Sure... I'll use a metaphor if you'll bear with me.
Think of the way a wheel works. A wheel is an extraordinarily useful machine. It focuses energy in a direction so that large amounts of weight can move smoothly over great distances. It does this by distributing the pressure evenly and simultaneously retaining freedom of movement along an axis. Moving a ton of granite by yourself is impossible. Moving a ton of granite on a wheeled platform is actually relatively easy.
Traction is what allows the wheel to distribute the weight evenly, yet STILL retain the power of directional movement. Without traction, the wheel would slip in place, not allowing any movement to occur. Too much traction and, ditto. In the simplest terms, traction is produced by friction between two surfaces: one stationary and one moving across it, maintaining contact. It gives the wheel a way to grip the ground AND to move in a direction. Decks are the same way.
If you pick a deck that's pretty but kind of meaningless. without any symbolic content or meaningful patterns then your Tarot practice will just slip in place. Sure you'll do readings and you might even enjoy looking at the pretty pictures, but in fact you will not progress because all such a deck can do is reinforce cliches and habits. It doesn't challenge you (i.e. provide friction), and so you will constantly fall back on your bag of tricks to make it
seem like you are reading what's in front of you. Like the wheel slipping. As you say, art should be an irritant on some level. This is sort of how I feel about the canned readings that teenagers read to each other out of LWBs when they've picked up some Tarot-lite and decided to predict the future in 10 minutes between giggles and panic attacks. They're spinning their wheels, and it's only the ones who dig in (traction) who start to move as readers. Like life, being pretty is not enough.
By the same token, if you pick a deck that is so far beyond your level of skill, ability, or interest, so byzantine or idiosyncratic that you will develop many NEW habits and cliches, you will never develop the power to move in the direction you should. You'll spend all that time learning some bizarre overcomplicated string of half-assed symbols slopped togther by some dingdong who skimmed Silver Ravenwolf for a month and decided they had "the right stuff" to design a deck. But when the time comes to actually read, you'll only be hindered by THEIR mistakes, THEIR ineptitude, THEIR inert ideas. At least if you are screwing up you can get better, but if you chain yourself to someone else who's doing so, you have double the work for a 10th of the reward. Like life, being difficult doesn't guarantee it's worth the effort.
The trick with traction, the thing that allows the wheel to turn, is that it is a careful balance between friction and force. Gravity holds the wheel steady, and energy allows it to move. Ditto a deck. You want a Tarot with some
weight, more going on beneath the surface than meets the eye, patterns that aren't immediately accessible, a certain heft and scale that looks beyond "Does he like me?" or "will I get the job?" But you also want a deck with
power, artwork that compels or challenges or inspires you, a subject that you're excited to explore, a flicker of genius buried deeply and lovingly by the creator that you can perceive behind the cardboard. Without power and weight, you're just shuffling 78 postcards. No traction, no movement.
So for my part, when people ask, I always recommend a "big" deck first... one of the classics: a Tarot de Marseille, a Crowley-Harris Thoth, a Waite-Smith. But if you're looking to step a bit further outside the box, then intelligent homages of the above can be amazing: the International Icon, the Liber T, the Grand Tarot Belline, the Lasenik, a Soprafino. Further afield, you'll find a few intelligent, beautiful decks that aren't simply printed for marketshare or to capture a stripmall trend: the Alchemical, the de la Rea, or the Tarocco Bizzarro. Those suggestions are totally personal. Obviously everyone will have to gauge for themselves what constitutes power and what constitutes weight for themselves. Context is everything. Some massmarket decks are brilliant, some handprinted Italian treasures are idiotic. But the one surety is that
your comfort zone is a graveyard of cliches and habits and platitudes. Any deck with traction will force you
away from the comfort zone.
And of course your mileage will vary. One person's boulder is another person's pebble. There's a fine line between cosmic lightbulb and ho-hum homily... and only you can spot it. The only person who knows if you're being lazy or inattentive is you. A great deck disciplines you, and forces you to discipline yourself.
It structures your imagination as much as you will inhabit its landscapes.
And the greatest part is, traction is imperative and obvious because you will either move forward or not.
It is the first requirement of every step we take.
Scion
