Editorial policy

The tradition we follow

The Rider-Waite-Smith deck, published in 1909, drawn by Pamela Colman Smith and directed by A. E. Waite. Its attributions come from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and because almost every modern deck inherits that system, meanings written against it transfer to most decks you are likely to own.

That choice is stated rather than assumed. A card page here is not reporting what tarot “means”. It is reporting what one well-documented tradition associates with a card, which is a smaller and more honest claim.

When the sources disagree

They disagree often, and the disagreement goes on the page rather than being resolved in silence. Three examples that appear across the site:

• Strength and Justice. The Golden Dawn moved Strength to VIII and Justice to XI so the trumps would line up with the zodiac. Older French decks use the opposite order. Both card pages say which one they follow and why.
• Court card attributions. These vary more between traditions than any other part of the system, because the Golden Dawn courts straddle two signs rather than sitting inside one. The correspondence pages say so instead of presenting one mapping as settled.
• Timing. The suit-to-unit table used on this site is the most commonly published one and it is not the only one. The timing pages say that, and say that timing is the least reliable thing tarot is asked to do.

How the meanings were written

All 78 were written by a person, against the sources below, and edited as a set rather than one at a time. That last part matters more than it sounds: a deck written card by card ends up with a Six of Cups that disagrees with the Six of Swords about what a Six is, and readers notice.

Nothing on this site is generated by a language model. Not the card meanings, not the spread guides, not the lessons, not the combination pages. Readings are composed: an algorithm assembles authored text according to what your draw actually produced, which is why two readings never match and why none of it is invented at the moment you ask. How it works sets out the mechanism.

What we will not claim

• That tarot predicts events. Readings here describe shapes and trajectories, and a trajectory can be changed.
• That a card can tell you what another person is thinking or feeling. A reading reaches what is expressed into a situation, and no further.
• That anything here is medical, legal or financial advice. Health pages carry that in as many words, and a reading that raises real distress should go to a professional rather than to another spread.
• That a draw is weighted, curated or improved. Every reading is drawn with a cryptographic random source and nothing is nudged toward the pleasant cards.
• That an attribution is ancient when it is Victorian, or universal when it is one tradition among several.

For reflection and entertainment. Not medical, legal, or financial advice.

Sources

The books the card prose was written against. This is a short list on purpose: it is what was used, not a display of reading.

• The Pictorial Key to the Tarot · A. E. Waite, 1911

  The deck's own manual, written by the man who commissioned it. The primary source for what the Rider-Waite-Smith images were intended to show, and for the Celtic Cross as it is laid out here.

• The Golden Dawn · Israel Regardie, 1937 to 1940

  The collected papers of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Where the elemental, planetary, zodiacal and Hebrew attributions on every card page come from, including the decan scheme behind the zodiac pages.

• Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom · Rachel Pollack, 1980

  The standard modern commentary on the deck, and the clearest writing anywhere on what the Major Arcana sequence is doing. A reference for interpretation rather than for attribution.

• The Complete Guide to the Tarot · Eden Gray, 1970

  The book that popularised the Fool's Journey as a teaching frame. Cited on the Major Arcana page for exactly that reason: it is where the idea comes from, which is worth knowing before treating it as ancient.

• Tarot for Your Self · Mary K. Greer, 1984

  The source for the birth card arithmetic, including the personality and soul card distinction that the calculator labels.

• A Cultural History of Tarot · Helen Farley, 2009

  An academic history of the deck from fifteenth century Italy onward. Used for the history section on each card, and the reason those sections say "the Golden Dawn placed it there" rather than implying the attributions are ancient.

• Who writes the card meanings?

  Memento Arcana writes them. There is no named tarot celebrity behind this site and we are not going to invent one. Every meaning was written by a person against the sources listed on this page, edited as a set so the 78 agree with each other, and none of it was generated by a language model.

• Which tarot tradition does this site follow?

  The Rider-Waite-Smith deck as documented by Waite, with the Golden Dawn attributions it was built on. That is the tradition most modern decks inherit, so meanings here transfer to most decks you are likely to own. Where another tradition disagrees, the card says so rather than pretending there is one answer.

• What happens when the sources disagree?

  The disagreement goes on the page. Strength and Justice swap numbers between the Rider-Waite-Smith and the Marseille, so both card pages say so. Court card attributions vary more than anything else in the system, so the zodiac pages say that too. Picking one silently would be easier and would be the thing that makes a reference untrustworthy.

• How do I report something wrong?

  Use the contact form. If a page states something as traditional that is not, or attributes something to a source that does not say it, we want to know and we will change it.

• Is any of this written by AI?

  No. Card meanings, spread guides, lessons and combination pages were all written by a person. Readings are composed by an algorithm from that writing plus what your particular draw produced, which is arithmetic over authored text rather than generated prose. There is no language model anywhere in the reading path.