Learning Tarot-boy was it tough..let's share advise

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 25 Jul 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

cjtarot	25 Jul 2002
Hi all, Just read a thread on the deck I use not - The Sacred Circle- and was thinking about how I learned Tarot and how difficult it was for me to "Get It". SO I decided to start a thread...how did you learn the basics.. I started with trying to learn each card..no way..I have no memory. Then I got determined and bout the book "The Complete Illustrated Guide to Tarot" by Rachel Pollack. I learned each of the majors - read, quiz, read,quiz..not fun. Then the book goes onto teach the suites and what they mean. From their what each number means - put it together with a little "what do you see in the card" and you have it. ..much easier and the book is interesting to read. I actually made a cheat sheet with what I learned (along with a few tid bits I learned from the lwb's that came with my decks) From there I discovered learntarot.com where I found charts with key words on them - printed them and added them to my cheat sheets. It took a while for me to finally give up my cheat sheets - I still reffer to them now and then. How did you learn..any advise. PSS. Thirteen's thread on card meanings helped..wonderful to learn what others see and know. AGAIN THANKS THIRTEEN AND ALL WHO POSTED THERE Blessings, Cj

wavebreaker	25 Jul 2002
I ordered the Rider-Waite "with instructions". I didn't know at the time that the "instructions" was the LWB, and that most LWBs hardly contain any useful instructions ;). So there I was, with a tarot deck and no clue what to do with it... I started searching the internet and one of the first websites I found was Joan Bunning's website Learning the Tarot. I went through all the lessons and exercises and that was really helpful. I also started drawing daily cards to get to know the cards, and keeping a journal with my readings. I too still refer to Joan Bunning's card meanings every now and then, and to card meanings in others books (e.g. Rachel Pollack's 78 Degrees of Wisdom). But the more I use the cards, the less I need the books... ;)

Sam	25 Jul 2002
I just looked at the cards and thought what they meant to me. then i tried using the LWBs. (which actually helped me, suprise, suprise) just focus on one card at a time.

jema	25 Jul 2002
yes, it is hard work and it does take a long time to learn. just like with a new language. you don't learn a new language in three months either. i think one just have to accept that this will take time and energy and stick with it. my beginner tips are: * get a blank notebook with 1 page per card. go through the deck card by card and write your own keywords. this will take a few weeks. * get another bigger blank book and start taking a daily card. write the date, card, your own keywords, a short version on what the book says, draw it, write down what you see etc. keep both books going for a long time. read many books and be critical. ask questions and try to answer them in due time in your big book. intuition is great but ground it with some thourough knowledge on symbolism and traditional meanings too. the tarot has been around quite some time and it is great that we can learn from those before us. i still got the first little keyword book i wrote in the late 80:ies:) and i still use it! just this week i added a line to the empress card entry. and i still read books on tarot card meanings. one other tip is to do the comparative method. at least when you are getting a bit warmer. tke out two decks and compare the cards you get in a reading. i learnt a lot by working that way. and lastly it would be nice if more beginners had more fun with their cards. the deck won't be offended if one plays with it now and then:) (i hope - or i am in deep troubles)

squigglywiggly	25 Jul 2002
Get a nice beginner's deck with detailed art on each card. You can't have pip cards, you need good detailed art. Read the meaning of the card from the book or tutorial. Look at the detailed art on the card and make up a little story that integrates the meaning with the scene on the card. The story can be outrageous or funny or whatever but it has to contain elements of meaning, that's all there is to it. In fact, it's better if the story is outrageous or funny, because it will be easier to remember. This is a well known memory technique and it helps me memorize lots of things including my clients' tastes and Tarot card meanings and everything.

tigerlily	25 Jul 2002
I stumbled over Rachel Pollack's 78 Degrees in my local bookstore and had to buy it. Problem was, at that time nobody in my town had ever heard of tarot cards. You couldn't buy them anywhere (it didn't occur to me to oder them via the bookstore. After all, bookstores sell books not cards!). So there I was, with a book, but no cards. For almost two years. I read and re-read the book and soaked up the information without having a chance to lay out the cards. I even played with the thought of copying the pictures and making my own deck, but fortunately I discovered a Rider book-and-deck set in another bookstore. So by the time I laid out my first spread, I had the cards already memorized. I must have read that book a thousand times before. It's not a method I would recommend, but it's how I learned it.

