The need of more advanced deck?

I don't think there's such a thing as a beginner's or advanced tarot deck. Consider, for example, how often people refer to the Waite Smith as beginner's, but people who have dedicated years to that deck will tell you it's anything but simple. People sometimes reject Marseille decks because the styles are too simple or because the pips are too challenging. Would that make Marseille decks beginner's or advanced? Neither, really.

I think there are different systems and approaches - symbolism, intuition, Jung, Golden Dawn, Kabbalah, astrology, geometry, an artist's unique additions and interpretations, and so forth. Advancing in tarot means learning more about those as well as tarot's history and development and also perhaps branching out into areas such as playing cards, Lenormand, etc.

The question of why some decks endure while others fade away is another one altogether.

My experience has been simple, but I'll spare all the details just for the sake of brevity.

Using the RWS to learn with to start with was the way I really was able to learn to read the cards. I wasted a lot of time trying to read other decks.

It took me some years before I was able to read really well with decks that were not Rider Waite.

I do believe there are decks more suited to beginners and others to more advanced readers. While it's true what you hear "oh, you can learn to read with any deck" and that's true---sort of---here's the deal.

If you learn with Magillicuddy's Amazing 78, you'll be able to read with any deck of Magillicuddy's 78 you pick up.

However, if you learn to read with Rider Waite, then you can read with any deck you pick up, provided it's based on RWS.

My choice for a beginner deck is the Rider Waite. But the Rider Waite is also extremely eloquent for intermediate and advanced readers as well.

Magillicuddy's?

Or Rider Waite and Morgan Greer and Housewives Tarot, etc.etc.etc.?

The exceptions would be if you choose to start with Thoth or Marseilles and want to stay in those decks and their clones but even so, choosing a Thoth-based or Marseilles based deck is going to give you skill more with that deck, but if you start with the actual Thoth or actual Marseilles, then you can read with pretty much any other deck based on those styles.

Our ability to read the cards has nothing to do with the complexity or simplicity of the deck. It has everything to do with how far along our tarot journey we've come

What is or isn't an advanced deck is in the eye of the beholder anyway.

Simple said:

I'm just curious. There're thousands of decks out there. What are the reasons that advanced readers prefer to read with an more advanced, perhaps abstract decks compared to the clear, fully illustrated beginners decks? Does it mean beginners decks don't have enough depth? Since I rely on intuition and not on symbolism, I find beautifully illustrated beginners decks work fine and offer great insight. Other more advanced decks (like Thoth and other more abstract) don't have attractive arts for me.

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The only thing I like in a deck is imagery with a lot of detail. And illustrated pips, also with detail to the imagery. I read mainly from the card imagery so the more depth to it, the more advanced it feels to me.

Abstract imagery is also very conducive to the imagination and intuition.

I am not sure I believe in the concept of "beginner" decks. I started on the Haindl, which was Thoth based and complex enough to learn. (I didn't even know what a Thoth was at the time, but that was the deck that called to me) I would not change a thing in my learning process. If you want to learn you will learn on any deck that calls to you. And learning on an unusual deck, I feel like it taught me to think outside the box and encouraged me to creative. If I had learnt in what some think of as a learning deck I would not be who I am as a reader now. And I am glad I got to learn just as I did.

What I do like in decks is originality. I like a deck that makes me think and see the world in new ways. I have a number of different decks. I don't want tons of clones of each other. I want each to let me see things in different ways. Like when you need advice and ask different friends, knowing each will see the situation somewhat differently.

I like decks that are original, with reworked Majors and the works. The more original the better for me.

Babs

gregory said:

What is or isn't an advanced deck is in the eye of the beholder anyway.

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This is very true as well.

I don't think there is such a thing as a "beginner" deck. There are decks you click with, and decks you don't.

The first structured class I ever took on tarot used the Robin Wood deck. It followed the RWS structure, but with a decidedly pagan/Wiccan slant. I learned the basics, and read solely with that deck for more than two years.

In hindsight, I know now that the problems I had getting correlations and concepts to "stick" were not a function of my intellect, but because I fundamentally wasn't a Wiccan. I switched to the Hanson Roberts deck, and things suddenly made more sense. When the Universal Waite deck came out, I started reading with that one, and a whole new level of stuff opened up.

Now, I feel comfortable enough with just about any RWS deck. I can pick the deck I want to use based on my mood, the type of question, who I'm reading for, or the personality of the deck itself. For example, my Cosmic Tarot is a bit like my Siamese cat... it likes who it likes and won't give you the time of day if it doesn't like you. Hanson Roberts is gentle with those new to tarot and is generally very positive. Tarot of the Trance lives in a retina-searing pink bag, and behaves accordingly.

Every time I read with any of my decks, I learn something. Maybe that makes me the basic one, not the deck.

For me, I see it as my mind sometimes craving abstraction. For me, reading with a less pictorial, non-narrative i.e more difficult deck, is about the mind abstracting. Sometimes I don't want scenes, so a deck like the Margerete Peterson makes sense. Of course there is non-abstract deeply symbolic decks like the Hermetic which are definitely advanced, but for me, an advanced deck is a deck that doesn't need narrative prompts. It's like sometimes wanting a realistic, narrative 19th Century novel where everything is explained (this is my analogy!) or something with impressions, vagueness, more difficult to pin down, like James Joyce. Sometimes I find decks too literal. Always somebody doing something. Sometimes I want to spiral off into abstraction.

In my experience, doing readings with a deck that has deep symbolic correspondences gives me more resources to draw on when I get stuck on the "surface" meaning of a card in a particular reading. I step back and open myself to the broad range of interpretation this makes available. This usually results in an inspiration (the "Aha!" moment) that leads to forward progress. I don't always have to resort to the more abstract meanings, but it's reassuring that they're there when needed. The Thoth deck, for example, works very well at both levels of complexity.

Chrystella said:

I don't think there's such a thing as a beginner's or advanced tarot deck. Consider, for example, how often people refer to the Waite Smith as beginner's, but people who have dedicated years to that deck will tell you it's anything but simple.

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This.
I guess it's simply because the RWS had become THE Tarot deck, so it simply is featured in nearly every beginner's book ob the Tarot and it's meanings have become THE meanings.

So, everything differing from this style is seen as more difficult simply because it's different. When I look at the beginner's decks on AT, I think they're all easily accessible on the aesthetic level. All very friendly, a bit fantastic, a bit romantic....