Putting the book down

Just wondering how many of you have been brave enough to put the book away and use your decks intuitively?

I've tried it but some decks give nothing away at all and the books are a must but recently I have found I am able to read with three decks fairly well intuitely: Gypsy Oracle Card; Pyscards; and Oracle Of The Radiant Sun.

In all honesty I have struggled a lot with the Gypsy cards on larger spreads (six cards or more) and they don't seem to go together well at all so really have to just use these for small readings.
With the Psycards I found when I did three practice readings intuitively the other night that a lot of the same cards came up all three times which made the readings very similar.
I've only read one full spread with the Radiant Sun cards so far and that went well, I ended up with 16 cards out in the end which really pinpoints the problem with these, the cards don't give too much away and often one cards isn't enough and a clarifier is needed, however I don't mind this so I have to say these are the best I've read intuitively with so far...

...or is it just that I'm getting more practice in?

What's your views on reading without the book?

If you mean the Ziiguener Gipsy Cards (36 cards, six languages) then you may need to spend some time with them. I like Leigingkarten better, but the idea is similar.

And Lenormand is similar, too. It's impossible to memorize every card combo - there'd be hundreds of thousands of them.

I think the trick is to figure out what the reading is talking about and take it from there - the cards are sometimes really literal, but sometimes they're symbolic.

It can take a while to figure out.

I prefer to read intuitively, and only look at the book after I've written down whatever comes to mind, or if I get stuck. But then I mostly read for my own, personal growth. Getting in touch with my intuitive voice is more important to me than any so-called "correct" meaning. Your mileage may differ.

Gavriela said:

If you mean the Ziiguener Gipsy Cards (36 cards, six languages) then you may need to spend some time with them. I like Leigingkarten better, but the idea is similar.

And Lenormand is similar, too. It's impossible to memorize every card combo - there'd be hundreds of thousands of them.

I think the trick is to figure out what the reading is talking about and take it from there - the cards are sometimes really literal, but sometimes they're symbolic.

It can take a while to figure out.

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No I mean the Gypsy Oracle Cards
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gypsy-Oracl...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214212489&sr=8-1

I know what you mean though as long as you have a rough idea where the reading is going then sometimes it is easier to read even if at first glance the cards don't make sense

Paul

There are so many tempting Oracle sets around and (IMO) if you´re not careful, you end up being seduced by them and then having to try and learn whole new systems and - surely - this just isn´t possible in one lifetime? I mean, there´s tarot (if you´re into tarot, and most of us are), then Lenormand, and Celtic Stuff and Pagan stuff and Fairy stuff. The list just goes on and on....

What I mean by this, is that if you´re not careful, surely it isn´t so easy to read well "intuitively" or without referring to LWBs etc if you have a considerable oracle and tarot collection. Not in one lifetime anyway. I mean, how many systems can one really internalise?

I like Oracles, but Im very selective about the ones I get. Im realistic about my own capacity to internalise new systems. I actually use very, very few.

I love the Ana Cortez Playing Card Oracles, to which I return repeatedly, and get deeper and deeper into and find that it has enough stimulus to build meanings onto and have intuitive responses to. It´s a system which holds together wonderfully and there is nothing gimmicky about it. It really makes sense and ties up with numerology and geomancy. I use this deck a lot.

I also have the Nostradamus and Paracelsus Oracles, both of which I love, but to be honest, I tend to pluck a single card from one or the other to set "tones" for tarot readings. And then shamelessly consult the book, as a kind of anchor for the reading before I concentrate on the tarot cards. Im not a professional reader so it doesnt bother me too much and I know Im not going to be able to learn all meanings of all systems.

Then I ordered the Eros Oracle. A lovely deck, cheeky and saucy, but I havent even tried dipping my toe into that one yet...

The Gypsy Oracle Cards are a sibilla deck, so they are very much like Lenormand, Kipperkarten, and the 36-card versions - or the 32-card versions.

And like many tarots of the Italian variety, they take a page or eight from Cesare Ripa's Iconologia. Which didn't so much define the styles, as catalogue them. You can find it online at:

http://emblem.libraries.psu.edu/Ripa/Images/ripatoc.htm

Complete with text and pictures. All of these came out of the era when art was used to convey a specific message - so you used the particular symbols that were understood to be 'universal' to the idea you wanted to get across.

I'm not sure if that'll help you any if you want to read a sibilla (it does me, but I'm a language freak, and I see all of this category of European oracles as a language), but it's a useful reference.

Some you'll just pick up along the way. Dogs are almost always about loyalty, protection, and fidelity, cats and foxes about falsity, snakes about enemies (think Christian interpretation of Garden of Eden story), cornucopias are abundance, books are education (and secrets), letters bring news, and so forth.

The nice thing about decks like this is that once you learn to read one of them, the rest are pretty easy to figure out. Kind of like going from the RWS to the Morgan Greer in tarot. Oh yes - you'll find some pretty well-known tarot symbols in the Iconologia, too.

SpiritOfTheDogz said:

Just wondering how many of you have been brave enough to put the book away and use your decks intuitively?

Click to expand...

This is something I'm working on right now with the Well Worn Path and Hidden Path oracle combination.

I did read the books right away, to get an idea of where the creators are coming from, then I put the books away. Now I'm going strictly by intuition, which wasn't easy at first, with some of the cards. Some of them look similar, but with a little online research, I was able to understand those, too. The creators also encourage using your own meanings over those in the book(s).

I'm hoping to use the deck as an all-purpose alternative to tarot, eventually.

There are many decks I don't use the book for anymore...

For instance, I read the CLOW, the Madame Endora, and the Psycards together in a single reading, and I rely on my intuition to blend them.


I can read the Morgan's without the book...but I think that's because anything useful (and much of it's not) in that lwb...I have memorized.

The best deck I have used almost exclusively now, with intuition...is the Celestial Wisdom cards. The book that goes with them is really well done, and I do like it a lot...but I have found them to be one of the very first decks that I ever read intuitively...that just happened sort of naturally and very easily!

I often wonder if it's because there's just one word on each card...and no illustrations to distract me?

Gavriela said:

The Gypsy Oracle Cards are a sibilla deck, so they are very much like Lenormand, Kipperkarten, and the 36-card versions - or the 32-card versions.

And like many tarots of the Italian variety, they take a page or eight from Cesare Ripa's Iconologia. Which didn't so much define the styles, as catalogue them. You can find it online at:

http://emblem.libraries.psu.edu/Ripa/Images/ripatoc.htm

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting that link, Gavriela. I had no idea this existed, but I'm very much enjoying it now.

Akuts said:

Thanks for posting that link, Gavriela. I had no idea this existed, but I'm very much enjoying it now.

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I'll second that, certainly looks like a usful site to have bookmarked

Paul