Hidden Rules

Maybe I'm hyper-sensitive but some of the "rules" for court cards in groups irk me because of their gender stereotyping, like in the OP's example. More than one queen - gossip or rivalry. More than one king - important men. I smell some distrust against powerful females in such "rules".

Some tarot writers like Katz and Goodwin, whose books are very interesting otherwise, try to find a shortcut in one of their books by treating tarot like Lenormand - they assign keywords so you can build sentences. Can't even remember which book it was. If that was all there is to tarot, it wouldn't interest me for more than a week. IMO, two queens in a spread can mean so many different things, depending on the spread, the question, the number of other cards, their suits, their context, the birth sign and gender identity of the querent etc - how can one keyword contain all that?

I see tarot as an art form, i.e., the artist chooses which rules to follow. There are many different "schools" nowadays. I personally like to expand my background knowledge of esoteric teachings like astrology, kabbalah, alchemy, symbols, mythology etc all the time because even if I don't use it directly in a reading, it feeds my ability to connect to the cards intuitively.

And don't underestimate LWBs - some are really good and interesting. I always read them, and I keep them with the decks, each in their bag.

And like Nisaba, I keep my own rules: no "private eye" or gossip questions, no return questions when no time has passed since the last reading about the same topic, no yes-or-no questions, no questions that are based on the assumption that the querent is a helpless victim of inevitable fate.

Over time, the cards have slowly developed their own "faces" for me, and I hope to be one time able to read, like Nisaba, with every deck thrown at me. I'm not quite there yet :-(

Nemia said:

Maybe I'm hyper-sensitive but some of the "rules" for court cards in groups irk me because of their gender stereotyping, like in the OP's example. More than one queen - gossip or rivalry. More than one king - important men. I smell some distrust against powerful females in such "rules".

Some tarot writers like Katz and Goodwin, whose books are very interesting otherwise, try to find a shortcut in one of their books by treating tarot like Lenormand - they assign keywords so you can build sentences. Can't even remember which book it was. If that was all there is to tarot, it wouldn't interest me for more than a week. IMO, two queens in a spread can mean so many different things, depending on the spread, the question, the number of other cards, their suits, their context, the birth sign and gender identity of the querent etc - how can one keyword contain all that? (

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I found this deficiency to be true of Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot, where the meaning of "preponderances" of different cards seems to be drawn more from his cartomantic assumptions than from anything to do with the cards themselves, at least in my opinion. Elizabeth Hazel, in her book The Tarot Decoded did a much better job of making sense of this sort of thing.

teomat said:

I guess you're talking about certain card combinations that mean specific things? If so, then yes there are some 'rules' that have been developed, for example in Mathers' book on tarot (http://sacred-texts.com/tarot/mathers/mtar03.htm).

Apparently these card combination meanings came from Etteilla. I've never really considered them before, but I do find them intriguing.

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Yup- if you get hold of the lwb for Grand Etteilla Egyptian Gypsies you'll find a lot of meanings for multiples of courts, and meanings certain cards next to each other, which is useful for Lenormand grand tableau style big spreads.

Greetings Vrye...over the years that I have been living with the Tarot I have found that my relationship with, and too, the cards has changed many times reflecting my journey in a way. I have read books giving specific rules etc and have always taken what I feel is appropriate for me from these books. I dis-guard that which seems inappropriate and absorb that which rings true to my practice. I cannot say that I have any rules that I follow as my relationship with the cards is so very fluid and rules would restrict my relationship in a way.
I suppose the only rule that is true for me is there aren't any rules.

I am enjoying this thread, reading all the posts. I had nearly forgotten some of the *hidden rules* I learned over the years and to be honest, I can't even recall where I learned them, but two that I do recall are:

1. If you see 3 or more Kings together, a business meeting or important meeting.

2. If you see a group of Court cards together, regardless of the King, Queen, Knight or Page--and no matter the suit--it indicates a party/get together somewhere. If there is an Ace of diamonds close by to them, within a card or two, then it means a party that they were invited to--such as a birthday, anniversary, wedding etc. something BIG.

3. A group of Queens, of 3 or more--is definite gossiping going on. (yes, I always hated that one too!)

4. A group of court cards together of the same suit, (swords, cups, pentacles or wands)-is speaking of a family or very close friends/acquaintances. If this group is near any of the difficult cards, such as 5 of pentacles--hardship for the group--not just one of them. If there is a good card, such as a 9 of cups, a party for the group or something worth celebrating. Or if it is a card like the 4 of wands, a possible wedding they will attend.

I sometimes forget about them when I am doing a reading myself--but this thread did make me think about it again. I'll have to try and pay more attention to it when doing readings.

Be open to the idea that readings in general often reflect sections of ourselves. Even when we are reading others, since we are essentially the "medium" doing the communicating here, there's something to learn about ourselves in just about every reading...

Cards I believe to be reflective of energies and energies are reflective of all things that surround it, even what may be invisible to us. So the closer we are to the situation, the more reflective the cards. Hence why some people may have issues with self-reading (imo)... aside from obvious objectivity factors if they are present in the querent

Maintaining objectivity is a constant job for the reader no matter how skilled they actually are.

I might be a bit of a rebel, but I don't really dig the 'rules' that some authors set up for their cards and spreads. Sometimes they're illuminating, but it's more important to me to be familiar with my cards. Like, really, really familiar with my cards. I have a notebook (as many readers do) where I jot down impressions my cards give me. They do mean different things in different places, and as many of those impressions as you can collect and squirrel away, the more context you'll be able to see in each card.

Read as many LWBs as you can, to get an idea of how authors see their decks and the meaning of the cards in general. If you're reading RWS-style, add those keywords to your collection. But what I see when I pull a spread and what you see in that same spread might be completely different, because I know when a certain card comes up it usually means X in my hand, although it might mean Y in yours. (example: many people read pentacles as primarily financial cards, but my WU deck skews heavily toward meaning family or other kinds of valuables.) The same card might have subtly different meanings in two different decks of yours. Subtlety is what makes tarot awesome, and why you would choose to go to one reader or another, or use one deck over another. Decks can have very distinct personalities, and of course readers do as well.

Basically, make your own set of rules. LWBs and books are guidelines of what worked for other people, and you can learn from them and find out what works for you.