Tarot or Oracle - Does Your Issue Decide?

[Middy1452]

Since I don't use any of my oracles all that often, I either have to read them intuitively or dig through the book, which I dislike heavily relying on

Yep, something I have to do with Oracle is reach for the book. Sometimes find the keywords, if the Oracle has them, a bit distracting too.

[Middy1452]

Originally Posted by Annabelle

I only read with tarot decks. I've tried various oracles in the past, but I've failed to click with any of them.

I'm tarot-centric now, regardless of the question or the issue at hand, and regardless of my purpose in reading (to predict/foresee, gain insight, etc.).

I think this one of the reasons I have so many Oracle decks - searching for one that I can really click with!

[Middy1452]

Originally Posted by AJ

I choose a different deck each week. I cycle my entire collection and don't differentiate between oracle or tarot. If a question comes up during the week I use the deck I've chosen for that week. Oracles make me think, I like that.

Sounds a nice idea, and probably something I should give a go. If I have a reading to do, I almost always have a deck in mind and automatically reach for that. Occasionally, I'll just browse my card shelf and a deck will leap out of me. I'll generally spend a couple of days shuffling, looking at the images etc. I am sure I have a good number of neglected decks - both Tarot and Oracle!

[Le Fanu]

More and more I find Oracles give me the clear cut, blunt answer I want to hear. Or I do a few random draws on different days before I find time to do a proper tarot reading and the Oracle cards give me food for thought that I bear in mind when interpreting the tarot spread.

I love one card Oracle draws - like with the Shaman's Oracle, Spirit of the Wheel, Nostradamus cards, Paracelsus Oracle - and sometimes their astuteness amazes me, often more than tarot.

[Middy1452]

Originally Posted by Le Fanu

More and more I find Oracles give me the clear cut, blunt answer I want to hear. Or I do a few random draws on different days before I find time to do a proper tarot reading and the Oracle cards give me food for thought that I bear in mind when interpreting the tarot spread.

I love one card Oracle draws - like with the Shaman's Oracle, Spirit of the Wheel, Nostradamus cards, Paracelsus Oracle - and sometimes their astuteness amazes me, often more than tarot.

Again, not something I have thought to do and I like the idea of drawing a few random days' worth of Oracle cards and then pulling it all together with a Tarot reading. I must check these Oracle decks out LeFanu - not ones I have come across before. Are they quite to the point would you say?

[Chiriku]

Originally Posted by Middy1452

Would you say some Oracle decks more than others lend themselves better when life gets a bit hectic, fraught etc.? I'm thinking for me it would be an Oracle such as the Fairy Ring (brutal) or Faeries Oracle (never fails to get straight to the point). What does not help me (and I have most of them, and like some of them) is any Doreen Virtue deck. Too nice, and never give me the slap around the head I need!

I am far from experienced in the world of decks marketed as "oracles;" the two I bought a month ago were my first foray into that whole realm (out of almost 15 years of tarotism).

When I say "oracle," I mean a deck that is marketed as such, and that usually contains one concept per card, as a message, advice, affirmation, or so forth. I really do not class Lenormands with the former kind of decks; although I do not use Lenormand style decks, they seem to be more traditional cartomantic tools, used more along the lines of playing card divination or Etteilla-style tarot.

As to the former, though, to decks marketed as oracles, I spent a few days going through the oracle list provided on the Aeclectic main page, and could barely tolerate most of them. There is a reason that in fifteen years of tarot (with occasional forays into playing card decks), I've never felt a compulsion towards "oracle decks."

While researching all these oracles, I came to understand some of the roots of my aversion.

First, on an aesthetic level, the genre appears saturated with a great deal of fey-ness, prettiness, and preciousness. There is a surfeit of faeries, angels (of the modern gauzy, all-loving aesthetic, not the beings of the traditional Hebrew Bible), mermaids, prettied-up goddesses, and the like. Not my cup of tea.

Second, most of the decks appear to be purely feel-good affirmations. I don't want to feel *bad* when I use a deck of cards, but I also don't want to be let down easy, shielded from unsavory possibilities.

