Differences In Decks- How Do You Read Them?

[SolSionnach]

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[lark]

...but the Sola Busca was not inspired by the Golden Dawn...so to me a RWS is not a pure system...I think it has many traditions incorporated within it.
So if you are using a RWS deck or clone you are not just being influenced by what Waite intended, but by many hundreds of years of meaning that goes back way before the Golden Dawn.

 

[Sophie]

My opinion is that decks are tools. All decks. Like hammers or Swiss Army knives.

A violin is also a tool. But try picking a tune with a violin without a modicum of learning and you won't get very far - chances are you'll cause a lot of pain to your and other people's ears too . So - you learn the violin. You could learn to fiddle in the Kletzmer tradition, or you could learn to play classical European music, or you could learn jazz violin, or you could learn all three and then decide launch into improvisation. You can't do any of that if you don't learn and practice. And though it's possible to figure out how a violin works without a teacher or a method, it's a great deal more efficient with a teacher and a method - whatever that method might be. There are also restrictions depending on what your violin ambition is: if you want to play Mozart, unless you have a perfect auditory memory like the genius himself, you'd also better learn to read Western-notation music - which is a system with its own codes and symbols.


I might be biased, but I would compare a tarot deck to a musical instrument rather than to a hammer. No doubt it's an instrument, a tool, but more subtle and complex than what we use to nail planks together. A GD-derived or inspired deck will be a certain type of violin, while a Marseille might be a viola de gamba, and a GTE a guitar. You don't play them in the same way, but you still need to learn the basics of each instrument if you're going to be at all proficient at them. However, learning one will give you the edge when you want to learn the others.

All the great improvisers and intuitive players in music have this in common: they have learnt, studied - and then discarded what didn't suit them, or changed it. I believe the same to be true of tarot readers. To quote Thinbuddha, in order to let go, you have to have something to let go of. And then you can really riff like Stephane Grapelli...

 

[Nevada]

...but the Sola Busca was not inspired by the Golden Dawn...so to me a RWS is not a pure system...I think it has many traditions incorporated within it.
So if you are using a RWS deck or clone you are not just being influenced by what Waite intended, but by many hundreds of years of meaning that goes back way before the Golden Dawn.

An image of the Sola Busca 3 of Swords, with a comparison to the RWS image can be found here:

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sola_Busca_Tarot

Nevada

Edited to add: And now I SOOOO want a Sola Busca! Why do I learn about these decks after they're out of print? Anyway, thank you, Lark, for mentioning it!)

 

[SolSionnach]

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[Joermit]

okay...

Hi, there...

Here's my response... again I'm still very interested in this thread... and humored... Scion... I really appreciate the passion in which you approach this... I find it admirable... and I respect you for it... however, I do wonder... why such passion?? where does this come from??? it's very interesting to me...lol

I hear you, Joey... but actually you're proving my point.

Well, I certainly didn't intend to, but okay!

You're saying you have worked out a system of meanings using the Waite-Smith, a Golden-Dawn-based deck, and the meanings you use are completely unrelated to the images on the cards, right?

No, I didn't say that, or rather, that's not what I meant... What I meant is that I formed meanings of cards through my use of the cards, watching my readings develop and form and manifest into my life.. I did state that I understand the illustrations of the RWS were intended to portray the GD meanings... in part, these pictures have certainly colored my meanings for the cards... however, I feel that my meanings, are my meanings...lol... I do think I see where you are coming from now... but to say that because I've arrived at my meanings from illustrations intended to depict the GD meanings, that I've then used GD meanings... well... I still disagree with that... my meanings are still my meanings...lol... the GD did not add the experiential flavor of my meanings... the GD did not add the insight and aha's that my intuition has... the GD did not repetitively show me certain cards in certain combinations time and time again when facing a particular life altering situation... I did (or the universe, or whom/whatever)... and however colored or influenced or whatever by the golden dawn's illustrative portrayal, my meanings are only mine... does that make sense??

So for example, when you look at the 3 of Swords, the meanings you use don't have anything to do with suffering or unhappiness?

