Differences In Decks- How Do You Read Them?

Nevada

Scion said:
You read with it because it works but then you come back and say that it works for a reason. Do you seriously believe that someone gets as deep or meaningful a reading out of a system by faffing their way through it? Ignoring the system and pretending ignorance imparts some kind of mastery is bizarre. But that's abstract again...

Let me ask another baseline question: what makes a GD deck work and how can it be made to work better?

I think there can be no one answer to that question. But I use dream imagery as an example. In our dreams some of the symbols are universal, some are personal. Even the universal ones mean different things to different people, depending on our background or culture or personal experience. So only the dreamer is truly capable of interpreting their own dream, identifying the answers that "click" -- as Jung put it. I've also read that mediums develop a kind of language of images that helps them communicate with spirit, that it's not the spirit creating the images so much as reflecting what they need to from the medium's unconscious in order to communicate through him. From this I gather that there's a meeting of psychic and unconscious in our psyches, or some kind of universal psychic cauldron we're all connected to, a place where these constructs aren't necessary, where we can meet one another and communicate, but in order to bring those communications into consciousness our minds must dress them in our personal symbolic language.

A GD deck can certainly use symbolic language that I understand without me understanding or agreeing with the deck creator's reasoning behind it. Or, if I'm more in touch with my unconscious, as I think many Tarot readers are, I can make a conscious decision to let my unconscious use certain symbols in certain ways, or dress the communication in my own symbols as necessary, as one would have to do with, say, toothpick readings.

Nevada

Scion

Hey Nevada,

The above question to Umbrae was more an outgrowth of an earlier question I'd asked him... so I'll ask you the initial as well: if you don't agree with the GD ideas, then why use their deck? That is to say, if you believe it has no value then why do you treat it as if it has value?

You almost answer this with the idea of a collective unconscious (which gets into larger turf for another convo) but no one can make a conscious decison to "let" their unconscious do anything. That is the definition of unconscious. It cannot be consciously controlled. To take tthat further, if you are agreeing that the GD system has effect on your unconscious then you DO believe that they were on the right track, in which case using their deck is a sort of sidestep into GD agreement whether or not you "consciously" acknowledge it, no?

Now, Umbrae was saying that the GD was a bunch of deluded crusties twho stumbled omnto something that worked, but it "worked for the wrong reasons." He still hasn't said what the reasons for working are (though I'm sure he will

), what do you think the root of the systems efficacy are, if you also believe that the GD folks were all loonies?

Which AGAIN takes us back to the root question I asked above: why use an occult object if you don't believe it has occult value?

Scion

Nevada

Scion, I realize I was butting into a conversation -- albeit a public one on a public forum. I had read the earlier posts, thought I'd jump in at that point. Hope you don't mind.

Scion said:
if you don't agree with the GD ideas, then why use their deck?

I use the Thoth, RWS, and DruidCraft, each of which has its own belief slant, but I don't agree with most of Crowley's or Waite's beliefs or what they say about the cards. I agree quite a bit more with the beliefs presented in DruidCraft, though not entirely and I'm not affiliated with any religion. Why do I use those decks? Because I like the images created by the artists involved, for one reason or another. Now that doesn't mean I like each and every symbol in either deck. It means the decks on the whole provide a good range of expression, and ideas and meanings that I can relate to visually, via those sets of cards. A good range for reading Tarot, that is.

In some cases the only thing that speaks to me in a card is the colors used, in others the symbols, in others a personal kinship with the image -- something that touches my mind and memory in a particular way I find useful.

But there is little that ties me to any of those religious paths, and I choose not to study them at length, because I think that would skew my use of the cards away from what I've become accustomed to and already find so useful, and might as a result change the usefulness of the decks for me.

It's not that I'm afraid of new ideas or change. I change all the time. But I've studied a little in those directions and decided they weren't for me. I've made a conscious choice to use the cards in my own way, just as I believe in my own ways.

The systems probably do influence me, nonetheless, in ways I'm not aware of, but I'm okay with that. It's just that I also adhere to a belief in "If it works, don't fix it" as far as thinking I must learn about those belief systems in depth. I relate much more to the artwork itself.

I don't expect anyone else to agree with me, only to let me use Tarot -- whichever Tarot I choose -- in my own way.

