Do you parot or read cards?

ruski_svet

When I first started, I got a deck and a beginner's book. And I flipped to each card's page for every one I drew. Boy, was that lame. I gave one reading to this guy I didn't know, just read the whole list of meanings from the book and told him to pick one hahaha. He did seem surprised and I wonder what his question was. He wouldn't tell me.

Once you start reading without books you'll see they are pretty pointless. Reading becomes fun, because now you're relying on yourself....your own talent, gift, sight, divine energy...however you think of it. And you realize you're making it happen on your own, not getting some catch all meanings from a book.
If you can see and feel each card as it relates to a person, that's strong stuff. It's your own energy being triggered, tailored to another person's energy.

Ah, I'm getting all deep here. I do like this thread though, it helps me see the difference between now and when I started. Haha, pick a meaning, any meaning.
 

Briar Rose

I have been studying for 2 1/2 years and I am a newbie, still!

My study buddy told me the importance of leanring the meanings & symbols of these decks because (pretty much) all other decks are based on these:

Tarot de Marseille
Visconti
RWS

When I started to do this I lost interest in so many decks I thought were easy decks to read with, because I realised they were too complicated (for me).


I feel that if some people can read the cards without knowing any sybolism on the cards, I feel that perhaps they are reading intuitively. And then others know the symbols and combine their intuitive sense.

I find it's great to do both.

Under the reading exchange forum you could seek out a intuitive reader (not into symbolism) and someone who is, and compare the styles that way.

There could't possibly be any right or wrong answer to how to read the cards.

Or you can do a post; what's your reading style. That's kewl.
 

Tarotphelia

ruski_svet said:
Once you start reading without books you'll see they are pretty pointless. Reading becomes fun, because now you're relying on yourself....your own talent, gift, sight, divine energy...however you think of it. And you realize you're making it happen on your own, not getting some catch all meanings from a book.

Yes, and I've seen a lot of readings that have been a load of non-substantive fantasy blab using that technique too .

Studying the tarot meanings and symbols should make your readings richer , not stifle them . It's up to you to see deeper and learn to responsibly interpret and elaborate on them , and combine it with your own intuitions and insights .
 

sleepingcat

I read some great articles before I even touched my cards, so I tried to look and study the card before grabbing the LWB. With my fav deck though, sometimes I need the LWB because it's a short decription of the illustration. At first glance everyone looks to have the same placid expressions, but after reading the suggestions in the lwb and seeing the cards a few times, they each get a personality.

I use the Ebook a lot too and am trying to memorize the Fools' journey and the pip cards in relation to the majors as well as their suits. ...Court cards I have to go by on instict because both my decks treat them so diffrently. x.x;

it's cool when it comes to you though, kinda freaky at the same time. o.0; Recently I had a court card come up as a person related to the querents problem for the first time with a reading. That was speical.
 

Umbrae

The LWB (I’m not talking companion books here…) ignores layers of symbolism, and focuses on one aspect of each card.

LWB’s do not take into account the deeper layers of symbols and allegories.

LWB’s do not allow for context.

This could be okay if it were a starting point, however newbies often stick with them, become a parrot, and never grow.

Memorization reduces the chances to explore deeper regions of the layers of symbols – and once again – ignores context.

It’s difficult to cook with onions if you do not peel them, or slice them and discover what’s inside.

LWB’s by their nature are little – space requirements dictate brevity, which is misconstrued as completeness.
 

Vadella

I don't remember if I could do it myself but my daughter can. She is only 8. Sometimes I will put a card in front of her and she will tell me what it is about and what she is feeling. It's pretty cool to say the least. :)

xx
Vad
 

valis

^because she's unencumbered by the stuff we adults collect on our psyches, perhaps? :)
 

rebecca-smiles

When i started, i was too intimidated by my own expectaions to 'just read the cards' so i used a LWB (for about a month or two).

I think its fine for a beginer to use an LWB as a reference point, get the gist of what the cards are about - just don't LEARN the LWB.

If i hadn't picked one up i probably wouldn't be here.
 

EnriqueEnriquez

IMHO, is a great thing to enrich ourselves as much as we can by studying symbolism and meaning, not only in our culture, but in as many other cultures as we can. But studying symbolism, and studying the meaning of the cards, is not the same thing.

One of the first (if not the first) scholars who paid attention to Tarot, Antoine Court de Gebelin, started his "romance" with the cards by committing the most arbitrary changes and impositions to them. From that point on, every "scholar" had projected his/her ego, and his/her bias into Tarot. All Tarot meanings are, by definition, impositions to a set of images that originally came to us with no LWB.

Up-to-date neuroscience tell us that meaning is experiential. We create meaning as a by-product of our transit through reality. Meaning is a survival tool. So, my preference is to be aware of as many meanings as I can, but to take all of them with a pinch of salt. Tarot will take any projection we throw over it. We can "see" in the cards a Greek Myth, or Red Ridding Hood's tale. The important thing is to define when it is useful for us to see a Greek God in them, and when it is useful for us to see a little girl visiting grandma.

As an optical language, the cards should tell us lots of things, even if we don’t know how to read, and we have never touched a book about Tarot. Is up to our level of awareness to transform that insight into useful in formation, or not.

Best,

EE
 

valis

EnriqueEnriquez said:
Tarot will take any projection we throw over it. We can "see" in the cards a Greek Myth, or Red Ridding Hood's tale. The important thing is to define when it is useful for us to see a Greek God in them, and when it is useful for us to see a little girl visiting grandma.

As an optical language, the cards should tell us lots of things, even if we don’t know how to read, and we have never touched a book about Tarot. Is up to our level of awareness to transform that insight into useful in formation, or not.

That really gets to the heart of something that's been nagging at me. If tarot can take any projection we throw over it, then what's the point in studying the meanings of the symbolism? And if there's no point to the symbolism, why bother at all? Tarot obviously is a system for self-reflection/analysis/divination, and that implies that the symbolism carries a standard meaning. It's apparent even to a beginner that the Major Arcana carries more portent than the Minor Arcana- it says so in their names. So at some point, codified symbolic meaning must supercede personal interpretation.

Or am I missing the entire point? :p