Differences Between Tarot and Playing Cards

So the Tarot deck has two major divisions: the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. Out of the 78 tarot cards you've got 22 Major Arcana cards, and these are the very core archetypal symbols of the Tarot: the three elements, the seven planets of classical astrology, and the 12 signs of the Zodiac are the core symbols behind each of the 22 Major Arcana.

Then you also have the Minor Arcana, which itself is divided up into the court cards and the number cards. And this is where it gets very similar to a regular playing deck because the Minor Arcana of the Tarot is 56 cards. The regular playing deck cards, there's 52 and the main difference between those two sets of cards: the Minor Arcana in the Tarot has an extra court card per suit. That's why there's four extra cards. So you've got Ace (which is one) to Ten for each suit. Plus, in the playing card deck you've got the Jack, the Queen, and the King. It's the same thing in the Minor Arcana of the Tarot. You've got the Ace (which is 1) to 10 of each suit but then you've got four cart court cards. You've got the Princess, the Prince, the Queen, and the King. Now there are a couple different variants of this but that's the scheme that I prefer. ...the court cards in the Tarot.

Now you can simply just remove one of those court cards from the Tarot for each suit. Probably the Princess because the Prince sounds more like a Jack, I guess. And then you have yourself essentially a deck of playing cards, but the suits are different. But you can map them out. So in a regular playing deck you've got Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs. In the Tarot you've got Cups, Pentacles, Swords, and Wands. And they actually match up in that way. You've got the Heart and the Cup both representing Water and the emotions. The Diamond and the Pentacle both represent the element of Earth and health, wealth, family, that sort of thing. In the regular playing deck the suit of Spades is equivalent to the suit of Swords in the Tarot deck and it's the element of Air and thought and intellect and creativity. In the regular playing deck you've got Clubs. In the Tarot deck you've got Wands. Both of these represent the element of Fire and the fiery emotions of passions, motivation, lust, rage, those types of things.

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