Important Tips to Newbies

[The crowned one]

There seems to be two schools of thought here, leaving actual "systems out" of it : one) A strong foundation, built on the history of tarot, your system of choice and the writing of past esoteric tarot authors like Etteilla,Levi,Vaillant,Christian, Case and Waite to round out your education. I think our first poster is suggesting a strong foundation and a system rather then floundering about using nothing more the your "intuition" to read the cards....reading between the lines of the original post this is what I see them saying but I may be wrong.

The second school is "freestyle" . What ever grabs your fancy is what the card means...intuition is the ruling factor, new-age freedoms.

Tarot is evolving and it is becoming much more acceptable to just "wing it". I guess I am too old school for that and feel good research is the foundation of good understanding. I like school one but I try hard to incorporate school two into my readings as the idea behind it appeals to me but I would compare it to playing a instrument. A new guitarist can "wing it" and just play notes, but there is no melody or sense to his solo as he has no real understanding of musics structure and rules, me with my strong foundation in music CAN wing it and make something flowing and melodic because I am playing free-style off a strong foundation. Does this make sense to anyone? I am not judging either style, just stating my preference and my goal to blend them more in the future as it pertains to tarot.

Tarot comes with a history and many established sets of rules, I think it is a good idea to explore as many as them as possible.

I feel you need a foundation to work from.

I like how this post is tossing so many idea's out there now...

 

[berrieh]

I like school one but I try hard to incorporate school two into my readings as the idea behind it appeals to me but I would compare it to playing a instrument. A new guitarist can "wing it" and just play notes, but there is no melody or sense to his solo as he has no real understanding of musics structure and rules, me with my strong foundation in music CAN wing it and make something flowing and melodic because I am playing free-style off a strong foundation. Does this make sense to anyone? I am not judging either style, just stating my preference and my goal to blend them more in the future as it pertains to tarot.

I'm of your particular school, I think.

I do think you can like systems and not USE every particular system (in fact, I think it's impossible to use all the systems with Tarot, since there are many -- and some of them contradict each other), but I'm a big fan of systems and knowledge base.

I'm not of the 'wing it' school, though one has to do a bit of 'winging it' -- as with your music analogy, you don't generally learn everything about music before ever picking up an instrument. I think it's the same with Tarot -- knowledge helps and doing helps, and some people are more into 'doing' (winging it, intuitive, what feels right, glorp, etc) than 'knowledge' (systems, history, symbolism, structure), but I think the majority of people ultimately do use a little of both.

I think it's a spectrum
Doing..........................................*........................Knowledge
rather than an either/or.

I know *berrieh (me!) falls slightly on the Knowledge side....but then again, doing is important to.

 

[HoneyBea]

I think as it has been already said in this thread there are many ways to read the cards, elemental dignities is just one way and to use them you do need to understand how they work together — numerology is another way, upright and reversed, or just upright alone, although when reading upright alone one does need to take into account the positive, neutral and negative aspects of the card. Intuition plays a big part in reading, then of course there are those who read by "intuition" only. - Who is to say one way is better than another. Personally I use a mix of all of the above. I have often thought there are two main ways to read cards, that is by divinatory meanings and symbolically — although I do find at times looking at them elementally can help me see another dimension, just as considering what my own personal number systems contributes within the reading.

When I use elemental dignities I follow Book T's and just in case any of you are not familiar with those I'll list them below for information.

My personal advice to anyone would be find a system that suits you.

~HoneyBea~

I am using Book T's elemental associations as the foundation of my system.

Strengthening/interactive/synergetic:
Fire and Air
Water and Earth
Fire and Fire
Water and Water
Air and Air
Earth and Earth
Neutral:
Fire and Earth
Air and Water
Weakening/incompatible/antagonistic:
Fire and Water
Air and Earth

The trumps' attributes:
Fool/Air
Magician/Mercury
High Priestess/Moon
Empress/Venus
Emperor/Aries/Fire
Hierophant/Taurus/Earth
Lovers/Gemini/Air
Chariot/Cancer/Water
Strength/Leo/Fire
Hermit/Virgo/Earth
Wheel/Jupiter/Fire
Justice/Libra/Air
Hanged Man/Water
Death/Scorpio/Water
Temperance/Sagittarius/Fire
Devil/Capricorn/Earth
Tower/Mars
Star/Aquarius/Air
Moon/Pisces/Water
Sun/Sun
Judgement/Fire
World/Saturn

RWS Court Cards
Page = Earth
Knight = Fire
Queen = Water
King = Air

 

[Kircher Tree]

Crowned One

Thanks for your reasoned and illuminating post, which stands out against so many here that are uh, less than illuminating.

>>There seems to be two schools of thought here, leaving actual "systems out" of it ... The second school is "freestyle" . What ever grabs your fancy is what the card means...<<

It seems that the majority of card readers belong to the "freestyle" school. Certainly that is true of the people on this thread. It is also called the "Pure Intuitive" school.

The "Pure Intutive School" rejects all "systems", such as those of Papus, Mathers, Waite, Crowley, Kabbala, Numeralogy, Astros, Pip card Geomancy, Elementals, etc. It is not surprising that this is the most popular school of interpretation, because it does not require the study of difficult subject matter. Some would say it does not require any study at all. Or effort. Following is a statement of the freestyle/pure intuitive school that pretty much incapsulates everything that has ever been written about that particular school:

>>"Here's the BEST tip that anyone can ever give AND the ONLY tip that will work for everyone: JUST READ THE CARDS."<<

There is nothing wrong with the freestyle school. "In Tarot, whatever works, is the Truth", says Jodo. It is just a little bit amusing (and so typical of human nature) that Freestylers are so defensive and quick to accuse the other schools of claiming "The Only Way" when they are obviously claiming that exclusive territory for themselves.

