Difference between Oracle and Tarot

Sophie

Fatima - let me just say I disagree with you, especially when you cherry-pick my words and arguments in that fashion. Having worked with a lot of structured and unstructructed oracles, tarot and i-ching, I think I can draw a reasonable difference between them all. To compare a sophisticated system like tarot to any old "Magic Moon cards" is laughable. To compare it to i-ching (another sophisticated system) would be fairer - though the two systems are so different, it's not that fruitful.

The best people to answer you would be those who create both Tarot and Oracle decks - they go about it in different ways.

Anything can be invented, of course. But the fact remains that Tarot *already* has multiple uses, from the most mundane to the most magic, to the most esoteric and spiritual - and there isn't an oracle deck out there that has that breadth and depth. If you find one - I'll eat my words. Tarot is not superior because of people will it so - its antiquity has made it evolve into the tool it is. An oracle deck invented last week simply does not have all the accumulated sophistication and experimentation that generations of users and creators have brought to Tarot. To call that view snobbery is simply a way of not dealing with that length of use. I-ching and runes have much the same virtues, as does Ifo Divination and any number of ancient oracles. However I do notice one thing - only Tarot is both sacred and profane...

Beat that ;)

Colby - yes, oracles and tarot are both fun :). I hope you get a happy connection with all your decks, whatever they are. Over time, you will probably find that tarot repays the time and study you put into it more than oracle decks - but you will still get much pleasure and good readings out of oracles. In the right hands, anything can be turned into a tool for divination :)
 

Merenwen

I know I'm only a beginner, but I think you've hit on the one thing I see as most important here:

Helvetica said:
yes, oracles and tarot are both fun :).

I don't see the point in doing anything in your spare time that is not fun. I personally use whatever I feel like at the time. Sometimes that's an oracle set, sometimes it's Tarot. I just go with the flow :)
 

Fatima

midnightmerry said:
Since when does elegance or evolution = snobbery?? I'm confused by the whole 'snobbery' line of thinking...aren't Tarot & Oracles just different methods?

I wish that was the general view on it, but believe me it's not. I guess I am out of context as I am also referring to years of discussing, reading and hearing people's take on the topic.
I all started when the first occultist decided to appropriate the Tarot as something superior, and from there everything went cahoot. It's a long controversial academic topic and I gladly defer to Depaulis Decker and Dummett's "Wicked pack of cards".

However the point is singling out Tarot out of other oracles is not appropriate. the Tarot IS an oracle. So the dichotomy between Tarot on one side and Oracle cards on the other side is plain off.
What you have is the family of Oracles including cards, dice, dominos, I Ching, Ma Jong, Fa, you name it; now, within the family of card oracles, you have playing cards, Tarots, pictorial types (Lenormand etc.) and so on.
So Tarot is oly one type of oracle card system.


midnightmerry said:
I think each has their place in history, in fortune telling, and in personal growth meditations. Tarot has always seemed more involved than most oracles I've used, but how does that equate to snobbery?

That perception of more involvement come from the days when a few hermetic guys decided to take over that fortune telling tool that was so intriguing to them and made of it something bigger.
That in itself is very fine, but along the way they took the attitude of despise, scorn and superiority towards the very people who had kept the tradition alive good enough for these idiots to find out about it.
Please refer to the background info on Etteila as it would be a long boring talk and it is controversial enough as it is :).

F.
 

Fatima

Helvetica said:
Fatima - let me just say I disagree with you, especially when you cherry-pick my words and arguments in that fashion.:)

Disagreement is good, it is the motor of any good discussion.
However I see no other way of responding in a structured manner so I'll have to continue addressing your points in sections!

Helvetica said:
Having worked with a lot of structured and unstructructed oracles, tarot and i-ching, I think I can draw a reasonable difference between them all. To compare a sophisticated system like tarot to any old "Magic Moon cards" is laughable. To compare it to i-ching (another sophisticated system) would be fairer - though the two systems are so different, it's not that fruitful.

My point is not to compare specific tarot cards with specific oracle decks. I am referring to the concept of what is an oracle, and Tarot is nothing else than a card oracle.
That it has depth, of course!! That some oracles are completely shallow, of course!!
But see, I could also compare the Gum bear Tarot to playing cards !! These have been around since before Tarot cards and people have been working with for ages with a long sophisticated tradition behind it: my husband's great grand mother, 95 years old, reads them like a book, with all the complexity you can expect from the most hermetic Tarot deck (and she is NOT psychic, she actually reads the cards).
So the idea is any oracle has the potential to become deep, it is all about who is willing to design up the system, or actually sharing the info they inherited (like that old crone who won't share! So when she dies, the knowledge is lost).

Helvetica said:
The best people to answer you would be those who create both Tarot and Oracle decks - they go about it in different ways.

Again I am not talking about the Tarot of the Underwear that came out last week or the Oracle of Nail Polish coming out today. I am referring to those deks stemming from long tradtions and there are oracles like that.
The RWS or the Toth decks are not that older than the Lenormand deck.

Helvetica said:
Anything can be invented, of course. But the fact remains that Tarot *already* has multiple uses, from the most mundane to the most magic, to the most esoteric and spiritual - and there isn't an oracle deck out there that has that breadth and depth.

Agreed 100%. But we could all sit down today and work on it, using an already existing oracle deck and make it as deep. It's all about redesigning the images to make them more sophisticated, and writing pages and pages of occult-ish analysis. X many years from now generations of users could make that tool just that big.

Helvetica said:
Tarot is not superior because of people will it so - its antiquity has made it evolve into the tool it is. An oracle deck invented last week simply does not have all the accumulated sophistication and experimentation that generations of users and creators have brought to Tarot.

Actually yes, a group a people decided Tarot was superior. A bunch 18th century occultists did it.
And yes, there is at least one oracle deck more antique that the Tarot, the regular playing cards, and yes they do also have "accumulated sophistication and experimentation" from "generations of users". We just don't know about it, because it's less cool, and somewhat below (this has been said in my face) and the people who've used them for years are not as loud as the Tarot crowd.

F.
 

Shaymus

I think that all Tarots are oracles, but not all oracles are tarots.

Does that make sense?

Shaymus
 

Fatima

Shaymus said:
I think that all Tarots are oracles, but not all oracles are tarots.

Does that make sense?

Shaymus

Exactly!! You just cut it right to the core. Actually, that pretty much concludes the discussion.

F.
 

gravenimages

I think too, that while the Tarot follows a specific formula and suits, Oracles adapt their structure to the symboism around which they are created--but both oralces and tarots address what it means to be human. I know when I was creating my oracle, one of the first things I did was to go through the my Rider-Waite deck and make a list of all the emotions, situations etc. depcited in the tarot--it was a great place to start.

It's also been my experience, oracle-wise, that the more cards/images etc. in a deck, the more specific the reading can be. I have several oracles where I wish there were more cards!

This is a wonderful topic--every time I read threads like this I learn something new. I would like to throw in another aspect of this to discuss if anyone's into it--I have a wonderful deck called the Inner Child cards--basically Fairy Tales plugged into the Tarot Formula with some minor changes here and there--one of the changes that was made was that the suits were renamed to fit the symbol system. I think that many symbol systems like this one that have been plugged into the tarot formula could just as easily stand on their own. Wouldn't it be interesting to see what kind of predictive system would emerge organically?

Nat :)
 

Frater Clint

What about the Oracle of Kabalah? I picked up a deck/book at Barnes for $5 on clearance (cool find I thought). Each card is just the letter and its numerological value. Is it tarot or oracle?

The book has been an indespinsable tool in helping me learn more about the Hebrew letters.