End of October Rant

And since we're quoting Crowley... (to lend support to your post, Umbrae) there is a wonderful section in part one Book of Thoth, titled "The Cards of the Tarot as Living Beings". (pp 46-47) where he compares the Tarot to the coca plant whose leaves may be safely chewed with no ill effects, while the chemical substance scientifically isolated from it (cocaine) is on the other hand, addictive and dangerous.

One of the great differences between ancient and modern Chemistry is the idea of the Alchemists that substance in its natural state is, in some way or other a living thing. The modern tendency is to insist on the measurable. One can go into a museum and see rows of glass globes and bottles which contain the chemical substances which go to make up the human body; but the collection is very far from being a man. Still less does it explain the difference between Lord Tomoddy and Bill Sykes. Nineteenth century chemists were at great pains to analyse opium and isolate its aklaloids, rather like a child pulling a watch to pieces to see what makes it go. They succeeded, but the results were not altogether wholesome. Morphine has much more direct hypnotic effect than opium; its action is speedier and more violent; but it is also a very dangerous drug and its effects are often disastrous. The action of morphine is sensibly modified by the other twenty odd alkaloids which exist in opium. The intoxicating effect of alcohol differs according to whether one absorbs it in Richebourg '29 or in synthetic gin. An even more startling example comes from Venezuela, where running messengers chew coco leaves, cover their hundred miles a day and sleep till they are rested. They have no bad reaction, and they do not acquire the habit. Cocaine is a different story. The adepts of the Tarot would say, quite simply, "We are alive and the plant is alive, so we can make friends. If you kill the plant first, you are asking for trouble."

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When I read, "We are alive and the plant is alive, so we can make friends. If you kill the plant first, you are asking for trouble." - I ask myself what does "killing the plant" mean with regard to tarot? In which ways do we, can/do we use the cards, that is akin to directly injecting morphine rather than smoking opium, and snorting cocaine rather than chewing the coca leaves?

Is studying one card at a time away from its neighbors, akin to isolating one chemical substance? Perhaps the killing is done by tearing it apart, the way one takes apart a watch to see how it works, by trying to get to the essense of it very quickly or instantly, instead of allowing the slow processes of nature to take place.

I think he also means the killing is also done by dissection, measuring and analysis - One may dissect and analyse the cards all one wishes, without gaining a true understanding. As Crowely says "One can go into a museum and see rows of glass globes and bottles which contain the chemical substances which make up the human body; but the collection is very far from being a man.". (LOL)

He concludes "this is by way of introduction to a thesis most necessary to tarot. Each card is in a sense a living being; and its relations with its neighbors are what one might call diplomatic. It is for the student to build these living stones into his living temple."

If we treat the Tarot cards as "living beings" - perhaps we will allow their secrets to unfold slowly to us over time, in the manner of a slow smoking of the opium - rather than the speedier, more direct, more violent effect of one injecting isolated alkaloid...

hmmmmmmm.

Perhaps it comes down to the common expression, we should "stop looking for a quick fix."

Cool!
I've only got one anyway!

Interesting ideas, Umbrae. I have been using the same deck since I started reading 15 years ago. I have one other deck which I use when the mood strikes me, and that one I've had for almost as long. I hate clutter, so I tend not to collect decks or anything else for that matter. Outside clutter is inside clutter, for me anyway.

The main deck I use is the Connolly deck, only because my good friend and tarot mentor used that one, too. It works, I've stuck with it. Pretty basic. My second deck is the Caitlin and John Matthews Arthurian deck which I love. I think if you really are attracted to a certain time period, it's ok to go with a deck that illustrates that period. I also really love how the Arthurian mythos works on many levels and lines up with tarot archetypes perfectly.

My good friend and tarot mentor also taught me to "throw away the book" and learn to read intuitively first. Later, one can study tarot in a more right-brained way.

But I guess not everyone has the same level of interest in going deep into tarot. Others get what they want out of it from a more general study or just from enjoying the visuals, the artwork, and reading for themselves just once in a while. That is enough for some people. Their time and focus is spent elsewhere perhaps.

The nice thing is that one size doesn't fit all. There's more than one way of learning to read tarot; more than one type of best deck to start out with; more than one type of best book or reading material (if at all) to start out with. For me, based on my own learning style at the relevant juncture in my life, multiple decks and multiple books from the outset worked best for me. To each, their own approach.

The no books or other tarot literature approach for six months wouldn't have worked for me. The first deck that I used was the Universal Waite. I couldn't sit pat and accept the images and work with them. It helped me, for sanity sake, to know where those images came from, their GD and Etteilla backgrounds, etc. for the pip cards and the Tarot de Marseille, GD, and other sources for the majors, etc.

Interesting thread, but I'm not entirely sure that I agree with the thesis.

If you wont to be really good at something, does it make sense to limit the experience? Does someone who wants to be a chef limit himself to only Italian cuisine (perhaps only one dish), or do they dabble in cooking styles from different regions and different eras?

Sure- ifyou want to make the best spaghetti and meatballs ever made, you keep making it over and over- trying new things, seeing what works- You can do this forever and you *will* turn out to be the best spaghetti and meatball chef the world has ever seen. But sometimes people want sweet and sour shrimp.

I'm not saying that it would be a good thing to make spaghetti once, and then move on, but there has to be a balance.

The chef analogy is flawed, I have to admit. But at the same time, I'm finding that my interpretation of a given card is informed (though you might say confused) by the same card in more than one deck, and I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing.

Funny this thread appearing in my life...at this moment.

Then again...

Not really funny.

Haven't been around AT much lately and haven't posted much either and, since firemaiden's reading for me, haven't been reading live much either.

