Info taken from the book 'Meditations on the Tarot, A journey into Christian Hermeticism.'

This is my first post on this topic. Another day I would like to post about each arcana and its meaning

(Tarot of Marseilles)

The Major Arcana of the Tarot are authentic symbols, i.e. they are "magic, mental psychic and moral operations" awakening new notions, ideas, sentiments, and aspirations, which means to say that they require an activity more profund than that of study and intellectual explanation. It is therefore in a state of deep contemplation -and always ever deeper- that they should be approached. And it is the deep and intimate layers of the soul which become active and bear fruit when one meditates on the Arcana of the Tarot. It is a work to be accomplished in solitude. The Major Arcana of the Tarot are neither allegories nor secrets, because allegories are, in fact, only figurative representations of abstract notions, and secrets are only facts, procedures, practices, or whatever doctrines that one keeps to oneself for a personal motive, since they are able to be understood and put into practice by others to whom one does not want to reveal them. The Major Arcana of the Tarot are authentic symbols. They conceal and reveal their sense at one and the same time according to the depth of meditation. An arcanum is that which it is necessary to "know" in order to be fruitful in a given domain of spiritual life. It is that which must be actively present in our consciousness or even in our subconscious in order to render us capable of making discoveries, engendering new ideas, conceiving of new artistic subjects. In a word, it makes us fertile in our creative pursuits, in whatever domain of spiritual life. An arcanum is a "ferment" or an "enzyme" whose presence stimulates the spiritual and the psychic life of man. And it is symbols which are the bearers of these "ferments" or "enzymes" and which communicate them - if the mentality and morality of the recipient is ready, i.e. if he is "poor in spirit" and does not, suffer from the most serious spiritual malady: self-complacency. Just as the arcanum is superior to the secret, so is the mystery superior to the arcanum. The mystery is more than a stimulating "ferment". It is a spiritual event comparable to physical birth or death. It is a change of the entire spiritual and psychic motivation, or a complete change of the plane of consciousness.