Decks with personality?

This is something I was pondering today & I'm not sure if it's just an overactive imagination or if others have similar experiences.

I have 3 decks that I currently use with any consistency, The Unicorn Tarot, Tarot of the Cat People, & my newly arrived Favole. I used to also have a dragon deck, but we could never seem to get along, so I traded it to a friend of mine, who seemed to have an instant connection with the deck that I lacked. But I digress.

I have noticed that my decks tend to have thier own personalities. When I used to use my dragon tarot, it seemed to deliver a lot of bad news, & even the good news seemed to have a bitter edge to it. My unicorn tarot, which I would usually expect to sugar-coat things, tends to be very straight-forward, no nonsense. Ask a question, get a straight answer, & it pulls no punches. My Tarot of the Cat People seems to prefer to dance around the question & make me work for my answers. Sometimes it tends to give me answers to questions not even being asked. It's a very evasive & independant deck.
My Favole, which I would expect to be dark & moody, actually tends to be very playful & witty, with a very dark sense of humor. For example, after reading the thread from JustLearningTarot about how he asked a deck why he was so attracted to it & got the world card, I grabbed my Favole & asked the same question. The response? The world card. I had to laugh at that. So I shuffled again & asked Why am I REALLY so attracted to you? And this time I got my favorite card, the King of Masks. Quite mischievious for such a dark deck.

And I can't help but wonder, with my cards always acting differently than I would expect of them, do decks really have thier own personalities or is it just me animating the inanimate & superimposing emotions on them? Does anyone else ever have similar experiences?

To a certain extent we react to the art. That is one reason why I often tend to reach for the RWS, because I don't get so overtly drawn in my the art and read more to the Tarot meanings.

I have gradually come to see what you describe as projecting into the deck. The art acts as hooks for your unconscious and your mind is pulled one way or another by it. That is fine but well to be consciously aware when reading.

My Favole is very melancholy and touches the heart of the issue. My BBC's have a tendency to be playful or downright serious. My Thoth refused to waste time or fool around. My Halloween is both playful and nostalgic. My Druidcraft is strong in spirituality and my Greenwood is many ancestral voices imparting their wisdom to me.

As for Froud's Faeries...they are always up to something!

From the art of the deck, I would expect much different reactions than what I get. As I said, I would expect a lot more fluff from my Unicorn deck than my Cat People. My unicorns tend to look very soft & gentle to me, like they would rather give wrong information than tell you something upsetting, but they tend to be very serious & cut right to the point with an animal's simplicity.
My Cat People, who look very rigid & serious to me, & look like people who would give you a straight answer if you asked them, & would possibly be looking down thier noses at you while they did it, tend to dance around the issue & it's harder to get a straight answer from them. I may as well flip a coin or grab a magic eight ball on some days.
And my Favole, my current love, has art that is very dark & solemn. The people are mostly subdued & there's a lot of blood. I wouldn't expect the light-hearted playfulness that accompanies this deck. It answers my questions, but in ways that amuse me. For example, I was once talking to a friend of mine & shuffling the cards when something told me to lift the top card. It was the Devil. Suddenly my friend goes off (as is her wants) on a random tangent about her rescent sexual adventures, some quite explicit. For the next 30 minutes I couldn't stop laughing & she thought it was because of her.

Hense why I wonder at the personality of the cards. It could be just me animating them, but it's so unlike the personalities I would consciously give these decks that I can't be sure.

For example, I was once talking to a friend of mine & shuffling the cards when something told me to lift the top card. It was the Devil. Suddenly my friend goes off (as is her wants) on a random tangent about her rescent sexual adventures, some quite explicit. For the next 30 minutes I couldn't stop laughing & she thought it was because of her.

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I saw this and just had to chuckle.

Did you explain it to her afterwards?

It could be just me animating them, but it's so unlike the personalities I would consciously give these decks that I can't be sure.

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I don't have a huge amount of tarot decks (yet.. I've only just been able to receive a job to get a few more), but the deck one of my friends gifted me definitely draws me -- let's just say that it feels like this deck wants me to do a reading from it a couple of times a day! (either that or I really enjoy this deck)

If I hadn't had received my first deck the way I had, I'd probably write off cards having personalities (them technically being small pieces of card stock with pretty pictures), but I think that for what we use them for adds something more to them; I'm not sure how to describe it, but it's similar to a haunted house, I suppose, in that they retain a little bit of the person who reads from them, and develop from that. They take a little bit of something, that is for certain!

Yep.

My Legend keeps throwing its direct answers like a monkey playing with knifes. As Im the one that actually gives the message, it doesnt repare in politeness!

The Druidcraft its a little more gentle and I dont get the answers so fast like with the Legend, perhaps I have been with L 10 years and the DF only a month. I have to think... look at the cards... and the ideas flow, soft, clear messages, but much softer than Lenged.

Finally, my Osho Zen. Telling what it wants. I shouldnt make questions with this one. Its like this deck reacts directly with the querent bypassing me! positional meanings? go home! It says what it wants about the querent and reveals things that no one is asking... openly.

I think every deck has a personality of their own. Yeah, some may argue that cards are just art on a piece of paper, but I feel that's not the case.

One of my favorite decks, a deck that I've replaced twice since getting my first, is Donaldson's Dragon Tarot. This deck's always had a bit of a sense of humor to it. Serious, but with a kind of sarcastic, fesecious and an "I told you so" attidude.

My (Green Box) Thoth has a bit of a "Get to the point" kind of attitude, while an older Thoth edition has a more "Meh" kind of personality.

My Crow's Magick has a personality like Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galexy. That whole "I can tell you, but you probably won't like it" kind of thing. After seeing the new version of the movie with Alan Rickman doing Marvin's voice, I hear it in my head when I'm reading with that deck.

Yeah, I have a Golden Tarot, that likes to "tell it like it is". No kidding! At first I thought it was the question that someone asked, but every single querant and question after....my deck has been brutally honest and very very straight forward. Not that its a bad thing, but it is really to the point and sometimes you need to be told in that way too in order for some to understand and maybe get a wake up call. I love the deck and it is so much fun to work with, it is only the Querants I worry about, if they are ready to hear what has to be said in response to their question.


Venessa

I find that to be true with the Golden too. Same with the Mythic, but that one's more brutal than the Golden.

Like you, I too have questions with weather or not my sitters are ready to hear what the cards have to say with these decks.

I'm someone who very wholeheartedly "preaches" about cards being inanimate and psychological, but I also COMPLETELY know what you mean.