For Tarot Deck Creators - What is a Tarot deck? (revisited)

I'd like to reference this thread as background so you know where I start with this.

Before you can create your own tarot deck you have to be able to answer the question - What is a tarot deck? How can you create a tarot deck unless you know what a tarot deck is?

For me, and this is my opinion, a tarot deck is a deck of 78 cards consisting of 22 trump cards, 16 court cards and 40 pip cards. There are probably many, many exceptions that people could point to, but that only reminds me of the saying, 'the exception proves the rule'. It's my belief that there's something very important in the very structure of a tarot deck and that any variation becomes a diversion on the Royal Road.

Naturally, your mileage may vary.

I would be very interested in hearing others' views. What's your answer to the question? What is a tarot deck?

I think that's a very interesting question, which would have been much more straightforward a couple of decades ago. How recently have people been toying with the structure?

I don't have a lot of time to answer, but I tend to agree with you about the basic structure. However, if a deck had obviously used that structure as a foundation, but had say an extra trump, or even a whole extra suit in the minors, I wouldn't discount it as Tarot.

I think Tarot is undergoing a lot of evolution at the moment, exploring new symbolism, and new structures. After all, without growth and change, things tend to become stiff and lifeless- you can't dismiss changes such as swapping round justice and strength in crowley's deck, for example, and other changes could be regarded as similar but on a larger scale- people acting on their insights.

But I have less repect for deviations when there is no justification, and I suppose you have to draw the line somewhere! Where the structure becomes no longer recognisable as being related to tarot, then I think it has to be thought of as an oracle deck.

Perhaps we need a new term for Tarot second cousins once removed?

Blessings,

Em

Hmm, interesting one. I suppose I should say firstly that I'm not all that concerned with exact definitions - trying to define in very precise terms can be a bit of a deviation in its own right .

I'm clear that the tarots we have produced are tarots - even though some have 79 cards, not 78 (in the second edition Tarot of Prague for example, readers have a choice of whether or not to remove Prudence from the deck - I read with her included and find "she" works well). I'm also clear that I would not call our Victorian Flower Oracle anything but an oracle - it clearly isn't a tarot.

But in between? Well, I would allow some flexibility, though I'm honestly not sure how much, and feel it may in any case be something to be judged case-by-case rather than in the abstract. I think "tarot" needs a Major and Minor arcana (or Trumps and pips if you prefer). With no Majors there are no distinct archetypes. I don't think 78 cards is necessarily definitive. There are many tarots that I would regard as tarots - and not deviations - that don't have exactly 78 cards. Many of the very earliest tarots for example.

I do read with oracles, and I do like them. I don't think one is necessarily better than the other (tarot and oracle that is). But they are definitely different and feel different in use. Sometimes oracle reading is rather refreshing in a way, though perhaps its true that I would use tarot for any really serious questions. But that's purely a personal preference.
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Edited to add. You know, I would be very sad if we ended up in some way laying down the law and saying to creators "no, that's not tarot, you have to call that an oracle." I'm sure that wouldn't happen, but I do think that we need to remember that creators can decide for themselves - of course it doesn't mean we always have to agree

I agree with Major Tom. At the same time, I think oracles are just as relavent as tarot and believe them to be of equal credibility.

The thing is, whatever you use tarot for whether it is divination, energy readings, counseling, or whatever, could probably be accomplished by any number of different methods whether those are through oracle decks, fire reading, runes, leaf whispering, and so forth. Tarot is just one way to tap into that which lies unseen. And it is a very powerful way. The archetypes and images on the cards appeal to our strongest perceptions and our most esteemed sense: sight. But in a way, an oracle deck does the exact same thing just with different numbers of cards. A very very close cousin to tarot.

I'm open to any sort of deck that feels right and where the images easily access the deep wells of my intuition. Tarot is tarot, but not considering oracle decks of equal significance is needlessly exclusive.

