Knowing yourself through Tarot

Article · 4 min read · Feb 23, 2026

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An exploration of your personal arcana and other personal cards

Tarot is a versatile tool, and its powers go far beyond pulling a card to know your future. Mostly, tarot works like a mirror, it gives you an interpretation of reality through the collective subconscious, and that’s what makes it a great tool for self reflection. In this article we will touch on how to calculate your personal arcana, what it means and how to work with this energy.

First, let’s get to the math, which fortunately is very simple. You take your complete birthday and add all the numbers until you have a number between 1 and 22, and if the number is higher, you add those up too until they are small enough, for example:

12/12/1996 = 1+2+1+2+1+9+9+6 =31

3+1=4

And with that, you have the number corresponding to one of the major arcana. To interpret your results, I deeply encourage you to do your own research on your personal card since there’s a lot of nuance to be understood that wouldn’t be possible to write in one single article, but I can tell you all the basics you need.

First, we need to understand that this card is not a sum of your personality only. Our personality is based on a lot of different factors, including spiritually, and while the personal arcana can tell traits of yourself, it’s mostly a guide on what challenges this life asks you to face, what are your tendencies, the lessons you need to learn and your personal mission. For example, if you have The Devil as your personal arcana, it can indicate a magnetic personality, yes, but it’s also telling that maybe you have a tendency to cling to ideas, people, material things and even vices, that your big challenge in this life is to set yourself free from all that is trapping you, and that you need to learn to not be so codependent in things that are external to you, because the answer is in what you’ll find inside you. It says that maybe you have a tendency to toxic relationships in many situations, where one person is trapped to another instead of being there by choice. It reveals that you need to look inward and strip down your own ego to face your demons, because that’s how you will set yourself free. Note how this is not a sentence on your fate independently of the card that rules you, but it serves more like a map to facilitate your journey. If you get one of the scary cards (like The Tower, Judgement, The Moon and so forth), don’t worry! Your life is not ruined at all, it’s just showing you how to proceed in life.

Another thing that is fair to mention is that your personal arcana is not the only card that represents you, that’s just a representation based on numerology. The other cards that can also make it easier to understand yourself are based on astrology, because each major arcana carries either a planet or an astrological sign, which I will leave a list at the end. This particular method is highly beneficial when doing a reading of your birth chart, because it will further the nuance and understanding of it. So in the end, you’ll have at least three cards that will help you navigate the existential questions of life: your personal arcana, the card of your sign and the card of the planet that rules this sign, but of course, you can also consider your rising and moon sign, your planetary ruler (which is the planet more prominent in your birth chart), and, if you have a personal arcana with the number 8 or 11, it’s up to you to decide if you’ll use the Rider-Waite system, the Mairselle system, or if you’ll consider both (in Rider-Waite the number 8 is The Strength, while the number 11 is Justice, which is inverted in Mairselle).

Finally, I want you to understand that this method is merely a tool. No one’s fate or destiny is set in stone, but rather these cards can help you on your self-discovery journey and for you to understand why you’re even here, what is your mission and what challenges your soul needs to overcome, which is greatly beneficial when paired with shadow work. I surely only touched on the tip of the iceberg here, so to deepen your knowledge, I’ll leave a list of trustful resources. May you be blessed in your journey. 💫

The Tarot Bible: The Definitive Guide to the Cards and Spreads by Sarah Bartlett
Jung and Tarot: an Archetypal Journey by Sallie Nichols
78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack
Biddy Tarot website: https://biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/

💫Table of astrological correspondences