Third, most of the beings who form the premise of many of these decks are ahistorical, without deep roots in any historical, cultural or religious tradition. (The notable exception is goddess decks that draw from various world traditions, but they are usually hampered by the problems of points #1 and #2, above). I don't want my message to come from a messenger who was plucked purely from the imagination of the individual deck creator. That's why I use tarot cards, because of their multiple-century tradition in archetypes circulated among the people of several countries and eras. When I pull an oracle card and Outlandiaa, the faerie of new possibilities, instructs me to embrace love and light, I am underwhelmed, to say the least.

I did end up getting one faerie and one angel oracle, because those two particular ones were the least egregious offenders. The Fallen Angels Oracle speaks to point #3; it's the only oracle deck I've found that has a rooting in something other than just the individual author's imagination (the angels on each card are taken from an historical 16th century treatise on the angels mentioned in certain ancient Hebrew scriptures).

The Oracle of the Dragonfae suffered from the prettification factor--and the book goes too far for my comfort in assigning these recently made-up beings real personalities and powers-- but I liked the keywords printed on the cards. The keywords and accompanying book text are perfect example of the "clearness" and "directness" of "voice" with which an Oracle can speak. So far, the messages haven't been overly feel-good or sugary-sweet, either.

And yes, so far I have always picked up the book and read the passage on the particular card. To be honest, that's the whole point of the oracle experience for me so far--it's less about what image is on the card than what the author has written in the accompanying book. These are not archetypes that have been endlessly picked-over for generations like tarot concepts; they are messages largely created by the individual author and that is the way the Oracle most clearly "speaks"--that and the titles/keywords on the cards.

Very much the opposite of tarot, isn't it? At least for me; images are paramount to me when using tarot.

[Grizabella]

Originally Posted by Middy1452

Ah, yes love the Lenormands too! I have a few of these and I am so intrigued with them, but I can't quite get to grips with them. I can sit and look at a throw for hours and still don't understand what it's trying to tell me. People who are good with them really impress me - they can get all sorts from these little beauties! Are the Tea Leaf cards the ones by Rae Hepburn? Never read with them - maybe I should give it a try.

Yes, the Tea Leaf cards are the ones by Rae Hepburn. There's a reprint of them out, so I suggest if you don't have them and want to try them, you get a set as soon as you can. People seem to love them but when they were out of print, you couldn't find a set anyone would part with for love nor money, it seemed like. I just lucked into mine when a friend invited me to Seattle to see "Wicked". I found them in a little magic shop at Pike's Place Market for the original price and this was back before they reprinted them. My daughter and her SO made it possible for me to have them.

I've read that the Lenormands are (or can be) much more precise with their answers and predictions than Tarot for some readers. Not for me so far, but if I ever learn them maybe they'll be that helpful.

[Middy1452]

Originally Posted by Grizabella

Yes, the Tea Leaf cards are the ones by Rae Hepburn. There's a reprint of them out, so I suggest if you don't have them and want to try them, you get a set as soon as you can. People seem to love them but when they were out of print, you couldn't find a set anyone would part with for love nor money, it seemed like. I just lucked into mine when a friend invited me to Seattle to see "Wicked". I found them in a little magic shop at Pike's Place Market for the original price and this was back before they reprinted them. My daughter and her SO made it possible for me to have them.

I've read that the Lenormands are (or can be) much more precise with their answers and predictions than Tarot for some readers. Not for me so far, but if I ever learn them maybe they'll be that helpful.

Thanks Griz, I do believe I have seen these available at Tarot Chest. If I'm not wrong, the biggest deck of cards ever As regards Lenormand, hhmmm, I have heard this too and when I read some of the interpretations on AT, it does make me catch my breath and think how the heck did they do that! For some, Lenormand just seems to flow - it's a thing of beauty. I'm going on holiday a week on Sunday, I always like to take some cards, perhaps I should take some Lenormand and do a little studying!

[Grizabella]

There's a workshop here on AT by Sylvie Steinbach who wrote a book about how to use the cards. You might want to check that out and maybe even get the book. Amazon has it.