To those who read Tarot in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s...

After a recent resuscitation of a thread on the Morgan Greer, this 1990s Tarotist has got to thinking about what it was like being involved with tarot in decades past.

I already had my own taste of what it was like pre-sites-with-scans when buying decks, but at least I had a nice wide selection of decks when I was starting out. I know in decades past, people didn't.

What other things were different? Better? Improved-upon in the 90s and 2000s?

Please share your memories with me.

I'm interested in things like:

-- what was the "tarot world" or "the tarot community" like in your country or city? Much more intimate? More fragmented without the Internet? Were you an active part of that world/community, or were you disassociated from it, and why?

-- Were more or less people, relative to now, interested in arcane matters and metaphysical things? For instance, in the 60s in the West, there might have been more occult/metaphysical shops than we have now, yes?

-- Do you perceive a difference in how clients/querents approached tarot readings, as compared to now, and what was the difference?

-- did each decade, in your country or community, have its own flavor or theme as relates to tarot practice? For instance, in the US, the 80s were thought of as a more materialistic, self-centered time (this may or may not be true but that is public perception). Did that apply to tarot trends or practice in the 80s, and if so, how?

And anything else you might want to share.

Any by all means if we have members who were reading tarot in the 40s or 50s...please do share!

As one who bought their first tarot deck in the early 1980s, my reaction to all your questions is quite pitiful. The fact is, I didn't know anyone else who bought tarot decks or was even remotely interested in them.

I was very much alone and forging my way alone. The way to read tarot cards was to read Kaplan's Tarot Cards for Fortune telling (if you were into the 1JJ Swiss), his Tarot Classic (if you were into the Tarot Classic) or his guidebook to the Tarot of the Witches (if you were into the Fergus Hall). If you were into the RWS, you had A.E Waite to guide you.

The only book that really excited me was the newly published Encyclopaedia of Tarot, as I could drool over the images and dream of what I would buy next.

But I was pitifully alone. I never read for anyone else except the occasional friend who fancied being weird alongside me.

But what was wonderful is that every deck felt as if it had some element of fabulousness, some element of the superb. There was no hole-picking, no "Oh but there's one card I don't like. And the borders! And the ..." Any tarot deck seemed to be magical.

I also only remember one or two specifically taroty shops. The rest were bookshops with a small tarot selection. Whatever you found you pounced on. I have subsequently found out that some members here (gregory, 78th Fool) were frequenting the same shops but we never met. I felt very much alone. I wouldn't have known where to start to get in touch with others...

When I started around 1970, tarot in my area of the northeastern US was more or less riding on the coat-tails of the astrological explosion, which was going "gangbusters" riding the crest of the New Age bubble. All of the astrologers were gaga over Jungian psychological interpretation of chart factors, and those of us who were also into tarot thought we had to "port" that over to be "modern." The astrologers had their "Linda Goodman's Sun Signs" and their Parker's "Complete Astrology" to lure in the newbies, and we (those of us who weren't yet into the Golden Dawn system and the Book of Thoth) had Eden Gray's excellent primers as well as Waite's Pictorial Key and the RWS deck. The Tarot de Marseille was also available but I didn't know anyone who used it. Until the Aquarian and Motherpeace decks came along, those were the only decks I saw in general circulation. My wife (before I met her) also had Tarot of the Witches.

My brother and I taught astrology and tarot classes in the middle '70s, using the Thoth deck for the latter. We also ran what we characterized as a "metaphysical research center" for a short time. Most of the people I read for were those I met through my exposure to the astrological community. There were many more "New Age" shops, some of which were reformed (or "not so reformed") "head-shops" that sold metaphysical books and tarot cards, incense, paraphernalia, crystals, sandals, beads . . . you get the picture . Llewellyn and Weiser were the publishing powers of the day, with U.S. Games just on the horizon. I spent many happy hours in Weiser's York Beach, Maine warehouse store.

It seems now (unless I'm just nostalgic) that there was a good deal more openness and innocence among the groups I frequented. There was a good mix of older folks willing to mentor the younger ones, and all readings were face-to-face. Those are just about the only things I miss about the "Age of Aquarius" extravaganza that was already starting to stall when I left for the backwater of rural New Hampshire in 1979.