Nevada

Nevada

Scion said:
Now, Umbrae was saying that the GD was a bunch of deluded crusties twho stumbled omnto something that worked, but it "worked for the wrong reasons." He still hasn't said what the reasons for working are (though I'm sure he will ), what do you think the root of the systems efficacy are, if you also believe that the GD folks were all loonies?

Which AGAIN takes us back to the root question I asked above: why use an occult object if you don't believe it has occult value?

I happen to agree to some extent with Umbrae, but I can't agree entirely because I haven't studied those systems extensively, only on a surface level, before deciding they weren't for me.

I don't think they were loonies necessarily, just that they went in a different direction than I choose to go.

It's all just opinion and personal preference. And I don't consider those decks to be occult objects. Occult implies secret. The secret's been out for some time. Now they're public images and useful to me as I see fit -- within the confines of copyright laws, of course.

Nevada

Scion

First off, I love that you joined in the conversation.

I think I see your point but I disaggree with it at a couple of joints. Mainly the secrets have not been revealed, much of the GD material has been published but that is NOT the same thing.

The real secrets cannot be communicated.

To put it anoother way, I don't think there's a way to reject any belief system uunless you grasp it. And grasping a belieff system is a little more involved than osmosis and flicking through a Llewellyn text. I'm not saying that's what you or Umbrae did, obviously. But I am saying that to say that you disagree with these magicians but you're going to use their tools is a little disingenuous. Further, the symbopls they used were not invented by them; they were a synthesis. The entire operation of the GD was to use the esoterica of the past. So much of "what works" is part of the Western Magickal tradition. So if that works, and you use their version of it in a deck (wheher in the Thoth or the WS-derived Druidcraft), I'd argue that you most certainly DO follow in their footsteps. You are subscribing to a worldview at some level, however slight.

I'm certainly not saying that I am a GDer, but I do think knowing about the system I use is essential. And if I USE their decks or derivatives I AM learning their system, consciously or not. The minute you look at element of water and associate it with phlegmatics and undines and emotion you are towing their line a little. You are accepting a belief system which was not created but rather fused out of disparate pieces by the GD. Every time you think of fire as the creative spark or the fives as negative or the Aces as the "Root of the element" you're saying a little pievce of the GD catechism. The GD Tarot was designed as a kind of virtual temple of their beliefs... a magickal university you could carry in your pocket.

It's one of the cruxes of the anti-GD movement in modern magick. Lots of people reject their synthesis and opt for other systems that work quite differently. Trouble is, 90% of Tarot comes from the GD so all those decks act as a kind of Trojan horse (or a casserole with peas as Griz says), sneaking their belief system into your day-to-day life. So I think what I'm talking about with Umbrae, and now you, is the fact that LOTS of folks don't bother learning very much about the belief system that they unwittingly espouse to some degree every time they read a GD deck.

Scion

Nevada

Scion said:
You almost answer this with the idea of a collective unconscious (which gets into larger turf for another convo) but no one can make a conscious decison to "let" their unconscious do anything. That is the definition of unconscious.

I realize that is the collective unconscious, but I wasn't sure everyone who read my post would realize I was talking about something beyond some of our common definitions of "collective unconscious" such as psychic input and possibly communication with the other side.

Scion said:
It cannot be consciously controlled.

I think the entire basis of Jung's and many other people's work with the unconscious is that we can bring some of its content into our conscious awareness and make choices about how it influences our lives. I happen to agree with that, so I think you're wrong. I would agree that no one has yet, as far as we know, completely accessed their unconscious and brought it into conscious awareness. It's a vast sea, as I understand it, and no where near what one can access entirely in one lifetime. But, for all we know, that's what certain types of enlightenment are about.

Scion said:
To take tthat further, if you are agreeing that the GD system has effect on your unconscious then you DO believe that they were on the right track, in which case using their deck is a sort of sidestep into GD agreement whether or not you "consciously" acknowledge it, no?

This is where we definitely part company. If I look at a painting by Picasso and see a yoni where he placed an eye, is he influencing me unconsciously to make me believe that eye is a yoni? Come on, you don't give people any credit for having their own ideas, or their own symbolic background.

