Transparent Oracle Study Group - Techniques and Mechanics

Terminology:

When there was a Study Group created for the Transparent Tarot, there was a lot of discussion on terminology. There seemed to be a word and/or abbreviation for everything.

I'm not sure if we need to get quite so complicated this time. For the Transparent Tarot, there was a lot of talk about Reversed Images (flipped up and down) and Mirror Images (flipped right to left). This isn't really relevant for a round deck, in my opinion. But we could talk about it, if anyone is interested.

When I was doing readings with the T-O, I started naturally developing my own language, just as I was naturally developing my own reading style.

I call a grouping of cards on top of each other a Stack. I know, not very romantic. A T-O "spread" can be one Stack, or several Stacks.

The visual image produced by looking at all the cards in a Stack together I call a Blended Image. (The Transparent Tarot Study Group called it a Composite Image, I think.)

When there are too many cards in a Stack and it becomes hard to see/interpret, I call it Muddled. (The T-T Group called it Jumbled.)

The T-T Study Group also had specific terms for cards that were combined in other ways that just as a Stack. Film Strip(FS): Cards only partially combined, more side-by-side. Freeform Image(FI): spreading out cards semi-randomly so that they only partially overlap. Please let me know whether you think these would be useful for discussion.

If anyone disagrees with this basic terminology, or has ideas of their own, please let me know.

Techniques:

The ideal number of cards for one stack, without using a Light Box to backlight the image, seems to be 3-4. I did an experiment where I made a Stack of all the cards for each direction, to see if they were readable. In most cases, all 10 cards together were very Muddled. For the most part, half of a Direction (5 cards) was still reasonably readable. In my experiment, the most cards I had in a Stack that was still readable was 7, for the Sun, Moon and Planet cards from the Above direction.

It seems to me that the T-O can use familiar spreads with only minor modification, by combining spread positions into stacks. When I did my New Deck Interview, by FireRaven, I did the first three questions as one Stack, and the next three questions as a second Stack. It worked very well.

I personally have not found an easy way to shuffle the T-O. If anyone has discovered a good shuffling technique, please, please, please let me know!

Quite right that the 'flipped' and 'reversed' doesn't apply so much with the T.O.
'Stack' seems fair enough, but I prefer 'combination', both of which are self-evident and I don't think it will cause confusion for people to use their own terminology unless they decide on something random like 'kumquat'!

Something new to consider with the T.O is whether an image is 'aligned' or not. That is, have you chosen to line the images up to create the mandala and a symettrical image, (by lining up the numbers at the bottom), or have you overlayed them randomly, or rotated after placement, or a combination of all these. For example, you may choose to place them randomly initially, then rotate them until the numbers align, or until the image otherwise 'clicks' for you.

Em x

Sidhe-Ra said:

. For example, you may choose to place them randomly initially, then rotate them until the numbers align, or until the image otherwise 'clicks' for you.

Em x

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I very much like this idea! When I cast my crystal oracle, I have the sitter toss the stones onto a large, square reading cloth and they fall randomly. Then I turn the reading cloth around until a picture "clicks" for me, or my intuition tells me "it reads this way". It has been very effective.

On the other hand, a tilt to the left or to the right can also be considered to indicate degree. I don't have my T-O yet, but I did obtain my first round deck recently, the Motherpeace. In that deck if a card is tilted to the left it is considered to be a lighter or lesser version of the card's meaning, if it is tilted to the right, it shows a more intense version of that card's meaning. But that deck does not have the flexibility of the transparency and I know from my transparent tarot that layering creates what pictures it will create and they are a thing unto themselves.

It might be interesting as part of our study to interpret the same reading in both ways as a form of contrast to see how meaning varies.

Re: Terminology

By the way, I like the word "stack" but for the sake of consistency in our discussions I'm going to stick with Emily's terminology of "combination". I know from working for years as a training facilitator that if you don't stick with the same words for a group of people, you stand of chance of wandering off into the forest!

Mellaenn said:

By the way, I like the word "stack" but for the sake of consistency in our discussions I'm going to stick with Emily's terminology of "combination". I know from working for years as a training facilitator that if you don't stick with the same words for a group of people, you stand of chance of wandering off into the forest!

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A Combination of Cards does make sense, and has an alliterative appeal. But I thought that "stack" was a nice simple word, like "spread" is a nice simple word.

That said, either one will do.

Mellaenn said:

On the other hand, a tilt to the left or to the right can also be considered to indicate degree. I don't have my T-O yet, but I did obtain my first round deck recently, the Motherpeace. In that deck if a card is tilted to the left it is considered to be a lighter or lesser version of the card's meaning, if it is tilted to the right, it shows a more intense version of that card's meaning. But that deck does not have the flexibility of the transparency and I know from my transparent tarot that layering creates what pictures it will create and they are a thing unto themselves.

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Unlike the motherpeace deck that has a single image on each card, the T-O doesn't really have an obvious "this way up". With a few exceptions, most of the images come in threes, around the center.

Here are a few examples (from my recent reading thread).

That's right. I thought it about time that someone designed a circular deck that was actually circular in design rather than normal pictures on circular cards. Of course the mandala was key to the whole idea as well.

It occurs to me that 'flipped' images are worth considering becuase in some cases it does make a difference to how the cards interact. There are a number of cards which would face different ways if they were flipped, which could affect the reading.

Another thought I've had. I look at the cards, individually and in combination, and I take into account the relative location of the images.

If you think of the card as a wheel, some of the images are closer to the hub, and some are around the rim. All of the elements, for example, are at the Hub; while some of the landscapes (Desert and Ocean) are around the Rim. The majority of the images are somewhere in between.

It's tempting to see the Hub as being more "central" to the question being asked, and in some ways more "stable" too. The Rim, on a wheel, is more mobile (and therefore more changeable?). On the other hand, the Rim images seem to be more "all encompassing" too. Like the other images are being surrounded by the energies of the Rim card.

Just wanted to mention that I acquired a "light table" from an artist friend of mine. She used it for tracing, but I've found it useful for looking at the cards. It also makes photographs clearer by avoiding flash-glare.

The model I'm using is the LightTracer by Artograph. There's been newer models since then, the LightTracer2, the LightTracer Elite, but they are all basically the same, lightbulbs set behind a flat plastic sheet. The same company also makes "LightPads", the same idea but using LEDs instead of bulbs.

NorthernTigress said:

The model I'm using is the LightTracer by Artograph. There's been newer models since then, the LightTracer2, the LightTracer Elite, but they are all basically the same, lightbulbs set behind a flat plastic sheet. The same company also makes "LightPads", the same idea but using LEDs instead of bulbs.

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Hmmmmm....I feel a project coming up. I think I shall fabricate my own light table. What's the point of working in an electronics lab if I don't use all the goodies for my own personal projects?

Besides...I wonder how it would look with different light choices, say blue, yellow, green, red...

So, need a piece of white plastic, a box, a power supply, a bunch of LEDs of different colors and some switches....yup, gotta put that Electrical Engineering degree up on the wall to good use!