Very very well said, headincloud!!
Absolutely!!
I'm tickled pink cos my way of thinking is tarot is an extension of ourselves so if there's a problem I figure it must come from within or from the question posed or from our lack of reading skills but from the deck?? It's cardboard how can it have a personality? a pictorial style yes I can see that in a deck but I don't see decks as an entity in their own right, rather a tool to link into the collective unconscious until our psychic ability has developed to a point where we can tap in without cards. That said I know it's possible to link directly into an entity like a guide or someone in spirit through cards until we can hear, but it's not the cards we're hearing at the end of the day though I don't claim to be correct.
The cards = Tarot - and Oracles of any kind awaken, communicate with our intuitive, holistic, emotional brain, not so very much with the analytic, root learning goal fixated mind.
Now, in most humans the right and the left hemisphere of the brain are "prominent" in about 90 minute intervals. First one, you can concentrate great, get a lot of stuffff done - and then, you feel, you need a little break, a breather, come back to your project, see it in a new, more holistic light, see, what you could improve on to, to build on and so on.....
Now you try a tarot reading with a question about how to solve a problem =catering to your left brain - and use the straight forward RWS standard deck, you will get a great answer.
But ifff you use something like the Margarete Petersen, you would be fumoxed.
So leave the cards of that one (MP) on the table and look at them ~~ an hour or 3 1/2hours or so later, when your intuitive mind is running the show and you may get something.....
However, ifff you are in an intuitive "sensy/ feely" frame of mind and want to do a reading
about a relationship, you will get better results from a more intuitive deck a' la' the Dark Angels or the Greenwood...
So, go through your decks and check out, which decks work better when.
For example, when I have readings to do on functions, face to face, for 4 -6 hours, I need to switch decks out. Also, when I am presented with a rather analytical question by a sitter, I say:" This deck will help me better to answer that question than that one"
Now, that said, you can always meditate for ~~ 20 minutes to synchronize you brainwaves and then do a reading just after. That will give you the best results with any deck you are naturally drawn to.
However, if you just realllly never "jived with" the images of that deck, it will throw you right back into a critical analytical frame of mind! Iffff THAT happens, give the deck away, it is not for you.