New Tarot Decks

Please pardon me if this is a topic that has been posed before. It's been a while since I've roamed a forum.

I have been reading for roundabouts of seven years. In all these seven years, I've used one deck. About two years ago I bought the Whimsical Tarot and I adore it for spreads concerning my writing, but it and I just never... clicked. At all.

My questions are - what are your experiences concerning different decks? Did you connect to your first one, or have to go through a number of them before you found one that was good for you? Do you accept that you're not "clicking" with a deck, or is there some way to force the sucker in to submission? Is it just a matter of how you approach it?

I love my beat up, raggedy deck, and always will, but I sort of want a new one, and I'd love to hear other people's experiences.

My starting point is; there is no one. We are too influenced in our deck buying by notions of monogomy in our relationships. There is an unconscious urge for The One in people, there is a constant urge for The One in deck buying. I think we have to get away from that and be realistic.

If someone loves tarot decks and was genuinely fascinated by the power of imagery, it is quite normal to want to explore lots of decks. And eventually hit upon a selection (five? ten? twenty?) to rotate for different moods. The problem is, this costs money and people generally don't like that bit. So they think that if they fall in love with The One, they'll solve two issues; that emotional craving for monogomy and that need to spend less!

I cannot imagine life with one deck. Just as I cannot imagine life with one person.

Since day one of my deck buying, I was always looking to what other decks had which the one in my hand didn't. It's natural I think. And I think if someone only liked one deck and only used one deck and didn't want to use another deck, they would find the forums here at Aeclectic very uninteresting. And I personally wouldn't find them very interesting to talk to one-to-one about tarot (not your case Intervention as you're already reaching out for more!).

Intervention said:

is there some way to force the sucker in to submission? Is it just a matter of how you approach it?

I love my beat up, raggedy deck, and always will

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Well, I don't think it's so much a case of forcing a deck into submission (poor deck!) as studying it to understand it more. We have study threads here, so you might want to see if there are any for the decks of your choice.

Beat up, raggedy old decks? The old faithful ones? Give me those anyday!

I spent a good many years first with the RWS, probably (gulp) 30 years, and then the Robin Wood and then the whole decks thing opened up for me. I think it is no bad thing to spend a year or so learning on one deck, but I am with Le Fanu on this. The range of imagery by different artists makes the cards come more alive. Well, reading itself does that too , but we are talking decks here.

Le Fanu said:

My starting point is; there is no one. We are too influenced in our deck buying by notions of monogomy in our relationships. There is an unconscious urge for The One in people, there is a constant urge for The One in deck buying. I think we have to get away from that and be realistic.

If someone loves tarot decks and was genuinely fascinated by the power of imagery, it is quite normal to want to explore lots of decks. And eventually hit upon a selection (five? ten? twenty?) to rotate for different moods. The problem is, this costs money and people generally don't like that bit. So they think that if they fall in love with The One, they'll solve two issues; that emotional craving for monogomy and that need to spend less!

I cannot imagine life with one deck. Just as I cannot imagine life with one person....

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Om and Amen to this -- Tarot is about the many faces of the One, and its truth comes from travelling many paths at once, while knowing the Unity that lies beneath. But how to see through Tarot like looking through a many-colored stained glass window for the light shining through is not an easy task. One can get lost (side-tracked) by all the diverse fragments of color and lose the big/underlying picture. Another final metaphor: Tarot is the many faces of God in Hinduism-- each face comes out of the One. But there is no one face.

I had several decks before I found decks that were significant to me. Then the buying really started.

Deck polygamy deepens me and makes me wiser.

With over 100 decks, I find that there is no ONE deck for me.

However I do have about half a dozen or so that I use most of the time. The rest are more for the art, style etc.

I pick usually pick particular deck, depending on my mood, And/or the personality of the reader.

For instance, I went to visit some very close friends, and brought/used three favorites.

Dierdre of Sorrows, as my friends are Irish, and this is an Irish made/based deck

Steele Wizard, which is my favorite for most readings


And Deviant Moon, cause I knew at least one of my friends would get this deck. And sure enough, I ended up gifting this one away cause she loved it... (I also had a backup at home).

My latest one is the Sideshow which is quite unique and perfect timing as I'm watching the movie freaks and the HBO series Carnivale!

I think limiting your self to kne deck is way to constricting, there are so many decks that are great due to the art, theme etc..... One deck for me would be like living on bread and water only...

Intervention said:

...Do you accept that you're not "clicking" with a deck, or is there some way to force the sucker in to submission? Is it just a matter of how you approach it?...

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I absolutely accept that I won't connect with every deck. If I love the artwork I'll generally keep it awhile to see if anything changes, but if nothing is connecting with me it goes in a corner or off to the trading forum. With so many lovely, powerful decks out there I just can't see trying to force myself to use any deck, regardless of how much other people might recommend them. I'd rather use my time in other ways.

For me, what "the one" meant was that I was looking for "the one" deck I'd be able to read every single card of right out of the box without having to study it. Foolish me! I didn't know back then that no such thing would happen, but that if I learned just one deck well (RWS), then I could read any deck.

If I find that I don't click with a deck these days, I either just trade it or else put it away to see if maybe I'll click with it later.

I did use a single deck for about 10 years until I decided to branch out and get some new decks. I like all the ones I currently have, although I find myself jumping around back and forth with them depending on what I want to do. Like if I want to do love readings, I'll gravitate toward a specific deck, if I need to do work/finances I'll tend to jump to another deck. But also some decks I want to keep them at home and not bring them around with me. For example, I don't bring my Lunatic deck anywhere because I want to keep it in good shape, but it keeps me from using those cards often because I'll use whatever deck I have on me at the time.