decks

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 18 Feb 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

mtark	18 Feb 2002
I am new at this and was looking for some good suggestions for starting out with a deck, like which one? Hope someone can give me some good input. Thanks.

jade	18 Feb 2002
welcome to the forum. morgan greer is a wonderful starter deck that will work with you for years. in light, jade

jmd	19 Feb 2002
I suggest you look through the numerous decks depicted on Aeclectic. If you look through past discussions, you'll see a range of suggestions. If you desire a solid traditional deck, I yet again can only suggest that you take a close look at the Tarot of Marseilles.

Liliana	19 Feb 2002
Tarot of Marseilles, while traditional, may be a bit hard for a begginer, since it has no scenes on the minors, many people suggest getting a Rider waite deck, or a copy of it (lots of decks are done in the Rider Waite style, World Spirit for example). Most books written use this deck for the symbols they talk about. If you want the Rider Waite itself I recommend getting the Universal Waite, the coloring is much nicer, or if you want something a bit wild, look at the Diamond Tarot. Second place for the most nummber of books is Thoth, if youdont like it their are derivitives of it such as Cosmic Tribe, andaself published deck called the Book of Chaos has Thoth like majors but Rider Waite minors. (If interested I'll post the URL) Moat importantly you should get a deck YOU like, with artwork you understand and like to look at. Tarot should be fun, if you look at your deck and really dislike it how are you going to have fun let alone learn anything?

Jewel	19 Feb 2002
Greetings Mtark, Before making any concrete suggestions it would be helpful to know little bit more of your experience and perhaps general preferences: - Do you (or have you) ever owned a Tarot deck? if yes, which one? - Are you familiar with suit and element correspondences? do you have a preference? - Do you like bright art or light soft colors, or black & white? Do you prefer collages or drawn/painted art? There are many decks out there to choose from. I would recommend you browse through the Tarot deck section and take a peek at the decks that are suggested to you, it will help us know what to recommend to you. Without knowing anything about your preferences, I would presonally vote for the Raider Waite or one of its clones as a lot of the literature out there uses this deck as a model and there are lots of good looking clones of this deck. The Robin Wood is one I found real easy and really like. The Thoth deck is beautiful and very deep. I am not really sure I would recommend this deck to someone starting out, but I have known several people that started with it and have (and continue) to love it very much. I do however highly recommend the Cosmic Tribe, which is based on the Thoth deck. But if you are sensitive to nudity you will not like this deck as most of the cards have nude figures. What is interesting though is that the nudity is not used in a sexual manner, but is used to enhance the meaning of the cards (hard to explain) ... Honestly I don't even view these as naked people any more, they are simply part of the general environment of the card. The Marseilles deck is a classical deck and many decks are also based on it. If you have knowledge regarding numerology and elemental correspondences, and do not have trouble with the minor arcana not having scenes on them this is a great deck. Personally I did not have much knowledge in the other areas so I needed the pictures when starting out. However, if you find a deck that you like more than any deck any of us recommend to you I promise you will receive plenty of help here at Aeclectic. Other suggestions: - Osho-Zen (non-traditional, but great! and easy to understand). - Medieval Scampini - New Palladini - Hanson-Roberts - Mythic Tarot Hope this helps you! May your journey be full of joy and wonder ...

-=zind=-	25 Feb 2002
I agree with whoever said it would be a good idea to search through the different decks on aeclectic before you decide which deck to buy. Some decks are supposedly more beginners decks than others, Rider white f.ex (this is the one most used in books on tarot), but I'm not sure I'll agree that some decks are easier to start with than others. The most important thing is to find a deck you're comfortable with and that is right for you. (though this may take some time,.. it took me over 7 years *sigh*) No matter what deck you choose, it's important that the images on the cards "talk to you", if they're easy to interpret it'll be a lot easier to learn (this is where I disagree with the beginners decks, mainly because I don't think Rider white is an easy deck to interpret). When you choose which deck you want, you can always ask your local bookstore if they can order it for you (or order it online of course) Another piece of advice I'd like to give (although I'm aware that this might not work for everyone, it did miracles for me.. and I wish someone would have given me this advice when I first started out); Sit down with the deck you bought and go through all the cards, one by one and see what you think they mean to you. Use some basic information you can find and mix it with your own intuition =) I don't know if that helped... Anyway, Good luck!

The decks thread was originally posted on 18 Feb 2002 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.