When I got here there were a couple of dedicated "occult/esoteric/metaphysical" bookstores still surviving in the nearby college towns but they are now long gone. I used to have to travel to central MA to find a store but that's gone now too. There was another experienced astrologer in town whom we connected with, but he shortly left and went back to NYC. I started into the Builders of the Adytum course material around that time, since there was no active community here, and got serious about my ceremonial magic studies. After a couple of years I slowly slipped into hibernation. Since I was isolated here during much of the '80s, '90s and "aughts," I can't really speak to what went on in the more urban areas of New England. I did maintain a National Council of Geocosmic Research membership with the Boston chapter for a few years and went back to Connecticut for astrological conferences occasionally, but that was it.

Fantastic replies so far; thank you both.

Le Fanu said:

But what was wonderful is that every deck felt as if it had some element of fabulousness, some element of the superb. There was no hole-picking, no "Oh but there's one card I don't like. And the borders! And the ..." Any tarot deck seemed to be magical

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This has the ring of truth to it. I can just imagine what it must have been like then to unwrap a Morgan Greer, a Rider Waite, a Thoth, a Tarot Classic, a Witches (Hall), and to see the as yet-undemystified images spill out of the box into one's hands and seem to emanate a certain quality of the arcane that most likely is no longer fully possible to experience in this globalized, highly commercial, everybody-and-their-cousin-has-created-a-niche-tarot-deck-and-blogged-about-it world.

Not complaining about the latter, mind. Just pointing out some of the invariable differences between the eras.

Barleywine said:

It seems now (unless I'm just nostalgic) that there was a good deal more openness and innocence among the groups I frequented. There was a good mix of older folks willing to mentor the younger ones, and all readings were face-to-face. Those are just about the only things I miss about the "Age of Aquarius" extravaganza that was already starting to stall when I left for the backwater of rural New Hampshire in 1979.

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This is precisely what I imagined the case to be.

Your whole post was just terrific, filled with fascinating details. What an interesting pair you and your brother were then but even moreso today, as holdovers from a time when a large swath of people were interested in the esoteric and what was beyond our ken.

I have a sense of our current times as being very technology and information-focused and thus incredibly mundane and, in the terms of Tarot, Pentacles-focused. Perhaps I am romanticizing the case, but it seems to me that the Woodstock generation, at least in English-speaking countries, were open to more "Major Arcana" type of ideas and forces possibly at work in the world. Now, I have no illusions that some of THEIR interest was itself a romanticization and mythologizing of "the arcane," that their infatuation with the metaphysical was, as you suggest, over-innocent and a bit Fool-ish.

But the interest was there all the same. I don't know that nearly as many people today are *visibly* interested in metaphysics and esoteric subjects.

Like Le Fanu, I bought my first deck in the early 80s. 83 to be exact.

I was living in Birmingham, which is the second biggest city in the UK, but still, buying a deck was not easy. Not many shops had them and those that did didn't have much choice. But I found me a Thoth!

I didn't know anyone else that did tarot or who owned a deck.

There was something far more magical about it than there is now. It was like a quest. Now it's just like ebay or something. You don't even have to leave the house.

And I valued that deck so much. It was special and it was precious. The whole thing was special in a way it isn't now.

Lillie said:

Like Le Fanu, I bought my first deck in the early 80s. 83 to be exact.

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I think that's exactly the year I bought mine. I was lucky when I think about it. I had a big city nearby (Manchester) which had about 3 bookshops which stocked them plus two taroty shops too. They didn't have New Age Shops/ Magical Shops/ etc etc then. These were shops that sold incense, silky scarves plus also stocked a decent selection of tarot decks.

But my local town had a very small bookshop run by an eccentric lady, an unmarried 70-odd year old woman who tested racing cars in her free time. She had a fantastic selection of tarot decks and it was always something she liked to have in stock. I used to see the Thoth there but it looked too daunting and serious for silly little teenage me. I later worked in this bookshop and got great staff discounts on all the tarot releases (that would have been around the time the Magickal, Prediction etc decks were released.) But even in 1982 (when I first saw them) or 1983, they had the Etteilla, the Spanish, Balbi, Royal Fez Moroccan, Lenormands, 1JJ Swiss, Hermetic etc in stock. Even when I worked in the shop, I don't really remember selling tarot decks to people, but we always had them in stock. I think I bought them all

But tarot was very much a solitary pastime. And like Lillie says, infinitely more magical than it feels today.

Le Fanu said:

But tarot was very much a solitary pastime. And like Lillie says, infinitely more magical than it feels today.

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Ok, well, I got my first deck in 1971, as a birthday gift, along with a copy of the Pictorial Key by Waite, which I faithfully consulted every time I did a reading, invariably a Celtic Cross because I hadn't the wit to do anything else. I read for myself and friends only. Honestly, it feels more magical now--now that I know how to use it. I mean the good decks, the "real" decks--not the toys.

