Best learning technique for Tarot?

Amanda_04 said:

After much trial and error, I've learned to assign a weight and a rank to the cards logically that sits well with my intuitive impressions, and now I don't have to work so hard.

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Can you elaborate, Amanda, what do you mean by weight n rank? I take it you mean more than the numbers on the cards. Are you talking about a (personal) hierarchy they're in, different from the standard sequence?

Pamuya -- that conscious-subconscious-superconscious thing is in Tarot for Yourself, or a concept very like it. I know because it's my second Tarot book and I got to that bit this morning! It is probably elsewhere as well.

Girl Archer -- I learnt a lot of crochet from YouTube but until now hadn't thought of using it for Tarot - thanx!

And tarotbear -- I like your Rosetta Stone thought! I've been a learner of languages all my life. One of the most helpful Tarot ideas for me so far has been that the cards are the words, the spreads the sentence - the syntax I can work out for myself once I got that Tarot-as-a-language thing from wherever I first saw it.

Ghost271 -- I started that by myself, picking a card or cards to fit a situation. Or thinking of people I know and matching each to a card... not necessarily a Court. (What's he acting like today? Four of Cups!)

The value of AT for me personally is seeing how many different approaches there are, and the freedom that gives to try them out and to find out what fits me and what doesn't. I've also learnt here how long it takes (like a language, again, or playing an instrument) - and reassuringly that Tarot people share some characteristics which I share too.

Hi Biddy by the way! {waving}

mm

bogiesan said:

Just yesterday, I happened across "The 2-Hour Tarot Tutor" by Wilma Carroll in a used book store here in Boise ID. I had never seen this book befor and picked it up for a song. Basically, Carroll wants you to avoid using any and all preconceptions about your cards and create a journal of what you see and what you hear. Her maxim, throughout her interesting book, is "Say what you see."

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I love this book. I've given away several copies and always have at least one around here for myself. It was really helpful to me at times along the way.

I'm a big reader, so books have been really helpful to me and so has AT. But learning by doing was the biggest thing of all. Just as you don't build a house by studying architecture, you don't become a Tarot reader by studying Tarot, either. A house will keep the rain off you a lot better than a book on architecture and you'll learn a lot more about reading the cards by doing it than by studying how it should be done.

For me it was converging paths, a lot of practice (and a "willing victim" to practice on), a lot of thinking, a lot of reading, a bit of mentoring (face-to-face, this was well before the internet). Only journaling stymied me, with plenty of fits-and-starts but nothing to show for it. After considerable repetition, though, the insights will begin to stick in your head and at that point the journals will probably just gather dust (granted, the last might be a different story for a professional who wants to keep a running record of client interaction, especially repeat clients).