The Great Card Memorization War!

Diana said:

If one interprets Intuitively, then one reads according to the deck one has in front on one.

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Very good point, Diana! And one that I had not considered when starting this thread. I also find myself not commenting on certain posts in the "your readings" section. If the person is using a deck that is RWS based, then I can reply with some confidence that I may have some idea of what I'm talking about. If they are using marseilles or thoth, I don't reply. I have no experience at all with either of those types of decks. Yet another reason to include the deck you are using in your posts, folks!

I too, wish that I had used a journal to write down my impressions from the beginning. But, at the time, I thought the quickest way to understanding the tarot was to memorize it. As if it wouldn't take several lifetimes to truly understand it anyway! ROFL If I knew then what I know now... but then we wouldn't be having this conversation!

R

I started with the RWS deck and Joan Bunning's course and initially relied heavily on Joan Bunning's meaning, for lack of anything else. And for a while, I got sort of "stuck" on that, because I couldn't really turn my readings into stories, they just remained a listing of standard meanings...

Then I got the World Spirit deck, and suddenly I found myself reading the cards like a picture book, discarding the standard meanings I remembered from Joan Bunning, and actually reading the cards themselves instead...

So for some reason, the RWS deck didn't appeal to my intuition, whereas the World Spirit does.

I have been reading for about 5 months and still rely pretty heavily on books. Sometimes I try to lay a spread and just read it intuitivly but many times I get a blank. I don't know if this is because I am using the books as too much of a crutch or if it means I lack intuition. There are times when I will look at a spread and get a general meaning from it, but don't ask me to put it into words, it's more of a feeling than anything else. So, I guess at this point I'm not sure if I am being helped or hindered by the books. I have not really tried to memorize meanings but figure eventually if I read long enough I will start to remember them. So, I use books but wish I didn't need to.

mrsjvan

I started off memorising card meanings. I still have the little book that I used to hold all the meanings I learned. It was 10 years old on Oct 25th. It's pretty interesting to read over it and see how my feelings towards the cards have changed.

I didn't do much with my cards the years I was in university. I picked them up once in a while, and maybe bought a book or two. But I didn't study them seriously. Now that I've come back to them, I find that I am using a combo of the meanings I still remember and the meanings I see when I look at the cards.

I do like the point about the meaning being influenced by the deck you use. I used the Witches Tarot for the longest time, and several of the cards mean different things to me then the corresponding cards in my new Robin Wood or Hanson-Roberts decks. Generally speaking though, I find those two decks somewhat similar in meaning, with certain cards emphasising things a little differently.

Anyway, I sort of believe in memorising. Or at least reading everything you can and making you own meanings from what you see and what you read. I think that I would see or understand a lot of the symbols in my cards if I hadn't read everything I have. And I look forward to reading more so I can discover more. I think, because of this, that you need to allow your meanings to grow. So memorising a few keywords is helpful, but be open to what the card is saying in that reading is how I feel (today, anyway).

I think I mentioned this somewhere else, but I have a kind of mental map that I use when I'm reading. I don't memorize, because the cards change according to what's around them, and because relying on a book's definition made it harder for me to read. So instead, I remember their element and number and what they relate to astrologically. That gives me a different set of "roads" for the individual cards, and eventually a road from each card in the reading will meet up with roads from the other cards in a reading. And eventually all those roads lead somewhere. I do pull out the books if I come to a pothole, though.

truthsayer said:

when i first started reading, i depended heavily on books and studying symbolism to understand the cards. if i had it all to do differently. i'd try doing a daily card, journal about what my intuition saw, and compare my definition. not to see if i was wrong or right but to see how my intuition reads it. practice my intuition. after so long reading a book and not trusting my intuition, it was really tough giving up that book but i managed. i strongly encourage beginners to begin trusting their intuition early and not have to undermine your reading by not trusting you intuition. reading the cards differently than the book doesn't mean your definition is wrong.

