How to Find Your Birth Cards

I am going to show you the method the way my calculator does it, which is the way I have counted for years. Other books count differently, and some of them add a companion card where I do not. I will say where the differences are so you are not confused when you meet them. On this site, the method below is the one every page uses.

Step one: write the date as eight digits

Write your date of birth as day, month, year, with a zero in front of any single digit day or month. 14 March 1987 becomes 14 03 1987. 6 August 1992 becomes 06 08 1992. 1 January 2000 becomes 01 01 2000.

The zeros matter for the habit, even though they add nothing, because they stop you dropping a digit from the year by accident.

Step two: add every digit

Add all eight digits together as one sum.

For 14 March 1987 that is 1 + 4 + 0 + 3 + 1 + 9 + 8 + 7 = 33.

Step three: bring the total down to 22 or under

If the total is over 22, add its digits again. 33 becomes 3 + 3 = 6. If it is still over 22 you would add again, but no real date gets that far. The largest total any date of birth can give is 48, which belongs to 29 September 1999, and 48 comes down to 12 in one pass, so one more pass is always enough.

Stop as soon as the number is 22 or less. Do not reduce further yet.

Step four: name your first card

The number you have landed on is your first birth card. The cards 1 to 21 are the Majors by their number, The Magician is 1, The High Priestess is 2 and so on through to The World at 21. The number 22 counts as The Fool, who carries the 0 in the deck but takes the 22 in this method.

Step five: look for a second and third card

If your first number is a single digit, you are done. You have one birth card. I do not add a companion card to a single digit, so a 6 is The Lovers alone and a 9 is The Hermit alone. Some books do it differently and give every single digit a partner. That is their method, this is mine, and I find a single card reads cleanly on its own.

If your first number has two digits, 10 through to 22, add the two digits together for your second card. If that result still has two digits, add again for a third. This is only possible from 19, which gives 10 and then 1.

Four worked examples

One card. Sarah Jane Mitchell, born 14 March 1987, the woman the numerology pages use for their examples. Her digits add to 33, 33 reduces to 6, and 6 is a single digit, so she has one birth card: The Lovers. A life about choice and connection, lived whole.

Two cards. A birth on 19 October 1980: 1 + 9 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 9 + 8 + 0 = 29. That is over 22, so 2 + 9 = 11, which is Justice. Then 11 has two digits, so 1 + 1 = 2, The High Priestess. Two cards: Justice on the surface and The High Priestess underneath it. The scales in public and the quiet knowing in private.

Three cards. A birth on 9 September 1999: 0 + 9 + 0 + 9 + 1 + 9 + 9 + 9 = 46, then 4 + 6 = 10, the Wheel of Fortune. Then 1 + 0 = 1, The Magician. Three cards. Someone whose life turns on the Wheel, with the Magician's will underneath and, because 10 reduces to 1, the whole family of that number in the room.

The 22 case. A birth on 29 January 2008: 2 + 9 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 8 = 22. The total lands exactly on 22, so there is no reduction before the first card. 22 is The Fool. Then 2 + 2 = 4, The Emperor. Two cards: The Fool's open road and The Emperor's steady hand. I enjoy that pair, it is the leap and the landing in one person.

A few more, to check your working

Emma Louise Hart, born 6 August 1992: 0 + 6 + 0 + 8 + 1 + 9 + 9 + 2 = 35, then 3 + 5 = 8. Strength, one card.

A birth on 1 January 2000: 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 4. The Emperor, straight away, no reduction needed.

A birth on 27 September 1966: 2 + 7 + 0 + 9 + 1 + 9 + 6 + 6 = 40, then 4 + 0 = 4. The Emperor again, by a longer road.

A birth on 28 September 1979: 2 + 8 + 0 + 9 + 1 + 9 + 7 + 9 = 45, then 4 + 5 = 9. The Hermit. And a birth on 19 September 1979: 1 + 9 + 0 + 9 + 1 + 9 + 7 + 9 = 45, then 9. The Hermit as well. Nine days apart and the same card, because the digits of 28 and 19 add to the same thing. The tarot reads the digits, and the calendar day is only the way they are written down.

A birth on 17 January 2008: 1 + 7 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 8 = 19. The Sun, then 1 + 9 = 10, the Wheel of Fortune, then 1 + 0 = 1, The Magician. The one route to three cards.

A birth on 9 January 2009: 0 + 9 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 9 = 21. The World, then 2 + 1 = 3, The Empress.

Why this is counted differently from the Life Path

If you have already found your Life Path on the numerology pages you will have noticed that it is worked out another way. There the day, the month and the year are each reduced on their own before they are added together, so that a Master Number, 11, 22 or 33, can be kept whole when it appears. The How to Reduce a Number page explains the reasons.

Here the whole date goes in as one string of digits and comes down to a card. The two systems count differently on purpose. The Life Path is a number and keeps the rules of numbers. The birth card is a picture and keeps the rules of the deck, where 22 is a card and 33 is not. Sarah's Life Path, by the numerology method, is 6, and her birth card is The Lovers, also 6. That will not always happen. When they agree you have a strong signal. When they differ you have two things to read, and two things to read is the more useful result.

What to do with the result

Read the page for your first card in The Birth Cards. That page is written about the card as a life, your archetype, your shadow, your work. If you have a second or third card, read those pages too and treat them as the layers underneath, the quieter voices in the same conversation.

Then go to The 78 Cards and read your card's own page there, which describes it as it turns up in a spread. Seeing the same card in both settings teaches you something about the card and something about yourself.

Then go to The Numbers and read the page for the single digit your cards reduce to. The Lovers reads The Number 6, Strength and The Star read The Number 8, The Hermit and The Moon read The Number 9. The number page gives you the Life Path side of the same idea.

The calculator

Birth cards are coming to the Find Your Numbers and Signs page, where you will be able to put in your date and have the cards found for you alongside your Life Path and your signs. Until then the pencil works perfectly well, and I would rather you did it by hand the first time anyway. The sum is part of the meeting.

If you would like your own chart read, my readings are here.