Different reading systems with different decks

Thirteen

If it's not right for you, then back it should go

Michellehihi said:
For the 2 of cups the LWB said more:"the trip, letting go of memories and continuing". What? Isn't that, as you suggest, the 6 of swords?

Kinda sorta...but not. 6/Swords is getting past rough waters and heading to a more harmonious shore. Usually more a matter of getting out of an argument and reaching an answer to agreement. I'm presuming what the card creator is going of here is that Ace/Cups is new emotions and so 2/Cups is going forward with these new emotions which can't be done if you're hanging on to old emotions (memories of a past relationship). i.e. enter into a new relationship.

But I do have to say, it's sounding more an more like this deck is more trouble than it's worth. There are decks that do as you feel this one is doing. Essentially, the creator decides what they think the cards should mean, and create their own deck. This means the deck is really "creator's-name-deck."

When I come across such decks...I feel tricked. Because a "tarot" deck was what I was after. Not "creator's-name-deck." If this deck isn't expanding tarot in new and exciting directions, not opening your mind to new thoughts on how to view the cards, if it feels like the creator trick you into buying *their* deck (their images and meanings) by using the names of tarot suits and majors to make you think you were getting a tarot deck...then you might want to return it. Especially if it feels like it'd be too much work to use it/learn the new interpretations, and not worth it (i.e. those new interpretations aren't all that special or inspiring).

You have your own years of study and experience in tarot; you have every right to make a judgement call on this deck and say "This person doesn't know what they're talking about, back it goes!" Don't feel obligated to learn it or use it or change your views or ways. One of the most important elements to tarot reading is the connection between deck and reader. It must be right for you. If the creator of the deck failed in that, then that the end of the relationship.

JoJoCat

I really like Thirteen's advice here from their first post. My mystical cats deck is a bit like this. For example, the 5 cups isn't totally about mourning but about shaking off from a smallish failure and getting up to try again. So it is a bit related, but more on be advice part of the RWS card, you know? Maybe this way you can find bridges to more traditional meanings and remember that way so you're not looking at the lwb LOL

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Grizabella

nisaba said:
I don't look at card titles very much, either using decks I'm familiar with or decks I'm not familiar with. Instead, I look at the IMAGES. They tell you all you need to know.

Me too. I totally agree.

What I do with decks that differ from standard RWS is to use the default meaning of the cards, but then I look at the images. I figure out how the image is speaking. As an example I always use the Death card in the Tarot of Sweet Twilight by Lo Scarabeo since that's a breakthrough I had. I was looking at the Death card in that deck and it shows a skeleton carrying a girl across a desert. Suddenly lightning flashed in my mind and I knew that Death was taking this poor girl so she wouldn't have to linger and thirst and suffer. For me, that was a huge turning point. Before that I couldn't read Lo Scarabeo decks to save my soul, but in that moment of inspiration, it made all the difference. Now I can't get enough of their decks. They're some of my favorites.

Right now I'm using the Bonefire, which is one of my all-time favorites, too. The book that comes with the new mass market edition of the deck is very good about explaining the artist's concept of each card. I've had the first edition for a couple of years now and it didn't have a book---just a little leaflet type book. Most of the cards' images are quite different from RWS but she did do the deck in the RWS tradition rather than Thoth or Marseilles so the diving board for me is the default RWS meanings from which I dive off into the images and that's where I find the "sparks" that tell me what the message in the cards is. It's very difficult to explain, but there it is as best I could do.

Although there are standard meanings for the RWS cards, and although those meanings can be used with just about any deck that follows that tradition, the cards never always mean any one thing. It's the cards in combinations that tell the story (unless, of course, it's a one-card draw).

If the booklet with your deck isn't making sense to you, then don't worry about it. Just use your RWS knowledge and weave your story using the standard meanings and then getting sparks of insight from the images on the cards you have. The meanings are really just some basic kind of standard meanings, but then as you go through your Tarot experience and ongoing education, you'll develop many, many, many more insights and meanings than you could find in any one book.

And don't forget this forum. It's a PhD crash course in Tarot and other means of divination. You couldn't get a more thorough education anywhere else in the world than right here on this forum.

Barleywine

nisaba said:
I don't look at card titles very much, either using decks I'm familiar with or decks I'm not familiar with. Instead, I look at the IMAGES. They tell you all you need to know.

