View Full Version : Interpreting the Marseilles Deck
Daimon link
24-07-2006, 08:54
I've had the Marseilles deck for a short while now, and I really like the cards, even though they aren't as detailed as say the Rider-Waite. However, at least in terms of the pips, I feel as though I cannot read without a book. I don't want to change decks, as I feel like this deck found its way to me and that makes it in some way special, but at the same time there is nothing I can work with in terms of the pips in order to do intuitive readings. Of course, I can try and memorize the meanings of the cards, but I don't want to just become a machine. Anyone have any tips to offer?
There are many methods for interpreting the pips in decks and you will likely find the one that suits you at some point. You say there is nothing you can work with but you just need to look more carefully at them. Look at the arrangement of the suit implements are they symmetrical or in a pattern which may mean something to you, the foliage and whether it's in bud or wilting etc.
Firstly I use my own views on what I notice then I use very basic numerology, I consider the element and also sometimes link the card back to it's Major of the same number. Sometimes I use all of this and sometimes just go with what first strikes me when I look at the card.
There are many threads here about the Marseilles pips and although I recommend reading them I still think it's important to find your own method.
If you look in the Marseilles forum at the Table of Contents (http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=31857) you will find threads called 'How may it be read' which I think are very useful, and please add your own take.
Also you will find many threads regarding how to read the pips.
Daimon link
24-07-2006, 09:17
The problem I am having lies in the picture directly. Firstly, I don't know numerology, so I cannot simply rely on that. Secondly, I can take a look at a card and notice the flowers are budding, wilting, what have you, but that does not tell me anything at all other than a basic positive/negative. I may be making this more difficult than it really should be, but I'm not seeing anything in the pips. Also, I've read the Marseilles section on how to read the pips, and there was really nothing in there. The best thing that someone said was to switch the pips with another easier to read deck, but I refuse to do that.
EDIT:
Also, does anyone think it's wrong that I'm using the book to help me with the meanings? I am a novice at Tarot (less than one month), and am far from having a good grasp of everything. I'm hoping to ween myself from the book at some point, but do any of you think that it is bad?
There's nothing in the Marseilles forum!!? It sounds to me as though you are being negative before you start.
Daimon link, whichever deck you use you will need to 'work' with and put some effort into learning and practicing. This goes for any Tarot deck, it's not a case of this card means this and that card means that. Tarot is about opening yourself up to the image in front of you and using some imagination and intuition... work with them. Look at them daily, lay them out side by side and see the progression from one card to the next. What changes from the 2 of Swords to the 3, then to the 4 etc. It's not a case of there is just one more sword added you have to look deeper than that.
A budding flower may mean the beginning of something or that immense effort is needed to show full potential. A a wilting one may mean that something is coming to an end and had it's time.
Tarot isn't a memory game it's a visual storybook.
Just seen your edit. I am surprised that you have managed to find a book to help you with a Marseilles deck, unless you read French. If you are using RWS meanings with a Marseilles deck then you are making this quite hard work.
Daimon link
24-07-2006, 10:03
There's nothing in the Marseilles forum!!? It sounds to me as though you are being negative before you start.
Daimon link, whichever deck you use you will need to 'work' with and put some effort into learning and practicing. This goes for any Tarot deck, it's not a case of this card means this and that card means that. Tarot is about opening yourself up to the image in front of you and using some imagination and intuition... work with them. Look at them daily, lay them out side by side and see the progression from one card to the next. What changes from the 2 of Swords to the 3, then to the 4 etc. It's not a case of there is just one more sword added you have to look deeper than that.
A budding flower may mean the beginning of something or that immense effort is needed to show full potential. A a wilting one may mean that something is coming to an end and had it's time.
Tarot isn't a memory game it's a visual storybook.
Just seen your edit. I am surprised that you have managed to find a book to help you with a Marseilles deck, unless you read French. If you are using RWS meanings with a Marseilles deck then you are making this quite hard work.
