Importance of symbols or actual meanings of cards

Hi guys! Newbie here! So, I want to start practicing online readings on others for my first official readings. Lately, when I've been looking up info on tarot, I've seen a LOT about intuition. And I am kind of a rebellious soul. I love to do things MY way. So my question is....is it really important to actually learn the symbols and meanings of the suits...or does anyone just wholeheartedly use their intuition for readings without the symbolic meaning behind the cards?

You can read cards any way you like. There's no Tarot Police that will take away your deck because you don't use the usual meanings.

However, you'll find it's easiest to get assistance with puzzling readings if you're using the same agree-upon meanings as everyone else.

It's kind of like inventing your own language. As long as you're the only person writing in your language, it doesn't matter what the words mean. They mean what you say they mean. If you don't understand what "rizmultr" means, you just make something up.

But if you want to ask "When I was reading for my friend, the 9 of Wands came up as the "Outcome" card. For me that means her house is about to burn down, but that doesn't make sense because she asked about her boyfriend. Can anyone help me interpret this?"

No one will be able to help because no one knows your language. All they will be able to offer is "Well, 9 of Wands is usually interpreted as standing your ground after a battle. Perhaps she'll be feeling particularly bruised and battered because she and her boyfriend will have a lot of conflict this week"

That's fine for everyone who uses the same symbology, but it won't help you at all because it won't be what the 9 of Wands means to you. You'll still be looking for assistance about how losing her home relates to her boyfriend. And you'll be the only person who has any clue what it means because you're the only person who speaks that language

The cards are ink and cardboard. They mean whatever you want them to mean. You could use tea leaves or animal bones to the same effect. It's only when two or more people agree as to what they mean that you can have conversations about nuances of interpretation.

I mainly defer to symbols, as they speak to me more clearly than specific written meanings, but I only use the symbols as a springboard for all out intuitive feeling I just 'read' what the card feels to be telling me. That's why I don't ask for specific questions, and prefer not to be given specific questions, lest they colour my view of the feelings I'm feeling

This is a lesson I learned when I joined AT. Prior to that I read exclusively with the Thoth deck for many years; it's rich in symbolism, but of a variety unique to its author and his antecedents in the Golden Dawn. Here, many people read with the RWS deck and its derivatives, of which I was almost entirely ignorant (I read the Pictorial Key to the Tarot ages ago but never owned the deck). In order to communicate intelligently, I had to buy an RWS deck and learn where its symbolism departs from the kind I was used to. That doesn't mean I accepted all of it (not by a long shot), but at least I was able to discuss it with confidence. But to answer the question, I take a broad intuitive look at the whole spread to get the big-picture perspective but, when reading card-by-card, symbolism holds center stage and I augment that with imagination, inspiration and intuition to flesh out the narrative. Sometimes metaphor speaks more eloquently than plain language.

I first learned the meanings from books. (This is the Rider Waite Deck.) But later, I discovered that I must use my own intuition--the first feeling that the picture gives me even if it is significantly different from what the book says.

For example, the 9 of Swords is a very negative card of pain and suffering. However, a friend of mind did a reading once and he believed that it meant that the querent was pregnant--and that turned out to be in fact the case!

QueenKhepera said:

So my question is....is it really important to actually learn the symbols and meanings of the suits...or does anyone just wholeheartedly use their intuition for readings without the symbolic meaning behind the cards?

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I have a list of decks I study and/or want to study because of their rich symbolism. And I have a list of decks that I just use, reading the images they contain. So do you have to learn the symbols and the suit meanings? No. Might that data give you additional information to use when reading intuitively as it adds to the base of knowledge from which you pull your intuitive readings? Most definitely!

Rodney

QueenKhepera said:

...is it really important to actually learn the symbols and meanings of the suits...or does anyone just wholeheartedly use their intuition for readings without the symbolic meaning behind the cards?

Click to expand...

Welcome, fellow rebel! I started reading tarot cards when I was in my late teens. I used the Rider-Waite and had a book explaining its meanings. I am very good at memorization but found it frustrating to try remembering all the meanings associated with each suit, each number, each combination, reversals, and so on. It all got in the way of my being able to tune into the person I was reading for, or my issue/question, if I was reading for myself. It was just too static and lifeless to refer to someone else's ideas that they associated with the cards, even if those meanings were what the the cards' creators intended. What did all that have to do with me, decades later?

Sometime after I'd been reading tarot for about 10 years, a trusted mentor of mine (a mentor in something else, not tarot) happened to be giving a class in intuition and tarot, and during the class, she said, "Throw the book away!" That seemed quite radical to me, but I immediately felt relieved by letting go of the constraints I felt from trying to use the traditional symbolism and "cookbook" meanings.

Years later, I took workshops for developing and trusting my intuition, and some of the exercises utilized tarot. Again, I felt relief at being told to look at the pictures as a way to access my intuition, and we never looked up the meanings of symbols in those workshops. The best thing you can do for trusting your intuition is to keep developing self-awarenesss and know yourself very well so it is possible to discern the difference between your own particular patterns of thinking and the truly intuitive hits that come to you, as well as the thoughts and feelings of others that will pop in.

