The crowned one

Can we read without knowing the meaning and symbolism of the cards? I see many beginners reading using the LWB to make predictions and I feel that is impossible or next to it. I suppose that over time the LWB’s have become reasonably accurate in the simplest of interpretations, and you could put together a real general reading, but you are not doing anything but interpreting someone’s opinion of the cards. The cards have no magic in them. The reading comes from in you. If it is possible to read accurately without understanding the symbolism of the cards to some little degree then I either have underrated the LWB or over-rated the “cosmic energies”. If you can read without knowing the meaning of the cards, then you do not need the cards abilities to focus energy to divine, because the cards themselves do not divine. You do.

This is my take in way fewer words then I should use. How do you feel about the cards? I really feel everyone can do it, but can everyone do it? No.

I am not against this as it is a stepping stone into real divination, but I do not consider that method divining.

__________________
Full cup, steady hand.

Now at my feet: Eternity....She draws ever sweeter plans for me!

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?

Fudugazi

Major Arcana are symbols, and all cards have symbols on them - and symbols have meanings. Many meanings, in some instance, and layered subtly, but still meanings, developed over centuries and millenia for some of them. You can't look at the hierophant's triple cross and just interpret it off the top of your head if you've not a clue what it is, what the symbol means. If you've no idea about the virtue of Temperance and its exoteric and esoteric meanings, how are you going to intepret an angel pouring two jugs into one another? That's not parrotting, that's knowledge and education.

That said, few LWBs are any good on symbolism. For that you need a good symbolism book - and the best tarot books discuss all that at length.

How you put all your knowledge together and bring out a good reading is another matter - part of the mystery of tarot. But I've said it before and will repeat it now - intuition, or even observation, without study and knowledge are just hot air; and study and knowledge without intuition and observation are birds with no wings...

__________________
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy."
(Lewis Carroll)

shadowedge

ummm... what does LWB mean?

sorry for the newbie~ness.

Fudugazi

Little White Book. It's the small pamphlet that comes in the box with your deck, and it's usually white. Very summary interpretations are given in it, usually without any explanation.

__________________
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy."
(Lewis Carroll)

tabi

Personally I read with a mix of different ways, some with the symbols, the LWB, some with general tarot informatoin, and some with just straight out intuitive reading. It all depends on the spread being used and the question being asked to me. There are some decks that I feel read me, instead of me reading them. They seem to pop things into my head and I look through other cards to see where it goes. Am I wrong? Yeah sometimes but I have to agree with Fudugazi, knowledge is the greatest tool we have as readers.

It does NOT by no means say that you have to use that knowledge 100% of the time, mostly because somethings things just seem to click, as I said earlier. It isn't just following set meanings either, it is a suggestion any good LWB will tell you this upfront, anything that states that it "this certain way only" needs to be burned.

Reading is about what you feel, seen, and even touched by. There is also no way that it can be set into stone to read one way or another. It is in our own individuality that makes us the type of readers we are, be it soft and gentle or blunt and brutal. It is our knowledge that helps us apply that know how into a reading.

Without that knowledge are we reading or are we guessing? And if we are guessing what is wrong with the LWB for a guide? Everyone has a use for a map at some point in time in their lives, how is a LWB different from a map?

__________________
It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy. ~Lucille Ball

jayem

i read to fit the situation, keeping the symbolism in mind. mostly i use my intuition. i mean, you wouldnt take the 2 of cups and say it means total depression and isolation (unless it was maybe rx? im not sure, im terrible with reversals).

shadowedge

in my case,

I was given a deck... no box, no LWB

I've mostly been relying on my internet sources since i still dont have the time to purchase good books.

since my deck is also somewhat different(Witches) Ive been relying a lot on intuition and the way a card visually presents itself...

cherryberry

so, for me - it changes quite often I reckon at the beginning I 'paroted' the meanings of the books, then I noticed that, if I am just trying to 'read' the feel of the cards, they anyway portrayed their 'meaning' (at least in my Sharman-Caselli deck) then I read 'intuitively' only (now if thats because I 'know' the meanings anyway - I dont know) and then I came to think that I shouldnt 'only' read intuitivly, because I might miss some additional meanings as well.

In general it all depends on the reading-zone I am in while reading. Sometimes the intuitive is sufficient, sometimes I need to go with the 'on the surface, obvious meaning'

jayem

my first deck was secondhand, also. i dont know which sites you use, but these really helped me form my own interpretations:
http://www.learntarot.com/charts.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/index.htm
http://homepage.mac.com/nexyjo/Nexy...n/tarotgrd.html
http://www.paranormality.com/tarot_meanings.shtml