I can't say it never has that meaning... because at times it certainly does... but not all the time, not even the majority of the time...as the way in which I read really works on the combination and whole theme of a reading... my meaning for the three of swords varies depending upon my mood at the moment, what I've asked of the cards, what my gut says... how I feel when I see it... to put keywords to it, well, many times I see the 3 of swords as the truth, as getting to the heart of the matter or piercing through to the core of something... now certainly sometimes.. the truth hurts... but, say, if I got the 3 of swords next to the Sun card, well.. this would be a wonderfully liberating truth, something that set me free and actually warmed my heart... made me feel good...

And say the 5 of Pents is nothing about lack or need?

5 of Pents to me is such a diverse card... sure, at times it could be lack or need, when properly aspected... again it all depends on what I've asked, my mood, etc... at times the 5 of pents is all about feeling the presence and grace of spirituality in life... is that Golden Dawney??

And the Aces aren't a spark/seed/gift from the universe?

Yes and no...lol the Ace of swords for example, often tells me to be brave... to courageously rise above anything troubling me and to be careful with my words... it can also indicate elimination in my life, cutting ties with something that doesn't aid me or work for me... is that Golden Dawney??

And the entire suit of cups has nothing to do with emotion or relationships?

It certainly has something to do with it...lol... but the entire suit is not only about that for me... certain cards in it yes... cups to me also embody spirituality, art, flow, reflection, intuition, humanitarianism, the soul... I see emotion and relationships in all the other suits as well... those elements are not solely defined by cups....

Right? I apologize for overstating it, but I just want to clarify what you are doing that doesn't derive from the GD. I never said that using a GD-based deck made someone a GD member, but if you've picked up even one of their ideas from the WS deck then in fact you are a student of their system, however inefficiently.

I think, that you and I look at studying and studenting, in very, very different ways...

Walking through a cathedral doesn't make me Catholic, but reading the stained glass and making sense of the patterns of number and symbol in that cathedral will teach me about Catholicism.

Not me, I say... "ohhh... look... pretty blue..." I can't say I've ever learned anything about Catholicism by looking at stained glass...lol... however, I do respect that you feel you learned something in such a fashion... I just don't... perhaps this goes to our different views on study/studenting... (is studenting a word? cause I like it...lol)

I'm not being snarky; I'm just saying that using a deck based on the Golden Dawn system is another way of saying that you use the Golden Dawn system on some level.

It's okay if you are being snarky... snarky people are people too... I just completely disagree with you... and I'm willing to completely agree to disagree...lol... I respect your opinion though... I just don't agree with it...

I didn't say reading with a Waite-Smith deck made you a Zelator, but rather that by using their creation you are affected by their teachings. To take it a step further, I'd be the first person to say that you can figure out the meanings of the cards (and thereby the Golden Dawn system) by looking directly at them... though as I've said repeatedly there are more efficient ways to make sense of them than just working exclusively directly from the depictions. Whatever you may believe about the Golden Dawn, their deck is designed to work directly upon your intuition, and you are using it as if they're right. Those pictures did not fall from the sky. Again, I'm asking seriously: where do you think those pictures came from?

I do want to be clear here and state that I have nothing against the GD... I think it's fine and dandy... I honestly don't believe much of anything about the GD... I haven't studied it... so I don't really know anything about it...lol... I read a lil bit about it as it related to the tarot... I didn't resonate with it... so I moved on... if the GD is soley responsible for the RWS coming into creation... then I thank them/it greatly... they've made a wonderful contribution to the world of tarot.. however, just because I use their creation, does not make me a student of their system, or a user of their meanings... I work with my system and my meaning.. if they've influenced me in some way, that's grand... I still believe that my meanings are mine...lol I feel like standing up and stomping my foot and throwing an only child sized temper tantrum where I adamantly scream "Mine, mine, mine..." lol... as far as where the pictures came from... I dunno... Jesus??

