Understanding Tarot: Personality and Soul Cards

You can learn more about yourself by learning to identify your personal Tarot cards that are based on your date of birth. It's an easy process that you can use for yourself, family, and friends. Once you find out which cards are yours, then you can refer to the list of Major Arcana cards in my previous blog where there are simple descriptions of the individual card meanings.

Calculating your Personality and Soul Symbols using the Tarot is done adding the month, day, century and year of your birth together. In most cases the total can then be reduced to only two major arcana numbers which then become the Personality and Soul Cards. Occasionally the reduction will get a birth date that reduces to three numbers, such as a Sun, Wheel, Magician (19 = 10 = 1). The Personality Card has to do with how you express yourself externally while The Soul Card is how you experience life on a Soul or internal level. The Personality card may be more of how others see you while the Soul card is more of how you see or experience yourself.

For example, if you were born on Dec. 8, 1950 , you add 1950 +12 + 8 = 1970. You then add 1 + 9 + 7 + 0 which equals 17. The number 17 is The Star in the Tarot which is the personality card. It is then reduced to 8 (1 + 7) which is Justice or the Soul card.

In the event that your numbers add up to 22, then your personality card would be The Emperor (4) and your Soul Card The Fool (0).

If your final total equals a double digit number higher than 22, reduce it to a single digit, Your personality and soul card will be the same. Example is 12 + 24 + 1940 = 1976 = 23= 5 (Hierophant). This means you have a double emphasis in this life on the area specific to the card.

Another way to use the Tarot to better understand yourself is to calculate your Year or Growth Card.This is done the same way as above except you use the current year instead of your birth year. For example, our Dec. 8th birthday could then be used with 2009 (2009 + 12 + 8 = 2029) to arrive at the reduced number 13. The 13th Major Arcana card is Death which implies that beginning on 12-8-2009 a one year cycle would begin focused on transformation and letting go.

Have fun!

Candle illustration by Paula Becker www.paulabecker.com