Advanced · 14 min
Numerology and birth cards
Add up the numbers of a birth date and you reach a Major Arcana card. Learn the number families that link Majors and numbered cards, and work out birth and year cards by hand.
In this lesson you will
- Reduce any Major's number to its root and find its number family.
- Work out a birth card and a year card from a date, step by step.
- Use birth and year cards as themes for reflection, not as a fixed fate.
A friend tells you their birth card is The Hanged Man and asks what that means. No one drew it: they worked it out from their birthday with nothing but addition. This lesson shows you how, and how to read the result without turning it into a fate.
Every number has a root
Numerology reduces a number to its root by adding its digits. Fourteen becomes 1 + 4 = 5; nineteen becomes 1 + 9 = 10, and then 1 + 0 = 1. Apply this to the Majors and every card from X to XXI falls back onto a card from I to IX.
That gives the deck number families. Temperance is XIV, and 1 + 4 = 5, so it shares a root with The Hierophant, card V, and with the four Fives. Readers who use number families look for what such cards share: here, perhaps, a teaching handed down and a balance found in practice.
This lesson is part of Plus
Plus opens every lesson of the Practitioner, Reader and Advanced tiers, with practice that explains every answer.
What the lesson covers
- The number families
- Working out a birth card
- Year cards
- Your turn
- Practice
Foundations and the first lesson of every course are free.