Many of us know about the Tarot card that relates to our Life Path, but in case you didn’t here is how to calculate this:
- Add your full DOB straight across. If your DOB contains 11 as a month or day, and/or 22 as a day of birth, add them as they are. We don’t break up Master Numbers.
- Look at the resulting value. If it is a number from 1-22 – STOP. You’re done!
- If it isn’t, add the digits together again, until you reach a value from 1-22.
- Congratulations! This number corresponds to a card in the Major Arcana. This card symbolizes your Life Path
What about the total before it was reduced to something from 1-22?
We’ll get to bigger compound numbers another day. For now, get familiar with the Major Arcana.
But I already know that my Life Path is a 6 and this number is 15. Shouldn’t I keep adding?
Absolutely you should! But keep both of the cards, in this case, The Devil and The Lovers. There is information in both of those cards for you.
- So let’s add another step to this: Although Life Path Numbers are typically expressed as 1-9 or a Master Number like 11 or 22, if you get any of the following numbers: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, or 22 – set aside the corresponding Tarot card and add those digits once more for a number from 1-9.
But my Life Path adds to a single digit right away. Did I do something wrong?
No, you didn’t. A lot of people born in the 2000s are going to experience this. If you only have one Tarot card from the Major Arcana, that is fine. I only have one because the first number that I get when I add my DOB exceeds 22.
Here is an example of a Life Path calculation:
The DOB is October 23rd, 1994 or 10-23-1994
1+2+3+1+9+9+4 (We drop zeroes because when added across like this, they don’t make a difference)
Those numbers added together equal 29. This is larger than 22 so we add again:
2+9=11 This number we keep because it is within the 1-22 range. We can even add this down to a value of 2 if we want to be fancy, and keep both of those numbers. For the purposes of this blog post, I’ll stick with just the 11.
If we check the Major Arcana list below we see that the 11th card is Strength.
The Life Path numbers shows the road you’re going to walk in this life. It gives clues as to your energy levels, your interests, the obstacles and lessons you’ll face, as well as the situations/patterns that will be themes in your life. Remember though, that nothing is set in stone. You will build the road as you walk it – there is no fate but what we make.
I highly suggest dusting off your library card and doing a deep dive on the card that symbolizes your Life Path. You’ll find that it deepens and expands on the numerology books, many of which never make it past the beginner level.
The Major Arcana
1: The Magician
2: The High Priestess
3. The Empress
4: The Emperor
5: The Hierophant
6: The Lovers
7: The Chariot
8: Justice
9: The Hermit
10/1: The Wheel of Fortune, or Fortuna’s Wheel
11/2: Strength
12/3: The Hanged Man
13/4: Death
14/5: Temperance
15/6: The Devil
16/7: The Tower
17/8: The Star
18/9: The Moon
19/1: The Sun
20/2: Judgement
21/3: The World
22/4: The Fool
Special circumstances:
- The Fool is sometimes listed as “Card 0” in some decks although everyone agrees that it is the 22nd card of the Major Arcana. So if you have a book that stops counting the majors at 21, you’re fine. Why is The Fool listed that way? He’s sometimes seen as the soul in between lives, so he is listed as the Zero that comes between the beginning (1) and the end (21).
These are the Tarot majors from The Mythic Tarot, which is always in my purse! They’re based on Greek and Roman mythology, which many of us in the Western world are familiar with.