Most of the symbols in GD or other religious based decks weren't invented by those people. They've reclaimed many of them from more ancient sources and assigned them their own meanings. You're saying that because they did this, they now own those symbols, or that anyone who uses their cards must believe as they believe. If they wanted that, if that was their intent, then they should've kept their precious cards secret.

Human beings make of symbols what we make of them, on both a conscious and unconscious level. No one owns symbols. Sometimes symbols get co-opted for a while in the cultural mindset and associated on a large scale with certain emotions or political or religious movements, and maybe that's part of how some of our universal symbols have come about, maybe not. But that's not ownership, and in some cases I can think of, it's simply abuse.

Nevada

Umbrae

Scion said:
Trouble is, 90% of Tarot comes from the GD so all those decks act as a kind of Trojan horse (or a casserole with peas as Griz says), sneaking their belief system into your day-to-day life.

Hold the phone!!!

Scion said:
…Further, that "erroneous claptrap" is the underpinning of maybe 85% of the decks in print today, and probably about 90% of the decks used for divinatory tarot.

…When I said that the Golden Dawn meanings were popular and used in 90% of decks…

…Let me ask another baseline question: what makes a GD deck work and how can it be made to work better?...

Whoa there…jeeze buddy, give a guy a break. It’s the weekend…just got back from a humongous bike ride…and I was thinking about this and Hoo Boy Howdy – you almost sidetracked the whole issue.

And you call me sly…

cool2

“90% of the decks used for divinatory tarot” is a gross misstatement, undocumented personal opinion, and overlooks the global reach of Tarot in the modern world.

90% of the decks published by US Games Systems and Lo Scarabeo (for subsequent distribution by Llewellyn’s) for divinatory purposes, that are distributed and sold in the USA, Canada, and the UK are based on the GD model.

Now that is an accurate sentence that I’ll agree with.

However it does not reflect the global market, nor does it reflect global practices. It ignores the wave of popularity in Asia, and the paradigms used in Asian Tarot…and worse, it ignores ALL of continental Europe, and their diverse practices; such as the well entrenched and documented schools of thought used on the continent which are not GD based systems (systems such as Papus and or Lévi are not GD based).

In an interview with Jeannette Roth of The Tarot Garden, Riccardo Minetti of Lo Scarabeo once stated “…While the Rider-Waite is probably still the best single deck one may work with, it is working like an anchor, slowing down any evolution of the concept of Tarot. Every time a deck tries to go in a different direction, it is labeled as "wrong." You would be surprised to learn how many complaints we receive from North America, from people saying: "that deck is printed wrong, as Justice is 8 and Strength is 11. I want a copy that is printed right."

Such commentary illustrates the disparity between the English/American school of Tarot practice and that of the rest of the world.

Further, the entire discussion is limited to divination with 78 cards. Although this may be the expected ‘norm’ in the US/UK, it is not a global norm yet.

Although it is convenient to overlook the realities of the global Tarot world for discussions sake – to do so is folly.

So let’s go back to the ‘baseline question’: What makes a GD deck work and how can it be made to work better?

Asian character driven decks work quite well and lack the GD symbology traps, as do Central European decks based on Pythagorean numerology and Jewish Qabala, Western European decks based on Lévi and/or Papus, and even toothpicks!

…and that makes your argument moot.

I agree with Riccardo Minetti…it’s like an anchor. Make it better? Begin with toothpicks…

Scion

Nevada said:
I realize that is the collective unconscious, but I wasn't sure everyone who read my post would realize I was talking about something beyond some of our common definitions of "collective unconscious" such as psychic input and possibly communication with the other side.

I think the entire basis of Jung's and many other people's work with the unconscious is that we can bring some of its content into our conscious awareness and make choices about how it influences our lives. I happen to agree with that, so I think you're wrong. I would agree that no one has yet, as far as we know, completely taken control of their unconscious. It's a vast sea, as I understand it, and no where near what one can access entirely in one lifetime. But, for all we know, that's what certain types of enlightenment are about.

This is where we definitely part company. If I look at a painting by Picasso and see a yoni where he placed an eye, is he influencing me unconsciously to make me believe that eye is a yoni? Come on, you don't give people any credit for having their own ideas, or their own symbolic background.

