How do You See Your Tarot Deck?

The cards are only ink and paper. So are books. Ink and paper can be powerful tools because they transport ideas and images. And ideas and images DO have energy. We react to them powerfully, we are moved by them, we change and grow because ink and paper feed change and growth.

The artist's vision manifests in the cards - if that's not a transfer of energy, I don't know what else is. It's not the same level of energy an original Rembrandt with its fingerprints in the oil colour gives because it's reproductions, but we still get a strong message and react to it. Tarot decks are not neutral. We react as individuals, like some decks, dislike others.

And as reader and owner, I build a relationship with a deck. I get to know a deck, I remember earlier readings, the cards become more and more familiar. That's my energy at work.

Isn't it strange the way places change when we get them better? Remember the first time you entered that huge library or university, and everything looked strange? and how easily you navigate it now? It's the same with a new deck. The surprising becomes well-known, and that's our own energy at work, interacting with a deck.

I also believe that as humans, we have the tendency to anthropomorphize the things around us. I certainly do. I talk to everything around me when I'm alone, not only my cats and plants. Well maybe I'm weird? But humans have a tendency to project their own feelings.

If I like someone and he doesn't like me, I feel hurt because I expected to be liked in return. If someone whom I dislike dislikes me too, it doesn't touch me. I think we need these "communicating vessels" of emotional energies to read our surroundings and survive, so it's a strong trait IMO.

So when I like a tarot deck, I imagine it likes me in return. And I react to that liking and create a perpetuum mobile - a relationship.

I think creating our own energetic surroundings is one of the nicest things about being human.

So I voted 3.

They are paper and ink that triggers our mental power / imaginations to read.

I went with #3, but I wouldn't say that decks contain 'energy'. Rather, decks contain artistic visions.

Decks do have personalities, even at their most generic; the Noblet Marseilles deck has a different feel from the Conver. They are not fungible. There are peaceful and calm decks, like RWS or the Gumppenberg Ancient Tarot of Lombardy. There are decks that seem wild and borderline crazy, like the Thoth or the Tarot de Paris.

I don't see the deck's personality as being some kind of energy stored in the cards. I see it as something that flows from the imagery itself.

I, like Lantana, am an animist. I don't anthropomorphize. To me, an animal, leaf, rock, or anything else for that matter (yes, tarot cards) is a SENTIENT being in its own right, and has its own energy. (As in: the wind feels me as much as I feel it...) And no, the wind doesn't need cleansing... IMHO (smile)

Unless, of course, you want to get into issues of pollution, etc., etc..., ad infinitum.... Which is why it's just easier to treat other life forms as if they're NOT sentient.

This is an excellent discussion so far! Thank you all so much for pitching in. I find it endlessly fascinating to see how we all feel about these things. This is, in large part, because my own feelings on some of these things tend to vary a bit from time to time. I don't want to get stuck in a rut!

Trogon said:

This is an excellent discussion so far! Thank you all so much for pitching in. I find it endlessly fascinating to see how we all feel about these things. This is, in large part, because my own feelings on some of these things tend to vary a bit from time to time. I don't want to get stuck in a rut!

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No ruts here (maybe a few "bumps in the road" to negotiate from time to time). I'm inclined to the viewpoint that everything that exhibits vibratory energy possesses a form of "consciousness;" so the sentience of a rock is just a form of (very slow) mentation that we don't yet have the ability to measure. The sentience of trees is another example that has long-standing credibility in our esoteric world-view. Whether the vibratory awareness that is present in a tarot card at the sub-atomic level can give us anything meaningful to work with is debatable.

I ticked the church one just because it made me laugh!
in all honesty I feel a deck is important for each time period it holds slices of history in each card plus someone has poured all their energy into each card.
I see them as tools for expanding the awareness helping others as well as a whole lot of fun too. I use them with respect and store them that way as I feel the artist and writers behind each deck and book put their heart and soul into bringing forth these works of art for us into reality, into the now.
Do, I believe they have magical energy? I think they open doors to the subconscious if that makes sense. Help us to focus deeper when reading.magical well I like to think the artwork came from being truly gifted a God given gift.How on earth can some artists paint pictures that look so real? its insane isnt it? how talented and diverse the art is. Just where does that come from in the first place?

I do like to think they are magical and allow us to connect with something higher something greater than us that helps us to read.
This is because I go to a Spiritualist Church so me they are tools to connect in with spirit intuitively. I am yet to know how to read cards with a book and keep trying a card a day right now. I am currently still at the fool card with the Voyager deck and book.
I need to simplify it with a Rider waite start.

I have come a long way haven't I?

I didn't vote, because none of the choices really suited how I feel about the cards.

I think they are keys to the conscience, I think they have some kind of inherent energy; or if the cards themselves do not, I do believe there is a spirit of tarot, some conscious energy that is able to speak through the cards.

Some decks feel terribly alive, and others don't. So sometimes, I do feel like a deck is actually more than paper. But not always. I don't clean my decks. I have thrown 2 of them in the garbage, because I so disliked their energies, I could not bear to pass them along.

I liked what Barleywine said about slow mentation of rocks etc. and how we simply haven't had the ability yet to measure these things.

In conclusion, I am not at all sure how the cards function, but I do enjoy playing with them! And after all, play is the basis of all creation, and is therefore necessary as well as enjoyable. I enjoy the images in the decks, I love shuffling as meditation. I enjoy seeing the messages expressed by the cards. I love being able to peer into that secret and mystical doorway, to see what needs to be passed along to a sitter. I love being a messenger or a conduit. It is in moments like that that I feel as arcane and mystical as the tarot - or the world - itself.

Padma l was trying to find the right words to express how l feel, but you did it perfectly and they are my sentiments exactly. So l have not voted but did like the 4th option, nobody will vote on that as they have probably already run to the hills