Interpreting the Marseilles Deck

[Daimon link]

I've had the Marseilles deck for a short while now, and I really like the cards, even though they aren't as detailed as say the Rider-Waite. However, at least in terms of the pips, I feel as though I cannot read without a book. I don't want to change decks, as I feel like this deck found its way to me and that makes it in some way special, but at the same time there is nothing I can work with in terms of the pips in order to do intuitive readings. Of course, I can try and memorize the meanings of the cards, but I don't want to just become a machine. Anyone have any tips to offer?

 

[Moonbow]

There are many methods for interpreting the pips in decks and you will likely find the one that suits you at some point. You say there is nothing you can work with but you just need to look more carefully at them. Look at the arrangement of the suit implements are they symmetrical or in a pattern which may mean something to you, the foliage and whether it's in bud or wilting etc.

Firstly I use my own views on what I notice then I use very basic numerology, I consider the element and also sometimes link the card back to it's Major of the same number. Sometimes I use all of this and sometimes just go with what first strikes me when I look at the card.

There are many threads here about the Marseilles pips and although I recommend reading them I still think it's important to find your own method.

If you look in the Marseilles forum at the Table of Contents you will find threads called 'How may it be read' which I think are very useful, and please add your own take.

Also you will find many threads regarding how to read the pips.

 

[Daimon link]

The problem I am having lies in the picture directly. Firstly, I don't know numerology, so I cannot simply rely on that. Secondly, I can take a look at a card and notice the flowers are budding, wilting, what have you, but that does not tell me anything at all other than a basic positive/negative. I may be making this more difficult than it really should be, but I'm not seeing anything in the pips. Also, I've read the Marseilles section on how to read the pips, and there was really nothing in there. The best thing that someone said was to switch the pips with another easier to read deck, but I refuse to do that.

EDIT:

Also, does anyone think it's wrong that I'm using the book to help me with the meanings? I am a novice at Tarot (less than one month), and am far from having a good grasp of everything. I'm hoping to ween myself from the book at some point, but do any of you think that it is bad?

 

[Moonbow]

There's nothing in the Marseilles forum!!? It sounds to me as though you are being negative before you start.

Daimon link, whichever deck you use you will need to 'work' with and put some effort into learning and practicing. This goes for any Tarot deck, it's not a case of this card means this and that card means that. Tarot is about opening yourself up to the image in front of you and using some imagination and intuition... work with them. Look at them daily, lay them out side by side and see the progression from one card to the next. What changes from the 2 of Swords to the 3, then to the 4 etc. It's not a case of there is just one more sword added you have to look deeper than that.

A budding flower may mean the beginning of something or that immense effort is needed to show full potential. A a wilting one may mean that something is coming to an end and had it's time.

Tarot isn't a memory game it's a visual storybook.

Just seen your edit. I am surprised that you have managed to find a book to help you with a Marseilles deck, unless you read French. If you are using RWS meanings with a Marseilles deck then you are making this quite hard work.

 

[Daimon link]

There's nothing in the Marseilles forum!!? It sounds to me as though you are being negative before you start.

Daimon link, whichever deck you use you will need to 'work' with and put some effort into learning and practicing. This goes for any Tarot deck, it's not a case of this card means this and that card means that. Tarot is about opening yourself up to the image in front of you and using some imagination and intuition... work with them. Look at them daily, lay them out side by side and see the progression from one card to the next. What changes from the 2 of Swords to the 3, then to the 4 etc. It's not a case of there is just one more sword added you have to look deeper than that.

A budding flower may mean the beginning of something or that immense effort is needed to show full potential. A a wilting one may mean that something is coming to an end and had it's time.

Tarot isn't a memory game it's a visual storybook.

Just seen your edit. I am surprised that you have managed to find a book to help you with a Marseilles deck, unless you read French. If you are using RWS meanings with a Marseilles deck then you are making this quite hard work.

No, there really is nothing in the Marseilles forum. The content does not apply or help me in my personal situation, and therefore there is no help for me there. I never expected the intepretations to jump out at me, and I have and will continue to work and try to be able to find ways of intrepreting these cards, but I am making little progress. Also, yes, a budding flower can mean this or that, but I am not about applying any old meaning. To do that is to not read Tarot, but to be a false reader. I know when a meaning is real, seeing as this occurs to me when I read Major Arcana: When I pull a card from the trumps, even if I do not know it's full meaning, I will get a very strong feeling. That feeling helps me to derive a meaning. However, when I look at the pips, I get no such feeling. I'm not going to look that the flowers and start guessing or coming up with a million possible meanings just to satisfy myself.

Granted, you may view this outlook as negative, but it is not so. My outlook is based on my intuition, and I have none with the pips. Also, I never suggested that Tarot is memorization, so please don't think that is what I am implying.

Also, I am not using RWS meanings with my book. Actually, the Marseilles deck I received was bundled with a book to use specifically for the Marseilles and for a beginner period.

