The divination response is entrusted in its essential lines to the major arcana, archetypal hinges, and center of the strength of the various situations of existence. To these are added the fifty-six cards defined as "minor" because they have an auxiliary function compared to the first ones.

The minor arcana is complete, specifying in detail what the major ones, in their pregnant essentiality, have determined. Also based, like common playing cards, on a numeral symbolism that intersects with the horizontal symbolism of the suit, linked to the elements, to the seasons, to the four great spheres of human interest (love, money, work, health), are divided, according to the suit, into four series of ten numeral cards plus four figures each.

The figures are the well-known ones of the King, the Queen, and the Infantryman, respectively symbols of the married man, the woman, and the child, to which is added the Knight, typically Spanish, emblem of the celibate, friend, or rival.

Much has been said about the subtle sense of the minor arcana which have been symbolically linked, according to their interpretative level, to various elements of classical esotericism.

To the four Hebrew letters constituting the divine and unpronounceable name of Yahweh; to the four great classes into which human society was (and is) divided iniquitously: clergy and intellectuals, soldiers, merchants, workers, and peasants. To the four elements dear to Greek philosophy, fire, air, earth, and water; to the circular symbolism of the seasons; to the four traditional instruments of Western magic: the wand, the sword, the pentacle, and the cup; to the four esoteric imperatives in turn connected with the fixed signs of the zodiac: the will of Taurus, the daring of Leo, the silence of Scorpio and the knowledge of Aquarius.

CUPS

The rounded cups in formal analogy with the vase and hence with the matrix and therefore the female, represent the element of water that they are intended to contain. Tradition symbolically links them to the second He of the Hebrew divine name, to the clergy, artists, and intellectuals, that is, to all those who attribute the highest value to faith, thought and feeling.

The Cups correspond to the warm, rainy spring, to the crystal ball, the emblem of clairvoyance, and to the esoteric imperative of knowledge. They signal the affections, the passions, the joys, the pleasures, the fecundity, and the memories.

Astrological Relations: Moon. Sign of Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces.

WANDS

Elongated in shape and therefore essentially phallic, Wands immediately denounce their virile, masculine symbolism and the element to which they relate, fire, which originates from wood.

Traditionally connected to the Hebrew letter jod, the first of the name of God, they correspond to the hot and lively summer, to the social class of actively engaged workers, to the magic wand, the emblem of operative intervention in reality, to the esoteric imperative of the will. They signal the beginning, the audacity, the initiative, the action, the transformation, the dynamism and more energy, creativity, progress, correlation to the professional sphere, travel, to inventions.

Astrological relationships: Sun and Mars. Sign of Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius.

PENTACLES or COINS

Round and therefore feminine, thanks also to the relationship with the earth element that they symbolize and in whose veins, in the form of metal, they originate, Pentacles, or Coins, represent the class of traders, owners, that is, those who possess or circulate money.

They correspond to the Hebrew letter vau, to autumn, to the pentacle that the operator of the arcane holds in his hands and with which he delimits the magic circle, to the esoteric imperative of being silent, in analogy with the earth, closed and silent. They indicate money, business, wealth, concrete things: matter, resistance, and research.

Astrological relations: Saturn. Sign of Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn.

SWORDS

The elongated, phallic, masculine shape also for the Swords, in analogy with the air element, also masculine, to which they belong and which vigorously cleave.

Related to the Hebrew letter he, to the military class of defenders, to winter, sharp and cold as metal, to the sword of the magic who protects and dissolves, to the esoteric imperative of daring, they represent all that man fears: the struggle, the difficulties, the illness, the misfortunes, the accidents accompanied by the gifts of communication, independence, and personal freedom.

Astrological relationships: Mercury. Zodiac signs of Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius.