Card Meanings among different decks

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 02 Jun 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

TCarbonell	02 Jun 2003
I work with the Acquarian Tarot, which is very traditional, and it has made it easier for me to remember the meanings of the minor arcana, given that most books are based on the Rider definitions. I recent purchased the REnaissance Tarot because I loved the art work, but found that some cards have a different meaning than the traditional meaning. This confuses me. Why would this happen? Is there another tradition out there I'm unaware of? Although I appreciate the personal meaning one adds to the cards once you've been working with them for a while, personal associations, and such, I always thought that the 3 of Cups was the 3 of Cups no matter what deck was used. Am I wrong? Thanks for any help you guys can give me.

Diana	02 Jun 2003
When you say "traditional" meaning, this is a misconception in much of the anglo-saxon world, where for reasons which make me tear my hair out (luckily I have very thick hair so it is not too noticeable), people think that the Rider Waite deck is the original deck. Some people even think that Mr. Waite invented Tarot. The Aquarian and other such decks are clones of the Rider Waite deck. Tarot dates back hundreds and hundreds of years. The meanings that you call "traditional" are actually pretty modern. Mr. Waite was a member of the Golden Dawn secret society (you know, the kind of society where they wander around in long robes and such-like, chanting magical incantations) and he used the Tarot and re-designed it according to his esoteric beliefs. Yes, there are other traditions out there. Some modern Tarot designers even create their own tradition which has nothing to do with what you would recognise as Tarot. Lots of dilution going on. Choose your decks wisely.

Trogon	02 Jun 2003
Howdy TCarbonell, and welcome to Aeclectic Tarot! Well... you are right in your suspicion... there are numerous approaches and traditions associated with the Tarot. I ran into this same sort of dilemma some time back when I first began learning Tarot. I started trying to learn from a book which used the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck, however I was trying to use the Tarot of Marseilles. The traditions and many of the meanings are very different between these two decks and because of this I caused myself some confusion at first. I never did get the hang of the Tarot of Marseilles. I continued on using just the RWS Tarot for many years. Then in October of last year I purchased the Röhrig Tarot. I soon discovered that this Tarot deck was based on a yeat different tradition than the RWS or the Tarot of Marseilles. But this time, I was already pretty familiar with the RWS, so I had a personal knowledge base to work on. I began a comparitive study of the two decks - finding their similarities and differences. I have found this to be of great help to me with all the decks I now own (all of about 10). I guess what I'm getting at is, if you really like both decks... and if you feel like you can "connect" with both decks... then use both decks. Find the similarities, but embrace the differences as well. They may both work extremely well for you, even with the differences. I'm not certain which Renaissance Tarot it is that you have... was it this one; http://www.aeclectic.net/renaissance/index.html - published by US Games? I believe it is the more readily available one. Or is it thise one; http://www.aeclectic.net/renaissance2/index.html - published by Fireside? Just wondering... I hope my ramblings have been of some assistance...

Khatruman	02 Jun 2003
Yes, different tarot experts will have differing interpretations of the cards. I believe that is only natural if you look at the tarot as you look at any higher order literature or philosophy. Cut and dried interpretations involve lower level understanding. Teachers in the U.S. (don't know about in other countries) are taught early on about Bloom's Taxonomy, the levels of understanding and competence in understanding subject matter. The lowest rung is classified as simple knowledge, which is to define, identify, describe. Books of card meanings often work on this level, giving you "definitions" of the cards. Even moving up to the next level of understanding involves being able to contrast and extend the meaning of the subject. Getting up to higher levels will involve combining, integrating, modifying understanding. My point is that to fully understand a subject, one must look beyond thinking that it is simple memorization and spitting back of meaning. Even in defining a word, one must look at the context of that word and integrate it within that context to fully understand what that word means within the given context. Many people do not like keywords on cards, feeling that a keyword limits the meaning of the card. A well-chosen word can ring out many different meanings simultaneously. Take the simple word fall: it has at least 50 different definitions, from "descend" to "succumb to temptation" to "overthrown" to "a season of the year" to "a state of sin" to even a type of hairpiece. Read Shakespeare to see how a word can work on several levels at once. If tarot cards had a simple, compact, unchangeable meaning in every circumstance, then the message one would glean from them would be exactly the same: simple, compact, etc. It wouldn't, therefore, reflect life, which is very complex and ambiguous. It is helpful to look at different tarots and tarot experts and gather their meanings and see where they converge, as well as where the convergence is with your own intuit of the particular card. Though I will joke and jab about the dangers of tarotholicism, I have found that having multiple decks has given me more of a sense of the essence of the various cards, an essence that sometimes can be put into words, but sometimes can't be limited to them. It is a wonderful paradox, frustrating for the beginner, who wants to be able just to memorize meaning and spit them back, but joyous to the long time learner, in that a card is never fully "learned", one is always learning something new from it!

allibee	02 Jun 2003
Very well put, Khatruman Do you keep a tarot journal TCarbonell? I think most people find it becomes a necessity to keep one after a while of learning. There are so many decks, so many meanings, in so many books and on so many sites, it becomes the best way of keeping track of them all. And then you have a flash of insight during a reading or meditation, or you read someone elses epiphany and you add it to your journal. Sometime down the line you are doing a reading and you remember... vaguely.... that epiphany. You look it up in your journal and suddenly a whole reading comes together :O) Hi, by the way, Allison

TCarbonell	02 Jun 2003
Thanks to everyone for responding so quickly and thoroughly to my post! I totally love this site! I'm still getting the hang of it thought and I hope I'm responding correctly. I've always known that cut and dry meanings for the cards is more of a guide, and that intuition and personal experience is what gives depth to the reading. I started reading with a small deck called Gypsy Fortune Telling Cards, by U.S. Games. It started out as a game and then I started noticing that I was veering from the key words in the cards and that the symbols started taking on a different meaning for me. I started to do readings very accurately for other people. It was then that i became interested in learning the Tarot. I found the key words for Tarot helpful, and then got confused as I browsed different decks. I see now that the same card can have many 'dimensions' and that some artists/authors interpret them according to their own sense of the dimension of that card. EVerything suggested here from your guys has been very very helpful and makes me ever more interested in continuing this fascinating study. I love it.

allibee	02 Jun 2003
ah, another tarotoholic in the making, LOL :O) Do a search for a thread that included the phrase .... many shades of grey .... I think you'll find it's quite a long thread on a similar subject. A.

The Card Meanings among different decks thread was originally posted on 02 Jun 2003 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.