I set myself an interesting challenge in this regard. I bought the Spanish-language edition of the Rorig Tarot (it was the only one I could find at a reasonable price). I read very little Spanish, so I have to pay more attention to the numbers, suits and images (well, in fact, there are very obscure English words buried in the pictures, but you have to look hard for some of them). To really do this right, I would probably have to get a Russian deck with Cyrillic text on the cards.

Michellehihi

Thirteen said:
Kinda sorta...but not. 6/Swords is getting past rough waters and heading to a more harmonious shore. Usually more a matter of getting out of an argument and reaching an answer to agreement. I'm presuming what the card creator is going of here is that Ace/Cups is new emotions and so 2/Cups is going forward with these new emotions which can't be done if you're hanging on to old emotions (memories of a past relationship). i.e. enter into a new relationship.

But I do have to say, it's sounding more an more like this deck is more trouble than it's worth. There are decks that do as you feel this one is doing. Essentially, the creator decides what they think the cards should mean, and create their own deck. This means the deck is really "creator's-name-deck."

When I come across such decks...I feel tricked. Because a "tarot" deck was what I was after. Not "creator's-name-deck." If this deck isn't expanding tarot in new and exciting directions, not opening your mind to new thoughts on how to view the cards, if it feels like the creator trick you into buying *their* deck (their images and meanings) by using the names of tarot suits and majors to make you think you were getting a tarot deck...then you might want to return it. Especially if it feels like it'd be too much work to use it/learn the new interpretations, and not worth it (i.e. those new interpretations aren't all that special or inspiring).

You have your own years of study and experience in tarot; you have every right to make a judgement call on this deck and say "This person doesn't know what they're talking about, back it goes!" Don't feel obligated to learn it or use it or change your views or ways. One of the most important elements to tarot reading is the connection between deck and reader. It must be right for you. If the creator of the deck failed in that, then that the end of the relationship.

Thirteen that's what I was thinking: this is not a tarot, it's an oracle.

Michellehihi

Grizabella said:
Me too. I totally agree.

What I do with decks that differ from standard RWS is to use the default meaning of the cards, but then I look at the images. I figure out how the image is speaking. As an example I always use the Death card in the Tarot of Sweet Twilight by Lo Scarabeo since that's a breakthrough I had. I was looking at the Death card in that deck and it shows a skeleton carrying a girl across a desert. Suddenly lightning flashed in my mind and I knew that Death was taking this poor girl so she wouldn't have to linger and thirst and suffer. For me, that was a huge turning point. Before that I couldn't read Lo Scarabeo decks to save my soul, but in that moment of inspiration, it made all the difference. Now I can't get enough of their decks. They're some of my favorites.

Right now I'm using the Bonefire, which is one of my all-time favorites, too. The book that comes with the new mass market edition of the deck is very good about explaining the artist's concept of each card. I've had the first edition for a couple of years now and it didn't have a book---just a little leaflet type book. Most of the cards' images are quite different from RWS but she did do the deck in the RWS tradition rather than Thoth or Marseilles so the diving board for me is the default RWS meanings from which I dive off into the images and that's where I find the "sparks" that tell me what the message in the cards is. It's very difficult to explain, but there it is as best I could do.

Although there are standard meanings for the RWS cards, and although those meanings can be used with just about any deck that follows that tradition, the cards never always mean any one thing. It's the cards in combinations that tell the story (unless, of course, it's a one-card draw).

If the booklet with your deck isn't making sense to you, then don't worry about it. Just use your RWS knowledge and weave your story using the standard meanings and then getting sparks of insight from the images on the cards you have. The meanings are really just some basic kind of standard meanings, but then as you go through your Tarot experience and ongoing education, you'll develop many, many, many more insights and meanings than you could find in any one book.

And don't forget this forum. It's a PhD crash course in Tarot and other means of divination. You couldn't get a more thorough education anywhere else in the world than right here on this forum.

Thank you Grizabelle for this detailed answer. Yes this forum is an advanced tarot class!
So you like the LoScarabeo style!
In fact the more I think, the more I could see this deck as a lone thinker, the one who doesn't follow the crowd. It does make sense. And yesterday I did a reading with it and it was very insightful, there is only one spread proposed in the LWB but wow, what a profound one!

Different reading systems with different decks

Thirteen

JoJoCat

Grizabella

Barleywine

Michellehihi

Michellehihi