Maan	25 Jul 2002
I got my firts tarot deck from my parents...it was the Norse tarot set wich has a great book! Thas how i got started. A few weeks later i got Mary Greers book from the library and wel the rest is history ;)

HOLMES	25 Jul 2002
EDEN GRAY she is what got me into the tarot. i picked up a used book of hers at my local used book store at the time in winnipeg. i read that book every day a couple of times .. thinking of this and that. and i got this book i just realized i got back then .. an old phychic book which corresponded the minors to the normal playing deck. so i was trying to read for a while there with ordinary playing cards until i got my first deck .. marselies or classic tart that was in the book store in dryden which my dad brought me ,, and he went and got me aquarian tarot as well which was my seond deck. anyhow the whole point is i learned the tarot book first before i got the deck. and the book went aces, tows, threes, courts, and such . and i got many tarot book sets. i am still a beginner having not studied any of the majors books. or concepts like the courts cards could respresent you. to me i was struggling with the tarot until i said OK THE MAJORS ARE SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES, MINORS EVENTS, COURTS ARE PEOPLE then i was trying to understand the minors.. and i went for the swords strife, cups love, pentacles money, wands social events. now the swords are mental, cups emotioan, pentacles pyshcial, wands spiriitual. but it was pointed out to me that is my mindset. I ADMIT all i used was the celtic cross as my main spread for 12 years.. :O)

mermaiden	25 Jul 2002
I'm beginning to really get into learning about tarot now (I already had a very generalized idea of what the mjaor arcanas mean because I have a deck w/just the 22 major arcanas) and I'm finding this thread very helpful so on behalf of any forum newbies that also might be reading this and finding it helpful, I want to thank you all! :)

Sorceress_Jade	25 Jul 2002
I tried going about it the same way as CJ. I thought that I had to know the meaning of each card before I would be able to read. I ended up not trying to learn them because it was so tedious and boring. One day my best friend came to visit and we pulled out are cards to chat about them and she got this shocked look on her face. She said theat my cards looked brand new and with how long I'd had them it was very obvious I didn't use them. She handed me her deck and told me to read for her. Of course I protested and said that I couldn't, and she was totally like the nike commercials and said 'just do it' so, fearing for my life, I read for her with a completely different deck then the one I'd been trying to learn. And the reading came out fine, the points were on and she had a lot to think about. So the next day I went and bought a deck, then I bought another, then another... this is still continueing. And I began to just read with them. Getting to know the cards in that way, intuitivley, has cause me now to begin to learn the classical definitions. I'm less concerned with what the cards are 'supposed' to mean, and more concerned with why each part of the imagery was put there and what they were 'intended' to mean. I feel that I can read in a general manner and the more I read the cards, the more I am motivated to read the literature and discuss the cards here, which makes me better able to read them. It's a learning cycle that begins with doing, and ends with learning.

Umbrae	25 Jul 2002
I started reading Tarot in 1972. It was the time when folks were starting to notice there was more to life than the pragmatic issues forced upon us by our parents “Go to school, get good grades, get a good job. Work forty hours a week for Forty years and retire on half of what you couldn’t live on while you were working.” …and hey, learning the Tarot was a great way to pick up girls. I struggled with the meanings in the LWB, and then I found that my own meanings were creeping into the readings; the readings became more accurate. The more I read the more accurate the readings became. Soon I was not getting very far with the girls because my readings were scaring the hell out of them, “How could you possibly know that!” So I read less frequently, talked about it far less, (scared fewer people), but never put the deck down. The seventies gave way to the eighties (my dog-eared RW didn’t get used too much in those days), and in the nineties, the deck started coming out more (but on the sly). I spent a lot of time in airports and planes in the late nineties, and I found that Runes traveled much better than the tired old deck. They spoke a different language, stronger-much clearer. The nineties also got me using a regular deck for divination. In 2001 I finally revealed to my wife of seventeen years about the part of me that she only had suspicions about. She knew that my sister and I often talk without words, she had watched me in casinos ‘do my thing’, but she really had no idea how ‘into’ the world of strange I was. So my old RW and Runes were turned to dust, and a thirty year old obsession came out full tilt boogie. Looking back, getting rid of the LWB, and allowing my own appreciation, love and meaning into the readings was what turned the corner for me. Listening to the cards speak…turning off the ‘knowing and thinking’ thought process… Once that happened, the ulterior motives, shifted. I was lead down a path far different from what I expected. I wish now, I had of received more guidance. I did receive some guidance in the early days, but not long enough to help me through the rough spots of discovery.

amyel	25 Jul 2002
The first I'd ever even heard of Tarot was when I was going through a really, really awful time in '85 or '86 and a friend got a neighbor who read tarot to do a reading for me. I'd always had an interest in the occult, but had never come across tarot. Anyway, this reading really got to me - I recall asking lots of questions and seemed to "clue in" fairly easily. Shortly after that, this friend bought me my first Tarot deck & book - The Mythic Tarot, which for me was a really rich way to learn the tarot, since I love Greek mythology. I studied and did self readings for a few years - it really never occured to me that I could do readings for anyone else, or maybe I just never had the self-cofidence to do so. It wasn't until the early '90's that I started to read for others, and that just pointed out how little I knew, to me, anyway....and that led to the buying binge of tarot books, and workbooks. I like diversity, so rather then confuse me, I found most books opened up a new aspect of tarot that I had not considered before. I don't really have a "method". I absorbed the different theories and such and have been able to incoprorate these into readings as required. One thing I find is that I am not afraid to open a book for reference while in the midst of a reading - even if it is for a friend. As I don;t read "professionally" and don't ask for money or anything in return, I don't feel obligated to have all the keywords memorized - although, I have memorized alot. Personally, I tend to be both very pictorial and very intuitive. I can not read with cards which have no imagery (I tried once), and sometimes when I do a reading, I have no idea where the words coming from my mouth are coming from.....but I am usually bang on, and I guess that's all the matters. Edited to include: I have also found that writing down my readings has helped. Sometimes a little distance is beneficial...especially when you look in hindsight at an old reading. One thing, though, that I'd advise if you do this: write down your question/thoughts/feelings when you did this reading, or otherwise you'll have this reading with no context to assist you later!

