switching from RWS -TdM.

Sulis said:

Except there are no decans, zodiac signs or anything else in the TdM because it's pre-Golden Dawn.
Why not just read what's actually on the TdM cards if you want to use a TdM?
If you want to read with the Golden Dawn system I think you're best using a deck that is based on that system - Thoth, RWS or their derivative decks.

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While I basically agree with you, the fact is that The original Golden Dawn members read using the Golden Dawn OOTK method with European decks - TdM, Italian, Swiss - whatever they could get their hands on. [Added: I just saw that Lee said essentially the same thing.]

However, in a discussion on reading the TdM I believe most people are looking for a more direct interaction with the cards of that deck.

If you want a pre-Golden Dawn TdM reading system, then you really need to go back to Etteilla. Even though he created his own deck, he also influenced how people read the TdM. For French contemporaries of the GD, look to Oswald Wirth and Papus. Probably the chief mid-20th century influence is Paul Marteau, who unfortunately has not been translated into English. He combined suit+number symbolism with pictorial elements found on the Grimaud TdM pips.

Wendywu said:

Why on earth get TdM cards and read with a system pasted on to them that didn't exist when they were created ?

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The whole divinatory tradition was "pasted on to" the already existing TdM by Antoine Court de Gèbelin in 1783 (date correction?).

LRichard said:

Why on earth paste divinatory meanings onto a deck designed for playing a card game?

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Several 14th and 15th century Italians noted that "everything" was used for fortune-telling. That is, commented Dummet several centuries later, except for Tarot cards. However more and more evidence has emerged indicating that fortune-telling with playing cards has been present almost from the beginning. It's not surprising because fate and fortune have always been core to gaming and parallels drawn to the game of life. It was hardly a big step to take.

Added: From Neil Gaiman, "Reading the Entrails" in _Smoke and Mirrors_:
"You want to know the future, love? Then wait:
I'll answer your impatient questions. Still—
They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,
The cards and stars that tumble as they will."

Books and decks by Brian Williams and Paul Huson's book posit ways that the cards might be read based on symbolism and ideas current during the Italian Renaissance.

herself said:

"Reading the Marseille Tarot" by JM David

"Looking at the Marseille Tarot" by Enrique Enriquez

"Tarot - The Open Reading" by Yoav Ben-Dov

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I'm kind of stuck deciding, and too short on cash to get all three. Anyone have a suggestion on one to start with?

There's also the Jodorowsky book...

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I actually don't find myself transitioning to TdM from RWS. I love both decks. Having used the RWS longest, I am more comfortable reading with it, and I lean on the Golden Dawn and related interpretations traditionally suggested in standard US books about the RWS system.

But I've been playing around with the TdM in the Eye Rhymes thread, and have found that system very interesting, and the readings I've been doing have been a mishmosh. I'm thinking that if I am so truly going by gut feeling, memorized meanings will inevitably bubble up. Trying to avoid them seems just as artificial as too heavilly relying on memorized meaning.

So far the most accurate readings seem to have been using a mishmosh of systems, giving my gut the veto power. That's always been my approach to Tarot: look for what works.

ivanna said:

For those using both styles. Or for those using only TdM. Why did you leaved the RWS and started wih TdM. Do you use the Rws meanings also on the TdM? Do you feel.comfortable reading RWS after a while using only TdM, or you have the fear that the illustrated Pips will influence your reading with the images?
For those using both systems at the same time, why you choose one deck or another? Depending on your mood?
So many questions, but I started with TdM and I never got any RwS deck in this time.
Thank you!!!

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I guess I came to this about face because for years I read with mostly the Marseilles deck, with little RWS experience beforehand. But doing it that way around meant that I can now read anything, I'm not phased. The Marseilles deck can be read with any meanings because it was basically a game playing deck so that means you can interpret the cards as you like and have to put a lot of effort into card interpreting. You can use any add ons you want but have to make them fit rather than being handed them.

The RWS system with its images is easier to interpret, that's why the images were incorporated for the pips. I find that when I now transfer to a RWS deck it's quicker to get to the point, gives me a quicker snapshot and I don't to have the dig for explanations. Less contemplation, and yes less work. There's freedom in using a deck that offers an instant view.

I moved from the RWS to TdM in a roundabout way, transitioning from the RWS and its clones to playing card divination and then to the TdM. Playing cards taught me how to read without pictures, and also gave me a strong appreciation for the pips, to the point where I sometimes see the Major Arcana as superfluous

I haven't actually switched completely from RWS to TdM, I use all three systems regularly. It just depends on my whim or the needs of the question.

3ill.yazi said:

I'm kind of stuck deciding, and too short on cash to get all three. Anyone have a suggestion on one to start with?

There's also the Jodorowsky book...