I am reading

The Field and re-watching What the Bleep Do We Know?

because I am feeling more than ever that I am not solid, nor separate

from anything in the Universe.

So....in the midst of this daily awareness that I am just another packet of quantum energy exchanging information with an inexhaustable energy sea,
I realize I don't need all the Tarot "stuff" I have....

So, last Saturday, I got out a big box, and stuffed it with Tarot Decks, mostly new and not used yet for much of anything...certainly not for reading, and then I threw in another pile of books, new and not read. I took them all up to the post office. One of the men there took them to his wife who reads Tarot professionally. I put a little sticky with a price on each.

If they don't sell, I'm going to pack them all up and send them to

Someone.

Then I bought some lovely little plastic bins with drawers, put all the rest of my decks in there....put my Tarot books back in one place on the bookshelf...the ones I'm keeping for now....There they will stay. Maybe I'll give them away, too, a bit down the road.

I have been carrying the Morgan-Greer with me for some time now. It's always in my car. I guess it has become "my" deck.

At least it's usually the one I use when I want to do a "serious" reading for myself.

So...once again....a brief farewell to AT....and to posting....I have some living with a deck to do.

I don't know where I am going with it, or where I will end up, but I just knew this weekend, I needed to put all of the other Tarot "stuff" away and even get rid of a lot of it. I am way too old to collect and maybe someone else will enjoy some of these decks and books.

I'm two people away from receiving the traveling AT deck, which I will keep for a bit, work with and then send on....


Thanks, Umbrae....

terri

Wonderfully appropriate thread as the year comes to an end. Its brought to the surface things I’ve been thinking about but struggling to put into words for quite a while.

Its to do with the whole notion of... Reading

I don’t like the term ‘reading’.
Its just not ‘it’
Its much much more than that.

I don’t read... stopped doing it when I realised it was almost always about me and not them.

Around the same time I realised that reading for myself was also ‘off’.
So I ditched the idea of using spreads and instead tried to get dialogue going... you know, ask a question... get the response from the card... leading to another question... and so on. All good stuff.... helpful too.

But it still wasn’t ‘it’.
It was still ‘me’... even if it was good to flex my intuition.
But it was all just too linear.
And tarot... not to mention life... are just not linear.
Or maybe my mind works better with the three dimensional.

So I tried to ‘enter the system’... no, not ‘system’.... ‘constellation’ is a better term. And things started to happen...
I get a shift in reality when I become part of the constellation of cards. I could say... or when they enter me... but that might sound a bit freaky.

All along the way I’ve been trying to find ‘what lies between the cards’.... ‘cos I’m sure that’s the living sap. And I’m sure that is something of and about ‘me’... not something ephemeral or external, and its certainly way beyond intellect.

And so this preoccupation with ‘meanings’ seems so irrelevant. The truth of the matter is - its very easy to learn a proscribed set of meanings.... jeeez there’s enough visual prompts. Its challenging to evolve our own interpretations of those meanings... and one could spend a lifetime adding to and refining them. But the real challenge is to go beyond.... or maybe, not beyond, but inside. I think that’s what people like Umbrae and firemaiden and Mythos are doing.... and coming up at the rear, puffing and blowing and whining is lil old me.

Umbrae said:

If you really want to read…pack up the books, and the decks, and live with one deck for about 6 months. Eat it, drink it, sleep it…make it a part of your life, your third arm…

Then in six months, take down the books, take out the decks. You’ll love them so much deeper.

I promise.

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Thanks for your post.

I had this idea that I was going to wait till January before buying a second Tarot book. (My first and only Tarot book is nice but it does not explain as deeply as I had hoped.) I had this idea I would carry my Archeon deck with me at all times and do one card readings with it when I had some spare time. To shuffle the deck and flip over a card when I was waiting in traffic or waiting anywhere (I live in a city...stop and go...stop and go).

Then I changed my mind. I was going to get a second book and get me some good book knowledge before trying to deeply connect with my deck. I started shuffling playing cards while riding on the metro system because I didn't want to freak anybody out with my Tarot cards.

After reading your post I realized I was right the first time. So I'm going to wait til January to get my second book and just work the exercises in my first book. I'm going to put my Archeon deck BACK into my purse and shuffle and ponder that deck during the day and not worry about whose staring.

Thanks for the pep talk. It helped.

Been there...over-done the one deck approaches for me...

and then, tarot reading became stale, tarot was a shrug because I knew what the images meant--for me, and even in conversation and readings for others.

Rusty Neon said this and it's true for me, now:
For me, based on my own learning style at this time in my life, multiple decks and multiple books from the outset works best for me.

And I am glad for you, who are enjoying one deck wonders. If your soul and sole
deck bonds well, the beauty of such good companionship is a comfort and solace.

Best regards and wishes for your journey!

Cerulean

Firemaiden:

And since we're quoting Crowley... (to lend support to your post, Umbrae) there is a wonderful section in part one Book of Thoth, titled "The Cards of the Tarot as Living Beings".

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You quoted isolated paragraphs from Crowley to support your position that isolating a single card, apart from the whole of the deck, kills true understanding.

Perhaps the irony of that escaped you along with logic and reason.

People will take isolated sentences and paragraphs out of context as a quick fix to support their opinions, such as you do. Your bias and dissection kills the enthusiasm and imagination inherent in humans.

I'm always interested when people express interest in fostering freedom, and then use emotional phrases like "quick fix" or "pink bubble" "deck-o-the-week" which have the opposite effect of imposing a clique-like political correctness.

As Rusty said, "To each, their own approach."

Maybe Dan should take his own advice and "Don’t post about it, just think about it." Oh, wait to think is to analyze, we aren't supposed to be doing that. . . .