Possibly really stupid question(s)

Hello Faylie,

I do not think there is anything wrong with your preferred reading style. I am not up on modern tarot decks, so I looked up the Shadowscapes tarot on Aeclectic, the deck you mentioned as being the one you can more easily read with. It seems to have something in common with my preferred decks, the Marseilles and other pre-RWS decks: very basic trumps/major arcana imagery and somewhat abstract pips/minor arcana, although the Shadowscapes' minors are still suggestive of the RWS meanings.

I started with the RWS and hated it and also ended up dabbling with readings for many years until I found my first readable deck, the Ancient Italian Tarot. I initially just transferred RWS meanings to the Ancient Italian pip cards until it occurred to me that because there were no story pictures on those cards to direct (or limit) my interpretations, the cards could mean anything I decided. I think the same thing can basically be said about the Shadowscapes minors. I'm still in the process of playing with the pips and deciding on a new system of interpretation for them that fits me. I don't assign new meanings each time I read, but I don't really see why you could not do that if that's what works for you. I can see how the Shadowscapes tarot would give you more freedom to do that and why a more conventional RWS-type deck might have kept you dabbling for so long.

The one thing I definitely recommend, however, especially if you read for yourself, is to keep a journal of your readings. Interpret each reading, write down your intuitions for the cards, and be sure to go back later, when the situation has played itself out, and see how well your interpretation fit. That way you have some objective data to ground yourself with. I have kept a tarot journal for about 14 years. Sometimes what I thought was intuition turned out to be just me projecting my feelings or fears onto the cards. If I hadn't kept a journal, I might not have figured that out. Memory tends to be biased, so it's valuable to keep a written record.

Krystal

faylie said:

Is it okay to read purely through intuition? I have dabbled with tarot on and admittedly mostly off for nearly 20 years and do see myself as an absolute novice, this is the most serious I have been with it, I think part of the reason I kept stopping was because I didn't trust my intuition with it, I kept trying to go by the book, I bought the Beginners guide to Tarot maybe 10 years ago, really didn't like the cards and although I am finding the book useful now, I couldn't memorise them and then found it hard to intuitively read the cards. 5 odd years ago I got a copy of the Shadowscapes which I find generally easy to interpret, intuitively, but get very different meanings from books. E.g. 10C today said to me that a relationship could end up being unhealthy and off balance with one person being overly dependent on the other. On a different day I will probably interpret it as mutual support and a blissful relationship which is more in line with the original meaning and looking at books and other decks I can see how it should be read, but intuition says otherwise, which makes me really doubt myself. As an aside, is it normal to get such different readings from different decks?

Thanks for reading such a rambling post and any thoughts

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There is no such thing at all as a stupid question. And there is no one here, or no reader ever, who didn't start off knowing nothing and had to learn everything they know by asking questions and experimenting with what they heard.

There are a few different questions there that you asked.

The first was if it was ok to read purely by intuition. My take on that is that no one can tell you that any way of reading is not ok. It is for each reader to find what works best for them. There is no right or wrong way to read. And the best way for one reader may not work at all for another. Your job is to find the way that works best for the individual who is you, regardless of what works well for others. That means no one can tell you anything is ok to do or not. It is for you to find out.

Imo, the problem with going with book meanings, and also why we need at least some intuition to read, is that card meanings are fluid. They do not tend to mean the exact same thing each time. Even at the best of times. For a deck of only 78 cards to be able to talk about ANYTHING in the world, any possible life experience in all it's subtleties and nuances ...a deck has to be able to say more than 78 things.

A deck can in fact tell us ANYTHING, can give us an infinite variety of answers. There is nothing at all that the cards could not tell us.

That said, book meanings are limited/finite. We could memorize all the meanings in any given book that comes with a deck and if that was all we used there would still be things the deck could not tell us.

In fact, any given card, in usage and in all the different meanings it could potentially have, could have enough meanings to fill almost an encyclopedia on its own.

Not to mention that cards impact each other The meanings of surrounding cards affect the meaning a card has. And not book talks about that.

And that is why we need our intuitions. Some of us use them more, others less. But I think it is a necessary part of a reading. Also even if we just used the book meanings, sometimes more than one contradictory meaning is possible. There is no other way to choose than my using our intuition.

No book can ever cover all the meanings a card could have in actual usage. That is why my belief is that when your meanings that you sense is different from the book meaning, follow what feels right to you, even if you have to ignore the book meaning completely and even if what you sense is the opposite of the book meanings. Gut feelings trump book meanings.

Bonus, the more you follow your intuition and learn as you go, the stronger and more reliable your intuition becomes.

Whether or not you can read entirely by intuition and not use book meanings at all....I know I can't. Here is how it works for me in case this helps.

The book meanings are just a starting point for me. They point out the general direction where the answer can be found, hint at it, but they are not so much the actual answer for me personally. I do tend to read mainly intuitively through the card image.

