Pass a tarot card to a friend
Pull one tarot card for someone you care about and send it as a link. It opens on the card's traditional meaning, read for their zodiac sign, with a button to pull one back for you.
How it works
- Choose their sign. Add your first name and theirs if you like, so the card arrives with a greeting.
- One card is pulled. It comes at random from all 78 cards, the 22 of the Major Arcana and the 56 of the four suits, each equally likely. Many tarot readers do not read reversals at all, and this page follows them: every card is read upright.
- You get a link to send. Copy it, or send it straight to WhatsApp or a text message. The preview shows the card and their sign, never a name.
- They open it. Their page gives the card's traditional meaning, how it reads for their sign, and a button to pull a card back for you.
How a card is read for a sign
The reading on each card page is not a horoscope pasted under a card. It is built from three correspondences that tarot readers have used since the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn tied the cards to astrology in the late 1800s, the system behind the Rider Waite Smith deck and most decks since. Each one is named on the page, so you can see exactly why the card reads the way it does.
1. The card's element against the sign's element
Every suit belongs to one of the four classical elements, and so does every sign. The old philosophers described each element by two of four qualities: fire is hot and dry, air hot and wet, water cold and wet, earth cold and dry. The Golden Dawn's rule of elemental dignities follows from that. A card is strengthened by its own element, friendly with any element that shares one quality, and weakened by its contrary, the element that shares none: fire with water, air with earth.
| Suit | Element and qualities | Signs |
|---|---|---|
| Wands | Fire, hot and dry | Aries, Leo, Sagittarius |
| Cups | Water, cold and wet | Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces |
| Swords | Air, hot and wet | Gemini, Libra, Aquarius |
| Pentacles | Earth, cold and dry | Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn |
2. The card's sign or planet against theirs
In the same system twelve cards of the Major Arcana belong to the twelve signs, seven to the classical planets and three to the elements (modern readers give those three to Uranus, Neptune and Pluto). When the card has a sign, the page measures how far it sits from their sign on the zodiac wheel: a trine or a sextile is read as easy, a square as friction, an opposition as a mirror. When it has a planet, the page looks up that planet's standing in their sign by the classical rules of rulership, exaltation, detriment and fall.
| Sign | Its Major Arcana card | Ruled by (old scheme) |
|---|---|---|
| Aries | The Emperor | Mars |
| Taurus | The Hierophant | Venus |
| Gemini | The Lovers | Mercury |
| Cancer | The Chariot | The Moon |
| Leo | Strength | The Sun |
| Virgo | The Hermit | Mercury |
| Libra | Justice | Venus |
| Scorpio | Death | Mars |
| Sagittarius | Temperance | Jupiter |
| Capricorn | The Devil | Saturn |
| Aquarius | The Star | Saturn |
| Pisces | The Moon | Jupiter |
The numbered cards from two to ten each rule ten degrees of the zodiac, called a decan, with a planet in a sign: the Two of Wands is Mars in Aries. In every suit the twos, threes and fours fall in its cardinal sign, the fives, sixes and sevens in its fixed sign, and the eights, nines and tens in its mutable sign. Aces carry no sign at all, since each is the root of its element, and the court cards add a second element by rank: Pages earth, Knights fire, Queens water, Kings air. The Golden Dawn also gave the Knights, Queens and Kings a span across the end of one sign and the start of the next; the reading here works from their two elements instead.
3. The pace: cardinal, fixed or mutable
Each sign has a modality. Cardinal signs open a season and are read as starters, fixed signs hold its middle and are read as keepers, mutable signs close it and are read as adapters. When the card has a sign of its own, the page sets its modality against theirs, which says whether the card asks them to begin, to hold on, or to bend.
What is kept, and for how long
No names are saved. The first names travel only inside the link, so anyone who has the link can see them, and like any web address the link can show up in routine server logs. A page whose link carries a name loads none of the site's outside analytics, advertising or chat tools, so they never see it, and the next page you open is not told that address.
To stop abuse, we keep a one-way code made from your network address, with the time of each pull, for about 8 days, then delete it. A form sent faster than a person could fill it in is treated as automated: nothing typed in it is kept, only a note in our spam log with the same kind of code. We count that a card was pulled, opened, shared or pulled back, and which card it was, with no names and no addresses attached. The preview picture is made from the card and the sign alone.
There is nothing to switch off and nothing to delete: if you change your mind, do not send the link. A card page works for as long as the site does, because it is made from the link itself.
What a card can and cannot do
Tarot is read here as a tradition for reflection. A card pulled at random by a website cannot know anyone's life, say what they feel, or tell what will happen. It can give a friend something to think about, and the two of you something to talk about.
Want a card for yourself?
A free three card reading is one click away, with every card explained. If you would like a reading of your own, there is the One-Card Tarot Reading. One card drawn and read for your question, delivered same day.
Free: three cards for my question See the One-Card Tarot Reading
Questions people ask
Is Pass the Card free?
Yes. Choose their sign, add first names if you like, and you get a link to send. There is no sign-up, and nobody pays anything to send a card or to open one.
Do you keep the names I type?
No. The first names go into the link you send and nowhere else. They are not saved in our database or our visit counts, a page whose link carries a name loads none of the site's outside analytics, advertising or chat tools, and the picture that shows in a link preview never carries a name. We count only that a card was pulled and which one.
How is the card chosen?
At random from all 78 cards: the 22 cards of the Major Arcana and the 56 cards of the four suits, each equally likely. One pull, with no reshuffling for a nicer card.
Why is the card always upright?
Many tarot readers do not read reversals at all, and this page follows them: every card is read upright, for what it offers. Every card page on this site also explains the reversed meaning, if you want it.
How is the card read for their sign?
Through three old correspondences: the card's element against the sign's element (the Golden Dawn's elemental dignities), the card's astrological attribution against the sign and its ruling planet, and the sign's modality, cardinal, fixed or mutable.
What is the tarot card for my zodiac sign?
In the Golden Dawn system most modern decks follow: Aries, The Emperor; Taurus, The Hierophant; Gemini, The Lovers; Cancer, The Chariot; Leo, Strength; Virgo, The Hermit; Libra, Justice; Scorpio, Death; Sagittarius, Temperance; Capricorn, The Devil; Aquarius, The Star; Pisces, The Moon.
Can a card tell what my friend feels or what will happen?
No. A card pulled by a website is a prompt for reflection and conversation, read through tradition. It cannot read anyone's mind, and it does not predict events.