Chiriku said:

-- what was the "tarot world" or "the tarot community" like in your country or city? Much more intimate? More fragmented without the Internet? Were you an active part of that world/community, or were you disassociated from it, and why?

Click to expand...

There was no community, as far as I was aware. It was difficult even to buy a staid old deck, with no new age or magical shops around, and with most conventional bookshops not carrying them. For a long while, because of the paucity of such things, I thought the tartan-backed RW was all there was, and your choice was imited to full-size or mini.

-- Were more or less people, relative to now, interested in arcane matters and metaphysical things? For instance, in the 60s in the West, there might have been more occult/metaphysical shops than we have now, yes?

Click to expand...

No. There would have been more music shops, perhaps, and certainly more pubs with beer gardens where bands were allowed to play (nowdays they are all packed to the rafters with poker machines and pub-music has largely died). It took me years and years and years of searching, from the middle seventies to the early eighties, to find any shops at all that sold alternative literature, and then it was only a conventional bookshop with one shelf of interesting books way back in the back of the shop. Community? Pah! It took me until the late 1980s to start to meet like-minded people in any numbers.

-- Do you perceive a difference in how clients/querents approached tarot readings, as compared to now, and what was the difference?

Click to expand...

No, not really. People then and now tended and tend to have readings only when something serious is on their mind; and then and now, they appreciate being taken seriously, treated with courtesy and having their concerns respected.

It's *much* easier to read publicly now - there are actually places where you can. There never used to be.

-- did each decade, in your country or community, have its own flavor or theme as relates to tarot practice? For instance, in the US, the 80s were thought of as a more materialistic, self-centered time (this may or may not be true but that is public perception). Did that apply to tarot trends or practice in the 80s, and if so, how?

Click to expand...

I can't speak for America, but the eighties was my decade of affluence, travel, mortgages etc. And it was when I started buying magical books (not so much Tarot decks, I really started buying those in the very late eighties or early nineties). It was an exciting, stimulating time because of the reading that was *just* starting to become possible, because I discovered that I wasn't straight and messed-up about sex but gay and not messed-up at all, and because I earned enough money to be able to travel widely and get exposed to places most people just don't. But it was a pretty barren time for Tarot.

In the nineties I bought more decks, and very occasionally you'd find a new-age shop that was prepared to have a reader. I quickly became just such a reader. I had a small child to support, so I was big on stability that decade. Tarot was my indulgence.

The last eleven or twelve years or so has been my decade or straitened circumstances, and my online relationships, which I started working on in 1989, became more crucial to me as I became more physically isolated.

Looking back, I've had a bloody good time all the way through.

Debra said:

Ok, well, I got my first deck in 1971, as a birthday gift, along with a copy of the Pictorial Key by Waite, which I faithfully consulted every time I did a reading, invariably a Celtic Cross because I hadn't the wit to do anything else. I read for myself and friends only. Honestly, it feels more magical now--now that I know how to use it. I mean the good decks, the "real" decks--not the toys.

Click to expand...

I think in the sense of the potential of tarot, it felt more magical. I suppose now knowing the history and when incredible readings pop up etc, it's magical, but holding decks in my hand all those years ago (it's me that's changed, nothing intrinsic to tarot I suspect) I felt something I have never recaptured since.

Le Fanu said:

I think in the sense of the potential of tarot, it felt more magical. I suppose now knowing the history and when incredible readings pop up etc, it's magical, but holding decks in my hand all those years ago (it's me that's changed, nothing intrinsic to tarot I suspect) I felt something I have never recaptured since.

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I don't know . . . I still get that old "tingle" when I find a new deck that really opens up new avenues of exploration while still honoring its roots in tradition (and I don't mean the tired RWS - or even Thoth - clones). And I think tarot has changed a bit, with much quicker "turn-over" of new decks and and the lightning-fast exchange of ideas on the internet. But it does resemble a "fast-food" culture. Perhaps we could reinvigorate it by hiring the out-of-work Ronald McDonald to be our "Pied Piper" into a new Golden Age of magical tarot "arch-eminence." He's certainly "Fool-ish" enough in a tawdry sort of way. Sorry. Two cups of coffee does that .

What I'd really enjoy is finding (or starting) a small RL group of like-minded spirits to exchange experiences and ideas with. But here in "Redneck Junction, USA," I don't hold much hope for that (and we have been looking off-and-on for decades).