In some systems, Tarot numerology is a layer of abstract meanings added on top of the cards. In the Tarot de Marseille, it works differently. Numbers are not secondary to imagery, nor are they symbolic shortcuts. They are building blocks. They organise space, movement, tension, and repetition across the deck.
Because the Marseille pip cards are non-scenic, numerology becomes something we learn through careful observation of minute details. Meaning emerges gradually through pattern recognition, comparison, and use. This guide offers a Marseille-centred approach to Tarot numerology that prioritises seeing before interpreting, while remaining useful to anyone interested in Tarot numerology more broadly.
Why Numbers Matter in the Tarot de Marseille
Every number from one to ten appears repeatedly across the four suits of the Minor Arcana. Each time it does, it poses the same underlying question in a different elemental language. This repetition is deliberate. It trains the reader to understand the building blocks before constructing the mansion.
Just as a building block is only meaningful within a structure, numbers in the Tarot de Marseille do not “mean” things in isolation. They describe how energy is organised, constrained, multiplied, tested, or brought to completion. When you learn to read numbers this way, the pip cards stop feeling abstract and start behaving consistently across readings.
Two Ways of Working with Tarot Numerology
In the English-speaking world, many people first encounter the Tarot through the Rider–Waite–Smith deck or one of its many clones. In this system, Tarot numerology typically operates through reduction, where numbers are added together and reduced to a single digit. This approach links the Major Arcana through numerical sums and can highlight shared themes. This is also the approach I still use when calculating Tarot Year Card or Tarot Birth Cards.
In the Tarot de Marseille, the Major Arcana are often studied through paired numerical relationships instead, where each number from one to ten reappears later in the sequence through addition rather than reduction — the original number returning, transformed by what has been added to it.
This pattern becomes visible when the Major Arcana are viewed in paired relationships across the sequence:
1 (I) with 11 (XI)
2 (II) with 12 (XII)
3 (III) with 13 (XIII)
4 (IV) with 14 (XIV)
5 (V) with 15 (XV)
6 (VI) with 16 (XVI)
7 (VII) with 17 (XVII)
8 (VIII) with 18 (XVIII)
9 (IX) with 19 (XIX)
10 (X) with 20 (XX)
The Fool is not included because it is unnumbered and moves alongside the sequence rather than participating in numerical progression, while The World stands apart as the final card, representing integration beyond development rather than a paired stage.
This pairing approach focuses on how a number develops later in the sequence. The second card in each pair does not replace the first, but revisits the same number under different conditions. While both systems can coexist, working through pairing aligns more naturally with Tarot de Marseille study, especially when learning to read numbers visually through the pip cards.
Why Marseille Students Should Start with Numbers 1-10
The Minor Arcana are not supporting material in the Tarot de Marseille. They are the foundation.
Numbers one through ten appear across all four suits, expressed through consistent visual structures that subtly evolve. Learning Tarot numerology through the pips allows you to see how a number behaves before assigning interpretation.
Over time, you begin to recognise patterns such as expansion, compression, instability, harmony, or excess, not as abstract ideas, but as visible qualities on the card.
Developing Your Own Number Keywords
Rather than memorising fixed meanings, Marseille numerology works best when you develop working keywords through repeated observation.
As starting points, you may notice tendencies such as:
1 as emergence, beginning, wholeness or a single point
2 as tension, mirroring, choice or pause
3 as growth, creativity, or unrefined/scattered expression
4 as structure, containment, or stability
5 as disruption or learning through friction
6 as balance, relationship, or adjustment
7 as movement, strategy, or testing
8 as power, containment, endurance, or shaping force
9 as refinement, inner focus, or near completion
10 as excess, culmination, or overflow
These are not definitions to adopt wholesale. They are provisional language that will refine itself as you continue to work with the cards.
Learning a Number Through Direct Observation
A central Marseille practice is learning numbers through comparison rather than interpretation.
Lay out all four pip cards of a single number and study them together. Focus only on what is visible. Notice how foliage grows or constricts, where symbols connect or collide, and how space is organised across the suits.
Once you are familiar with how that number behaves, compare it to the number before and the number after in the same suit. Observe what changes and what remains consistent as the sequence develops.
This approach trains perceptual skill rather than conceptual recall. It also prevents the common mistake of flattening numerology into generic meanings.
Pairing Number with Element
Only after you have a felt sense of how a number behaves should you introduce the elements.
In a Tarot de Marseille reading, the number provides structure, the element provides tone and behaviour, and the image shows how the two interact. Each element also points to a distinct area of experience:
- Batons (Wands) relate to action, vitality, effort, conflict, and the way energy is expressed or expended.
- Coins (Pentacles) relate to material reality, the body, work, resources, skills, and what must be built or maintained over time.
- Swords relate to thought, perception, communication, decision-making, and mental tension.
- Cups relate to emotional life, relational dynamics, inner states, and the regulation of feeling.
When number and element combine, the card shows how a particular pattern plays out in that domain. A 5 of Coins does not behave like a 5 of Batons, even though both share disruption. One may describe material disruption or bodily pressure, while the other points to scattered effort or conflict in action.
The card, in relation to the question and surrounding cards, reveals whether that disruption is heavy, volatile, adaptive, or brittle. If you skip the visual step, number-plus-element becomes generic. If you begin with the card, it stays precise.
