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Tarot & Astrology Correspondences
Every card, every planet, every sign — mapped. Your session cheat sheet.
Complete tarot-to-astrology correspondence tables. Major Arcana planets, suit elements, court card combos, decan rulers. Free interactive reference for practitioners.
Live Celestial Data
5 of 8 retrograde
Planets & Zodiac Signs
Major Arcana
Minor Arcana foundation
Suits & Elements
Element combinations
Court Cards
Planet Quick Reference
Zodiac Sign Quick Reference
Aspect Quick Reference
How to use these tables
3 min read
You're mid-session. The Tower just showed up reversed, and your client is looking at you. You know it's Mars. You're pretty sure it's Mars. But which sign? And is Mars doing anything interesting right now?
That's the gap this page fills.
What Correspondences Are
Every tarot card has an astrological counterpart. This isn't new age decoration — it's a system refined over a century, rooted in the Golden Dawn tradition that shaped modern tarot as we know it. The Fool maps to Uranus. The Emperor maps to Aries. The Three of Swords maps to Saturn in the second decan of Libra. These aren't random associations — they encode the same archetypal patterns that astrology and tarot independently describe.
When you understand correspondences, tarot and astrology stop being separate practices and start being two languages describing the same thing. A reading becomes richer. A transit becomes a card. A card becomes a sky story.
How to Use This Page
Keep it open during readings. Seriously — that's the design intention. When a card comes up and you want the astrological connection, it's right here. No searching through PDFs, no flipping through books, no guessing.
The tables are organized the way practitioners actually think about them. Major Arcana first — those are the planet and sign connections that matter most in readings. Then suits and elements, because every tarot reader already thinks in terms of Fire, Water, Air, Earth. Then court cards, where the element combinations get interesting. And finally the quick-reference tables for planets, signs, and aspects — the cheat sheet you wish you'd had when you started learning.
Every name in these tables links to its full Atlas deep-dive. See "Aries" next to The Emperor? Click it, read everything about Aries — what it means, how it behaves, what planets rule it. The correspondence table gives you the mapping. Atlas gives you the understanding.
The Golden Dawn System
We use the Golden Dawn correspondence system, which is the foundation of most modern tarot-astrology mappings. A few things to know about it. The Major Arcana assignments follow a specific logic: some cards map to planets (The Magician = Mercury, because communication and skill), some to zodiac signs (The Emperor = Aries, because leadership and initiation). The pip cards — numbered cards 2 through 10 — each map to a specific decan, a 10-degree slice of a zodiac sign, ruled by a planet according to the Chaldean order.
Different traditions assign correspondences slightly differently. The Thoth deck follows Crowley's system, which is close but not identical. Some modern readers use their own mappings. We went with Golden Dawn because it's the most widely referenced, it's internally consistent, and it's the system most tarot-astrology resources assume you're using.
When It Gets Interesting
The real value isn't memorizing which card goes with which planet. It's the moment during a reading when a card's astrological connection explains something the card alone doesn't. The Tower shows up during a Mars transit — of course there's disruption, Mars is literally activating the Tower's energy in the sky right now. The Empress appears when Venus enters Taurus — Venus coming home, abundance becoming tangible.
Once you start seeing these connections, you can't unsee them. That's when readings go from good to something that makes your client go quiet for a second.
Topics: tarot astrology correspondences, tarot planet associations, major arcana astrology, tarot suits elements, court cards elements, golden dawn tarot, tarot cheat sheet, tarot decan rulers, astrology tarot mapping, tarot reading reference, which planet rules which tarot card, tarot zodiac correspondences
✧The practical stuff.✧
Questions about correspondences
They're the systematic mapping between tarot cards and astrological entities. Every Major Arcana card corresponds to a planet or zodiac sign. Every suit maps to an element. Court cards represent element combinations. Pip cards (2-10) map to specific zodiac decans. These aren't arbitrary — they come from the Golden Dawn tradition and encode shared archetypal patterns.
The Golden Dawn system, which is the most widely referenced in modern tarot practice. It's internally consistent and it's what most tarot-astrology books and courses assume you're using. Other systems exist — Crowley's Thoth assignments differ slightly, and some modern readers develop their own — but Golden Dawn is the standard reference.
Not at all. The tables are designed for quick lookups: card shows up, you check which planet or sign it connects to, done. If you want to go deeper, every entity name links to its Atlas page where you can learn what that planet or sign actually means. But you can use the tables as a simple reference without any astrology background.
Wands = Fire (action, will, creativity). Cups = Water (emotion, intuition, relationships). Swords = Air (thought, communication, conflict). Pentacles = Earth (material world, body, resources). This is consistent across most tarot traditions and lines up perfectly with astrological element meanings.
Each court card combines two elements: the suit's element and the rank's element. Pages represent Earth of their suit, Knights represent Air, Queens represent Water, Kings represent Fire. So the Knight of Cups is Air of Water — intellectual approach to emotional matters. These combinations create nuanced personality archetypes.
Each zodiac sign spans 30 degrees and is divided into three decans of 10 degrees each. Every pip card (2-10) maps to a specific decan with its own planetary ruler according to the Chaldean order. The Three of Swords, for example, is the second decan of Libra (10-19 degrees), ruled by Saturn. This gives each numbered card a very specific astrological flavor.
Absolutely. These tables show the Golden Dawn standard because it's the most widely shared reference point. If you work with Thoth correspondences, Marseille traditions, or your own intuitive mappings, that's valid. The tables are a reference, not a rulebook. Use what resonates with your practice.
When a card appears, check its planetary or zodiac connection. Then ask: is that planet doing anything right now? Is there a transit activating that sign? If The Tower (Mars) shows up during a Mars retrograde, that's not coincidence — that's the sky confirming the card. It adds a time dimension to tarot that card-only readings can't offer.
The Golden Dawn system assigns cards based on archetypal resonance. Cards representing fundamental forces or processes map to planets: The Magician = Mercury (communication), The High Priestess = Moon (intuition). Cards representing character archetypes or life themes map to zodiac signs: The Emperor = Aries (leadership), Strength = Leo (courage). The logic is consistent once you see the pattern.
The broad strokes are widely agreed: suits-to-elements mapping is nearly universal, and the Major Arcana planet/sign assignments are standard across most Western tarot traditions. The details — exactly which planet for The Fool, the court card element assignments — vary between traditions. Golden Dawn is the most common reference point, which is why we use it.
You don't need to memorize them — that's what this page is for. Keep it open during readings for quick reference. Over time, the Major Arcana associations will become second nature because they're intuitive once you understand the logic. The pip card decan assignments are the most technical; even experienced practitioners look those up.
Yes. Every individual tarot card's Atlas page shows its astrological connections — planet, sign, element, modality, house. This correspondence table gives you the overview: all 78 cards at a glance. The Atlas pages give you the depth: everything about one specific card. They complement each other.