No, there really is nothing in the Marseilles forum. The content does not apply or help me in my personal situation, and therefore there is no help for me there. I never expected the intepretations to jump out at me, and I have and will continue to work and try to be able to find ways of intrepreting these cards, but I am making little progress. Also, yes, a budding flower can mean this or that, but I am not about applying any old meaning. To do that is to not read Tarot, but to be a false reader. I know when a meaning is real, seeing as this occurs to me when I read Major Arcana: When I pull a card from the trumps, even if I do not know it's full meaning, I will get a very strong feeling. That feeling helps me to derive a meaning. However, when I look at the pips, I get no such feeling. I'm not going to look that the flowers and start guessing or coming up with a million possible meanings just to satisfy myself.
Granted, you may view this outlook as negative, but it is not so. My outlook is based on my intuition, and I have none with the pips. Also, I never suggested that Tarot is memorization, so please don't think that is what I am implying.
Also, I am not using RWS meanings with my book. Actually, the Marseilles deck I received was bundled with a book to use specifically for the Marseilles and for a beginner period.
Northwind
24-07-2006, 10:23
No, there really is nothing in the Marseilles forum. The content does not apply or help me in my personal situation, and therefore there is no help for me there. I never expected the intepretations to jump out at me, and I have and will continue to work and try to be able to find ways of intrepreting these cards, but I am making little progress. Also, yes, a budding flower can mean this or that, but I am not about applying any old meaning. To do that is to not read Tarot, but to be a false reader. I know when a meaning is real, seeing as this occurs to me when I read Major Arcana: When I pull a card from the trumps, even if I do not know it's full meaning, I will get a very strong feeling. That feeling helps me to derive a meaning. However, when I look at the pips, I get no such feeling. I'm not going to look that the flowers and start guessing or coming up with a million possible meanings just to satisfy myself.
Granted, you may view this outlook as negative, but it is not so. My outlook is based on my intuition, and I have none with the pips. Also, I never suggested that Tarot is memorization, so please don't think that is what I am implying.
Also, I am not using RWS meanings with my book. Actually, the Marseilles deck I received was bundled with a book to use specifically for the Marseilles and for a beginner period.
What book is it, Daimon link? Lee Burston has written a book companion to the recently released LS Universal Marseille and that would be worth getting.
Many Europeans read only with the Marseille Majors. If that is what suits you, do that.
Knowing the suits and their corresponding elements is fairly essential to understandint the Marseille pips. Knowing some basic numerology is necessary too. This basic knowledge is a foundation. Your intuition needs a foundation.
Also, I've read the Marseilles section on how to read the pips, and there was really nothing in there.
that is verry funny LOL..
check again and you'll see a LOT of info about how to read marseille on the forum, JMD in particular wrote many good way of interpretating the pips but theres is MUCH more.
maybe you have problem to structure the information you acquire from the forum or i don't know but THERE IS so many stuff here ;-)
Have fun
Omeada
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Daimon_link is looking for allegories in the pips.
In other words, in the Atouts we have not only images that depict certain concepts, but that also have a wealth of symbolic and allegorical content from centuries of occidental development.
And to be fair, this is simply just not the case with regards to the pips: they do not derive from allegories at all.
Rather, their 'meaning' is derived from the suit in question, the relation of its number, and its decorations. So the first step, I would suggest, is to have a careful look at the suit and actually get some tools as depicted.
Hold a Sword and feel its force; hold a Cup, reflect on its usage; actually get an old coin, and meditate on it; from a forest, get a branch and behold it.
That is the basis of the suits, in my view, and without actually connecting to the implements, the depictions are distant and to some extant meaningless.
As to the numbers depicted on a card, consider (after doing the above) what two, three, ....etc to ten of the suit actually reflect instead of just one. For example, what is the difference between having ten cups on a table as opposed to one (and what happens to that single bottle of wine???); what is it like laying together ten swords instead of one (and who wields them?); what of Coins? and Batons?
Once these are held and slowly reflected on, the depiction on the cards also add more: those floral arrangements! What do these bring to the overall sense of the cups, the coins, the batons, and the swords?
Certainly, there are not the allegories that the Atouts present, but neither are the Atouts able to be understood in a manner described for the four other suits. They each have their particular manner of being further understood, in my view.
Hi Daimon link, welcome to Aeclectic!
I think it's great that you're asking questions. That's the best way to learn, to ask questions and think about the various answers and see which may be valuable to you.
There are no specific messages encoded into the Marseille minors. If you want to derive meaning from them, there are a limited number of possibilities.