Common Mistakes When Applying Tarot Numerology to the Marseille Deck
One of the most common mistakes Marseille students make is treating pip cards as reduced Major Arcana. This collapses the richness of the Minor Arcana and turns the pips into pale echoes of larger archetypes.
Another frequent error — and one I know well from my own early experiments — is importing Rider–Waite–Smith meanings directly into Marseille cards. Without illustrated scenes, those meanings have nowhere to anchor themselves and quickly become detached from what is actually present on the card.
Some readers assign number meanings first and then look for confirmation in the image. In Marseille reading, this reverses the natural order. The card must lead. The image comes first, number second, and theory last.
Ignoring foliage and spatial structure is another pitfall. In the Tarot de Marseille, foliage is not decorative. It shows growth, obstruction, connection, and pressure, and is often where the number is most clearly expressed.
Finally, many readers lean too heavily on the element before understanding the number. This flattens the reading. In Marseille work, the number establishes the pattern; the element modifies how that pattern behaves.
How Tarot Numerology Functions in Actual Readings
In real readings, numerology rarely announces itself loudly. Instead, it works quietly in the background, shaping emphasis and tone.
Repeated numbers draw attention to a particular pattern unfolding across the spread. Multiple fives may suggest sustained disruption or ongoing learning rather than a single moment of change. A progression from four to five to six can show a process rather than a problem.
Numerology also affects pacing. Lower numbers often describe beginnings or set-up phases, while higher numbers indicate accumulation, strain, or culmination. This helps you sense whether a situation is still forming or nearing resolution.
In some readings, the number becomes more important than the suit. When the same number appears across different elements, the shared structure may matter more than the surface differences. Marseille numerology allows you to notice this without forcing interpretation.
A Practice Reading: A Number-First Approach
To illustrate how Tarot numerology functions in practice, here is a short three-card reading using two number cards and a court card.
The question was:
How can I stay spiritually aligned today?
The Seven introduces movement, testing, and mental activity. In the 7 of Swords, the central sword points upward, suggesting a mind reaching toward a higher perspective or spiritual clarity. However, the seven does not stabilise this impulse. It initiates motion but does not yet anchor it. Notice how the flowers here are in tight buds.
The 8 of Coins follows by consolidating what the seven sets in motion. The number eight seeks stability, endurance, and embodiment. Visually, the card contains abundant foliage, indicating nourishment and sustained effort. Where the seven lifts the mind upward, the eight asks that insight be grounded through consistent, practical action.
Seen together, the number cards describe a progression: spiritual alignment begins with elevated intention but is maintained through embodied practice.
The court card completes the reading. The King of Cups represents emotional mastery and regulation. His raised cup visually echoes the upward movement of the sword while remaining calm and contained. This suggests that emotional steadiness is the result of properly integrating thought and action.
Working with the Major Arcana
Studying paired Major Arcana invites reflective questions. How does card eleven (XI Strength) respond to card one (I The Magician)? What does card XIII reveal about the development of card III? How does card XX resolve or complicate the cycle of card X?
Seen this way, the Major Arcana become teachers of applied numerology along the soul’s journey rather than symbolic shortcuts or abstract archetypes. Work with Major Arcana pairings to deepen your understanding of the number cards once you are familiar with basic numerology and the elemental domains.
An Example: Deepening the 7 of Swords Through the Major Arcana
Returning to the practice reading above, the 7 of Swords introduced movement, testing, and mental strategy. The upward-pointing central sword suggested a desire to rise above the ordinary level of thought, yet the number seven did not stabilise this impulse. Instead, it indicated a phase of adjustment, experimentation, and refinement.
Looking to the paired Major Arcana can deepen this understanding. The number seven corresponds first to The Chariot (VII), a card concerned with direction, discipline, and control of opposing forces. Read alongside the 7 of Swords, this reinforces the idea that spiritual alignment requires conscious steering of the mind rather than passive inspiration.
Its paired counterpart, The Star (XVII), revisits the same number at a later stage of development. Here, effort gives way to trust, and strategy softens into alignment with a larger current. Seen in this light, the 7 of Swords can be understood as an early phase of the same process: learning how to orient thought toward truth before it can settle into clarity or faith.
Importantly, the Major Arcana do not replace the meaning of the pip card. Instead, they clarify where the number sits within a longer arc of development. The 7 of Swords remains a card of mental testing and adjustment, but the Major Arcana pairing shows that this phase is transitional rather than final.
Used this way, the Major Arcana help situate the number cards within a broader pattern, deepening understanding without overriding what is already visible on the card.
How to Study Tarot Numerology the Marseille Way
Tarot numerology the Marseille way is learned gradually.
Begin with the number cards one through ten. Study one number at a time. Compare the suits. Observe foliage, spacing, and symmetry, and let your keywords emerge through use rather than abstract theory.
Next, introduce the elements. Later still, allow the Major Arcana to deepen your understanding through pairing and reflection.
Return to the same numbers again and again. Over time, recognition replaces memorisation.
Tarot Numerology as a Living Practice
Tarot numerology is not about choosing the “correct” system. It is about cultivating attention.
That is the Marseille way.
PS. Another way to work with Tarot Numerology is to calculate your birth cards and your year card.
Additionally, if numbers repeat in a reading, you may also wish to check out a post about Angelic Numerology
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