LWB vs. Complete Books?

carley124

I'm a beginner in Tarot and have only been working with the cards for a few weeks. I was looking up meanings in the LWB that the deck, which is the Rider-Waite, comes with. I also have two other books, The Complete Book of Tarot by Juliet Sharman-Burke and Learning the Tarot by Joan Bunning. While the two "complete" books have at least somewhat similar meanings, the LWB is completely different. Sometimes it's the exact opposite of whatever the bigger books say. Should I use the LWB or the other books? Also, if you suggest a more complete book, should I continue with the ones I have or is there a better one?
 

shadowdancer

the issue of books is a tricky one for sure, as you will find all books have slightly different interpretations. In time you will find you just look at a card and you sort of 'know' what it is saying, particularly the RWS. My suggestion in the meantime is this:

take each card individually and look at it. Write down a few sentences as to what you think is going on. Then look up the card in the books you have. Are there any additional thoughts you think are quite good? If so, add them to your writings.

If you do this for all the cards you will have your own reference sheets made up of your thoughts and those from the book you felt comfortable with.

Others may come up with other suggestions including other books, but I do understand it is easy to get overwhelmed if you have too many books. You want to use the cards as the main reference and not be put off by the sheer volume of reading you may have to do. The reading can come in time, and at a time where you feel it won't be overpowering.

Just an idea here, and may help get you started.

good luck, and welcome to the forum. Remember there is no definitive / exhaustive interpretation written anywhere for a tarot card. Even after 15 years I still get the odd 'eureka' moment which makes it all so special and tingly :) :)

Davina
 

gregory

Believe what feels right to you and chuck the rest. Seriously. Some books feel great to one person and not another. On the whole LWBs are a bit too short for comfort, though there are a few notable exceptions.

Also - never forget that what a card tells you in one reading will be quite different from what it says the next time you draw it. No book can adequately handle this... not to mention that different decks have different thoughts.

Just read the cards as they feel right to you, and the rest will come in time.
 

SunChariot

carley124 said:
I'm a beginner in Tarot and have only been working with the cards for a few weeks. I was looking up meanings in the LWB that the deck, which is the Rider-Waite, comes with. I also have two other books, The Complete Book of Tarot by Juliet Sharman-Burke and Learning the Tarot by Joan Bunning. While the two "complete" books have at least somewhat similar meanings, the LWB is completely different. Sometimes it's the exact opposite of whatever the bigger books say. Should I use the LWB or the other books? Also, if you suggest a more complete book, should I continue with the ones I have or is there a better one?

I don't think it will matter which books you use, they will all differ. Each Tarot card has almost an infinite number of things it could possibly mean. In fact I would venture to say that each card DOES have an infinite number of potential meanings. It would take an encyclopedia on each card to even come close to touching on all the potential meanings and I think and even then you could never capture it all. Of course Tarot is infinite. It can answer any question you can think of in depth and more. If it had only one set meaning per card, all you could get was 78 set answer to anything you ask...Any book can only hope to cover the merest tip of the iceberg of potential meanings.

Add to that that the same card in different decks have slightly (and sometimes more than slightly) different meanings, and that card meanings are not set and are influenced by many things: eg the question, the reader, the surrounding cards and so on. Meaning cannot be pinned down in a book. The best any book can do is to approximate the author's feelings on the card. There vary from person to person to some extent. You just have to come on AT and ask what a card means to see 20 people answer here with 20 different answers on what the card means to the ATer who answered.

I don't think the answer is to get more books to find the true meaning. The answer is to come to learn to go beyond the books. In rthe end you can only find the true meaning for you from inside yourself, Even though reading up on different techniques can be helpful. The readings in ANY book are never conclusive. They can point you in the right direction, but to deepen your concepts of the true meaning, you can only do that from within.

Here is my book recommendation, one that truly helped me in the beginning:

http://www.amazon.ca/Magical-Course...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276870128&sr=8-1

You can also read a bit inside the book there. :grin:

Babs
 

Thirteen

Toss the LWB

The LWBs is often a quick and dirty crib-sheet that has the mindset of being for a party gift rather than a serious tarot reader. To be fair, this doesn't apply to all the LWBs. Sometimes with newer and different decks the writers of the LWB have been more self-aware. But with the old stand-by, Rider-Waite, they're still pretty quick and dirty and not real scholarly. The usual recommendation is: Toss the LWB. If you get a special deck, get the special book that comes with that deck. Or, alternately, there are study groups here that do an amazing job of examining different decks in details.

