Masculine tarot decks out there?

Zephyros

Well, that really wasn't what I meant, I was referring to this post, and I certainly didn't suggest men lack intuition. That being said, I think the entire concept of intuitive readings too vague, transforming Tarot into a crippled Rorschach test. I prefer "informed intuition."

Tarot ≠ intuition. It can sometimes, in some people, but certainly not always and for everyone.

Of course we're making generalizations here, but considering the subject matter, I don't see any alternative.
 

tarotbear

One of many Tarot 'myths' is that 'Men are NOT Intuitive' - considering Mathers, Waite, Crowley, etc., etc. are all forgotten in that statement. I now have 4 Tarot books and two decks ... I'm glad I didn't know that! :laugh: LOL!!
 

Farzon

To suggest that men lack intuition (and therefore are less capable at Tarot) is sexist and silly. It certainly counters my own experience; I have lived much of my life in all-male environments--aboard ships, in northern bush camps, my own social preferences in cities--and I know this suggestion is ridiculous. Do not confuse intuition with gushy sentimentality which we can see in romance novels and, sad to say, on a lot of Tarot reading sites on line--ones not usually tended by men. We can be "faulted" for lacking this latter quality, but not for lacking intuition.
Good point.
Being a man myself I have to add that my reading style depends heavily on the situation. I like to use the style Closrapexa had suggested as a male-associated style of reading with kaballah and elements. But I'm not always able to apply that because sometimes my intuition just gets in my way - I see the cards, and know what they mean without a lot of words or analysis.
 

Zephyros

One of many Tarot 'myths' is that 'Men are NOT Intuitive' - considering Mathers, Waite, Crowley, etc., etc. are all forgotten in that statement. I now have 4 Tarot books and two decks ... I'm glad I didn't know that! :laugh: LOL!!

Yes but modern usage of the word has made it into an association game, the first thing that comes to your mind. Those people you mentioned... their writings show they didn't follow that thinking.
 

Le Fanu

I see a fascinating theme developing. I have been read to by men and read to by women and bearing in mind the inevitable difference in personal reading styles, I sense a distinctly different approach between the sexes. My male readings probably couldn't have been done in that style by women and vice versa. Admittedly there is the personal touch, unique to all but I'm not talking about that.

Perhaps Waite and Crowley and Mathers (I think they were the ones that tarotbear mentioned) may well not have been massively intuitive. I don't see anything scandalous in thinking that they might not have been. I mean, bearing in mind what intuitive has come to mean, I'm sure Crowley wouldn't not have wanted to be lumped in with that way of reading and I'm sure (can't speak for him) he'd be horrified that people were using his deck without ever having absorbed anything of his writing or teaching or thinking.

I am happy to say up front that I really dislike what has come to be considered entirely intuitive ways of reading. I have read enough definitions here from others to know that my initial hunches were right. Some intuition is essential for a tarot reading, but I can honestly say that those who do entirely "intuitive" readings would have nothing of worth to tell me.

Is that a maculine viewpoint? Perhaps, though it shouldn't be read like that. But yes, intuition. I am very wary of it in most cases. I tend to think of it as the direct opposite of the analytical, critical mind
 

Thoughtful

To suggest that men lack intuition (and therefore are less capable at Tarot) is sexist and silly. It certainly counters my own experience; I have lived much of my life in all-male environments--aboard ships, in northern bush camps, my own social preferences in cities--and I know this suggestion is ridiculous. Do not confuse intuition with gushy sentimentality which we can see in romance novels and, sad to say, on a lot of Tarot reading sites on line--ones not usually tended by men. We can be "faulted" for lacking this latter quality, but not for lacking intuition.

l would agree with this. My other half has been a professional tarot reader for years, his style of working may be different to mine but we both have those intuitive flashes which seem to come unbidden. Our brains are wonderful creations, we do not have to always push the button that says cram, read and learn everything by rote, thus making us follow certain rules and regulations. Its nice to let the brain relax a little and wait to see what treasures it comes up with. Its all about balance.
 