 

[Northwind]

No, there really is nothing in the Marseilles forum. The content does not apply or help me in my personal situation, and therefore there is no help for me there. I never expected the intepretations to jump out at me, and I have and will continue to work and try to be able to find ways of intrepreting these cards, but I am making little progress. Also, yes, a budding flower can mean this or that, but I am not about applying any old meaning. To do that is to not read Tarot, but to be a false reader. I know when a meaning is real, seeing as this occurs to me when I read Major Arcana: When I pull a card from the trumps, even if I do not know it's full meaning, I will get a very strong feeling. That feeling helps me to derive a meaning. However, when I look at the pips, I get no such feeling. I'm not going to look that the flowers and start guessing or coming up with a million possible meanings just to satisfy myself.

Granted, you may view this outlook as negative, but it is not so. My outlook is based on my intuition, and I have none with the pips. Also, I never suggested that Tarot is memorization, so please don't think that is what I am implying.

Also, I am not using RWS meanings with my book. Actually, the Marseilles deck I received was bundled with a book to use specifically for the Marseilles and for a beginner period.

What book is it, Daimon link? Lee Burston has written a book companion to the recently released LS Universal Marseille and that would be worth getting.

Many Europeans read only with the Marseille Majors. If that is what suits you, do that.

Knowing the suits and their corresponding elements is fairly essential to understandint the Marseille pips. Knowing some basic numerology is necessary too. This basic knowledge is a foundation. Your intuition needs a foundation.

 

[TheOld]

Also, I've read the Marseilles section on how to read the pips, and there was really nothing in there.

that is verry funny LOL..
check again and you'll see a LOT of info about how to read marseille on the forum, JMD in particular wrote many good way of interpretating the pips but theres is MUCH more.

maybe you have problem to structure the information you acquire from the forum or i don't know but THERE IS so many stuff here ;-)

Have fun
Omeada

 

[jmd]

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Daimon_link is looking for allegories in the pips.

In other words, in the Atouts we have not only images that depict certain concepts, but that also have a wealth of symbolic and allegorical content from centuries of occidental development.

And to be fair, this is simply just not the case with regards to the pips: they do not derive from allegories at all.

Rather, their 'meaning' is derived from the suit in question, the relation of its number, and its decorations. So the first step, I would suggest, is to have a careful look at the suit and actually get some tools as depicted.

Hold a Sword and feel its force; hold a Cup, reflect on its usage; actually get an old coin, and meditate on it; from a forest, get a branch and behold it.

That is the basis of the suits, in my view, and without actually connecting to the implements, the depictions are distant and to some extant meaningless.

As to the numbers depicted on a card, consider (after doing the above) what two, three, ....etc to ten of the suit actually reflect instead of just one. For example, what is the difference between having ten cups on a table as opposed to one (and what happens to that single bottle of wine???); what is it like laying together ten swords instead of one (and who wields them?); what of Coins? and Batons?

Once these are held and slowly reflected on, the depiction on the cards also add more: those floral arrangements! What do these bring to the overall sense of the cups, the coins, the batons, and the swords?

Certainly, there are not the allegories that the Atouts present, but neither are the Atouts able to be understood in a manner described for the four other suits. They each have their particular manner of being further understood, in my view.

 

[Lee]

Hi Daimon link, welcome to Aeclectic!

I think it's great that you're asking questions. That's the best way to learn, to ask questions and think about the various answers and see which may be valuable to you.

There are no specific messages encoded into the Marseille minors. If you want to derive meaning from them, there are a limited number of possibilities.

You could combine suit and numerological meanings

You could substitute meanings based on an scenic-minors deck like the Rider-Waite

You could memorize fortune-telling-type meanings for each card

You could study the images and see what they suggest to you

I suggest that in fact you have two options:

1) forget about reading Marseille decks and stick with scenic-pip decks.

or

2) the tarot can mean many things, but I think one essential message in the tarot is the value of flexibility and change. Perhaps your thinking is too rigid. Why not go back to those threads in the Marseille forum and read them again, this time with a more open attitude? Instead of deciding in advance what's true and what's false, you might experiment with some of the methods there and see what works for you or what doesn't. That way your opinions will be based on experience rather than preconceived notions.

I too am curious which book you're reading which came packaged with a Marseille deck. Perhaps it's just a little white booklet and not an actual book? My book for the Universal Marseille isn't available yet, I think it's being published in September and won't be available in the U.S. until next year.

-- Lee

 

[jmd]

Personally, I find my posts being 'dismissed' a muse-ing, and also a sign that perhaps I have also failed to address something of significance.

For those of us that have read and used Tarot for decades, there is, on the one hand, a wealth of specific experience to draw from, but there may also be described (along with Lonergan) as oversight: a 'flight from understanding' from accustomed ways of thinking and viewing things.

Not having an insight into the pips does not mean that one is to accept the views of others if they just seem somewhat off the mark. On the contrary, at times it requires a fresh look, or keen newer eyes, to unmask the layers that hide in plain sight our own accustomed way of seeing things.

It's not so much, then, of not having a rigid attitude, but of becoming clearer as to why certain things presented just don't seem quite right:

perhaps, as a consequence, one's own perspective may change if one realises that why it did not seem quite right was the presumption that the pips ought to have a common or similar narrative to the Atouts;

on the other hand, one may discover anew insights not before presented, and as a consequence enable our perspective to change.