Most of the symbols in GD or other religious based decks weren't invented by those people. They've reclaimed many of them from more ancient sources and assigned them their own meanings. You're saying that because they did this, they now own those symbols, or that anyone who uses their cards must believe as they believe. If they wanted that, if that was their intent, then they should've kept their precious cards secret.

Human beings make of symbols what we make of them, on both a conscious and unconscious level. No one owns symbols. Sometimes symbols get co-opted for a while in the cultural mindset and associated on a large scale with certain emotions or political or religious movements, and maybe that's part of how some of our universal symbols have come about, maybe not. But that's not ownership, and in some cases I can think of, it's simply abuse.

Nevada

They don't own them, and I never said they did. However, they did put them together in certain configuration which is specific to their Tarot structure. This is exactly what people do when they write something. They put letters together to make words and words to make sentences, etc. This is one of my bones of contention with people who "just wing it." Of course you can, but why wouldn't you want to go farther and accomplish more? If everyone on earth sits around stuck in their own solipsistic symbol set then they don't get very far. To decide that your own ideas are entire unto themselves and that investigating further is a form of cultural autism.

Every time you look at a constellation of symbols that is based upon the Golden Dawn system you are using that system. Maybe we do part company there. Of course people have their own symbolic associations. Obviously. But Picasso isn't influencing you if he puts it there and you see it. That's not influence that's literacy. You can read what he symbolically wrote. But if you've never seen a yoni and you have kno idea what it is, and you decide it's a fish or a flower or a piece of grain then you are misreading him. Some ppeople, like Arrien and sometimes Mary Greer) would argue that tehse personal mistakes have value of their own, but it makes them no less of a misreading. If I use a hammer to stir a pot I'm not using it intelligently or efficiently. It works but would it be better if I used it to put nails in things?

Now as for controlling the subconscious, I'd argue that Jung and other have made attempts at controlling the effects of the unconscious but how on Earth can you control somehting that by definition cannot be controlled. It's like saying they;''d worked out a system for ordering Chaos. Chaos is by definition disordered. If you accept the exeistence of an unconscious then you are de factor unconscious of its limits and character. You can only observe the effects and try to control your reaction to those effects. You can make inroads, so that unconscious material is raised to the conscious level. But there is always an unconscious that is inaccessible. No one knows their entire consciousness. If they could, I can't imagine it would be MUCH of a consciousness.

Scion

Scion

Umbrae said:
Although it is convenient to overlook the realities of the global Tarot world for discussions sake – to do so is folly.

So let’s go back to the ‘baseline question’: What makes a GD deck work and how can it be made to work better?

Asian character driven decks work quite well and lack the GD symbology traps, as do Central European decks based on Pythagorean numerology and Jewish Qabala, Western European decks based on Lévi and/or Papus, and even toothpicks!

…and that makes your argument moot.

Well now, not moot and you know it. The US market for Tarot is vast and the global market for divinatory Tarot is not. Riccardo has compained for years that Scarabeo is FORCED to use the Golden Dawn model because otherwise the decks don't sell.

I never sai dthat divinatory Tarot is exclusively GD. In fact I JUST said it above. I referenced Papus & Levi above a few pages back. None of those systems hold sway in the same way and you know it. What we are talking about, and what I asked you about were the GD-based decks that the VAST majority of people on AT, and you use. I never said the GD held sole ownership of divinatory tarot. I said that it held the majority. And it does. Now, if you'd like to take it further and have me qualify that I'm not much interested in the was nonwestern cultures have coopted certain cultural artifacts, I'm game, but that wasn't the question I asked you. I asked why you use it if it's wank? And why you think it works?

Umbrae

Scion said:
Well now, not moot and you know it. The US market for Tarot is vast and the global market for divinatory Tarot is not.

An inaccurate statement, based on personal opinion.

My observations are based on the actual market forces - which I deal with on a daily basis. It (your opinion in this case) is moot. Unless you only want to discuss domestic Tarot useage, which I will not do.

Scion said:
but that wasn't the question I asked you. I asked why you use it if it's wank? And why you think it works?

We’ve already addressed that…

But if it is such a perfect model - how come many, once they learn...jump ship? Move to a different paradigm?

Because although it works - it perhaps is NOT the best.