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Ditto ... ditto ... ditto ... no surprise here that you and I would share the same exact opinion and experience. Truthsayer sometimes you really scare me!!!! *LOL*

I finally did start picking a card of the day, then journaling, then comparing that to different things I read and I was shocked that I could see so much in the card. Now I prefer work books, and other tarot reading, but if the book focuses on card meanings then it is not a book I will care for very much. This has allowed me to really learn that tarot can be used for much much more than doing readings. Through its use in different ways I continue to learn and gain greater insight about the cards, which ultimately improves my reading skills.

I trully enjoy the tarot much more now thanks to that. I trust myself, use the tarot in various ways, and if ever in doubt about card meanings or what I am trying to do I can go straight to my resource books or come here and ask a friend.

Rhiannon said:

*This post is intended to be both humorous and thought provoking, this is something I'd really like to discuss with you guys, but let's have some fun too.

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Humor? Thought Provoking? Have you been using hair spray? Inoffensive queries really get my goat…just when you thought it was okay to pull out your tarot deck…Bam! Somebody wants us to think…and be humorous.

Rhiannon said:

I know many of us "old fogies" :rolleyes

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Then she brings ‘age’ into the mix. And why? Perhaps to inject humor into a grim situation? A slow death by aging – year by year – a step closer to a cold grave…

Rhiannon said:

So, what's everybody think? Can we have a nice civil little war, just for fun? C'mon....

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Then we are asked to find humor in a civil war?

Like the gunfight in front of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, “Sorry, it was just a joke! We didn’t know the guns were loaded!”

Memorize? I tried to memorize war and peace once…then I tried the bible. Memorized some Shakespeare once, also a lot of Beethoven…

Here is the issue with memorizing as a newbies. What is a good book? What is a bad book?

What are you memorizing?

Once you memorize you walk around as an automaton, barking out memorized phrases with no understanding of what is behind them.

Take the opening speech in Richard III,
“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York”

My god how many more times will I have to hear that line repeated by oafs who have no understanding of English history…That line is a pun. Sun/Son of York…So the guy who’s showing how read he is, emphasizes the words “Glorious summer” and swallows the lines, “bythissunofYork”. When it might be better delivered by stating, “Made glorious summer by THIS…Sun of York”

I’m against rote memorization without the understanding behind the subject. Understanding the subject matter will lead to a thorough knowledge which beats memorization any time.

*There are times when I will look at a spread and get a general meaning from it, but don't ask me to put it into words, it's more of a feeling than anything else.*

There's your intuition poking it's elusive little head up! That's what has happened to me so many times, but only when I decided to kick myself in the bum and generate words around those feelings did the intuitive reading come about for me and I recognized what was happening. That "feeling" is the cards speaking to you through the intuitive side of the brain. The next step is to translate that feeling into words, which requires some mental work that I'm not always in the mood for because it requires effort. However, at least now I know what's going on with that, and I think if I were to read for someone else, I could actually build a reading out of it when the "feelings" expressed themselves to me. Since I'm mostly still just reading for myself, I don't always use the self-discipline to put words to the cards every single time, but I'm encouraged by the progress I've made in recognizing what's going on with that.

Umbrae said:

Then she brings ‘age’ into the mix. And why? Perhaps to inject humor into a grim situation? A slow death by aging – year by year – a step closer to a cold grave… Then we are asked to find humor in a civil war?

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Oh, Earbum! You're just mad cuz you're old enuff to have been in the REAL civil war!

R

The problem is

most of us have gone through a very tough school system where memorization is the rule.

School does not only teach us the subject matter BUT, and most important of all, HOW TO APPROACH A SUJECT IN ORDER TO LEARN IT.

It is very hard to even conceive, for an old student like myself, that something DOES NOT pass through memorization. I have learned many things OVER AND OVER AGAIN because memorization is not a way to learn.

On the other hand it may serve as a starting point. The only things I have REALLY learned in life are the ones I had to teach others. Then we go from memorization to understanding.

But what do I know about Tarot. Other than I'm trying to learn. I haven't tried to memorize the card meanings but I also haven't tried to read them "intuitively" only, since the beginning. I like reading and learning from what others have to say. I like to practice too. Who knows, one day I get there?

Alex.