Farzon

I see a fascinating theme developing. I have been read to by men and read to by women and bearing in mind the inevitable difference in personal reading styles, I sense a distinctly different approach between the sexes. My male readings probably couldn't have been done in that style by women and vice versa. Admittedly there is the personal touch, unique to all but I'm not talking about that.

Perhaps Waite and Crowley and Mathers (I think they were the ones that tarotbear mentioned) may well not have been massively intuitive. I don't see anything scandalous in thinking that they might not have been. I mean, bearing in mind what intuitive has come to mean, I'm sure Crowley wouldn't not have wanted to be lumped in with that way of reading and I'm sure (can't speak for him) he'd be horrified that people were using his deck without ever having absorbed anything of his writing or teaching or thinking.

I am happy to say up front that I really dislike what has come to be considered entirely intuitive ways of reading. I have read enough definitions here from others to know that my initial hunches were right. Some intuition is essential for a tarot reading, but I can honestly say that those who do entirely "intuitive" readings would have nothing of worth to tell me.

Is that a maculine viewpoint? Perhaps, though it shouldn't be read like that. But yes, intuition. I am very wary of it in most cases. I tend to think of it as the direct opposite of the analytical, critical mind
It's not only a masculine point of view. Culture in general bears the bias that analysis and logic are male while intuition and emotions are female. I findthe thought even more provoking, that language and words connect to logic and the male mind and that pictures connect to emotions and the female mind.

That makes Tarot an entirely female field!

I can see where your point about intuition comes from but I don't think this reduction of the Tarot to a game of associations is intuition. It's forced intuition, fake intuition.

When I do an intuitive reading I can't decide not to do so. I look at the cards and know what they relate to immediately, everything comes together. If this happens, I usually analyze the spread afterwards. This analysis can add to the meaning but up to now it has never changed the meaning. This is what intuition is about in my eyes, getting it right without thinking when you would arrive at the same conclusion when thinking.
 

feynrir

Masculine aesthetics versus reading style

Has the Hermetic been suggested? I suppose it falls more or less in the Thoth category.

But still, what exactly is a masculine deck? Say a "girly" deck and everyone knows what you're talking about, although this says more about society's treatment of women more than anything else. The last thing anyone could say about either the Thoth or the Hermetic is that they are "no frills" decks; they're practically nothing but frills.

I wonder if there is also such a thing as a masculine reading style. Someone suggested here that Tarot is in itself something that defies masculinity, since it is all about intuition. But that seems a generalization, as there are styles of reading other than than. This would seem to be that style of reading that is heavy on attributions, occult ideas, astrology, kabbalah, magick, etc. I myself certainly have no use for hearts and fairies, or really any excessively intuitive deck.

Besides, there's more to masculinity than being macho.
I found this an interesting thing to bring up :) "What makes a deck masculine?"

I can't really put a finger on it myself, but I was trying to when I wrote the initial "search post":

Hi there! :)

Hope this doesn't seem an overly shallow question. Does anyone know of any tarot decks of a particularly masculine tone out there?

I would like a deck with a lot of robust energy and a lot of powerful, masculine figures. None of my decks really give me that, but I'd say that the original Rider-Waite-Smith and the Anna K Tarot inch a little closer to what I'm looking for. Bluntly rendered figures and raw energy.

I have a Thoth deck as well, which I consider "masculine," but it's a bit busy and the colors are not usually very opaque. I'm looking for something a bit clearer all around than the Thoth in these regards.

I've checked under the category of "Masculine Decks" on Aeclectic here, and there were only like 5 entries. The nearest one to what I'm looking for was an oracle deck, and I'm looking for a tarot deck.

As a last note, the colors red and orange are a plus, if they're prominent. (Basically, think 'The Emperor' :p ha!) Any deck that you yourself personally find "masculine" is worth mention here! Thank you so much in advance!
Of course, these are just aesthetic traits that I think have a potent, bold energy about them. I associate boldness and visual brightness with masculinity. I don't think these things are all about macho-ness, even if they could potentially escalate to that kind of expression.

On a not-quite-as-visually-aesthetic note...I also think that rational study is necessary when working with appropriate decks (expectable, unoriginal example being the Thoth), but find no fault in intuitive readings for people who are a bit more lighthearted about their tarot. And I find neither school of thought/reading to be gender specific, quite honestly.