Sulis	26 Jul 2002
I started off with Joan Bunning`s course. I drew a card per day and learned her key words. When i first started doing this I printed off the appropriate page from her course but this soon turned into a rather large folder of paper which was quite difficult to flick through, so I bought the book which goes with the course. Once I had gone through the whole deck and had a basic grasp of all of the card meanings I started doing practice readings for myself and others (that`s where I`m up to now). I`m also using Mary Greer`s `Tarot for Yourself` now as I`d like to learn a more intuitive approach. It`s going great so far, I`m definately on the road to becoming a tarot-holic. Blessings Crystalmynx xx

catlin	26 Jul 2002
My first deck was a self-made one Majors-only I cut out from a women's mag in 1983 with just a few words given on 2 pages and a CC spread to get things started. I then picked the Banzhaf book about "Keywords" to the RW but this was of no great help to my Marseilles I bought in France so I switched to the RW which is still my "old faithful" but has to share its place with about 50 other decks LOL so maybe plain old RW may feel a bit pushed aside but hey, I take it everywhere with me (ok, together with Egorov, Legend and Witches). The rest is history. I got a complete new approach to tarot when I found on a sunny morning at work a wonderful tarot site which may be well known to all of you - guess which one!

MystiqueMoonlight	27 Jul 2002
I have always been able to read ppl by the touch of their hand. I wanted to use Tarot as it has been used in my family for a long time and I was interested in understanding more about it rather than just it's use as a divination tool. I struggled with many decks until the one best suited to me found me and I have not looked back. I don't read the LWB ever. The type of study about the cards I explore is more about history, uses, meditation and so on. I still don't always trust my intuition and so the cards give me something to lean on a little.

Sorceress_Jade	28 Jul 2002
what deck did you come out using mystique?

MystiqueMoonlight	28 Jul 2002
Quote: Originally posted by Sorceress_Jade what deck did you come out using mystique? I use the Visconti Gold tarot. We have really connected :)

Angeline	31 Jul 2002
It's so nice to see how others have done it....I am finding that joans book and the tarot for dummies are helping me....I am at the point of just going through the major's and letting myself go with the card and all its imagry untill i feel what the card is about....I then look in the books after. I find some cards give me a message quicker than others .....but i am really enjoying this way of learning and getting to know them. Angeline

Mojo	31 Jul 2002
Quote: Originally posted by squigglywiggly Get a nice beginner's deck with detailed art on each card. You can't have pip cards, you need good detailed art. Read the meaning of the card from the book or tutorial. Look at the detailed art on the card and make up a little story that integrates the meaning with the scene on the card. The story can be outrageous or funny or whatever but it has to contain elements of meaning, that's all there is to it. In fact, it's better if the story is outrageous or funny, because it will be easier to remember. This is a well known memory technique and it helps me memorize lots of things including my clients' tastes and Tarot card meanings and everything. Not only should you equate a story to each card (actually, I believe you should have several stories for each card), but you should make them very personal to you. Try to affix a personal memory to each card. Either someone in your life that it reminds you of (and make sure you detail why it reminds you of them) or even a celebrity or a fictional character from literature. Then when a card comes up in a reading, you can mentally say, "Aha! Uncle Ed!" and the rest of the reading becomes a piece of cake.

Minderwiz	31 Jul 2002
I came to Tarot through my interest in Astrology. My first deck was A. T. Mann's Astrological Tarot but I must admit I didn't find it something I could relate to and let it drop. Some years later i bought a copy of the Rider Waite Smith Tarot but again didn't really get into it, though I found it more 'user friendly' than the Mann deck. I was looking for a follow on course from my Astrology diploma when my Distance Learing provider offered a two for the price of one deal. I signed on for the Applied Astrology diploma but also decided that I would try a serious attempt at Tarot and also signed up for their Tarot course for free. I'm half way through and I'm making progress but by no means can I say that I have learned the Tarot, I'm not sure that it is something that can be learned in this sense - it is a lifetime of education. I now have several books, Mary K Greer's Tarot for Yourself and Tarot Reversals I find very useful, and Tony Louis' Tarot Plain and Simple is one of my other favourites along with Rachel Pollock's illustrated Tarot. I now also have the Thoth deck and am beginning to try it out in parallel with the Rider Waite Smith deck. Best wishes Minderwiz

The Learning Tarot-boy was it tough..let's share advise thread was originally posted on 25 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.