Regular playing cards=Tarot?

shemsu sutekh

I've read all about the history of the Tarot and the common "Soltaire" playing cards that everyone uses today, and I understand the modern corresondences of the suits, but does anyone here actually have any experience trying this out? True, there's no Major Arcana, and the Knights and Pages have sort of melted toether over the years :) but I'm still fascinated with the concept of using the common playing cards for Tarot. I'd like to hear anyones input on this.

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, I thought it would be the most appropriate.
 

mollymawk

Try the Oracles forum, there's a lot about reading playing cards there.

Also the Hedgewitchery site practically has a book, all kinds of info there.
 

sacredashes

There's a lot of people reading with playing cards the way they would with a Tarot deck. It's really not that big a difference.. besides there are a few decks out there with non-pictured pips.

I read with playing cards the same way I read with the Tarot but instead of pictures, I rely on basic understanding of the card's meaning and see how the elements influence/relate to other cards, the stages (numbers 1 - 10) and go from there.

When I do get stuck, I have a habit of forming a mental picture of the related card from my Robin Wood deck in my head and carry on. What I think is more important to me though, regardless of the deck is the position of the card (what it represents) in a reading coz to me, that's the structure that holds my reading together. Otherwise, I find my readings don't make sense no matter which deck I use.

What matters is what you are comfortable with when doing a reading, what works for you.

The playing cards I use are from Malaysian Airlines, worn from many hours of russian poker and sweaty palms. :D


Ash
 

intothemusic

this is a subject that really confuses me. there seem to be so many interpretations. i for the life of me cannot figure out if 2 of wands is good or bad! in playing cards it seems bad, in tarot its good. .anyone?
 

6 Haunted Days

intothemusic said:
this is a subject that really confuses me. there seem to be so many interpretations. i for the life of me cannot figure out if 2 of wands is good or bad! in playing cards it seems bad, in tarot its good. .anyone?


Well I myself do not think of the tarot and PC as at all related divination wise. It can get confusing and muddled trying to fit tarot definitions to the PC's. I think it's best to use a whole other system to read with them.

Also there are so many different takes on what suit in the tarot goes with what PC suit. So THAT adds confusion in trying to get meanings. Another reason I think of PC reading as completely seperate, not related and a powerful divination tool in it's own right.
 

sacredashes

intothemusic said:
this is a subject that really confuses me. there seem to be so many interpretations. i for the life of me cannot figure out if 2 of wands is good or bad! in playing cards it seems bad, in tarot its good. .anyone?

I tend to view the cards as a source of guidance, the way I use the tarot. As such, the interpretations I am comfortable with (my personal system, not the general concensus) would be to view all cards with a Light and Shadow aspect.

Meaning the cards show possibilities, we read both light and shadow in them to see the relevence to the situation but as everything relies on balance, to me there isn't a good or bad card in PC or the Tarot.

We often see the good or the bad, depending on several factors:
1) we want to see what we want to see;
2) we focus on seeing what we want to see, to the exclusion of either the light or the shadow aspect (focus on one, unaware of the other)
3) we look at one facet and not another (frontal view and not side or back profile) which limits our perception of the whole,
4) other reasons I'm sure the members of the forum can share on this thread..

As for methods or systems of usage, I found quite late into my Tarot studies that what's important is what I am comfortable with (within sound ethics of reading, of course) I am better able to deliver the messages without "me" getting in the way. :D

With a basic foundation I am able to function from, I can continue to build on my journey of learning to use the Tarot. My use of PC came about quite by accident and what I do with readings sometimes, I don't necessarily have a Tarot deck referal, just the basic energy of the card since PC doesn't come with pictures and get a feel of how the energies relate to each other.

It's when I get stuck with a PC card that I draw mental pictures from my Robin Wood deck.

Take care & hope this helps. :heart:

Ash
 

brothermakarias

A little history

While scholarship on the matter is a bit sketchy, one current theory holds that the ordinary cards predate the Tarochi by at least a century. That would suggest that the ordinary deck would take preeminence, though I doubt many would be fond of that suggestion. For my part, I only read regular cards. I have studied several systems, and my own mode of interpretation tends to compare the meanings associated with the correlating Tarot card, the numerological significance itself, the cards before and after in the numeric sequence of the cards, traditional meanings attributed to the card, and about a half dozen other factors.
 

sacredashes

brothermakarias said:
That would suggest that the ordinary deck would take preeminence, though I doubt many would be fond of that suggestion.

If by ordinary deck you mean, playing cards? I think you may be right.. the earlier deck had plain pips just like regular playing cards.

If I'm not wrong, the RWS evolutionized the Tarot card design when pictures were used instead of pips but this would be better elaborated by many members of the forum who can cite the history of the Tarot from research.... Try searching out Teheuti's posts or threads.. she is a renowned Tarot reader, author and teacher.

Ash
 

intothemusic

6 Haunted Days said:
Well I myself do not think of the tarot and PC as at all related divination wise. It can get confusing and muddled trying to fit tarot definitions to the PC's. I think it's best to use a whole other system to read with them.

Also there are so many different takes on what suit in the tarot goes with what PC suit. So THAT adds confusion in trying to get meanings. Another reason I think of PC reading as completely seperate, not related and a powerful divination tool in it's own right.

it does indeed. thank you!!
 

brothermakarias

The problem wih the question is two-fold. 1. PC's predated the Tarot, or more accurately, the trumps were an addendum to a regional variety of cards. Consequently, the more significant matter is how one relates the tarochi to the pre-existent cards, allowing the other option of simply treatring the Tarot as a historical step-child and considering it on its own merits. 2. There are several varieties of suits in use depending on the region. Are we to correlate the Tarot suits with the french suits, the spanish, the german, the italian (at least three different possibilities there), the hungarian?
The fact is, regular cards were used as a mantic device before the tarot even existed, and the tarot were initially used as a gaming implement. It could be argued tat the tarot was the johnny-come-lately of the oracular world.