I look at the cards and just examine the artwork to see what it stirs up in my imagination and intuition. The position of a figure, the arrangement of their clothing, the scenery, objects, animals, etc., will all bring up different things at different times for different sitters, and so I haven't referred to a tarot book in years. I am happy with how I read the tarot, and I think I do it fairly well. It makes it somewhat frustrating, though, to come here and read threads where people post their readings and are looking for help on readings because they will say what the question is and name the cards, but I need to see the pictures or draw those cards from my own decks and look at them, in order to give feedback. I can't just say "Oh, Three of Wands means this and Temperance means that!" A cookie cutter approach and using meanings attached by other people to symbols that might stimulate something completely different to me, just doesn't work for me.

I believe that learning "the book meanings" to get started gives you a solid base to build on, simultaneously with your own vocabulary.

If you completely rely on your intuition, there's a risk that you only see what you want to see; or only see what you fear the most. Without any "backbone" to nail your interpretations on, it can easily become mere guesswork or wishy-washy fantasy. [Not necessarily, but this IMO is evident in some readings on this forum].

I studied the meanings by reading different sources online and doing myriads of readings for myself. Short term predictions/daily draws proved handy, because I kept journalling what each card meant on a daily, weekly and monthly settings.

Intuition comes into play when you start using a number of different decks. Each has their own imagery/illustration style and images give the strongest cues about how to read that particular card of that particular deck.

I don't believe that any card or card combination means *exactly* the same thing in different situations, because life is fluid and every event, emotion, person etc. is different, in different time, context/settings and so on. Thus, intuition and interpretation skills are always needed instead of listing keywords or basic meanings of cards.

The thing about symbols is that they're NOT arbitrary connections between an image and a meaning, made up by someone writing a fat dictionary of symbols which then you have to learn by heart ;-)

Symbols are loaded with meaning, having been used by generations of people. A good symbol is never just a graphic sign like the signage at the Olympic game - just a pictogram of a man kicking a ball telling you where to go when you want to see a football match. Symbols are so much more.

A symbol is like a knot where different strands meet, cross and bind together. Look at an apple. Think for a moment and all the different cultural, religious and traditional symbolism comes into your head. The golden apples of Atalante - apples of the Hesperides - the golden apple of discord, thrown by Eris - the open apple with its pentagram pattern of cores, resembling the pattern the planet Venus draws over time on the sky - Adam and Eve and the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge - the Jewish New Year with apples and honey - the goddess Pomona - Goethe's word about the silver bowls and golden apples - the Beatles and their firm Apple - Apple computers - American apple piec ----- and then comes memory of my childhood and the little red-green apples from Grandmother's garden, her apple cake, and my first perfume, Max Factor's Green Apple......

The modest little apple brings a host of associations and traditions, memories and ideas. It's a powerful symbol where the culture you come from, other cultures you learned about, and your own personal memories meet.

You can interpret a card with an apple very well without knowing anything about the Garden of the Hesperides and their apples.

But getting deeper into the language of symbols enriches not only our understanding of tarot cards, art and many things around us, I find it makes me a more connected persons. Things become meaningful. And this meaningfulness (did I just invent a new word?) makes me a better tarot reader, more aware of the many layers in everything around me, including the cards.

It's one of the reasons why I like to have a number of tarot decks - the fox in the Shadowscapes is so different from the fox in Bagers Forest, and yet it's the same animal. A multivalent symbol.

So no, you don't need to study symbolism. You may want to do it nevertheless.

Nemia said:

The thing about symbols is that they're NOT arbitrary connections between an image and a meaning, made up by someone writing a fat dictionary of symbols which then you have to learn by heart ;-)

Symbols are loaded with meaning, having been used by generations of people. A good symbol is never just a graphic sign like the signage at the Olympic game - just a pictogram of a man kicking a ball telling you where to go when you want to see a football match. Symbols are so much more.

A symbol is like a knot where different strands meet, cross and bind together. Look at an apple. Think for a moment and all the different cultural, religious and traditional symbolism comes into your head. The golden apples of Atalante - apples of the Hesperides - the golden apple of discord, thrown by Eris - the open apple with its pentagram pattern of cores, resembling the pattern the planet Venus draws over time on the sky - Adam and Eve and the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge - the Jewish New Year with apples and honey - the goddess Pomona - Goethe's word about the silver bowls and golden apples - the Beatles and their firm Apple - Apple computers - American apple piec ----- and then comes memory of my childhood and the little red-green apples from Grandmother's garden, her apple cake, and my first perfume, Max Factor's Green Apple......

The modest little apple brings a host of associations and traditions, memories and ideas. It's a powerful symbol where the culture you come from, other cultures you learned about, and your own personal memories meet.

You can interpret a card with an apple very well without knowing anything about the Garden of the Hesperides and their apples.

But getting deeper into the language of symbols enriches not only our understanding of tarot cards, art and many things around us, I find it makes me a more connected persons. Things become meaningful. And this meaningfulness (did I just invent a new word?) makes me a better tarot reader, more aware of the many layers in everything around me, including the cards.

It's one of the reasons why I like to have a number of tarot decks - the fox in the Shadowscapes is so different from the fox in Bagers Forest, and yet it's the same animal. A multivalent symbol.

So no, you don't need to study symbolism. You may want to do it nevertheless.

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Flawless reasoning! Why do I get the feeling you've published that somewhere before? It has a professional elegance to it.