Now, if I'm wrong, and actually none of your meanings are Golden Dawn connected and you categorically interpret all of their symbols in some way other than they did, then that's another story. But their symbols are the symbols of Western magick, so you'd be hard-pressed. If your elemental attributions and your basic interps of the cards have nothing to do with those images, then what are you reading? Maybe you're just ignoring the scenes and the colors... Of course I'd then ask: if you aren't using any of the Golden Dawn symbolism and you aren't connecting with the Golden Dawn meanings and you don't believe in anything the Golden Dawn taught then why are you using a deck that is literally designed as a magickal curriculum for their worldview? As I've said (over and over) I CAN use a neurosurgical suite to make breakfast or take a nap, but that isn't actually the reason it was built and it certainly doesn't take advantage of its capacities.

I'm using the RWS deck... because it's one of the first decks I bought... I felt somehow connected to it... and I like it... that's it... the RWS that I have, actually it's a pocket universal waite at the moment... is cardboard and ink... and some oil from my hands and client's hands... and dust, and dirt, and grime... there is nothing inherently magick about it... in fact, given how big on hygeine and being clean I am, I'm kinda gross out now that I look at this deck and realize just how grimey it is...lol... oh... but it's seen so much.. and we've had such great conversations... I could never part with it... as far as a magickal curriculum...well... I never got the syllabus.. in fact... I never showed up for class... didn't sign up for it.. therefore, I'm not a student...lol...

So Joey I've got some questions for you: what element/activity do you associate with each of the suits?

Okay...

Cup = Water (spirituality, art, love, friendship, flow, wisdom, intuition)
Swords = Air (thoughts, ideas, cleverness, ingenuitity, integrity, honour, valour, esteem)
Wands = Fire (goals, ambitions, fiestiness, gumption, action, activity, creativity, movement)
Pentacles = Earth (things of value, practical things and sensibilities, education)

That's brief... there's more...

Where do Justice and Strength "belong" and why?

oh I don't care... it's not about their number to me... I've read with decks where they're 8 and 11 respectively, and decks where they're 11 and 8... doesn't matter to me... they both belong where they fit... they belong in a spread in front of me when I need to see their images and get the message I've come to understand that they give me... they belong in the pile of unused cards laying beside the spread I've pulled, as in that moment I don't need to see their images or consider their message....

Do you read those yellow skies and undines and roses and lilies that "don't mean crap to you" in some way that they weren't intended by the GD?

I don't read those aspects at all... I see yellow sky and say... "ohh... pretty... yellow..." I see roses and go "there's a rose in this card" doesn' add any meaning... I see undines and go "what the hell is an undine?" again, those aren't aspects that honestly have affected my meanings for the cards... they're not symbology I that use...

Where do those pictures come from and why do they work?

I dunno... Jesus again??

Do you believe you are unaffected by any of the GD ideas even indirectly?

I dunno... sure I guess... but being affected by them, even indirectly, does not mean I use their meanings or system...

And do you think connecting these meanings from your own experience to a complicated magickal framework might have something to do with the framework designed to elicit meanings?

It's not a complicated magickal framework to me... its pretty colors and images on some cardboard cards... I like to talk to cardboard cards... they talk back... it's interesting... perhaps I'm crazy... sure the framework could be designed to elicit meanings... but the meanings are MINE... no matter how ellicited.. they're MINE, MINE, MINE (I just went ahead and threw that only-child styled tantrum... I fell better now)

As you say, I'm not being abrasive, but if it's "just bologna" why bother using something designed to teach it to you?

It's not teaching me anything... I'm teaching myself... I use it cause I bought it.. and I liked it enough to keep it.... that's it...lol


Scion, I've enjoyed replying here... and much of my post is to be read lightheartedly and facetiously... again... I do respect and admire your passion here... but your not gonna get me to budge in my beliefs... I'm incredibly stubborn and hard headed when it comes to things that are near and dear to me... I think I'm gonna go throw another tantrum now... perhaps I'll pound my head against the wall whilst shouting "mine" to prove the point to myself again....lol....

Take care!!

Joey

"MINE...MINE...MINE............"

 

[Joermit]

Hiya...

Hi Joey!
Thanks for your detailed response! I think that I understand your point, and I also believe that I understand the manner in which you made it.

