant growing near their feet.
The Artist has a neutral expression. Transmutation is a talent its Artists are careful to not overuse. They’re not showing off watering this plant. They’re making a sacrifice by giving up their scarf, thereby creating an imbalance. But Transmutation is the gift of those who have proven their personal balance over and over again on the Road of Two Lands. Once an Artist has made it this far, they may create new, temporary states of balance in the world, like this one: a moment where a plant gets a drink that wouldn’t ordinarily get one.
Temperance is a sign to take after nature and to embrace the calmest, easiest state, given your circumstances. Temperance is the natural reaction to stress and change, which is to seek equilibrium. It is always a sign to balance yourself, no matter how stressful the world may be.
XV. The Devil
The Devil represents giving into the primal and sometimes justified force of selfishness. Selfishness is too natural and necessary a force to call “evil” in any blanket way; but an abundance of selfishness can result in the sort of evil associated with the Devil. He’s indulgence and self-medication, but also anxiety and self-harm. He’s the sometimes perverse way we embrace pain to avoid it, and the terrible lesson that pain is inevitable. He is the world built on the reality of pain: that everyone is in it for themselves, and that everything is on the table.
In Divination, the Devil is associated with the Free Road, sometimes called the Crooked Road. This is the one that calls to all Artists, they say, the voice that reminds all Artists that they can start thinking of themselves as gods at any time.
The card shows the Free Road’s philosophy through a Devil in the act of collecting. He takes a lover off their rock, leaving their mate behind, and he has no remorse, only interest—his is what he’s been looking for. If he weren’t operating so selfishly, he might notice what beautiful thing he’s disrupting, but he doesn’t notice. He’s got a box of jars, and one more is to be filled.
The Free Road says: how often are you just like him? How often does another creature die for you to eat, or to live more comfortably? Why should he be respectful of them when we all tread on others to live? If you live in a world where you could be tread on at any time, why shouldn’t you collect whatever you want, do whatever you want?
The Devil is a sign to be careful with how you manage your relationship with suffering. Suffering causes us to want to be free of it, which is natural; but to suffer is natural, and being free of it is not. The Devil is a sign this may be out of whack: that you may be avoiding pain, or swimming in it. That you may be experiencing too much freedom, or not enough of it.
XVI. The Tower
The Tower is tarot’s symbol for rapid, violent, unavoidable change. It’s baked into life that sometimes towers get struck by lightning and fall down. It is the heavy hand of Fate applying abrupt, painful transformation.
No one likes to see the Tower pop up in a spread. It’s a sign of the painful version of change, one that results after deaths, firings, betrayals, and chaos. The Tower is a reminder that each great structure we build will one day be felled, given long enough time. It is the pain and confusion that come from all such sudden shifts.
The Tower may be survived, though. It’s not a death sentence (for all). It’s an invitation to let pain and chaos change you into something new; something better-suited for the challenges those things bring.
In Divination, the Tower is one of the seven Source cards, representing the talent of Channeling. Just as the other Source cards allow an Artist to “break the rules” regarding the force that card usually governs, Channeling allows its Artists to become the forces that break the towers: fire, lightning, gravity, pressure.
Our Tower card shows such an Artist, one using a match to channel lightning to strike a watchtower. This Artist, an activist on the Road of Scale and Blade, is something of a one-person wrecking crew. Armed with a full box of matches, they could level a town. They’re sure to be careful with this power, though: their Road will only want them to use their power justly, and not until every other course of action has been explored.
When you read the Tower in a spread, it’s a sign that unpleasant events may have recently occurred or may be shortly on their way. It’s tarot’s way of saying: look out for a surprise.
XVII. The Star
The Star is a symbol of clarity, hope, and purity. The twinkle of distant light reminds us that creation is vast, and that the future is vast. No matter how dark things become in the natural world, there is no darkness deep enough to envelope the Star. The Star is the consciousness that tomorrow may be better than today, and the ability to go on with that knowledge.
In Divination, The Star is a Source card, one of the seven forms the Art takes in the world. It’s the one representing the talent of Prediction, the ability to read the Web of Fate and see the future.
Being able to see the future is a sort of amplification of hope. With the ability to see the future comes the certitude that the future can be exactly what you want it to be. Using the talent of Prediction, Artists may shape their own destinies, and become shining beacons of hope for those around them, who they may also protect.
Our Star shows a Seer looking at their own reflection in a pool, seeing their face reflected back several ways. They’re looking at their own possible futures, deciding which amongst them to embody and embrace. They’re gazing at each with compassion; they’re at peace with the shape they’re in and what they see before them.
The Star is a sign that hope isn’t lost, and that good things remain. It’s a sign to look to the future for solutions, and to not let yourself slip into darkness.
XIII. The Moon
The Moon represents the wild and unknown. The Moon is the natural world and its freedom from the laws of humanity, and its adherence to the laws of reality. Morality is not a factor to the Moon—it’s all the hard truths that exist with or without human consent. The Moon is the law of the jungle. The hard truth of violence and pain. The satisfaction of wrongdoing and the secret world of fantasy and desire.
In Divination, the Moon is the Source card associated with the talent of Mentalism. The Moon is the Source associated with the Road of the Devil, the Free Road. And the Devil leads you to this gift: that of accessing the minds of others. Mentalism is a generally frowned-upon talent that allows an Artist access to the thoughts and feelings of those around them.
