Inaugural Intensive Deck Study (IDS) Support Thread

I haven't checked in for a while myself.

Liber T still a stunner. I used it at the Reader's Studio to great results (and probably helped sell a few copies by reading and raving like a lunatic about it).

Everything still swimming along in my own IDS. Writing of the book proceeding a pace and really taking shape. Meeting with an artist to create the woodcuts I want as illustrations. Writing this has continued to shape a larger sense I have of what Tarot/divination is, and why it works, and the annoyance I have with a lot of modern occult publishing. And it's forcing me to back up my opinions with research and history. I can thank the IDS exercise for that!

A small group of differently-flavored Thoth-ers has been having a big heated debate over in the Thoth subforum, ostensibly about Angeles Arrien's (dumb) book on the Thoth, but in a larger sense looking at its assumptions and how they relate to various approaches to the "big" occult decks... including a subdiscussion about the centrality of Crowley to his own deck vs. the New Age impulse to excise/conceal the icky bits; issues around research and candor; symbolic universality and scholastic rigor; magick and divination.

All very useful to this whole enterprise as far as forcing clarity and articulation. Plus, a larger topic that seems to be congealing in my mind's eye, related to the Liber T by way of the Thoth and Golden Dawn's Book T. Really has gotten the lightning in my brain snapping.

Loving the IDS. Keep rocking it out, y'all!

Scion

sapienza said:

I've been posting in the study group but have been a bit disappointed that the enthusiasm has waned and there is really only a few of us posting now.

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Be happy you're not the only one posting like I am for the Ancient Egyptian. The silence can be deafening at times, but I persevere. (Damned if I'm gonna let that King Cups tell me that I won't stick with it! )

sapienza said:

I really can't imagine using another deck to be honest.

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I'm not quite there yet with the AET. There are a number of cards that I have no connection to whatsoever, and until/unless that changes the AET won't be the end-all and be-all of decks for me. I don't regret using the AET for the IDS cause it's changed the way I study and learn a deck. And those few cards aside, I'm actually enjoying using the deck.

Partner's back home after a week in the hospital (Reader's Digest version - dehydration, 8mm kidney stone, staph infection in the kidney, surgery to put in a stint to bypass the stone, fluid sample from the shoulder that showed the infection had moved to the shoulder joint, shoulder surgery to irrigate the joint, echo that showed that the infection had been in his heart but the muscle looks healthy, insertion of PICC line for antibiotic infusion 3x/day for 6 weeks). He's doing fine all things considered. And instead of being exhausted, I'm now only tired.

I'm back to posting in the study group (did 8 cards in the last 2 days) but haven't started back with my daily draws yet. Hopefully tonight.

Rodney

Hi, everyone

I'm on the road to recovering my sense of balance, slowly still, but it's happening. I still don't have a computer at home, and work's so hard to get time to think about posting, but I'm still here.

Rodney, I'm glad that your partner's home - what a horror story!!! You poor things, I hope it's all past you both now. Take care of yourselves.

Gazel, congratulations on the arrival of Tristan Such a lovely name, as well . . .

Wow, Scion, it sounds like you're really getting your teeth into the Liber T!!! I think it'll be my reward deck - possibly paired with the Thoth, as I don't have either of them - after the IDS, but it's a fair way away yet .

I've been working with Genetti's Tarot Tree (not to be confused with the Tree of Life), a different way of arranging the Major Arcana, which makes a great deal of sense to me and has helped me to start to connect more with the Majors, which I've always struggled with.

The last grouping in the Tarot Tree is six cards - The Hierophant, The Tower, Justice, The Hermit, The Wheel and The Chariot (not in any particular order). Genetti's explanation of their interaction places them as the cards that are closest to practical human experience, and not so archetypal as the rest of the Majors. I won't go into it here, as I don't want to bore or distract any of my fellow IDSers , but I've been working on placing each of the pip cards with one of the cards in this sixth group of the Tree. As there are still pips that I'm not connecting with (what is with that 5 of Swords???? ) I did have ten cards at the end that I struggled to find places for, but I just put them aside till the end and then forced myself to place them quickly, entirely intuitively. I was eventually very satisfied with the result of the exercise, and it seems to have helped to break the stagnation that I've felt with this deck (I was hating it for a while there). I then did the Buddhist mandala thing and mixed them all up again! But I'll do it again, and journal the groups that I placed everything in, and possibly post about it in the study group. I was so impressed with how it turned out!

Anyway, at the end of this epic post, I really should get going and do some work (yeah, right ). Blessings to all!

\m/ Kat

Hi Kat! Miss you!

I have been reading with the thoth exclusively - except for a couple of marseilles readings with the noblet.... but only 2 I think. i couldn't say no.

Anyway I am so glad I picked the thoth - what a wonderful deck - so complex and yet so easy to read. I have skimmed thru the duquette book and that was interesting but really the deck itself is like an onion - layer upon layer etc.... LOVE it! Who knew???

IT may have killed my desire to buy up every deck in existence!

Very cool! Thank you KAT!! I would never have done this if you hadn't have posted the initial thread.

f

Awww, cheers, mate! I'm the same - it's poured some seriously cold water on my own deck-buying frenzy - I've had a relapse recently and was seriously going to shout myself a new one . . . but then yesterday I went to the really good music shop in the city and got five new CDs (for only $100 ) and that's sorted me out! Yay!

But I have just posted a new trading thread . . . because I want to jiggle the energies surrounding that stack of decks festering in my spare room . . . and with no computer and no news of it on the horizon I have no hope for a Trade Train so I thought the more conventional (read: boring) thread would have to suffice!

But I am feeling better lately. Very Disks-y. Lots of cooking and traditional recipes and building of vegie gardens and stuff.

\m/ Kat

thorhammer said:

Rodney, I'm glad that your partner's home - what a horror story!!! You poor things, I hope it's all past you both now. Take care of yourselves.

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Thanks Kat. Will definitely do that. I'm looking even more forward to being off the last two weeks of this month....

thorhammer said:

I've been working with Genetti's Tarot Tree (not to be confused with the Tree of Life), a different way of arranging the Major Arcana, which makes a great deal of sense to me and has helped me to start to connect more with the Majors, which I've always struggled with.

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I only broke my IDS a teensy eensy little bit and had to take a peak at this Tarot Tree since one of my pre-IDS focuses was on different arrangements of the Major Arcana. Interesting. I'll have to think more about that particular arrangement when I'm not in an IDS....

Rodney

Grizabella said:

Walmart has them, and I'm sure Shopko or Office Depot or places like that would have them, too.

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I'm still on the trail of one of these wallets lol - I went to staples and they had some but not ones that small but I also know of a smaller office supply shop that might have them.

Edit---just saw Emily is in the UK.

I got good news today. I've added enough posts to the study group for the AET that it's going to get its own forum in Individual Deck Studies!

25 more cards to go and then every card will have been posted on. And I was hoping to get this all done by Thursday the 15th too. I've got lots to do then....

Rodney

Hey Rodney, so glad to hear that your partner is ok! And welcome little Tristan.

I myself whilst sticking with the Liber T have not yet done any real study although I have stuck with this deck. Hope to do some study soon.

Love Fluffy
xx