How Tarot Birth Cards Work

Tarot birth cards are specific tarot cards calculated from your birthday.

Most individuals have two Tarot birth cards—often referred to as a Personality card and a Soul card—based on their birth date (with a rare third card in special cases). These two cards collectively illustrate one’s way of engaging with the world and the deeper life themes one is meant to explore.

The process starts with your full birth date.

Add the digits of your birthday together to get a three-digit number or two-digit number. Then reduce that total to a single-digit number or a card number between 1 and 22, which corresponds to the Major Arcana.

For example, if your birth date numbers add up to 29 (which is above 22), you would first reduce 29 by adding 2 + 9 to get 11. Card 11 (Justice in many decks) then serves as one birth card, and further reducing 11 (1 + 1 = 2) gives you card 2 (the High Priestess) as the second birth card.

Your personality card reflects how you show up in daily life.

This card often connects to visible traits like focus, communication style, fear responses, and how you handle security or change. Cards like the Sun, the World, or the High Priestess point to very different ways of engaging with people and challenges.

Your soul card represents deeper energy.

It speaks to long-term lessons, inner identity, and what you are meant to become aware of over time. The soul card often feels quieter but more powerful, shaping choices beneath the surface.

In rare cases, a birth date calculation will yield three Tarot birth cards. Notably, when the sum is 19, it produces 19 (The Sun), then 1+9 = 10 (Wheel of Fortune), and finally 1+0 = 1 (The Magician).

Tarot practitioners often refer to the extra card as a "hidden factor" or shadow/teacher card—an underlying influence highlighting aspects of yourself or life lessons you might not immediately recognize.

Certain cards appear often in birth calculations.

The Death card does not signify a physical death. Instead, it symbolizes profound change—the end of one phase and the transition into a new beginning.

The Hanged Man’s lesson is one of surrender and seeing things from a new perspective.

The Tower card signifies sudden upheaval and chaos, but it also carries the promise of transformation and the opportunity to rebuild from the ground up.

The Moon card speaks to the realm of the subconscious, highlighting hidden fears and uncertainty while urging you to trust your intuition in the darkness.

The Wheel reflects the ever-turning cycles of life and fate, reminding us that timing and outcomes are often beyond our control.

Tarot birth cards are not fixed destinies.

They act more like themes or lenses through which experiences are interpreted. Over time, people notice how their cards show up during turning points, relationships, family patterns, and career decisions.

Many people combine tarot with astrology or other symbolic systems.

Birth cards complement signs and houses by focusing on narrative and imagery. Where astrology maps cycles in the sky, tarot focuses on human stories, choice, and meaning.

Tarot works best as a reflective tool.

Instead of predicting outcomes, birth cards encourage awareness, growth, and intentional living. They offer language for hope, challenge, and personal power rather than rules to follow.

Exploring tarot birth cards is less about discovering something hidden and more about recognizing patterns you already carry.

We created this article in conjunction with AI technology, then made sure it was fact-checked and edited by a HowStuffWorks editor.