You could combine suit and numerological meanings
You could substitute meanings based on an scenic-minors deck like the Rider-Waite
You could memorize fortune-telling-type meanings for each card
You could study the images and see what they suggest to you
I suggest that in fact you have two options:
1) forget about reading Marseille decks and stick with scenic-pip decks.
or
2) the tarot can mean many things, but I think one essential message in the tarot is the value of flexibility and change. Perhaps your thinking is too rigid. Why not go back to those threads in the Marseille forum and read them again, this time with a more open attitude? Instead of deciding in advance what's true and what's false, you might experiment with some of the methods there and see what works for you or what doesn't. That way your opinions will be based on experience rather than preconceived notions.
I too am curious which book you're reading which came packaged with a Marseille deck. Perhaps it's just a little white booklet and not an actual book? My book for the Universal Marseille isn't available yet, I think it's being published in September and won't be available in the U.S. until next year.
-- Lee
Personally, I find my posts being 'dismissed' a muse-ing, and also a sign that perhaps I have also failed to address something of significance.
For those of us that have read and used Tarot for decades, there is, on the one hand, a wealth of specific experience to draw from, but there may also be described (along with Lonergan) as oversight: a 'flight from understanding' from accustomed ways of thinking and viewing things.
Not having an insight into the pips does not mean that one is to accept the views of others if they just seem somewhat off the mark. On the contrary, at times it requires a fresh look, or keen newer eyes, to unmask the layers that hide in plain sight our own accustomed way of seeing things.
It's not so much, then, of not having a rigid attitude, but of becoming clearer as to why certain things presented just don't seem quite right:
perhaps, as a consequence, one's own perspective may change if one realises that why it did not seem quite right was the presumption that the pips ought to have a common or similar narrative to the Atouts;
on the other hand, one may discover anew insights not before presented, and as a consequence enable our perspective to change.
Kali Kitty
25-07-2006, 00:28
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=62683
You could try reading with majors only.. I have a great book called 'Jung and Tarot' by Sally Nichols, and she found the Marseilles pips unstimulating and chose not to use them. After some experimenting, I agree and only use the majors, court cards, and aces from the Marseilles, leaving out numbers 2-10. And she points out, any numerological values can be found in the major arcana. It works for me..
The only pack in English that I know of that contains a book with a Tarot de Marseille deck is 'The Tarot Set' by Thunder Bay press.
It comes with a book by Jane Lyle but the book is based on the RWS deck and has nothing to do with the Tarot de Marseille.
http://www.tarotpassages.com/TarotSet-mf.htm
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592231381/sr=8-1/qid=1153759149/ref=sr_1_1/103-0911838-0412621?ie=UTF8
...but at the same time there is nothing I can work with
in terms of the pips in order to do intuitive readings.I would recommend finding a spare table big enough
to lay out all the cards on, and let them talk to you.
The only pack in English that I know of that contains a book with a Tarot de Marseille deck is 'The Tarot Set' by Thunder Bay press.
It comes with a book by Jane Lyle but the book is based on the RWS deck and has nothing to do with the Tarot de Marseille.I see in another thread Daimon link has described the book he or she is using as being good for the Marseille or the Rider-Waite, so my guess is that this is indeed the Jane Lyle book, as Sulis suggests. If so, then, Daimon link, I'm not sure I understand why you would use this book, because it violates two of your stated preferences; it uses meanings from another deck, and it requires memorization.
-- Lee
Daimon link
25-07-2006, 14:35
The only pack in English that I know of that contains a book with a Tarot de Marseille deck is 'The Tarot Set' by Thunder Bay press.
It comes with a book by Jane Lyle but the book is based on the RWS deck and has nothing to do with the Tarot de Marseille.
http://www.tarotpassages.com/TarotSet-mf.htm
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592231381/sr=8-1/qid=1153759149/ref=sr_1_1/103-0911838-0412621?ie=UTF8
That is the book I have, and it isn't based on the RWS deck. It actually looks at both decks and provides insight for both. While all Tarot decks have differences, their basic meanings are still the same.
Daimon link
25-07-2006, 14:39
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Daimon_link is looking for allegories in the pips.
