The need of more advanced deck?

Interesting question OP. I agree to an extent with some of the responses.

To me it isn't about "needing" a more advanced deck as it is about learning a new structure or a new language per se. When I started tarot everything for beginners was pointing to the RWS. But once you know the history, you know that wasn't the first deck and that you didn't need to learn tarot on that deck.

So learn the Soprafino or TDM and challenge your brain. Try a Thoth, try an Etteila, get the Mary-El. Go get a Minchiate. Learn Lenormand and Sibilla (which aren't tarot). It is about learning the language of the new deck for me and these other decks, yes, give me better messages.

ETA: I did a Sola Busca study for a few months and that is a completely different deck too.

Everyone finds the deck that works for them. They are not always more "advanced" or more simple than others, they just like them and understand what they mean--the cards "talk" to them. Some love the Thoth, others (myself included) hate it. Does that make me simple or the Thoth bad? No, it just isn't for me.

When I started, I use RWS and no other deck would TALK to me. Then I met the Robin Wood which I still adore, although it was preempted for me by the WorldTree Deck, a deck I DON'T consider a beginner deck at all. But the Robin Wood, when I I teach beginners, is my deck of choice. I think it is much easier to read than the RWS. But with all the literature that uses RWS, I would not discount it.

I don't feel that because I am a long time reader that I MUST use an advanced deck, I use the deck I feel I need right then. For my blog, I find myself going back to RWS simple because it is the best known.

Barb

closrapexa said:

The chief advantage of more abstract decks is that they allow you to better distill the card's essence, being able to then apply it to any situation since you're constructing the meaning out of several different sources and arriving at as pure an idea as possible. It also helps maintain objectivity because of external constraints and balances that allow you to take the reading out of yourself. You not only know what a card means in ways that surpass LWBs or simple personal interpretation, but you also know why it means what it means, and how it connects to other cards in the reading and how it behaves.

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I completely agree.

Actually, to me, using more visually complex decks is a way of making more complicated or esoteric reading styles accessible to querents who are less familiar with those systems. I have all of the information that would be represented on a card, and I'm just as likely to use an appropriate card interpretation regardless of whether it's pictorially represented in a particular deck. (In fact, for most of my own readings, I use a French Tarot playing deck completely stripped of occult symbolism; it's more or less a plain deck of cards with 26 extras added in.) However, if I'm reading for someone else who isn't familiar with Tarot symbolism (let alone with more complex systems like Kabbalah), I do find it useful to have a visual representation I can point to in order to explain a spread.

What's an advanced deck, after all?

It depends. For instance, I could read intuitively with the Thoth when I didn't really know what I was doing. Now that I'm beginning to scratch the symbols and concepts that inform it, it reads so much better.

So for me the Thoth is not really an "abstract" deck. It pulsates with energy. Its colors and shapes spoke to me -- vividly -- before I even suspected what any of it really meant.

I also agree with Grizabella: the RWS is definitely NOT a beginner's deck. It can helpful for a beginner because there's so much good literature available about it, and it looks accesible, but other than that...

And of course, there are those decks that look deceptively simple, like the Anna K, or the Dreaming Way --but boy, do they pack a punch. (And I won't even get into Marseilles or Italian decks here, or we'd be here all night.)

So, anyway, my somewhat scattered point is that drawing a line between "beginner" and "advanced" decks is not as easy as it sounds.

I'm not an advanced reader, and I like all kinds of decks, but I do have a preference for TdM/historic/unillustrated-pip decks. As for why, I agree with closrapexa and Jack: having more abstract images allows you to distill the meaning of each card, see it in the wider context of the whole deck and make it more neutral without any effort.

Actually, I think that when a card has an image of a specific situation, especially involving people, there's a higher probability of a bias, either positive or negative. There's a higher chance that you will have some personal feelings attached to this particular situation and stop seeing it as a principle: I'm thinking here about all those threads where people can't get over images of human or animal cruelty in cards, which often makes a deck totally unreadable for them. This hardly ever happens with TdMs (but I don't dismiss that possibility). So, in a way, it does make more abstract decks 'deeper' and more versatile: simply because every card in them can be more easily viewed as the whole range, from the most positive to the most negative meaning.

Apollonia said:

Well, that explains my POV, as the way I drive, I would much rather (and actually do) have a second-hand Toyota than a fancy schmancy car that I have to think and worry about. Different strokes!

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Hahaha, that's how I feel too. I want a reliable car. Don't want a high maintenance car!

Ace said:

Everyone finds the deck that works for them. They are not always more "advanced" or more simple than others, they just like them and understand what they mean--the cards "talk" to them. Some love the Thoth, others (myself included) hate it. Does that make me simple or the Thoth bad? No, it just isn't for me.

When I started, I use RWS and no other deck would TALK to me. Then I met the Robin Wood which I still adore, although it was preempted for me by the WorldTree Deck, a deck I DON'T consider a beginner deck at all. But the Robin Wood, when I I teach beginners, is my deck of choice. I think it is much easier to read than the RWS. But with all the literature that uses RWS, I would not discount it.

I don't feel that because I am a long time reader that I MUST use an advanced deck, I use the deck I feel I need right then. For my blog, I find myself going back to RWS simple because it is the best known.

Barb

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That's a great way to look at it. I can never connect with too much symbolism or too abstract. Sometimes, I feel inferior as I don't know these knowledge and I have no motivation to learn.

In a great way one can compare it to food and one's reaction to it. Now, if you're hungry a simple cheese sandwich will do well do to fill you up. However, sometimes you have an appetite for some three star Michelin cooking. The existence of gourmet restaurants doesn't negate the worth of the sandwich, especially if you're looking to eat in a strictly utilitarian fashion. However, the luxury restaurant will serve food that is objectively more complex, deals with ingredients in a more advanced way, goes further in its explorations of taste and texture and nutritional value.

So while one can debate better or worse, the idea of complexity and advancement really can't be debated because beginners' decks are somewhat inferior and more simplistic in their presentation of ideas. However well or ill something is liked or used says nothing of its quality or complexity. After all, while one may like and enjoy reading Little Red Riding Hood, it isn't an insult to its fans if I say that as a work of literature it is inferior to War and Peace. It doesn't have the same scope or grandeur or exploration of ideas. You don't even have to like War and Peace to say that it is objectively a better book than Riding Hood or Playboy.

When you're looking at something like the Thoth, you're looking at the War and Peace of Tarot, the benchmark by which all, or at least many, others take their cues from. It is Tarot taken to a level of high art in its attention to detail, symbolic cohesion and unity of composition.

The fact that people can use and get good readings from any deck doesn't mean that all decks are the same. Some people read literature, others read tabloids. Both pass the time, but how they are used has no bearing on its essence.

closrapexa said:

In a great way one can compare it to food and one's reaction to it. Now, if you're hungry a simple cheese sandwich will do well do to fill you up. However, sometimes you have an appetite for some three star Michelin cooking. The existence of gourmet restaurants doesn't negate the worth of the sandwich, especially if you're looking to eat in a strictly utilitarian fashion. However, the luxury restaurant will serve food that is objectively more complex, deals with ingredients in a more advanced way, goes further in its explorations of taste and texture and nutritional value.

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<smile> Exactly my point.

And now I'm hungry.