Eg if the question was about what someone feels about you, and I got the 8 or Cups, that would start off by saying that they have strong feelings for you. That just tells you that the answer will focus on their feelings and the strength of them. But that in and of itself does not answer the question. It does not tell you what it is they are feeling. That part comes afterwards for me, from the card image.

That is how it works for me. My card meanings that i have, that are somewhat personal to me that I have developed as I learnt, form maybe 1/10th or less of the total answer. But if I eliminated that first step, it would hurt my readings. Using the card meanings I have is an important part for me, but it does not take up the majority of the reading. it;s the first step that sets the foundation for all the other steps that follow it. But having a strong foundation to build on it important.

Btw, what you said is very much how it works for me too. Since I read mainly by feeling what the cards images are telling me in each reading, more often than not the same image on the same card will say different things to me each time it comes up. And yet it all seems to somehow work out and the right answers come out. And that variety, where each card can say different things each time, is for me how the cards can manage to say so very much and talk about anything and everything we could ever imagine.

Whether it is normal to get different readings from different decks? I shy away from the concept of normal when reading Tarot. In the sense that what is normal for one reader may not be for another. And that is just as it should be. Normal is comparative, and I believe it;s better for a reader to find for themselves what works best for them than to try to fit into someone else's mold which may not be right for them.

But in my experience anyway, when i use more than one deck in a reading... They don't tend to each say the same thing. Each deck will tend to look at a different area of the issue or show a different angle of it. In that way, they compliment each other, but don't repeat the same info twice.

Those are my thoughts on it, hope they help somehow,

Babs

faylie said:

Is it okay to read purely through intuition?

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of course!!
Perhaps the best readings are done solely through intuition.

As an aside, is it normal to get such different readings from different decks?

Thanks for reading such a rambling post and any thoughts

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again, yes, it is. sometimes our intuition is driven with the actual artwork in the card you're looking at. So the 10cups in one deck could look very different from the 10 of cups in a second deck. It may just be the picture you look at that sends a message to you intuitively. Just go with it. Sure, you might now and again be incorrect--but even if you did memorize the meanings in some book and read it exactly as that author felt it should mean--you could be wrong.

Use the cards as a tool to spark your intuition and go with it. It takes a lot of practice to do and the biggest hurdle you'll come to is to learn to trust yourself. But, when you do trust yourself and you go with what your intuition is telling you and its right---wow! what a feeling that is!

I think intuition plays a big role in reading, as well as symbolism. But, all things considered, symbolism is rarely actually 'universal'--that's a speech shortcut for "widely accepted' and those two phrases are not actually equal. Symbolism is entirely relative--meaning it depends on who's using them and for what purposes. It's helpful to become acquainted with widely accepted meanings, but then as you progress, you're less dependent on "established" meaning. This is true of many things. The great poets, artists, musicians--what made them great? Not just talent, but form. They learned the rules, learned what came before and *mastered* these things. How did they become great? By using their talent to depart from form and established structure.

Reading is deeply personal and intensely communal at the same time. We resonate with the artistry of the cards, images that have been given to us by others. But we all find different decks that, as another poster put it, "sing" to us. I personally adore the rider-waite tradition of decks. Others don't. We each find our way and voice along the way. Trust in that and you will find yours.

Oh you are all fantastic, so much to think bout here. I have found a copy of the Smith-Waite centennial edition in a tin. I m actually more on the like it side of opinion and I think I will come to do so more over time so I don't think I didn't like the Sharman-Caselli because it was a beginner, more just because I didn't like the art on it so much. There are still ones I don't get so much, Judgement with naked people standing in floating coffins and even the child over the back standing on water (Jesus?), I think it is going to take a bit of learning before I can appreciate that one as with the naked child riding a horse but I am sure there is reasoning behind both and I will learn it.

I have started a daily draw with it and writing both my initial intuitive reading followed by my thoughts from reading from books and seeing how they fit together and then quick reflections at the end of the day, it's quite interesting. I am also nightly giving a good shuffle and then putting them back in order so I can become more familiar with the images and the flow through the deck. It's also quite relaxing to do this while it's nice and quiet after the kids asleep while I have a cup of tea.

Michellehihi, that is a great story, it is pretty amazing how sometimes they can be so cryptic, but then they have a sense of humour and can be so literal.

Gregory, I will definitely come over to the Intuitive Study Group

Tanga, that's exactly it, the majority of the books available locally are focused solely on the RWS so as Grizabella said I do feel like that is the logical spot to start and is a good foundation for learning a lot of other decks.

Barleywine, I really like your three "I"s, because for me too it is a detail that jumps at me and it's from there that I tend to focus and let it develop.

Sorry I've been so slow in replying, I've had computer problems. I will have to leave it here for the moment ad reply to page 2 this evening. Thank you all for your responses.