In other words, in the Atouts we have not only images that depict certain concepts, but that also have a wealth of symbolic and allegorical content from centuries of occidental development.
And to be fair, this is simply just not the case with regards to the pips: they do not derive from allegories at all.
Rather, their 'meaning' is derived from the suit in question, the relation of its number, and its decorations. So the first step, I would suggest, is to have a careful look at the suit and actually get some tools as depicted.
Hold a Sword and feel its force; hold a Cup, reflect on its usage; actually get an old coin, and meditate on it; from a forest, get a branch and behold it.
That is the basis of the suits, in my view, and without actually connecting to the implements, the depictions are distant and to some extant meaningless.
As to the numbers depicted on a card, consider (after doing the above) what two, three, ....etc to ten of the suit actually reflect instead of just one. For example, what is the difference between having ten cups on a table as opposed to one (and what happens to that single bottle of wine???); what is it like laying together ten swords instead of one (and who wields them?); what of Coins? and Batons?
Once these are held and slowly reflected on, the depiction on the cards also add more: those floral arrangements! What do these bring to the overall sense of the cups, the coins, the batons, and the swords?
Certainly, there are not the allegories that the Atouts present, but neither are the Atouts able to be understood in a manner described for the four other suits. They each have their particular manner of being further understood, in my view.
You hit the nail right on the head. I can't believe I missed this post while replying above.
Mind you, everyone here is forgetting that I am a NOVICE. I don't know anything about numerology, about the significance of the sword, cup, coin, and baton, and I am forced to work with intuition, the pictures (or lack of), and the book.
If you could suggest to me a place to start, such as a link to learning basic numerology, the significance of the suits, and possibly a few suggestions on things you think could potentially help me, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Daimon link,
Maybe the concept of intuition needs clarifying here.
To me, intuitive means looking at details and letting them talk to me, let them give me a message, help me with thought association that might give me a help with the reading.
So, and I have only recently ventured into doing this, if I look at a Marseilles card, the way the flower or the leaf (both only examples) and of course the cups, swords, bâtons and coins are represented gives me a clue on how to interpret the card.
Now to you, intuition might be something completely different. Nothing wrong with that! I just seem to notice that here lies the root of the misunderstanding - in how we conceive intuition.
By what I read between your lines, it sounds like a process:
- you want an interpretation first that sounds right to you
- so you can have that stored in your memory, consciously or not
- that then is able to spring up for you the instant you see the card
I may be wrong but this is what I got from your posts.
Now, you ask for help on this.
The Marseilles Forums are brimming with information, intuitive and factual, historical and numerological, information about the imagery and possible ways of interpreting them.
What is it exactly you need?
Daimon link I think you’re making the same mistake I was for a while and it’s going to restrict your intuitive growth. The mere exercise of looking at the images and guessing meanings of images is going to help build your intuition. The problem with Marseilles is the lack of imagery and to person with your style of reading (which I personally use to do myself) is that its alot harder for your intuition to guide you to the pic and give you meaning from the card so your not instantly going to be able to read with this deck unless you practise trying to find meaning in the smaller detail and expanding your view of tarot. Its also going to take time before your intuition tells you this is the message the cards are trying to give you before. When you can start imagining it your mind will expand and make space for the intuition to start coming to you and telling you this is what your suppose to read.
One of the key concepts you might be missing is imaginary exercise to build intuition. Plus Marseilles in my personal experience requires alot of intuition. I personally recommend you buy a oracle and read none of the book and just try making up the meanings off the pictures (its a long and painful process and is worse then learning it off a book) Before long when reading with it your going to find intuition is going to lead you to the small meanings off the little detail like the flower.
But the fact still remains you have to be able to imagine it first before it will happen so please play around with it and be open to this style of reading. So when you start guessing you’re going to start learning tarot.
goddesscarlie
25-07-2006, 18:21
You know what? In my opinion, it isn't guessing. It is using your intuition. But I guess yours and my interpretations of intuition are different. But, that is how I get my meanings of cards. I look at the cards, I see what is happening. I try to make a picture out of things. I look at the peoples expressions and think about what they are thinking. I look at the the wilting flower and I see the end of something, or the distruction of something, or something old... or even something completely different.
