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GLOSSARY

Major Arcana

The Major Arcana is the conventional group of 22 trump cards within a 78-card tarot deck.

Major Arcana

The Major Arcana is the conventional group of 22 trump cards within a 78-card tarot deck.

The Major Arcana includes recognizable tarot identities such as:

The Fool;

The Emperor;

The Star;

The Tower;

Death;

and other symbolic trump cards.

The V&A describes conventional tarot as 22 Major Arcana plus 56 Minor Arcana cards.

Historically, these cards developed from tarot's trump sequence.

The terminology Major Arcana itself belongs to later occult interpretation rather than medieval card-game terminology; the V&A notes that Eliphas Levi helped introduce the Major/Minor Arcana labels in the 19th century.

Angel oracle decks do not automatically contain Major Arcana.

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Part of a tarot structure

Major Arcana is tarot vocabulary. The standard tarot structure has 22 such cards, alongside 56 Minor Arcana cards. An angel-themed tarot can retain that structure; an angel-themed oracle does not automatically have it.

A practical example

Our Original Deck groups cards into six realms. A realm is a category within our deck and should not be renamed as Major Arcana.

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Structural reference: Victoria and Albert Museum, A history of tarot cards.

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