Larisa
In short
The Fool's Journey is a way of reading the 22 Major Arcana cards as one story, in which the Fool, card 0, travels through the trumps from the Magician (I) to the World (XXI) as stages of growth. It is a modern teaching story laid over the sequence, not part of the deck's original design. In a spread it shows where a Major stands on the road: what led to it and what it prepares.
What is the Fool’s Journey in tarot?
The Fool’s Journey is a way of reading the 22 Major Arcana cards as one continuous story, in which the Fool, card 0, sets out on the road and meets each trump from I to XXI as a stage of growth. It is not a separate card or a spread but a lens on the Major Arcana: the same cards, read in their numbered order, become chapters of a life. A single Major names one theme; the journey shows what comes before that theme and what it opens the way to.
Setting out. In the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, the Fool carries a small bundle and sets out without a map. The first two teachers on the road are opposites: The Magician shows what focused will can do with the tools on the table, and The High Priestess what is known in silence, before anything is done.
Learning the world. The Empress stands for nature, the body and care; The Emperor for order, rules and protection; The Hierophant for the shared teaching of a community. Together they are the upbringing every traveller receives: generous, structured and inherited.
Choosing a direction. With The Lovers the Fool makes a first choice guided by personal values rather than by parents. The Chariot turns that choice into motion and a first success.
Turning inward. Success raises new questions. Strength asks for courage that is gentle rather than loud, The Hermit for time alone with a lantern. Wheel of Fortune shows that circumstances turn whatever we plan, and Justice weighs what the traveller has done so far.
Letting go. The Hanged Man stops the road and turns the view upside down. Death closes a chapter that cannot go on, and Temperance blends what remains into a steadier mix.
Through the dark. The Devil depicts the traveller caught in compulsion, unhealthy attachment and unequal power; the Tower depicts rupture and the collapse of a structure. The Star stands for hope and renewal within this symbolic sequence, while the Moon names doubt, dreams and uncertainty. These are distinct themes to explore, rather than a compulsory route from suffering to recovery.
Into the light. The Sun is clarity and plain joy, Judgement a call to rise and answer for a whole life, and The World the arrival: a circle completed, from which the Fool can set out again, wiser, at the start of a new round.
How the Fool’s Journey became a teaching story
The trumps were not designed as a story. The fifteenth-century Italian cards known as trionfi were made for a trick-taking game, and their order varied from region to region before the Marseille pattern spread. The modern sequence most readers know was set by the Rider–Waite–Smith deck of 1909, which follows the Golden Dawn in placing Strength at VIII and Justice at XI.
Reading a single traveller through the trumps belongs to the twentieth century. Tarot writers of the 1960s and 1970s, Eden Gray among the best known, taught the Majors as stages the Fool passes through, and the picture of the trumps I to XXI laid out in three rows of seven, with the Fool apart, became the usual way to show it. Rachel Pollack’s Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom (1980) took the story further, and since then it has been a standard way to learn the Majors in order.
Many readers compare the journey with the hero’s journey that the mythologist Joseph Campbell described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949): departure, trials, return. The comparison is modern, but it explains why the story feels familiar: it follows the shape of countless myths and folk tales.
Using the Fool’s Journey when you read
Place the card on the road. When a Major appears, ask which stretch of the story it belongs to: the early cards build a self in the world, the middle ones turn inward and let go, the late ones pass through the dark and come back into the light. The Emperor speaks of building; the Tower, many steps later, of breaking what was built.
Look one step back and one step ahead. Compare the themes on either side of a card in the numbered sequence, then return to the cards actually drawn. Death sits between the Hanged Man and Temperance: surrender, an ending and the work of adjustment. That order helps you compare their meanings; it does not make an ending less final or establish that a period of calm rebuilding follows it.
Measure the distance between two Majors. Two cards far apart, such as the Magician and the World, put a beginning and an end into one question: a skill you are just picking up and the finished shape it could take. Two neighbours, such as the Star and the Moon, describe a single passage seen from two sides.
Don’t read it as a timeline. The stages are not years, ages or levels, and drawing the Tower does not mean you have reached a fixed point in life or must pass through the Devil first. People return to early cards again and again, in different areas of life at once. The journey is a circle, not a ladder.
Let the Fool stand for you. In this teaching story the traveller represents the person asking. When the Fool appears beside other Majors, compare its openness and inexperience with their themes. The useful question is how you approach the matter now: with curiosity, preparation, hesitation or a willingness to take a risk.
Four readings seen through the journey
The Lovers, then the Chariot. You ask about moving to another city and draw these two side by side. In the story a choice made from your own values has just turned into motion. The reading is about following the decision through and steering it, not about reopening it.
The Hermit in a busy spread. A work question brings three Wands full of activity and the Hermit in the middle. The Hermit belongs to the inward stretch of the road: the projects are real, but the spread asks for a pause to remember why you are doing them.
The Tower followed by the Star. After a sudden break-up, the Tower names rupture and the damage to a familiar structure; the Star names hope, honesty and renewal. Ask what has fallen apart, what still matters to you and what hope means while the loss is real. The contrast gives you two themes to consider together.
The Sun in the past, the Fool as the outcome. The order reverses the teaching sequence, which is useful for comparing the themes. The Sun in the past invites you to consider an earlier experience of clarity or joy; the Fool in the outcome position introduces openness, inexperience and a possible first step. Ask what you want to carry forward and what still needs preparation.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Fool's Journey part of the original tarot?
No. The Italian trumps of the fifteenth century were made for a card game, and nothing in them tells a single traveller's story. The journey is a twentieth-century reading of the sequence, and it has lasted because it makes the order of the Majors easy to remember and easy to use.
Does the Fool's Journey work with Marseille numbering?
Yes, with one change. Marseille decks put Justice at VIII and Strength at XI, so the traveller meets the scales before the lion. The stages keep their meaning; only the step from building a life to turning inward is told in a slightly different order.
If I draw a late card such as the World, am I further along in life?
No. The stages are themes, not ages or levels. A teenager can draw the World when a school year ends well, and someone at sixty can draw the Fool when a new chapter opens. Everyone walks the circle many times, in many areas of life at once.
Where does the Fool belong, at the start or the end?
Both, in this teaching story. Numbered 0, the Fool stands outside the row of trumps: it sets out before the Magician and represents another possible beginning after the World. The journey is understood as cyclical, even when the cards are laid out in three rows of seven.
Do I need to know the journey to read the Major Arcana?
Not to read a single card, but it helps once two or more Majors appear together. The story tells you how their themes connect: whether one prepares the other, follows from it, or belongs to a different stretch of the road.
Keep exploring
The readings offered by Larisa Tarot are provided for personal awareness, self-reflection and entertainment. They contain no certainty, no guarantee about the future and no promise of a particular outcome.