P.S. - I have very much been thinking about the Hermetic deck myself...but mostly because it is black and white. :D
 

wooden-eye

Bonefire Tarot, (self-published by moi, 2013), was not created to be a masculine deck indeed it had an overtly decorative aesthetic.
I was extra careful with my choices for the men of the deck. I sought beauty of all types, just as I did with the women.
The deck is awash with symbolism, but the images were for the most part made very intuitively. I suppose most Tarot Art is made this way.
The majority of the influences and inspiration for the deck were male and here I mean philosophers and researchers.
The look of the deck has many of the traits just mentioned by Feynrir.

I only mention this as I recently, (just out of interest) went through my sales book and from the decks sold to individuals, (which is most) and discovered roughly 45% have been sent to men. Also, from unsolicited feedback; many of those copies are in regular use by their owners.
I am not sure, but I think this would be quite a high percentage, though without knowing figures of male and female Tarot buyers, I am just guessing.

So I would not say Bonefire is a masculine deck, but it for sure does not repel gentleman tarotists.
 

x-man

What does INTUITION mean?

The responses to my original posting about intuition (#50) have been most interesting. One thing they do tell me is that we are using the word "intuition" in several ways. I would like to tell you what I originally meant by it, and then to lay out the different attitudes to intuition the subsequent postings seem to be getting at. Can I assume that we all agree that to deny that men possess intuition (whatever it means) is wrong? (I ask this assuming the conclusion Farzon (#57) comes to is meant to be ironic.)

What I originally had in mind was this kind of process: The reader contemplates the spread, consciously noticing the meanings traditionally (and personally) attached to the cards and their placement within the spread. This information is fed into the unconscious which takes it into account, adds information hidden from consciousness, and itself notices relations between cards, and other hidden material. This activity inside the unconscious forms the story the reader will eventually tell. This unconscious part is what I meant by intuition. I see it as what I think closrapexa meant by "informed intuition" in posting #51.

Postings here suggest that readings can range from entirely intuitive i.e., "look at the pretty pictures and make up a story" through to the assumption that everything learned in books, previous readings, and such can be entirely accessed by the unconscious without resort to the conscious, on to "informed intuition" and finally to the other end of the spectrum--virtually no intuition, the approach many of us used when first learning Tarot of basically laying out the cards, then looking them up in a book, and trying to create a coherent story from the book definitions. This last approach is very mechanical and pretty well rules out insights into natural pairs and other such subtleties.

I got away from "look it up in the book, even write it down" approach as soon as I could. On the other hand, I was really turned off by the intuitive as "pretty picture/tell a story" approach when I was working near a mining town in a wild and wooly part of northern Canada. I was drinking beer in a hotel pub with friends when I learned there was a Tarot reader working out of the hotel. She was an older French-Canadian grandmother type. I told her only that I was wondering about a relationship. As regards the nature of my romantic interests, I decided that if she didn't ask I wouldn't tell. The spread was one I did not recognize, but when the KnSw (me at the time), the KnCu, Lovers, and 9Cu showed up, I certainly had an idea of where the reading was going, and was quite pleased. She, however, spun a tale that did not take into account the traditional meanings attached to the cards at all. She was going entirely on her grandmotherly intuition, and probably what she thought I wanted to hear. Her story had nothing to do with me at all, except that she could not ignore Lovers and promised I would be meeting that special girl soon. I could only smile at this, and my buddies also smiled when I returned to the pub. Since then I have always done my own personal readings. You might be wondering if the grandmother was using intuition or was just a charlatan. She DID seem to be trying, but her intuition was not grounded in anything like reality.

Have I at least roughly captured the range of what intuition can mean here? Have I misread anyone? Is it even possible to agree on a unified meaning for the word, so that we re all talking about the same thing?

I want to end by suggesting that attempts to impose stereotypes by relating logic and reason to men, and empathy and intuition to women is part of the battle for women's rights, and by extension, to LGBT rights as well, in ways there is no need to detail here. But I do insist that "cultural biases" of gender and orientation stereotyping have no place in Tarot. They are, and often must be, changed.