You're welcome! and good! I always hope that things are read in the spirit in which I intended them... I'm glad that you got it and it came across okay...

I'm not certain which GD-derived deck you use, but you list RWS first on your profile, so I'll use that one in my response.

I have tons and tons of decks... I do and have read with the RWS most often over the past 5 years or so, so that why it's one of the few on my list....

First, I do have somewhere I'm coming from with this. I've used GD-derived decks for years, and have recently started working with the various flavors of the TdM.

I wish I could find the link to a page by Enrique Enriquez right now, but my description will have to suffice.
Imagine the usual 60s "happy face". That face could be anybody, it's an iconic image of a happy person. Then put a small rectangular mustache on it, and suddenly it's either Hitler or Charlie Chaplin. If you add black hair with a side part, suddenly it's Hitler. The point being that the more detail in an image, the more the meaning is narrowed down.

In the RWS the images came from *somewhere*. Taking the infamous 3/Swords, the image came from the GD's understanding of Christian Hermetic Kaballah - something like Binah in Aztiluth (sorry, but it's been **years** since I've looked into that in detail). So the card is limited in meaning to that. I don't think someone can look at the RWS 3/swords and get "you're going to get that job and make lots of $$ and be happy".


Then take the 3/arrows from the Greenwood - a deck which touts itself as "Pre-Celtic Shamanism from the Greenwood". I love this deck, it's like a warm hug. But here's the card: http://taroteca.multiply.com/photos/album/385/Greenwood#39
It's the same damned image - a GD image! - in a deck which is supposedly about Pre-Celtic Shamanism! To me that's a real "WTF?"

Here's the 3/Swords in the Cosmic: http://taroteca.multiply.com/photos/album/27/Cosmic#77.jpg
No heart, but still the image dictates where you go with the meaning - and it's still taking straight from the GD.

Compare that with the Celtic: http://taroteca.multiply.com/photos/album/271/Celtic#77
the Maddonni: http://taroteca.multiply.com/photos/album/246/Maddonni#77
and the Ancient Bologna: http://taroteca.multiply.com/photos/album/207/Antichi_Bolognesi#77

These last three are not GD derived at all - you truly get to make your own meaning - heck, are swords really air? or are they fire? water? earth? You can make your own argument for all 4, and it's really freeing to do just that. Whereas, anytime you use a GD clone, the **image** came from their vision of the Kaballah, tacked on to the pips of the tarot... and this is whether or not you study the lilies and roses, or the tetragrammaton, or that the King of Batons is fire of fire (whatever *that* means!)

Anyway, I hope you take this in the spirit it is intended...

First of all, I'm a huge, big fan of EE!! Great wisdom he has to share... and I do understand where you're coming from here, srvana.... I understand how the set series of images can be seen as limiting to some.... but I read in combination and flow... just cause the 3 of swords looks so yucky, does not mean that it's always yucky... or even yucky most the time... I feel it a trap to think this, and very limiting indeed... time and my experiences have taught me that the cards work together, they create harmonies and sometimes dischord... this is where I find great beauty... I freed myself from seeing the 3 of swords as only unhappiness, seperation, and sorrow a long, long time ago... I've developed my own sort of meaning and language in it.. it's hard to describe.. there is an emotional connection and reaction, though very subtle, when I see any card... that connection and reaction is its own language to me... and I take all those little emotional connections, and experiential memories, and gut twinges from all the cards I've laid in a spread, and they talk to me and make sense... and I talk back... it's so hard to explain... I was just bugged at the accusation the just cause I read the RWS and one of it's clones, that I follow GD meanings and/or system... I do not... I do not... I do not... lol... I'd throw another tantrum but have no energy to do so...lol...

Thanks for the posts of some of those decks... I quite like the look of that celtic... gonna have to see other cards from that deck!

Take care!

Joey

 

[lark]

Edited to add: And now I SOOOO want a Sola Busca! Why do I learn about these decks after they're out of print? Anyway, thank you, Lark, for mentioning it!)

Thank you for the link...but I probably didn't do you any favors helping you to lust after another deck.