And to you this is guessing, but for me it is opening up my mind intuitively. And it works, for me and for the people i"m reading for. I've never had a bad reading.
You said - "Intuition means that when you first look at the cards, when you first feel them, set them out, etc., you get a feeling and mental understanding."
SO, you know your process. The thing you need to do now is practise! How else are you going to be able to do this, to be able to look at the cards and know what they mean to you? Practise. Read with the cards. DOn't be afraid of getting it wrong. Just do it. Perhaps record your readings so you can go back and learn from them in the future. Write down what thoughts enter your head.
You are also being a bit contradicting, but we all are. You said - "Without the basic guideline of the book (and don't tell me about the past, because instead of a book it was a mentor that taught the apprentice the meanings of the cards), there can't be that much of an intuitive reading now can there?"
There's your second answer. You believe in book learning. Read your books, read websites, even this website has a lot to offer if you look. Read about how other people interpret the cards. With a greater understanding of the cards from other people's perspectives you can build on your own meanings.
It really sounds a bit like you want to look at the cards and remember a set meaning. Sorry if I interpreted your writing wrong, but it just came across that way to me. That is fine, and I think it is a good starting point, and with practise you will be able to expand on your book known ideas.
Here is the table of contents for the Marseilles deck...
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=31857
there is HEEPS of information there. Scroll down to the 'how it may be read' threads for heeps of information on numerology etc.
As to what the suits etc actually mean, try this table of contents:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=14874
Scroll down to post four for the suits interpretations.
As for actually learning to read the cards, nothing beats practise, but here is another table of contents with threads about reading the cards:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=15119
I hope that gives you some jumping points. :) As others have said, you haven't chosen the easiest deck to learn with, but who cares! It's the deck that you have chosen, and I believe a connection to your deck is the most important thing. And, well, maybe it'll take more effort to learn, but you can do it! No need to get so frustrated! All you have to do is hunt around and you'll find the information.
goddesscarlie
25-07-2006, 18:25
More thoughts... you say that you don't know what a sword represents in regards to tarot... well, without knowing anything, forget the tarot, what does a sword mean to you? violence? control? Perhaps you can imagine a sword cutting through the air. What happens if you put two swords together? Is it now a fight, a conflict? Just some thoughts that could spark other thoughts in getting to know your cards. Book learnings are all well and good, but remember that intuition is what you think, what you 'know' somehow to be true. So, think about what you already know about the elements, as well as what you can learn. Hope that gives you more food for thought!
That is the book I have, and it isn't based on the RWS deck. It actually looks at both decks and provides insight for both. While all Tarot decks have differences, their basic meanings are still the same.
Hi Damon link,
I have the book, I've read it and it is my opinion (and the opinion of others who have read this book) that it should never have been marketed with a TdM because it is not a book written to go with the TdM.
And I have to disaggree with your comment that 'While all Tarot decks have differences, their basic meanings are still the same' - this is DEFINITELY not the case.
There are people giving you advice here who have been reading tarot for many, many years and yet you dismiss their advice without even appearing to give it much consideration.
I've replied to your other thread with a little bit of advice and I'll give it again here.
If you want to learn how to read the Tarot de Marsielle and not just learn how to parrot off book meanings, I suggest that you read and learn about the elements, Air, Fire, Earth, Water and Spirit and also read about the different meanings of the numbers. I also think that you should learn as much about the archetypes of the Major Arcana as you can.
Then learn how the numbers and elements interact with each other - that'll help you to find your own meanings for the TdM 'pip' cards.
Why do you want to learn to read tarot? What is drawing you to the art? Do you have a specific question you want answered ("will my girlfriend return?") that you are not seeing answered in the wilting flowers and crossing swords? Or are you approaching tarot reading with joy and anticipation, and the willingness to put in the time and effort it takes to get to know this ancient divination system?
You don't know numerology? Learn it. Find a book or a website on Medieval or Renaissance numerology. (BTW, I'm curious where you got this notion that only Marseille readers need and use numerology - you'd have trouble finding a half-way decent reader of RWS who didn't know the meaning of Fives or Aces). You can also link up the Minors to the Majors - e.g. the Aces to the Bateleur and the Wheel of Fortune; the Twos to the Papesse and Le Pendu. You don't know sacred geometry? Learn it. You don't know colour symbolism? Learn it. Each and everyone of us here who reads tarot - including the Marseille - learnt and are continuing to learn subjects like that, to give our readings freshness and depth.
