a new member's question

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 14 Jul 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

viola	14 Jul 2002
hi, i'm new here and don't know tarot very well. Someone told me that people can get many decks. But only one could be useing in tarot reading. But here say person could use more deck in reading.And this will help u. I'm confusing now. And if i have several decks, how can i keep them?

the hermit	14 Jul 2002
viola: That's a good question and an often confusing issue for beginners. Many of us in the world of Tarot (and here at Aeclectic) have lots of decks. I have over 20 myself. Some have a few decks and some only have one. Some of us collect them for the interesting artwork (like me), some of us use more than one deck for reading (like me) and some of us only use one deck for everything, even when they have more than one deck in their collection. I use several decks for readings and one deck specifically for meditation and study. I feel that using several decks gives me and my querents a choice of deck to fit their personality or the occasion. Some like the Robin Wood deck I use because of the pagan aspect of the artwork. Some, including myself, like the Universal Waite deck I have because of it’s traditional artwork. Some prefer the slightly different, but still more or less traditional, artwork of my Morgan-Greer deck. This all works for me. Others may have different reasons and ideas as to why they use multiple decks. But the main thing is that it works for us and that is MOST important. The one piece of advice that I give to all beginners is to find what works for THEM. It’s good to read books and ask questions. But it’s also good to listen to your own feelings concerning the use of Tarot. What works best for you is what’s important! Almost forgot... how do I keep my decks? If you mean how do I take care of all of them, I have silk clothes for each of them. I wrap them up in the silk and keep them in one of several boxes I have. I have a big wooden box (kind of a Tarot chest) that I made to store the majority of my deck collection. I also have a smaller wooden box that was a special gift from a friend in which I keep the decks I am currently using for readings and study. Hope this helps to answer your question.

HudsonGray	14 Jul 2002
I keep mine in the boxes they came in, but I've got a spread cloth for the table, it keeps the cards cleaner. I don't know if anyone said, but no matter how many decks you have, you would only be using ONE deck to do a reading with. The trick is to look over all the decks & ask 'which will work best for this reading' then taking that one & shuffling & do the layout.

Jenny-Li	15 Jul 2002
There are very few rules in Tarot, although as a beginner it's so easy to hear nothing but rules. There are tons of books, websites, people to tell you EXACTLY what you can and cannot do when dealing with Tarot. In fact YOU make up most of your own rules. I'm telling you this because I came very close to giving up on Tarot altogether when I kept stumbling on routines, rituals and rules that just didn't work for me, and they all made me think "this isn't for me". Well, that isn't so. Think of your Tarot deck as a friend, one who knows a lot and can help you out with all sorts of questions that you find confusing. You need to be friendly with your deck, otherwise it's not going to want to stay friends with you anymore. But what kind of friendship you form, it's all up to you and your deck. Many people do a "New-deck-reading" when getting acquainted with a new deck, I'm sure the most common questions to ask is in the Your Readings section somewhere, I've used this version: 1) What challenges do you have in store for me? 2) What will you be able to teach me? 3) What will our relation be like? You could try this, and find out what your deck has to say about your relation/friendship! As to having several decks - oh certainly, if you want more than one. As you form different relations with different decks you might want different decks for different types of readings. You might want one deck that is ONLY for self readings, and an other deck for reading for other with. You may buy several decks and still find yourself reading with just one of them. As HudsonGray said, you usually choose ONE deck for a specific reading, and that is a good point. In my opinion though, this doesn't need to be entirely so either; I have a friend who does a reading with her usual deck, and then she pulls one card from the Osho Zen deck (this is a deck with a strong "Zen-flavour", with each card representing a kind of Zen-insight) for further clarity and deeper insight on how to spiritually deal with the events described in the reading. This works very well. I myself sometimes like to, after a reading is finished, go back and lay all the cards out with a different deck, in this case it is for study, but it can be very insightful, and there's no rule against that either. I think you should just not be afraid to delve into it and see where you'll end up. I don't think you can go wrong, and here at Aeclectic there will always be friendly people to help out if you should ever feel lost! Good luck! Light and love, Jenny :)

viola	15 Jul 2002
oh! thank u very much! i'm now realize. I can have my own way to do the reading. And different decks can be used in different side. No matter how many u have.

jema	15 Jul 2002
i think you might be refering to those of us that often do what we call "comparative readings" in which we use more then one deck at a time. we do the reading as such with only one deck - then we pick out the equalent cards from another deck and place those above the first ones to see if the picture gets clearer, what additional knowledge might be gained, what symbols can help the interpretation etc. i do this most often with the Gill deck as a sort of "mentor" deck above the current reading deck. let's say i got a new deck and i want to try it out in a reading, i shuffle and do the spread with the new deck - then i take the same cards from the Gill and place just over the original cards. 5 coins for 5 coins and so on... this can help me to understand the situation better. the Gill has a very special "mood" and speaks very well to me and in combination with a more "restless" and new deck i find i get just the help i need to make sense out of a difficult reading.

divinerguy	19 Jul 2002
I have a simple rule. In matters of Tarot and love, follow your heart and you'll never go wrong.

The a new member's question thread was originally posted on 14 Jul 2002 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.