 

[berrieh]

It seems that the majority of card readers belong to the "freestyle" school. Certainly that is true of the people on this thread. It is also called the "Pure Intuitive" school.

The "Pure Intutive School" rejects all "systems", such as those of Papus, Mathers, Waite, Crowley, Kabbala, Numeralogy, Astros, Pip card Geomancy, Elementals, etc. It is not surprising that this is the most popular school of interpretation, because it does not require the study of difficult subject matter. Some would say it does not require any study at all. Or effort. Following is a statement of the freestyle/pure intuitive school that pretty much incapsulates everything that has ever been written about that particular school:

I'm not sure one can call the more freeform readings lacking in study...and certainly not lacking in effort.

In my opinion, so-called intuitive reading (or glorp or whatnot) requires a lot more effort than systems. (And this is coming from a gal who primarily uses systems.)

With systems, we learn so that the actual reading process is effortless.
The more I learn, the smoother, simpler, and faster each reading goes.

Intuition (or glorpiness or whatever) is a muscle that requires attention. Take Demon Goddess's advice, for instance... I've also seen her write about studying a card. About pulling it out and focusing on it intently (I imagine for some amount of time). Now, that, to me sounds like an awful lot of effort to determine what a card means and how you connect to a particular card.

Whenever I try to read intuitively, it's always more taxing than when I just read my way (which is rather systematic by this point, and influenced by most of the things you noted).

I'm not even sure 'Intuitive Reading' is the most "popular" school of reading (at least at AT). I remember long talks here about books and systems, and it seems as though many people have at least some sort of system influence in their reading.

 

[The crowned one]

Intuitive reading is a higher level in many ways, but for me needs a foundation to work from. Intuition does not fall out of the sky, we are born with it to different levels, sadly it is generally suppressed at a pretty early age. Like any natural talent it will improve with practice and work. Intuition has millions of little signals, movements, colours,shapes, sounds, images, thoughts,understanding,education and experience all interplaying at once. To the untrained mind it likely sounds/feels/experiences like a orchestra playing out of tune and time. 120 instruments playing their own thing, very confusing. We all have intuition. but to understand it, filter it , and use it confidently... well that will you get the orchestra playing a symphony! (and a great reading) But you need the tools and foundation to work from. This is what I have done and am doing. Yes, throughout my life I have had flashes of the future, read someone like a open book and known without a doubt the next song on the radio or what is around the corner. What I want to do; through self-education, practice and experience; is make these flashes the norm.

Intuition and tarot do not necessarily develop hand in hand or even compliment each other on a conscious level depending on your style of reading and study.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, this is my opinion only, not the cosmic law.

 

[HoneyBea]

I agree with what you say about intuitive reading however the one thought that I have about free winging it is this, that our intuition is not always up to par not every day and so if you rely just on intuition it may let you down at times. Whereas if you have a good basic grounding in the divinatory meanings of the cards even if you intuition is out for the day you can still give someone a good balanced reading.

Now when your intuition is in for the day and you combine it with that basic knowledge a good reading can turn into something really special.

Just my thoughts of the subject.

 

[The crowned one]

I agree with what you say about intuitive reading however the one thought that I have about free winging it is this, that our intuition is not always up to par not every day and so if you rely just on intuition it may let you down at times. Whereas if you have a good basic grounding in the divinatory meanings of the cards even if you intuition is out for the day you can still give someone a good balanced reading.

Now when your intuition is in for the day and you combine it with that basic knowledge a good reading can turn into something really special.

Just my thoughts of the subject.

Yes absolutely true at this stage. I agree.

 

[moderndayruth]

It’s always nice to look over to the left and see where posters are from.

The initial thesis post, was presented by a poster who does not use English as a second language.

Perhaps they were trying to be helpful, but inadvertently used language that sounded like a mandate.

I did check the 'location' part, as well as number of posts
The style of the original post did 'sound' to me as if it was written by a native speaker of my maternal tongue (a Slavic language), subtleness can get lost in the translation...
I read intuitivly in the beggining, than i learned countless methods/meanings/attributions and now i read intuitivly again

 

[tarotlyn]

Something is not quite right with this...for me...

If you use this technique, then, you don't even have to use reversed cards because as you weave the story of the cards you already knew what is needed to be worked on to. You already knew the story behind the situation even before you have started reading the individual meaning of the cards! You don't even have to read the whole spread. - EASY!!!

Your friendly neighborhood - RANZEL

Something about your tip is bothering...
Sorry, but I am not sure I agree with three of your sentences quoted above.

I think that the elements (water, earth, air, or fire) that are showing on the cards
before you in the layout are MUCH MORE important than the ones that are not there.

TO ME (my way) is that these cards laid out before you (not the ones that are not there in the layout)
will tell you if the situation is "floating" or not...or what to do about the situation, etc..

The cards "IN" the reading are the KEYS not the cards that are not there (again TO ME)...

However, I would not ever tell anyone, especially a newbee, that if they know which card
elements are missing, that it is easy and that "You don't even have to read the whole spread.."

I guess that would be the easy out. Doesn't it take a combination of blended methods to read Tarot?

What about, putting your hand over the cards and touching them and then "hearing" audible words that give you
the insight and depth into the meanings? Would you say that is possible? If so, then elements might not
even matter for some readers. There are many different ways to read. Not everyone is the same.

TO ME, there is NO "One and ONLY way." I also agree with Sulis and Thirteen.

Plus...maybe, as mentioned in other posts, it was the way it was put.

And TCO...I agree with learning a structure...but not being bound by that structure. (MY OPINION ONLY...probably)

Gosh...I hope I didn't step on any toes here ... just joining in with my viewpoint. All of what I just wrote is just that...my opinion only.

Love you though!
successgoodhealth (Lyn)