Any-ho.....poor FutureMoth you're probably scratching your head going what the hell????

 

[firemaiden]

Which AGAIN takes us back to the root question I asked above: why use an occult object if you don't believe it has occult value?

I'd like to respond to this question, before I read any further. Is it not true that that the Golden Dawn System was imposed on the structure of the tarot, NOT as a reading tool, but as device for meditation and learning their system?

So too with Crowley's Thoth. --- The "fortune telling" application of the cards, as far as I understand was -- a fun (but lowly) application of them, but not their main purpose. The real purpose was astral travel, or sex magic or getting stoned and weirded out... or something else really really cool.

Just as cards that were designed for gambling games got co-opted into fortune telling cards... those in turn got co-opted into flashcards for a whole esoteric "system", and then, the magical flash cards get co-opted back into fortune telling cards when we read with them.

Does the fortune teller need to know how to gamble with her cards?

Does the gambler need to know the magical properties of the Jack of Clubs?

Methinks: a person who approaches a pile of cardboard rectangles decorated with paint and intends to use them for the lowly purpose divination does not need to know their original purpose any more than a person floating in an inner tube down the Sacramento River needs to know how to drive a truck.

That was point one. Point two is: as fortune tellers and/or readers, we are tempted to wish to believe that the instrument we use for the purpose is itself imbued with magical properties. It takes the responsibility off of us. It's not ME telling you that you are going to have a heart break this week, it's THE THREE OF SWORDS!

The Three of Swords has a MAGICAL LINEAGE! The truth of this card can be traced back to THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR if not all the way back to what'sisname ... HERMES TRISMEGISTUS!! It's not me telling you your heart will be stabbed through like a pin-cusion, even if only metaphorically, it's HERMES THREE TIMES GREAT who was descended from a God. If you don't believe me, believe the magical power that is invested in me by virtue of these sacred cards and the unassailable purity of their origin.

It's a lot like those voice teachers in New York who charge 300 dollars a lesson, because their method is has been passed down for centuries from the TRUE SCHOOL OF BEL CANTO. ... I've been to many of these, it usually turns out, one of their ancestors used to cut hair for Beniamino Giglio, or was his valet or stage-hand. And the whole lineage is a sham...

Our friend Umbrae has pointed out that the magical lineage of the Golden Dawn is a sham, --while it is descended from Eteilla, it messes the meanings around. And yet, strangely, it STILL WORKS!!

Why is that?

You just found out that you are not descended from William the Conquerer... there was a bastard son back 700 years that had the same name, but a different middle name, and it has baffled the genealogists, it turns out in fact you are descended from WILLIAM THE DUCK SLAYER!

Does that make you any less valuable as a human being?

The PHANTOD Deck by Edward Gorey, designed to satirize all reading decks with cards like THE BURNING HEAD, and the WALTZING MOUSE works too!!!

Why is that?

Could it be, could it just be, that images printed on a card just work for divination... because... they work?

That was point number two.

Point number three is: "reading" is a human trait. We are wired to connect the dots. We cannot view the dots and squiggles in an oak board without "seeing things".

When a person has developed the intuitive faculty within themselves, via whatever means, ANY tool is good for the job. Once we used beer coasters in a bar. Umbrae has demonstrated the use of toothpicks, shell casings, rain drops, and other natural phenomena. Some cultures use puca shells, bones, entrails, yada yada yada...

But this territory has been revisted ad nauseum on this forum, I do not have to repeat it. The point is that for SOME but NOT ALL readers, the faculty of reading precedes their acquaintance with the tarot.

For OTHER PEOPLE... (like myself I might add, but that's not important) -- the encounter with tarot cards was the FIRST foray into "reading" period.

We are tempted to see the cards as the source of the intuition. And indeed, to a degree, they are. The cards have some how captured frozen bits of dreams, and when we shuffle them and lay them out, they give us access to insights we never believed we had.

But... where are those insights really coming from???

 

[Scion]

Um, Firemaiden: exactly my question.

