swedishfish612
Excellent. Now you've worked with both, get yourself a Thoth-style deck and an Ancient Italian deck and familiarise yourself with those as well.
What decks would fall in the Ancient Italian set? Thanks!
switching from RWS -TdM.
What decks would fall in the Ancient Italian set? Thanks!
nisaba
Well, any of the Viscontis, the "Ancient Italian" and Classic decks, the 1JJ, those kinds of decks.
swedishfish612
I'm so new to TdM, that I didn't realize there was a difference. I just grouped them all as TdM, lol. I actually have the 1JJ Swiss. Is the Soprafino considered Ancient Italian as well?
herself
I think so. It's the only deck of that style I own, and though it's beautiful I find it quite cold. Just can't warm to it! Maybe I need one I can beat up a little - the soprafino's so...dainty!
swedishfish612
I know what you mean. I love the looks of my Soprafino, but I can't imagine carrying it around with me every day, letting it get beat up in my bag, pulling it out in the school pick-up line while I wait for my son to come out, dropping random cards on the floor at the coffee shop while I look through my cards, etc. It feels way too precious for that kind of treatment!
Richard
The Soprafino, Ancient Italian, and Classic Tarot have essentially the same images. The Classic has excellent images but is ruined by multilingual keywords printed along the left border.
ivanna
So I'm using not just those two types of decks, but a few different types of decks, and I'm quite happy with that. It keeps my skill levels up with all styles of deck, instead of letting me go stale on one kind of deck or another.
Excellent. Now you've worked with both, get yourself a Thoth-style deck and an Ancient Italian deck and familiarise yourself with those as well.
lolI already have a thoth, a nice green box. But It's too much for my little brain. I'm a slow learner, one style at the time is more than enough for me.
Wendywu
I love TdM decks. I actually prefer the pips to the majors or courts because they absolutely babble at me. And every time is different - the way the vine curves today will make a different shape for me than a few days ago, and I won't be drawn to looking at the pattern of the pips but at the colours or this or that. I read the cards in groups of three and look for repeating patterns, colours (eye rhymes, things echoed from one card to the next). My favourite spread (if the sitter wants one) is Tirage en Croix - five cards laid three horizontally, three vertically with the centre card being the same for each set of three.
I made a deliberate decision to switch to TdM because I was fed up with the imagery in RWS decks. I got resentful that I was reading tarot through a layer of the deck artist's interpretation whereas I wanted to read without their ideas and artwork (which a lot of the time I heartily disliked). I got Jean Michel David's book "Reading the Marseilles Tarot". Whilst working my way through that I got a copy of Robert O'Neill's incredible Tarot Symbolism. Finally I ended up reading Enrique Enriquez and feeling like I'd come home. All the learning coalesced and now I read TdM in my style. Which won't be yours, or anyone else's - and neither would yours ever suit me.
I hardly ever use RWS decks now -I love the freedom I find in TdM decks.
I made a deliberate decision to switch to TdM because I was fed up with the imagery in RWS decks. I got resentful that I was reading tarot through a layer of the deck artist's interpretation whereas I wanted to read without their ideas and artwork (which a lot of the time I heartily disliked). I got Jean Michel David's book "Reading the Marseilles Tarot". Whilst working my way through that I got a copy of Robert O'Neill's incredible Tarot Symbolism. Finally I ended up reading Enrique Enriquez and feeling like I'd come home. All the learning coalesced and now I read TdM in my style. Which won't be yours, or anyone else's - and neither would yours ever suit me.
I hardly ever use RWS decks now -I love the freedom I find in TdM decks.
ivanna
I will get one of those books once finished the Yoav Ben-dov book.
surpeti
Thanks for the reference to O'Neill--I wasn't familiar with the book and now I know why. It's now hundreds of dollars on Amazon (used)! But I found a link to his essays, which presumably are similar to the book. It is
http://www.tarot.com/tarot/robert-oneill/tarot-symbolism
I will be working my way through these!
