Write in the Numbers

How Numerology and the Tarot Can Help Your Storytelling

Jun 23, 2025

A brief review of the Minor Arcana’s numbered correspondences pulled from my new book, Mystic Storyteller: A Writer’s Guide to Using the Tarot for Creative Inspiration.
Write in the Numbers is a practice activity also featured in the book.
Order your copy of Mystic Storyteller.

As previously mentioned in my post titled A Suitable Story: How to Write a Story Using the Tarot Suits, the Minor Arcana consists of 10 pip cards and four Court cards for each of the four suits. That’s 14 cards per suit. However, the numbered cards include the Aces through the Tens. Although there is not a set rule that the Courts embody a particular number, for the purpose of numerology, a number can be assigned to them: Pages are number 11, Knights are 12, Queens are 13, and Kings are 14.

Because numbers one through 10 are the base numbers for working with numerology within the tarot, many cards in the Major Arcana require some easy math in order to determine their correspondences. In some instances, you will need to add the numbers together and reduce them to their lowest term. For example, both The Sun card (19 or XIX) and Wheel of Fortune (10 or X) possess a numerological connection to the number one. Here’s the simple math:

The following list provides numerological insight into numbers zero through 10 as they appear in the tarot. However, it’s important to note that not all cards with a particular number correspond with every meaning of that number. For example, the number three can mean caring, celebration, cooperation, expression, longing, and results. However, the Three of Swords is more likely to represent caring, longing, and results, whereas the Three of Cups aligns more appropriately with meaning celebration, cooperation, and expression.

Aces can represent birth, bravery, ego, gifts, inspiration, initiative, identity, independence, initiation, new beginnings, novel ideas, offers, opportunity, potential, and self-confidence.
Twos can help fiction writers with factors such as choice, decision-making, dialogue, and direction (east or west, left or right, etc.). On their lower polarity, the Twos can express fickleness, indifference, and uncertainty.
When writing fiction, the Threes can help with themes including celebration, collaboration, communication, compassion, cooperation, creativity, drive, expansion, expression, growth, longing, mystery, results, teamwork, and transition.
The Fours suggest day-to-day ideas around staying focused, pausing to rest, practicality, preparation, and eventually enjoying the fruits of one’s labor. As such, when writing fiction, Fours can serve as excellent guideposts for planning and preparation, pause and plotting.
In the Minor Arcana, the Fives are the first energetic lull, involving ideas around adaptability, challenges, change, conflict, flexibility, grief, instability, liberation, and loss.
The Sixes spring back from the difficulties brought on by the Fives. They offer achievement, advocacy, assistance, balance, compassion, empathy, harmony, healing, karma, love, and support.
7. Although considered a lucky number to many, the Sevens are not always lucky in the Minor Arcana. These cards represent analysis, assessment, burden, challenges, conflict, faith, investigation, lessons, mystery, reflection, spirituality, struggles, and wisdom.
After the Sevens evoke sometimes uneasy decision-making and change, the Eights follow with action and movement. When writing fiction, Eights can serve as excellent guideposts for accomplishment, achievement, control, focus, mastery, and perseverance.
While the Eights launched the Minor Arcana into action and movement, the Nines take the reins and slow the energy, leading the writer toward the end of the numbered cards’ stories. Nines can serve as guideposts for constructs such as attainment, contentment, completion, fruition, philanthropy, and protection.
The final numbered cards of the Minor Arcana, the Tens signify abundance, completion, coming full circle, the end of a cycle, final manifestations, overwhelming results, and preparing for new beginnings.

Practice Activity - Write in the Numbers

In the practice activity included in my post A Suitable Story: An Excerpt from Mystic Storyteller, you drafted a story intuited from the Minor Arcana suit of your choice. This activity is similar, providing you with an opportunity for practicing mystic storytelling by considering only the numbered cards and how they might inspire you.

What you need for this activity:

Your favorite tarot deck – Click here to get your copy of Mystic Storyteller Tarot.
Your favorite tools for notetaking.
Your intuition.

Part One:

Sort through your tarot deck and pull out all the numbered cards, setting aside the Major Arcana and the Court cards.
Next, organize the numbered cards into groups from the Aces through the Tens.
Sort through each numbered group and select your single favorite card from the group, and then arrange those cards in order Ace through Ten, as indicated on the spread. For example, were I to complete this activity, I would choose the Ace of Swords, Two of Wands, Three of Cups, and so on.
From left to right, Ace to Ten, what story can you imagine happening in these cards? Use your intuition and draft the story as it unfolds.

Part Two:

Put your tarot deck back together in its entirety and reshuffle the cards.
When you are satisfied that the cards are shuffled well, turn the deck facedown as if you were about to deal them.
Turn cards over onto the space for the Ace until you arrive at the first Ace, laying it on top.
Move to the space for the Two and repeat the process, turning cards over until you arrive at your first Two.
Do the same for spaces Three through Ten. At any point, if you run out of cards simply collect the cards beneath the previous numbers and reshuffle your deck, repeating the process until you have a card turned over for each space.
From left to right, Ace to Ten, what story are these cards telling? How has the story changed from the first one you wrote in Part One? Use your intuition and draft a new story as it unfolds.

Care to share your story?

What story did your chosen numbered cards tell you? Share in a comment! I’m always curious to know how other storytellers interpret the tarot.

Get your copy of MYSTIC STORYTELLER

Mystic Storyteller is a book and companion tarot deck for writers who want to enhance their creativity, elevate storytelling, develop fiction plots and scenes, and so much more.

ORDER NOW

About Mandy

Amanda "Mandy" Hughes is an author and instructional designer who uses the tarot to inspire storytelling. Her book Mystic Storyteller: A Writer’s Guide to Using the Tarot for Creative Inspiration and companion tarot deck are helping her peers do exactly that. She also writes fiction under pen name A. Lee Hughes. Mandy lives in Georgia with her husband and four sons, two of whom are furrier than the others (but not by much). Visit her website at www.haintbluecreative.com and find her on Substack @HaintBlueCreative.