As for Rider-Waite, read several different books to get the gist of the cards--and to find that book which works and speaks to you. HOWEVER, the one thing that never works well is flipping the cards with one hand, and flipping through the book with the other. This is commonly a very slow and ineffective way of learning tarot cards. There are three common methods of absorbing the meanings so you don't need to keep flipping through the book. No one method works for everyone. Pick the one that works for you--and mix-match until you find it:

(1) Journal/Meditation/Instinct method: Do not use any sort of book at all. Go though the cards, one a day, write down thoughts, what your instincts tell you, get to know the card (study it's details) as if you created the image. And by all means use this site (this very part of it) to discuss your thoughts and read what others think. Some beginners even put the cards under their pillows to dream about them. In this method, you treat the cards as if they were individuals you're getting to know intimately and personally. You essentially spend the day with them.

(2) Keyword method: Memorize the Majors--what they are in order. Just memorize them (Fool, magician, High Priestess...). Now give each one a keyword. One word that fits what they mean--a consensus meaning from the books (Fool = Beginnings). If you look on the internet you'll find a lot of suggested tarot keywords. Memorize card and keyword. For the minors, connect the keyword of the 1-10 majors (Magician - Wheel) with the minors and suits to form a kind of sentence. (Cups = emotions, so if Empress = keyword: "Create" then 3/Cups = "Create Emotions"). This gives you a flashcard method for what the cards mean. Warning: this method is good for getting to know the cards but limited as you develop.

(3) Books + Story: Go through the deck card by card, reading the meanings from one or more books (or using this website). Then, using those meanings and the image on the card, make up a story for it. After you've made up a story for each card, try making up stories about the cards together. Like a story for each major, and a story for the majors from Fool through to World. Also stories from Ace-10 of the minors.

Keep in mind that learning tarot cards takes time, like learning a new language or skill. Don't be impatient. The journey of getting to know the cards, like getting to know individuals, is part of the fun, part of the discovery. By all means, take detours if you feel like it, and use this site to ask questions and explore answers. Enjoy yourself and if one method doesn't do the job, try another. Also, don't worry if you feel overwhelmed. We all do in the beginning. We can promise you there will be breakthroughs, revelations, and it will all come together. Welcome to AT!
 

carley124

Thank you all for the advice and such quick answers. I felt so overwhelmed by all the different definitions. I wasn't really sure what to do. The intuition stuff sounds great but is it possible to be "wrong"? I'm worried that if I go on intuition that when I (eventually) do readings, I'll be way off.
 

SunChariot

Learning to have faith in and use your intuition is also a skill. It takes some practise. As they say, the intuition is like a muscle...it gets stronger the more we use it.

Of course you won't get it all right at first. Then again what new Tarot reader does get all the answers right at first? No one. Sure you'll be wrong sometimes. All beginning Tarot readers are wrong sometimes. But you'll learn from what goes wrong and become better from it. There's no help for that, :grin: A lot of learning comes from trial and error. And it's a great way to learn. No one is going to start out being perfect and not making mistakes.

But then we get better with practice, and your intuition also improves A LOT with practise. if you keep at it, you will get to a place where your intuition is giving you accurate and even startlingly accurate answers. You can also get to the place, with experience, where you can tell when what your intuition is telling you is right or not. If I start to veer off track I feel it quite phyisically in my body. So I can always tell.

No matter how you look at it, it does take practice to get to be a good reader. But it's a amazingly fun and magical journey.

Babs
 

JuniperShadow

One more little bit of advise that helped me learn, is to look closely at the pictures, what the key figure is doing, what's going on in the background, what surroundings they're in, etc. Sometimes this can help you read them by giving you little clues. This is especially helpful with RW type decks because there's a lot going on in the background of these cards.
 

Open Arms

A quick mnemonic I learned (can't remember where it was I read it) which works well uses three words for the pips - Beginnings, obstacles, completion. and you use it like this

Aces - Beginnings of beginnings
Twos - Obstacles of beginnings
Threes - Completion of beginnings
Fours - Beginnings of obstacles
Fives - Obstacles of obstacles
Sixes - Completion of obstacles
Sevens - Beginning of completions
Eights - Obstacle of completions
Nines - Completions of completions
Tens - Ultimates

Marry this up with the suits Wands - action, Swords - thoughts, Cups - emotion, Pentacles - work/family/money.

And don't forget to let your intuition speak to you - if something feels right - use it, if it doesn't toss it away.

If you really want a book to start with - Tarot for Yourself by Mary K Greer is probably the best bet for getting to KNOW the cards as well as having some good all round definitions at the back but ti does go into the numerology and zodiac aspects of the cards.