We also take out our cards and compare them. We think about them. We spend hours looking at them. We find our own ways, in our own time. We don't start off by making a list of what we can't or won't do in order to learn. We don't try and squeeze out meaning like lemon juice. Meanings come naturally when you relax into your cards and let them guide you, and when you have the intellectual curiosity to explore what you don't know.
As for intuition - Simone said it very well. Details spark it off, including wilting flowers (of which there are many in this heat! :eek:). If you choose to call it guessing and dismiss it - then you are locking up your intuition, which would be a great shame. Many good readers here use just that method - looking at a card and letting the meaning flow to them from the details and their inner feelings. One reader on this forum whom I met had never read a Marseille Minor arcana before - yet she read for me very accurately, using nothing but the details on the cards.
Hold a Sword and feel its force; hold a Cup, reflect on its usage; actually get an old coin, and meditate on it; from a forest, get a branch and behold it.
That is the basis of the suits, in my view, and without actually connecting to the implements, the depictions are distant and to some extant meaningless.This is such good advice, jmd! Feel the weight and power of a sword, its cutting edge, its balance and flexibility. Hold it like Justice, or like the King of Swords. Feel yourself become sword - hard but flexible, quick but heavy, carefully crafted, an object of great beauty, a bringer of death, a dispenser of justice and honour. Hold a cup, pour into it, drink from it. Feel yourself become chalice, open, receptive, containing, nourishing. Play with a coin, flip it, pull it out of your pocket and exchange it for a newspaper at the corner shop. Feel yourself become coin - loose change in someone's pocket, humble but ever-present, trustworthy, a means of exchange, or falling through a hole in that person's pocket - an unexpected misfortune. Pick up a branch, a stick, and feel its vegetable nature, its dryness, whack it about and feel how quickly it moves and how energetic you feel with a stick in your hand, how lightly you walk. Feel the branch on the tree in spring, its sap rising, the whole energy of growth flowing up its length into the buds that grow off it. Become a staff and feel someone leaning on you or fighting with you, or feel yourself beating a drum or waved about in front of an orchestra or an altar, or rising before someone you fancy - and feel the sap coursing in you...
You can look at the implements now, and when the Marseille was created. What is a sword now? A museum piece, a piece of sporting equipment, a ceremonial tool. What was it then? A nobleman's honour, a knight's right hand, a sign of just law and retribution. In history, there were many great swords, and each have their mythology...
Feeling and learning about the implements is so enriching!
Beautifully written, thank you, Helvetica!
-- Lee
prudence
26-07-2006, 02:01
When I first began reading with a Marseilles deck, I checked out the Marseilles forum here, and felt similarly, i.e. that there was nothing helpful in the threads for me....But, while I am not an expert on the Marseilles and have only been using it for a short while, it only took a little time before I realized that the How it may be Read threads were very very helpful.
I had to work with my deck for a while, doing small readings, 1 or 3 cards only, writing them down, and then over time seeing what things meant for me, given the specific reading. Then, when I would go in and have a look around in the Marseilles forum, the information that had once seemed meaningless to me finally had meaning. Most especially the idea of letting the cards be flexible depending on the reading itself, not that one card can mean vastly different things at a given time, but the 9 batons in a reading about my husband has a specific meaning to me, because his soul/personality card is the Hermit, #9, and so I link that to him specifically. But if it comes up in a reading not about him, it is slightly different. (I hope this makes sense to you, as I do not know whether you have heard of soul/personality cards before, so I apologise if this reference is completely off the wall)
Aeclectic is very friendly, some of us have had some disputes usually due to misunderstandings and stuff, but we are a largely forgiving group of people, and have forgiven each other many times for heated exchanges....it would be a shame to leave over this, imo. There is so much to learn here, just being exposed to the way some of the members here read tarot is itself the most amazing education.
Just don't chuck that Marseilles deck, it is well worth the effort.
Moderator Note.
This thread was temporarily removed so that editing could take place of posts that were off topic.
Thanks for your understanding.
Moonbow* and Simone
PS, now moved to the Marseilles forum.