switching from RWS -TdM.

ivanna

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!!!
 

Melia

Hi ivanna, I had a friend who used TdM for many years and then switched to RWS. I was using RWS at the time, my sole deck, and she began to use my deck to do readings with. She said she found it a lot easier and went out and bought a deck of her own. I always found her TdM readings spot on, and she was an excellent reader. When she switched to RWS, I didn't discern a difference in her readings/accuracy, but she definitely found it a lot easier using the RWS deck.
 

FLizarraga

I was (and am) more drawn to the TdM than to the classic RWS deck. However, when I started learning Tarot, most of the good books I found were pure RWS, so I studied those, and eventually came to appreciate Smith's deck.

Eventually, I found some good Marseilles books, so I have ended up making up my own mishmash, particularly for the minors.

I choose decks depending on my mood, so it depends. Sometimes it's RWS, sometimes it's TdM, and sometimes it's Thoth.
 

swedishfish612

I've been strictly RWS for the two years I've been learning Tarot, and I've just recently gotten interested in TdM. I'm still limping along with the pips, but I'm enjoying the learning process a lot.
 

3ill.yazi

I'm an intermediate with the RWS, and am learning it more, but I find myself using the TdM more. But to be honest, I have the RWS in my mind when reading them. It's just easier.
 

ivanna

It happens to me too. When reading with TdM if I get blocked with a pip, before having a look to the book, I try to figure out what this card mean on a RWS.
And this is a pitty, because then I think that if I think in RWS, I should come back to it. But I do not want to be limited by the images on the illustrated pips, and I want to try the TdM for a while to know if this deck enhance my intuition.
 

Sulis

I used to use RWS style decks and switched to TdMs, which I much prefer.
I really don't see the point in using a TdM if you're just going to use 'RWS meanings' (whatever they are) because if you do that you're not actually reading the cards, you're using memorised meanings.

When I read with TdMs, I usually lay out at least 3 cards, sometimes 5, sometimes 7; I always use an odd number. I don't read them as individual cards as much as I did when I was using RWS style decks, I look at the interplay between the cards, whether one image seems to lead to another or whether an image looks like a blockage. On top of that I use number and element and I also look at the empty space in the cards, the foliage, whether it looks as if it's growing or dying, whether the numbers go up or down through the spread.
I don't always read from left to right either, I look at the whole spread and see which way the cards look like they should be read so sometimes left to right, sometimes right to left, sometimes from the centre out or the outside cards in towards the central card.
I also link the Minors to the Majors of the same number..
It all sounds very complicated but for me, it's a very intuitive process and for me, it works..
I love reading with TdMs, I find them a lot freer and more intuitive than a deck that has scenes on it because with a TdM the pips can mean anything so you have more of a free reign.
 

3ill.yazi

I used to use RWS style decks and switched to TdMs, which I much prefer.
I really don't see the point in using a TdM if you're just going to use 'RWS meanings' (whatever they are) because if you do that you're not actually reading the cards, you're using memorised meanings.

If I was looking at pips, I would likely be doing that anyway. What is there to see?

The intuitive reading I do is informed by whatever I've ever learned about the meanings of the cards. As I retain anything in my brain about as well as a sieve, I don't feel like I'm in much danger of being locked into book meanings too much.

I don't react too much to what the images look like. It's not, the magician is pointing at the Empress. It's more, oh, that's the Magician. Probably because I use different decks. So far my experimenting with an individual deck with meanings specific to it (etteilla) has not been successful IMO. So it's more that I have a platonic form of the cards in my head, not so much a visual image, so to speak, and they are in line with the RWS I grew up with. But I have had great success with the TdM.
 

starlightexp

The RWS was my only reading deck for years.. years..years. All the other decks I got that I would read with were RWS based as well. I collected all types of decks including a sizable collection of Il Meneghello historical decks. These decks in their hand made boxes with supple matt card stock were decks I handled but never read with, yet they had a draw for me. It's not that I found the art particularly evocative or firing the imagination but rather drawn to the history of the deck.
I began to research how people use the deck on here and in the meager number of books published in English. They grew on me more and more. I began to experiment with them reading for friends and soon get very comfortable with them. It took about a year of solidly working with different styles to find the one that worked for me but now it's my go to style for predictive readings. The TdM is a very down to earth type deck to read with. It had to be. People didn't want to hear about their 'soul path' or be told to 'embrace your inner Queen of Swords" they wanted to know real life answers and that is what this deck gives me.
I gave a class on how to read with it and a lady there asked to be given a demonstration by seeing how her health was going to go. Without her saying anything I told her she was going to need to have a surgery in her shoulders or abdomen and that while it looks as if she has gotten two different opinions she felt more comfortable with the first so she should look into that more. She was floored (as was I to tell the truth) at how dead on it was. I do carry my RWS with me for people that want that style of reading but I'm a TdM man all the way now
 

FLizarraga

The TdM is a very down to earth type deck to read with. It had to be. People didn't want to hear about their 'soul path' or be told to 'embrace your inner Queen of Swords" they wanted to know real life answers and that is what this deck gives me.

Thanks for the laugh. :)

I'm curious, though; how do you read with it? Do you use the RWS meanings at all?