Major Tom said:

For me, and this is my opinion, a tarot deck is a deck of 78 cards consisting of 22 trump cards, 16 court cards and 40 pip cards. There are probably many, many exceptions that people could point to, but that only reminds me of the saying, 'the exception proves the rule'. It's my belief that there's something very important in the very structure of a tarot deck and that any variation becomes a diversion on the Royal Road.

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I very much agree with this too, and I wonder sometimes if we’re losing something along the way whenever we ‘re-do’ the tarot to suit a theme or our tastes (rather than re-doing the theme to fit the tarot). You don’t like the Death card? Call it ‘Transformation’. Coins sound too mundane? Then call them ‘Pentacles’…
Surely there was a reason why there are coins, a Death card, 21 trumps and 4 suits?

I’m not doubting that such changes can help with divination and developing one’s intuition, but we’re basing our assumptions on tarot being a divination tool. OK it works as one, but is that REALLY what is was made for? If so, why didn’t anyone prior to Waite decide to change the pips into scenic illustrations to aid divination?

I hope I didn't sound like I was disrespecting Oracle decks- I love my oracles at least as much as my tarot! (My partner can't get on with Tarot, but does the most amazing readings with the Druid animal oracle). In fact, I think an oracle deck will be my next project after The Tarot of the Sidhe...

It's just a question of what defines one or the other? Or would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?

Blessings,

Em xx

Sidhe-Ra said:

I hope I didn't sound like I was disrespecting Oracle decks- I love my oracles at least as much as my tarot! (My partner can't get on with Tarot, but does the most amazing readings with the Druid animal oracle). In fact, I think an oracle deck will be my next project after The Tarot of the Sidhe...

It's just a question of what defines one or the other? Or would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?

Blessings,

Em xx

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Oh no, you didn't sound like that at all!! I use and love the druid animal oracle too! And my mom . . . well, that's how she learned cards weren't "of the devil". She dreams in animals all the time and giving her that deck just seemed right.

Fall-guy, I've been having a conversation over email about this with someone I met on this forum. I personally believe that changing the images and names of the suits does not impact the structure of tarot, although I know that their are many who disagree with that, still find value in decks that are altered, but don't view them as tarot. I am still, perhaps, too ignorant to understand why this is. Does it have to do with the hermetical origins of the RWS deck?

For me, I see human consciousness, at least, on a very steep evolutionary curve at this point in time. I'm not an optimist, at the same time, despite the war, violence, terrorism, rampant poverty, and terrible class divisions, for the most part I see income distributed like it has never been before in history (remember, only 130 years ago 90% of the Russian population were serfs, the middle class was small compared to what it is today, and violence due to intolerence of some kind of another was just as common as it is today if not more so). Awareness and consciousness about many things are improving, maybe not fast enough, but they are. I think that spiritual and intuitive awareness is also improving and with this evolution comes the evolution of the "tools" we use in the intuitive process.

I'm probably thinking about it all wrong, but as more people become aware of the power of intuition I think there is a need for more variety in the tools used to assist in that process. Sure, if you make a hammer instead of an axe you shouldn't call it an axe, but as long as the basic structure of the axe is still there does it matter if we call its components different things and if their appearance varies slightly from the original? It's still an axe in the end.

But I understand and accept that some believe that the skeleton of tarot isn't just 40 pip, 16 court cards, and 22 trumps; that the very images on the RWS decks and their derivatives are apart of that skeleton, too. I hope to educate myself more on this topic and perhaps you all can help me. But for the moment at least, I still have a somewhat looser interpretation of it.

Blessings and thanks for the very interesting discussion!

I find Tarot really easy to get into because of its flexibility, but bought an oracle deck the other day and found it rather disappointing, a bit of a one-trick-pony - the makers designed it with a specific spread or type of question in mind. It's probably down to a fault with the Little White Book, but after doing my usual trick with a new tarot deck - finding the card that appeals to me the most and noting down its meaning as an oracle and insight into my current state of mind - I found it difficult to envisage a situation in which I could use the deck for its intended purpose. I think there is a book that goes into more detail about it, but at the moment I am probably spending more than I should.

