Reading Marseille VS RWS

In my new journey with the Marseille, it seems that many meanings are very similar in some ways to the RWS. For instance, the Majors, I see similar meanings often used not as being RWS but as ways people read the Marseille. I see pips often read numerically similar to the pips in RWS.

I realize the Marseille has the freedom to be read however one wishes, well, I suppose all tarot can be, but do many read Marseille in a somewhat similar way, seeing the Trumps/Majors in at least a vaguely similar light as RWS?
How many read the Marseille pips as say, twos having a certain theme, like they do in RWS? I also see how some associate the pips with Majors.

I will read whatever way works for me, but was wondering how many who often read Marseille read in somewhat in the same general way with the same general meanings as they read RWS. I know many feel the freedom of the Marseille and pay no attention to numerology or any other system and just read what they may see or feel at that moment in the cards.

Just looking for the general styles of some long time Marseille readers here and hoping for more sharing of perspectives. I know there are many threads about the Marseille, but wanted an update of styles, ways ATers are currently using their Marseille decks, if they follow certain systems or authors or just read strictly intuitively, reading by reading, following no system.

One of the things about the Marseille Tarot that promotes a more spontaneous context-dependent reading concerns what a number of authors refer to as an Optical Language (or some variant thereof) which is deeply woven into the whole deck. This tends to promote reading beyond the symbolism contained in each of the cards and notice repeated gestures, the angles of the objects, the eye directions (even eye contact across the different cards), the colours and so on.
If you simply look at a single Marseille card and then look at the RW version, yes the basic iconography appears to be more or less the same. But the way the cards appear to "talk to each other" is pretty distinctive in the marseille. Not only that but the ceremonial magick themes in the RW as with the magician for example is of a different character. Le Bateleur in the Marseille is not a victorian egyptophile "magus" but more of a street magician, sleight of hand, "trickster" if you will. Also, see my thread about the Tower for a discussion of that card. These are just 2 examples. Lastly the card order has been changed in the RW, apparently to fit better onto a cabalistic sefirotic and path framework.

Its not so much the case where people "read what they want" into the cards as much as the fact that there are no definitive meanings that we can be certain of and the iconography and graphic simplicity lends itself to seeing the concerns of the questioner and their specific context in the images without the need to project established, idiosyncratic or canned card meanings onto the reading.


At the risk of repeating myself i strongly recommend that you read

Enrique Enriquez' very brief yet exceptional Looking at the Marseille Tarot

http://www.mindseyeview.com/marseilles-tarot.html

Jodorowsky's the Way of Tarot

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1594772630/ref=nosim/aeclectic/


J-M David's Reading the Marseille Tarot

http://www.lulu.com/ca/en/shop/jean...rseille-tarot/paperback/product-15833660.html


Joav Ben-Dov's the Open Reading

http://www.amazon.com/Tarot-Open-Reading-Yoav-Ben-Dov-ebook/dp/B00DNVYJD

If you only read one, my personal recommendation is the Enriquez ebook.

Thank you Kingdubrock

This is just turning out to be a very different journey for me than the RWS or Lenormand was, obviously. ) I can certainly use ALL the advice I can get right now as I try to decide which way to turn. It's like I am trying to pull at a thread but unsure of which one first, so thank you!

I getcha. I still recommend at least reading the Enriquez book, (its like 35 pages) even if you stick with the RW deck. Being liberated from established meanings and memorization is a nice feeling, and can really help in relating to the questioner in a more dynamic way.

Another amazing approach is paul Nagy's "Tarot Hermaneutics" which is not deck specific and definitely promotes personally immersive and independent reading (as opposed to arbitrary meanings).

This ones free

http://tarothermeneutics.com/tarotreadings/tarothermprocess.htm

Oh you are so nice, Kingdubrock!

I so appreciate your taking the time to share this. I will always read with RWS, but I ALSO want to read with Marseille decks and NOT the same way I read with the RWS, so this will be interesting for me in a couple of ways! THANKS AGAIN! I love AT and nice ATers . People here are so helpful and no one ever makes me feel I should just KNOW this!

I've been reading both RWS-style and TdM-style decks, and I've found that I tend to read them differently. What works for one style might not work for the other one, and vice versa.

With RWS-style decks/illustrated Minors, I tend to rely on the image heavily, and usually see each image as a 'self-contained' scene even in a multi-card spread. It doesn't exclude a purely intellectual interpretation, i.e. using the traditional meaning. The question, the image, my impressions, and the key word(s) enrich and deepen each other.

With TdM-style decks/unillustrated Minors/pips, I interpret the pips through corresponding Majors, but also rely on my impressions and the image. However, the very 'scarcity' of the imaging and color palette of TdM decks helps me to see the interactions between the cards more easily. I guess that would be the main difference. I tried to see the same interactions in fully illustrated decks, but the images are just too busy as they are, so it didn't work for me.

Naturally, many of the basic meanings I use, especially for Majors, are the same or similar, - because the images are the same or similar. If we take cards like Justice, Wheel of Fortune, Emperor, etc. - these are all familiar 'archetypes', and I honestly don't see too many radically different ways in which I can read them.

However, pips are something different. If we consider 2 of Wands, in the RWS-style card from the Tarot of the Magical Forest, we can see someone considering options. The whole world is before him, and he has the power to choose where to go next. However, the choice hasn't been made yet.


In the TdM, we only see 2 crossed Wands embellished with flowers. As this card is connected with the Popess, it might mean that further studying and more knowledge are required to make a choice - a meaning similar to the previous card. The crossing of the Wands can also mean a fight, crossing your ideas with someone else, an open conflict of interests - a meaning not present in the previous card. The flowers can be read as a fruitful conflict, exchange of (conflicting) ideas that gives birth to something radically new.

Hope this helps you some.

THANK YOU DANCING MOON!

YES it does help me! I so appreciate your taking the time to put the pix up and explaining this further. I am feeling I am starting to be able to see a thread to pull to begin my journey! THANKS SO MUCH.

I found this thread very interesting when starting to explore the TdM and I use many of the attributions especially for the courts.

Like others have mentioned, my style of reading with TdM is much more free flowing and takes account of where people i the cards are looking. I find I interpret the trumps differently - less of the esoteric stuff- they also seem of a different character. Numerology and neo-platonic Christian ideas play more of a role.

dancing_moon said:

Naturally, many of the basic meanings I use, especially for Majors, are the same or similar, - because the images are the same or similar. If we take cards like Justice, Wheel of Fortune, Emperor, etc. - these are all familiar 'archetypes', and I honestly don't see too many radically different ways in which I can read them.

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If you know something about the historical context of the Marseille type, you can read these cards with a very different perspective.

The RWS tended to shade its major cards with occult meanings that simply may not apply to Marseille type decks.

There is some literature which you can read just about the Marseille which would support this perspective. From memory, Stuart Kaplan's various histories of tarot are an example, and there are also more recent books about which, at this hour of the morning I can't recall the details

Any way of doing TdM is okay as long as it steers away from the ideas of crackpots such as Etteilla, Court, Levi, Papus, Mathers, Waite, Crowley, Case, etc. No, I take that back. As a matter of fact, since it is merely a pack of playing cards, any use of it for divination is a compromise of its true identity.