How small would a deck have to get before you found it hard to read with?

I've occassionally left a card in the box in error.

Sometimes two or three or (once) four.

I never usually worry because I think that the rest of the deck will still deliver me the message using different cards. (Sometimes I look at the left out cards afterwards to see if they add anything but generally I've found out well after the event.)

How many cards though (I wonder) would you be happy with leaving out before you lost faith in the reading - assuming that you couldn't decide which ones to leave out? (I've read with 22 Major decks quite happily but by choice not accident.)

1/4 of the deck? 1/3? 1/2?

I wonder how much of that is to do with the way you think about the poor incomplete deck and how much to do with Tarot.

I personally wouldn't go farther than the majors. I get great readings using only the majors. I've yet to leave any cards in the box, but that's probably because I don't keep them in their boxes!

I've never read with a Majors-only deck, but if pressed to, I would. If I had lost/misplaced/forgotten any of the cards from the Minors, I would not be able to read with the deck as I would have a (dozen) brain cells missing.

I know I'm this way because of how I learned the Tarot, as a collective of 78 facets of one whole gem. I've watched too many 'oddball' cards wind up in 'important' positions, and be spot on, to try and read without all present.

Sinduction said:

I personally wouldn't go farther than the majors. I get great readings using only the majors. I've yet to leave any cards in the box, but that's probably because I don't keep them in their boxes!

Click to expand...

I've managed to leave a card out of my Fairytale before now too, and that's in a bag. Now that's a deck where several cards could be left out before I'd begin to think about it as each card is so rich in symbolism and meaning way beyond the card's boundaries.

For me it really depends on what cards were missing, I think. Hopeless romantic that I am, I couldn't bear to read with a deck missing the two o' cups for instance - how depressing!

But I was thinking about this question the other day - I was considering doing an experiment and taking out the minors from 6-10 to see how the deck compensated with the remaining minors.

I believe spread compensates for the missing cards. Personally, as a querent, I witnessed readers spreading with missing cards by error, even with duplicated ones (identical cards from different but same type decks). I also witnessed readers dropping cards by error while spreading, and then discarded them for further meditation (some readers believe dropping cards by accident is a message Tarot is giving them to meditate about some particular aspects of themselves).

22. I want the traditional 22 or some reasonable facsimile thereof. It's ok if Death = the close or transition or whatever. It's ok of the female pope is a high priestess and the last judgement is karma. As long as the basic 22 are there, I'll read.

Smallness.

I have a copy of the tiny Nova deck, once centimetre by two. The images are too small to tell apart, and hte cards far, far too small to shuffle or lay out. That's too small.

Too few cards, I can get by with a Majors-Only deck, but most of the Majors-only decks I've bought, I keep for meditation or just gloating over the artwork <smile>. that being said, I can and do read with them.

I get excellent readings on a full deck. And I get excellent readings on a full deck stripped down to the Majors, Courts and Aces, which somehow works better for me than a Majors-only.

I never worry if any of the minors are missing. A message can be given by any number of minors. But I would discount a reading if any of the Majors were left out.

I often do Majors-only readings, if I want to see the broad lines of a question. I'll then explore it further with full deck. It's tarot as architecture

im really quick to assume that something isn't working or isn't going to work right if its "off" at all, even just by the tiniest bit. Majors only I think I'm okay with because its a complete 22 card set. Theres nothing "wrong" about a majors-only deck. If one were missing, however, that'd be a different story. If a deck is meant to be 78 cards, it really needs to be all 78.

I was wondering today if it works in the opposite direction too. I did a reading this morning with my bohemian gothic silver and pulled the "dance macabre" card and, although I really wanted to think it was the coolest possible daily draw for halloween morning, I could just think, "ugh, a fake one". So while 77 is definitely too few, maybe 79 is too many?