Accessing another person’s mind is a violation. A mind exists on privacy and its individual nature. Mentalism cheats that; it allows an Artist to steal into the thoughts of anyone they wish. This is the Devil’s true gift, making the crucially inaccessible domain of thought accessible to others.
Despite its origin, though, Artists use Mentalism—carefully and sparingly, and only for safety, of course.
Our Moon card shows an Artist using the gift of Mentalism. She has scanned the thoughts of the crowd and become alerted to potential danger: a passing stranger with what she interprets as murderous intention in his mind. Is she the rare type of Mentalist who uses her gift only to prevent violence and help others? Or is she a more dangerous predator than what she perceives him to be? It’s also worth noting that in this flash, we—and she—can only see one piece of the story.
The Moon is a sign that the natural world is at work, along with its stark and serious ways. You must embrace your animal nature and do what is best for you, and be aware of the hidden world, where betrayal, lies, secrecy, and treachery are real forces and not distant considerations.
XIX. The Sun
The Sun is tarot’s symbol for free, good energy, the gift of the world. The fact that you are alive and may move and thrive is the gift of the sun. The warmth and hope you feel when family is expanded with new pets or children is the gift of the sun. The Sun is pure good, the joy that makes life worth living.
The Sun is a symbol of abundance: abundant emotional energy, resources, love, and kinship. In tarot, the Sun means good things are present or soon arriving, and that there’s reason to give thanks.
In Divination, the Sun is a Source card, one of the seven indicating an Artistic talent. The Sun grants the Artistic talent of Blessings, which can be used in Divination to tell stories of “good magic” and all the ways something as powerful as the Art could be used to nourish, stabilize, and heal. Blessings are the talent of the Garden Road, which is the one that prescribes order at all costs. They are the gift received for devoting yourself to that order.
In our card, an Artist sits cross legged before an open window with tattered curtains. We can see the sun blazing in the midday sky outside beyond. The Artist is sitting in the open window in a dark room, and as such, should appear to us as a silhouette. But in their open palms in their lap they hold a ball of light, the same color as the sun outside. It lights up their features and reveals their Third Eye, and also encases them in a circle of light.
Around the Artist on the floor, grass and wildflowers have begun to grow through the floorboards. Where the light hits the floor, life is growing. In the shadows outside the beam of light on the Artists are frightening shapes. Silhouettes, ghosts, demonic-looking shadows, all hidden in the darkness, just outside of the sun’s reach. This Blessing brings light into this darkened place, providing relief for these souls and expelling the evil there.
When the Sun is read in a spread, the reader can expect benefits to come their way—blessings, if you will. The Sun is more than good fortune; it’s the energy to keep going, the warmth of true connection, and the sureness of joy.
XX. Judgement
Judgement is tarot’s symbol for the “aha” moment of understanding that comes with seeing the big picture. It’s a revelation. It’s the marvel of suddenly seeing the world as new.
Additionally, it’s forgiveness for your previous, ignorant state. You may only grow more enlightened with moments like these, where suddenly you understand what used to be elusive and out-of-reach for you. In those moments, it may feel natural to say, “I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner,” but what other way can it be?
Divination’s Judgement card is a Source card associated with Mediumship, the talent that grants connection to the spirit world. This Artist is playing Medium to such a spirit, granting a revelation to the two people he’s revealing the spirit to. They see the spirit of this entity and know: there is an afterlife. There are ancestors who may be watching. These revelations shape the way we live.
Our Artist is showing these two a spirit for reasons we don’t understand. Is this one of their forebears? Are they setting this soul to rest or agitating it? Or is this a vengeful ghost confronting his two murderers?
The Artist—in a black hoodie, showing them to be the Artist from our Death card—is allowing the revelation to speak for itself.
The Judgement card means it’s time to process a big lesson, either by coming to new conclusions and preparing for new things. It’s the new knowledge you possess forgiving you for your former ignorance. It’s the growth you experience as you shed your old self and embrace your new one.
XXI. The World
The World is the symbol of finality in tarot, along with the ability to perceive it. The World is the lessons learned from a long journey, and the announcement that a new journey is to begin. It’s the sureness that all journeys are kind of the same, even if they have different features. You know in your heart where they begin and where they end.
The World has everything in it, everyone we are and all the roads we can walk. It’s the puzzle of knowledge, and how it must be experienced to be attained, and how attaining it only reveals what you still don’t know, and how that returns you to the beginning.
In Divination, The World is the Source card for the talent of Astralism, one of the seven ways the Art can exist in the world. Astralism takes the mind and moves it outside the body, and takes the body and moves it to wherever the mind wants it. It’s the gift of a mind that can see the biggest of big pictures, and how it can use that to be wherever it wants.
Our Artist is asleep, but she’s in the midst of using Astralism as she does so. She’s projected four images of herself—her four Aspects—into the world to observe and act independently. Here is an Artist that truly knows that she is a we, a multitude unto herself. She’s able to step outside herself in these different shapes, each reflecting one of the primal forces inside her. This Artist can be anywhere she wants or go anywhere she wants, in body or in mind.
The World is the lesson you learn from going all the way through a struggle, project, or experience. It’s the giant life lessons you earn one way or another. It’s a sign you may be able to see the big picture at least.