I'd like to do my own political tarot deck for the UK, as I can see a lot of the Tarot archetypes in British politicians, and I am a fairly good cartoonist, but the situation needs to settle down out of its current pea-soup-fog for me to do that with any sense that I am going to be fair and unbiased towards Government and Opposition, since I dislike them both equally at the moment (I need to find a time and place when I like them both equally for the fantastic human characters they throw up, rather than despise them as alternately dangerously mad and suicidally daft. Though Boris Johnson will always be the Fool for me!).

I do have a large newspaper cartoon from the end of 1997 showing a circus ring with all the major figures - as they were back then, some have obviously retired/died/lost the plot since then (and that is, I believe, an oracle in itself, since the line of perspective and direction of the characters' eyes is tilted towards the person I believe is going to be the next prime minister, whatever the newspapers might say). I could always photocopy that, cut it up, make a montage Major Arcana deck (at the very least), or indeed an oracle deck, and cast the cards based on archetype and personality of the various characters alone. But whether it would give me as much scope as a proper 78 card tarot deck with major and minor arcana and court cards is doubtful, and therein lies the masterful creation that is Tarot - the way the entire deck, whatever the pictures on it show, resonates in a multitude of different ways and different situations.

I personally don't even understand using the Major Arcana only, or making a tarot deck without the full complement of cards - that is very limiting, a bit like trying to do a fine sketch of an intricate carving using only children's wax crayons.

Sidhe-Ra said:

I think Tarot is undergoing a lot of evolution at the moment, exploring new symbolism, and new structures.

Where the structure becomes no longer recognisable as being related to tarot, then I think it has to be thought of as an oracle deck.

Perhaps we need a new term for Tarot second cousins once removed?

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Thanks for this Em. I agree tarot is undergoing a lot of evolution and I think this is just a feature of the numbers of people creating their own. It's natural enough when tarot is used as a 'departure point' for creation that some of the resulting products will no longer be recognisable. I love your suggestion for a new term and am amazed that someone hasn't tried to invent one or more.

baba-prague said:

There are many tarots that I would regard as tarots - and not deviations - that don't have exactly 78 cards. Many of the very earliest tarots for example.

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Thanks for this Karen. I'm of the opinion that many of the very earliest tarots were in fact pre-cursors of tarot. I don't think the tarot structure solidified until the Marseilles.

baba-prague said:

You know, I would be very sad if we ended up in some way laying down the law and saying to creators "no, that's not tarot, you have to call that an oracle."

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Thanks for a good laugh. I got this picture in my head of someone dressed as the Justice card pointing the sword as the decision was made. People will use the word 'tarot' as they will and there's not much wrong with that. As you say, it doesn't mean we have to agree.

webmuse said:

At the same time, I think oracles are just as relavent as tarot and believe them to be of equal credibility.

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I agree with you in principle webmuse, if you're talking about using a deck of cards for divination. I'm certain that anything can be used for divination, from a deck of cards to goat's entrails. I tend to think there's something more to tarot than it's use as an oracular device. This was fall_guy's point and I thank him for it.

Thanks also to Crowqueen for your views.

Anyone else?

Major Tom said:

Thanks for this Karen. I'm of the opinion that many of the very earliest tarots were in fact pre-cursors of tarot. I don't think the tarot structure solidified until the Marseilles.

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Ah, well, I would disagree , and that's the sort of disagreement that makes for a very interesting discussion, but may not, in the end, impact all that much on people who make decks. I think the Minchiate, for example, is a tarot - but then, as I say, I think we could go round and round in circles for ages over definitions. So I'll ask the provocative question - does it really matter if many of us have slightly different definitions of what a "tarot" is? As long as the field is as lively as it is now, with lots of interesting and stimulating (and sometimes beautiful) decks being produced, I for one am a very happy bunny!

Still, as I say, it's good that you make us all think a bit!