Do you need "real" cards to be able to read?

GryffinSong said:

Interesting, Anna. Good way to go about it.

I did see the reply about virtual decks in the reading circle. I suppose I'm on the fence about it in that context. For me it might rather go to the artist compensation side of things, but I'm not sure. I, for instance, am not participating in that circle because I don't have a deck that qualifies. Perhaps it feels to me like the price of admission to the circle is to actually own the deck.

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I understand what you mean, and I would agree that it is better to have the actual deck in your hands.... although it raises a question around people being excluded due to not being able to afford to purchase the deck.

Very interesting question, though, and it does bring up a number of potential issues. I certainly wouldn't hesitate to use an online or book image to read for myself. In fact, I've used online reading generators, such as the one for the Touchstone Tarot on Kat Black's page. But I don't think it would cross my mind to use one of those to read for someone else.

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That's interesting. I wonder what the difference is when it is a reading for someone else?

I've done paid readings using my mobile phone app and it simply didn't occur to me that some people may not consider it to be a valid reading, or may feel uncomfortable that I have done my reading that way.

tarotbear said:

I would really like to have the ceiling of my dining room look like the Sistiene Chapel - but I can't do that, so a picture of the real Sistiene Chapel ceiling will do just as well.

If you took your favorite Tarot card to the bakery and had then turn it into the decoration on the top of the cake (like they do with people's head shots) - is that 'not' still a Tarot card?

I think those people need to get over it.

When you asked about scans I figured you would print your own and paste them on cardboard and make your own deck - many people have done that.

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Yes, that is my feeling on the issue too. The image is the image, no matter how I am looking at it.

I hadn't considered printing out the images and pasting them on card, although I don't think I would do that due to the artist's compensation issue.

rwcarter said:

There are at least a couple of threads over in Experimental Techniques where folks aren't using physical cards to do their readings. An incomplete list:

• imaginary deck readings for feedback!
• Reading from person's randomly chosen numbers

So, a reader may not need physical tarot cards in order to do a tarot reading.

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Thank you for sharing those! I haven't looked in the Experimental Forum for a long time, so I've missed that. I will definitely be reading those threads.

Anna, I would definately call it a valid reading, regardless of what method one uses. I was just thinking aloud.

Chiriku said:

'MaineGirl, would your opinion change if the reader were randomizing and drawing from 78 index cards or paper slips with only the card title and number written on them?

Indeed, that is the method I assumed before Anna shared the deck substitution method.

I believe your point is valid however, if while shuffling the reader mentally focuses on the remote deck, I believe that psychologically, they have prepared themselves for images from that deck, and thus there is no cognitive dissonance (in a different tarot philsophy, you might say "loss in translation") resulting from the physical substitution of a different deck.

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If the reader was drawing from slips of paper with titles and numbers written on them, then I would say the reading was based entirely on the vast array of possible interpretations attributed to those given cards without the benefit of added details provided by the pictures. As I mentioned before, the pictures themselves hold greater weight with me than any stamped out historical interpretation of the card. Those weigh in second. (As a matter of fact, I think a group of readers employed this method some time ago in the Experimental Readings forum.)

Your comment about mentally focusing on a remote deck while shuffling another deck would imply great familiarity with that remote deck. I have been working almost exclusively with one deck for over a year and I am still finding symbols, colors and items that I had previously overlooked. I believe there would be cognitive dissonance unless you can hold 78 distinct images in your head while drawing from another deck.

I'm not opposed to seeing if this process would work or not. I am also not opposed to a reader using a digital app and reading off the cards drawn by that app. I don't think you have to physically be holding the cards for the reading to have merit, as long as the cards drawn are the ones you're basing your reading on.

Just my opinion.

I THINK (not sure as I have never been in this position ) I might find it hard to pull cards from one deck and then read those same ones from another instead - in my experience, when I have used two decks for the same reading (some of us tried doing this as a test when we were discussing something like this a long time ago) I have always pulled different cards - I think because different decks seem to deliver in different ways.

I think one can certainly read from scans (see under Orphalese) but from where I am standing, those scans need to be "drawn" from the deck you are reading, if that makes grammatical sense. I could just about see it using bits of paper with card names on, I think...

gregory said:

I THINK (not sure as I have never been in this position ) I might find it hard to pull cards from one deck and then read those same ones from another instead - in my experience, when I have used two decks for the same reading (some of us tried doing this as a test when we were discussing something like this a long time ago) I have always pulled different cards - I think because different decks seem to deliver in different ways.

I think one can certainly read from scans (see under Orphalese) but from where I am standing, those scans need to be "drawn" from the deck you are reading, if that makes grammatical sense. I could just about see it using bits of paper with card names on, I think...

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I think it works for me, because I believe that it will. i think that my belief in it as a system is a key reason why it works for me.

I do believe that the cards are just a tool, and so if they can work to give a useful, meaningful reading for someone thousands of miles away who I've never met, then why not work in other ways too. Why not be a tool with which to select the cards to use from another deck. I think it's just a case of asking the question while you draw the cards, so that your intention is very clear.

Bits of paper works fine too, although in my experience, the quality of the reading is the same which ever method I use to select the cards. It is far more about my interaction with the image, as someone said earlier, than about how I've chosen and accessed that image.

A woman I know made her first deck by writing the name of each card on blank notecards and using those (she did this while in college at a time when Tarot cards weren't readily available in every bookstore). She claims it was her most accurate deck.

Reading through this thread, I feel, this is, where the time tested Tarot diviner, shuffling the cards and laying them out on his/ her table, adorned with crystals and candles meets the Tarot tech - traveller of 2012 and onwards:
At lunch break with her MAC book - or on the subway with a smart phone, using a Tarot app and doing a reading for a friend or client....
Times are changing and the idea of doing it this way is just new...
10 years from now????
It will just be one of several normal ways to do it.
It is Not the material in which the images are presented to our brains/ subconscious that counts, it is our innert ability to READ these images and communicate the perceived meanings and implications to the people we read for.

Shade said:

A woman I know made her first deck by writing the name of each card on blank notecards and using those (she did this while in college at a time when Tarot cards weren't readily available in every bookstore). She claims it was her most accurate deck.

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You know, I've always wondered how a deck you made yourself would read differently than a deck you bought or was given to you. I could totally see it a deck that you would work well with and one that's really accurate, because you are part of it and it's part of you.

Tad off-topic, though.

Although I see so many good reasons that "real" cards aren't necessary, in my heart I agree with MaineGirl's interpretation. So often the tiny little visual details hold the key to the reading. I think the way tarot works is one of those mysteries where rational thinking isn't the way to the answer.