I will say that the founding of the Golden Dawn is a bit more complicated than a sham. The same could be said of Christianity, but the shamminess of that hasn't stopped it from changing human history. Me being descended from William the Conqueror has no bearing on my ability to function as a human, so your analagy doesn't really hold water. Still I take your point and am left with my questions. If you use an object and that object is designed to affect your intuition, and you claim to be getting good results with your intuition with said object... how is that possible?

I haven't actually said anything about lineages or magickal veracity. I've only been talking about the Golden Dawn. And I'll be the first to admit (as I have repeatedly) the dodginess in their history. But I'm not sure how that's relevant. If the GD deck works as they said it works then the deck at least is NOT a sham. Be it a white cat or a black cat, if it can rat it's a good cat. And then we're back to my question: Why use the occult object if you don't believe it's effective? And if you do think it's effective why is if effective?

If the system is worthless, why use it? Because if you are using the deck as intended (and divination was one use, though the lowest of them) and getting results then obviously it isn't a sham... at least not til you can provide an alternate explanation for it's utility. So why call it a sham, if you know the system works? That basic question again. And please understand, I know it's not an easy question and I'm sure we all of us have our own answers. But I can't wrap my head around the idea of ignoring the intelligence behind an object while praising the intelligence invested within the object.

Now, a few posts up, Joey explained his thinking in a wonderful, articulate post. Truth is, we do have very different ideas about the definition of study. But the fact is, he uses the Golden Dawn's system of attributions, but prefers to think of them as something personal. Fair enough. As much as he protests that they're "his" meanings (mine-mine-mine ) when he breaks the suits down, it's Golden Dawn he's repeating. And yet, when pressed he still insists that those meanings are his own. The wild thing is that these meanings that are "his" were learned from the Golden-Dawn-derived deck designed to teach those meanings. He can't tell me where the pictures come from or why they exist in that order, but he is insistant that his impressions are definitely unaffected by anything the designers might have been trying to convey. Somehow, he's really adamant that he didn't learn them from the deck, but rather than his experiences mapped the meanings onto the deck. Almost as if the pictures didn't exist before he found meanings to back them up.

Joey asked me a great question: why am I so passionate about this? The truth is, I think the process of growth and discovery is fascinating, and yet on AT over and over I read that people have just "intuited" meanings or "don't believe in all that occult stuff." The truth is, I think most folks don't think about systems or design. Most people get in a car and turn the key or push the button on the microwave. I don't think most people realize what they're learning and its actual source. But it's so strange to me that people won't credit the GD origins when they are using the GD images and the GD meanings.

Again, it's all well and good that "they work" but why do the Golden Dawn images work the way they do? That is interesting to me? How do they work differently than non-GD decks (which is actually the topic of this thread)? And fascinatingly, why are people so hesitant to admit the Golden Dawn's role in their own divinatory process when they are using GD-based decks? Of course use of a deck is personal, but using a Golden Dawn deck affects your readings. As Umbrae said earlier, this is WHY some people opt to ditch the GD and head for older decks.

Firemaiden, you say that "The cards have some how captured frozen bits of dreams," but that isn't true. I know you're speaking metaphorically, but in truth the cards cannot capture anything. They did not design themselves. They did not illustrate themselves. They did not fall from the sky. There were people involved, with preconceptions and prejudices and potency of their own. Are you telling me that those people perpetrated a sham, but you don't agree that their cards express a worldview? Or rather, are you suggesting that users of GD-decks can (in practice) tear those decks free of their ideological underpinnings and reinvent them, discarding the "occult sham" but preserving some unnamed, unspecified "real, true" virtue unwittingly bestowed by those charlatans, the very creators of the deck's system? If those same users are gleaning GD meaning from those GD-based decks, then how is it purely personal? And if those discoveries come from the deck exactly as intended, how is the system and the worldview it suports a sham?

Think of it this way, I could do divination using 78 images from fascist propaganda or softcore porn flyers or recipe cards, but don't you think those images would color my readings? Even more, don't you think the selection and organization of those images would affect not just my readings at that moment, but the way I developed as a reader?

I hear you talking, but as you say, where are the insights coming from?

Scion