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"The Open Reading" is a fantastic introduction to the Marseille Tarot, I've been finding it very helpful, especially with the pips. I've also just started Jodorowsky and Marianne Costa's "The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards" and it's very fascinating. The authors have developed a very elaborate mystical worldview based on the cards. What I find most helpful in both books are the author's observations of minute card details. I like a reading system that is informed by the illustrations on the cards, as opposed to interpreting them purely through an intellectual system (such as numerology, for example).

That said, I do use numerology (coupled with my understanding of the four elements) quite often in reading. But I also like to be informed by what is actually pictured on the card, otherwise why bother with them at all? You might as well write the suits and numbers on strips of paper

(Actually, I'm sure most cartomancers could make that work, but it wouldn't be quite as much fun, would it?)

One more thing: I recommend Paul Huson's "Mystical Origins of the Tarot" for a very thorough historical examination of the iconography of the Tarot. It focuses on the Marseille, but tracks the evolution of the card imagery over the centuries. Very eye-opening

Yep. Huson's great.

I'm very curious about how people are doing readings while in a transitional period between RWS and TdM. Do you just study the heck out of TdM before you even try reading? I landed a copy of the Jodo book, and I've been following the Eye Rhymes threads here, but I still kinda lean on my personal associations of the RWS deck.

I've actually been looking at the LWB for the CDB deck, and it seems to be a lovely mishmosh of what I find familiar as the "traditional" (the GD influenced associations that are familiar from most beginner books) meanings for RWS, but then completely different associations from what I'm familiar with. I know I'm going to get a smackdown for daring to use book meanings, but it is how I transitioned into doing much more intuitive readings. I find them a crutch to hekp build confidence.

3ill.yazi said:

.......I'm very curious about how people are doing readings while in a transitional period between RWS and TdM. Do you just study the heck out of TdM before you even try reading?......

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It's always good to study Tarot. The more one knows, the better. I read and still often refer to Reading the Marseille Tarot because I am interested in Tarot iconography, as I think it is essential to consider in relation to tarot interpretation, but it does not pertain only to the TdM. Tarot is Tarot, whether it be Italian, French, Swiss, English, Japanese, Canadian, American, etc.

I don't believe that the understanding of Tarot is a fixed entity; it evolves. Some of the more recent expositions are by Ben-Dov, Enrique, and Jodorowsky. In earlier centuries there were important esoteric contributions by Etteilla, Gébelin, Levi, Wirth, Papus, Mathers, etc.

There had been few attempts at illustrating the Pips before Waite and Smith, who devised images (many adapted from Etteilla, Sola Busca, etc.) which apparently were intended to be memory joggers for Mathers' adaptation of the Picatrix Decans to the Pips. Unfortunately, this had the effect of bending the divinatory interpretation of the Pips to Waite and Smith's pictorial representations rather than their origin in the Picatrix.

The TdM thankfully frees the Pips from the strait jacket of the RWS illustrations, but there is no reason thereby to reject any of the historical understandings of Tarot. For new readers, the contributions of Jodorowsky, Enrique, and Ben-Dov give a refreshing new approach to the Tarot reading, but their tendency to gloss over, belittle, or misinterpret the contributions of earlier Tarot scholars is more an indication of their personal bias than of objectivity.

In a word, TdM offers you the opportunity for about as much freedom of interpretation as anyone should wish. Don't agonize over any imaginary 'right way' to read it. Pips as Trumps (for example, see Lee Bursten) gives an easy start, which may prove to be adequate for your needs, or maybe not. I think the main reason many reject it is due to a reluctance to memorize the first ten trumps.

Do what thou wilt.

LRichard said:

It's always good to study Tarot. The more one knows, the better. I read and still often refer to Reading the Marseille Tarot because I am interested in Tarot iconography, as I think it is essential to consider in relation to tarot interpretation, but it does not pertain only to the TdM. Tarot is Tarot, whether it be Italian, French, Swiss, English, Japanese, Canadian, American, etc.

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Agreed. While I feel that the differences between various decks need to be taken into account in interpretation, they also share a lot of common ground. The Tarot is an archetypal system, and as Jung said, archetypes don't have any tangible shape but appear in many guises.

There had been few attempts at illustrating the Pips before Waite and Smith, who devised images (many adapted from Etteilla, Sola Busca, etc.) which apparently were intended to be memory joggers for Mathers' adaptation of the Picatrix Decans to the Pips. Unfortunately, this had the effect of bending the divinatory interpretation of the Pips to Waite and Smith's pictorial representations rather than their origin in the Picatrix.

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Well, yes, but I think it should be emphasized that it was Mathers who first associated the Tarot with the iconography of the decans. The more traditional attributions as represented by Eteilla don't seem to make that connection. At least not in an obvious manner - however, this leads to interesting questions.

I come the RWS tradition amd though I love my good old RWS now that I've picked up TdM and have begun studying and reading with it I find my reading style with TdM radically different. The Trump history as oposed tho the Trump meanings via RWS seem so different that it just seems to produce an entirely different kind of vibe, reading, and style. Is this to be expected?