Marseilles style decks and reading
Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 13 Nov 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.
| mercenary30 |
13 Nov 2003 |
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I have 4 decks of this style, and due to a tarot study I am participating in, I am wondering.....
Do the old style decks read differently than say RWS or Thoth style? I am talking about meanings and how you look at them.
I find it difficult to do a live reading with Marseilles style decks because the Majors are not as symbolistic and the minors are pips. I can and will read for myself or someone else when I can go off and do the reading than present the story later. That way I can reference my notes and such.
BTW these are the 4 decks I was talking about...they all classify as Marseilles, right?
1JJ Swiss
Ancient Tarot of Marseilles
Visconti Tarot
Old English Tarot
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| Lee |
13 Nov 2003 |
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Hi mercenary30, of the decks you list, I would only call the Ancient Tarot of Marseilles a true Marseilles. I think generally a pretty good indicator that a deck is a true Marseilles is if it has the word "Marseilles" in the title. The 1JJ and Visconti decks have significant differences from the Marseilles, and these aren't just stylistic differences but major differences in what's depicted on the cards.
The Old English deck has majors which are certainly influenced by the Marseilles. The minors, unlike a true Marseilles, are illustrated with little scenes. If one wanted a modern deck with Marseilles-like majors and illustrated minors, the Old English may be as close as one could get.
The Marseilles majors lack the occult symbolism that we're used to from occult-inspired decks like the Rider-Waite-Smith or the Crowley Thoth, but they do have plenty of features that you can use for interpretation. Look for very basic things. Are the figures looking right or left (you might interpret that as towards the future or towards the past)? Are they standing or sitting (maybe active vs. passive)? Is there vegetation (potential for growth) or lack of vegetation (emotionally barren)? Are the figures clothed (civilized) or nude (humanity or spirit in its pure form)? Also, the faces are very expressive, although not attractive by contemporary standards.
As for the pips, they are challenging but also offer a certain freedom. You can decide for yourself how you want to read them, and different people do it in different ways. You can simply call to mind the standard Rider-Waite-Smith images/definitions. You could assign meanings to the numbers and the suits, and thus arrive at a meaning for, say, the 7 of Cups by combining a meaning for the number 7 with the meaning of the suit of Cups. With this system, you could determine on your own what meanings you want to assign the numbers Ace through 10, or you can research numerology in books or on the web to come up with meanings. You could assign cabbalistic meanings to the numbers (one number for each numbered sephira on the cabbalistic Tree of Life) or, if you're more comfortable with astrology, you could assign meanings to the numbers based on planets. You could also assign meanings to the numbers based on the correspondingly numbered majors. For example, the Aces would carry the same meaning as the Magician, Twos would carry the same meaning as the Popess (High Priestess), etc.
In this History forum there's a whole bunch of threads where the pip cards are interpreted according to the pictorial elements on the card (I can't read this way but I admire people who can).
Lots of possibilities! :)
-- Lee
edited to add: You also, by the way, have freedom in how you want to define the suits. You could, for example, use reversals, and define the upright suits as four separate things, and define the reversed suits as four completely different things, this giving you in effect eight individual suits (I got this idea from John Gilbert). Following the idea of using the majors to determine the meanings of the numbers, one could define upright pip cards Ace through 10 as corresponding to majors I through X, and then define the reversed pip cards Ace through 10 as corresponding to majors XI through XXI (Rusty Neon gave us this idea in a previous thread).
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| Moongold |
13 Nov 2003 |
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Or you could look at Tree of Life (Qabalistic) associations with any one of the above associations.
Edited to add: I missed this point in Lee's comments on first reading.
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| lunalafey |
13 Nov 2003 |
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indeed- a new question for myself in the study of tarot-
I do not have a Marseilles deck of any sort (then again the closet I come to a RWS is my New Vision deck)- collecting is a new thing to me- but it seems that I should probably have one- for if I don't.......Diana will have my head if I go near her forum!
The thing I'm curious about- how much different are the cards meaning- particularly the Majors.....compared to other style/system decks.
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| Lee |
13 Nov 2003 |
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Originally posted by lunalafey
The thing I'm curious about- how much different are the cards meaning- particularly the Majors.....compared to other style/system decks. Hi lunalafey, if you look at the Rider-Waite majors (well, you don't have the Rider-Waite so I guess you can't, hee hee), you'll see that for the most part they're basically faithful to the Marseilles images, in concept if not in style, except for a few cards like the Lovers and the Wheel of Fortune and Death, which were changed a lot.
So, for the most part you don't need to have radically different meanings between the Marseilles and R-W-S style decks, except perhaps for the Lovers. For Marseilles decks, the picture of a man choosing between two women is usually interepreted as meaning choice (although one could also look at it as some kind of priest or priestess blessing the union of the other two), while in the R-W-S the meaning seems to have more to do with a relationship between two people or, alternatively, between different parts of one's own psyche.
-- Lee
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| mercenary30 |
13 Nov 2003 |
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I checked out that thread....it is along a similar vein.
So what would a 1JJ Swiss or a Visconti deck be considered like if there are 3 accepted archtypes of Tarot?
Thoth
RWS
Marseilles
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| Rusty Neon |
13 Nov 2003 |
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Originally posted by Lee
As for the pips, they are challenging but also offer a certain freedom. You can decide for yourself how you want to read them, and different people do it in different ways. You can simply call to mind the standard Rider-Waite-Smith images/definitions. You could assign meanings to the numbers and the suits, and thus arrive at a meaning for, say, the 7 of Cups by combining a meaning for the number 7 with the meaning of the suit of Cups.
For those among us who are tarot enthusiasts of the Anglo-American tarot tradition, also possible is a hybrid approach to the Tarot de Marseille pip cards. That is, you could use the RWS/OGD/Thoth card definitions as a starting basis, and then see what additional insights the number and suit, and the imagery and random details of the TdM pips, give to those definitions.
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| Lee |
13 Nov 2003 |
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Originally posted by mercenary30
So what would a 1JJ Swiss or a Visconti deck be considered like if there are 3 accepted archtypes of Tarot?
Thoth
RWS
Marseilles There's a whole range of "antique" (in other words, pre-1900) decks which don't fall into those three categories. Tarot authors who made up those three categories which you mention were probably referring to the three types of decks which tarot readers were most likely to read with at the time those authors were writing, probably the '70s and '80s. Nowadays many people (and many people on these forums) regularly read with these "antique," non-illustrated-pip decks. And of course many people read with them in the '70s and '80s as well, but tarot authors concentrated on illustrated decks, probably because they felt they were easier to read with and to write about.
-- Lee
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| jmd |
15 Nov 2003 |
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So much wonderful advice has already been given...
With regards to the depictions on the Majors, they are, quite fundamentally, replete with deep symbolism. The apparent symplicity of each image belies its abundance.
As implied, indicated and mentioned in various other posts, even the RWCS and the Crowley-Harris, though they deviate in various ways, are essentially Marseilles based Tarot. Their deviation is, for some of us, both a source of wonderful reflection, as well as a source of concern.
With the Marseilles pips not depicting similar scenic depictions to the non-Tarot Sola Busca, and followed suit, to some extant, by the RWCS, it may in fact be a blessing, though a difficult step to take for some, who prefer the comforting presence of more interpreted images...
Again, as mentioned, do ask...
It is a process in which learning to read with Marseille-type pips slowly grows with practice :)
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The Marseilles style decks and reading thread was originally posted on 13 Nov 2003 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.
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