Marseille's Learning Styles: Discussion For Beginners

I know that there are quite a few of us here who have recently acquired the Tarot of Marseille, and I thought that it might be fruitful to discuss our approach to learning with this specific deck.

What is your learning style with the Marseille?

For me, I am bringing my existing body of knowledge re. the Thoth and the RW and I am applying it to the cards (in my case, the Fournier, which I want to eat, hehe ). I am also taking notes on each card... what associations it gives rise to, and other such bits and bobs. I do not usually do this with decks, but I thought I would do so with this one.

I would also like to say that I am finding the LWB with the Fournier to be quite useful in at least providing another perspective on the cards. Does anyone else use this? As far as I am aware, the Fournier is one of the only TdM's which is issued with an LWB.

Anyway, maybe we could pick up some further hints on learning with the TdM in this thread.

****Edited to add: Although I have stated 'beginners' in the thread title, it would be interesting to hear how people who are more familiar with the TdM have approached their learning of this deck.

I have also recently acquired the Fournier TdM, and this is my first experience with a Marseille deck. After learning tarot primarily with RW-style decks (and dabbling in the Thoth), I am finding it both challenging AND exciting to work with a system that is, IMO, completely different than the RW...at least in terms of the pips and courts.

For me, the most challenging aspect of reading the Marseille (and I have expressed this on more than one occasion ) is understanding the meanings of unillustrated pips. For now at least, I do rely primarily on my prior knowledge of the standard RW "meanings" of these cards...but at the same time, I am spending some time really looking at these cards and trying to pick up on any intuitive information that might be available to me. It is my hope that, with time and practice, this will become easier for me to do....

Like Centaur, I keep a Marseille journal....and as Lee suggested way back (before I had a Marseille deck), I am making my own "LWB" of card meanings for future reference. I really love the idea of coming up with my own meanings, in addition to the more "textbook" definitions that I am already familiar with.

Finally, as a last resort, I do take a peek inside the LWB to see if I am on the right track with my intuitive feelings and/or definitions of the cards....I was very surprised that the Fournier included a LWB since I had heard that none of the Marseille decks have them!

I look forward to hearing from others who are learning the Marseille, and of course from those with more experience who might be able to give some helpful suggestions!

Luna

Hi Centaur and Lunakasha!

I don't have my Fournier yet in hand but I'll be sure to read the threads in this study group. I plan to use my previous knowledge of the cards meanings as a foundation, plus use some numerology, colors and of course intuition.

I also look forward to hearing from more experienced Marseille's owners. Even if I don't post much, know that I'll be following along.

Momof3girls

Well, I'm a Hadar kinda girl and the way I use mine is to go by numerology and the suits (plus a little RWS which just happens to creep in now and then) I try not to use RWS meanings because mostly I find they don't go with what the Hadar is saying to me but they are in my mind and hard to get rid of at times.

Rusty ( I think ) started a thread about the different methods used to read with a marseilles deck. It's somewhere int he H&I forum for those interested.

Moonbow* said:

Rusty ( I think ) started a thread about the different methods used to read with a marseilles deck. It's somewhere int he H&I forum for those interested.

Click to expand...

There are two threads on this in H&I (one started by Lee, the other by me). And there are various other seminal threads in H&I. There is quite a bit of stuff on those various threads relating to the issues raised in this current thread. People should feel to peruse those threads and post questions or comments in reply to the various posts to those threads as they feel appropriate.

Rusty Neon said:

There are two threads on this in H&I (one started by Lee, the other by me). And there are various other seminal threads in H&I. There is quite a bit of stuff on those various threads relating to the issues raised in this current thread. People should feel to peruse those threads and post questions or comments in reply to the various posts to those threads as they feel appropriate.

Click to expand...

Thanks Rusty....could you post the links please???

I did a search but nothing came up.....

Thanks!
Luna

Here was my suggestion for learning the Minor Arcana from a previous thread. I've edited it a bit.

A) sit down at a table, on which you have placed a Marseille deck and a pen and paper.

B) On the paper, write down the four suits in a column:

Batons
Cups
Swords
Coins

C) following each suit, write down a few keywords or phrases of what that suit will mean.

D) Write down the numbers and courts in a column:

Ace
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Page
Knight
Queen
King

E) After each number/court, write a few keywords or phrases on what each number/court will mean. You can base the words or phrases on anything. You can use simple numerology, based on numerology meanings you may have read in books, or that you find on the Aeclectic forums (search for "numerology"), or that you find online. You can base the meanings on astrology, or on meanings from the Major Arcana.

For the Court cards, same thing, decide on what each rank means (for example, here's one set of meanings from Gail Fairfield: Page = risking, Knight = focusing, Queen = maturing, King = releasing). As an alternative, you can regard them as 16 separate personalities based on how you read other decks, or based on how the pictures look to you.

F) To read the Minors, you combine the suit meaning with the number/court rank meaning. For example, if 7's are mystery and Cups are emotions, then the 7 of Cups is an emotional mystery or confusion over emotions.

G) When you're looking at a specific card, you can also choose to use the image (i.e. the arrangement of suit symbols and/or the floral decorations) as an added interpretive factor. However, I personally believe that this factor is not something that can be listed and memorized for each card. I think it's something that works best by allowing your mind to make an intuitive leap in a particular context. For example, jmd once wrote that in a specific reading, the image of the 4 of Coins suggested to him the four wheels of a car. I think this meaning just sort of jumped out at him from a particular reading where such an interpretation would have made sense. It's a great interpretation, but that doesn't mean you should memorize "car" for the 4 of Coins. Just look at a card, in the context of the question and the position layout, and neighboring cards, and see if anything comes to you from the image.

H) Try doing a few three-card readings using this method.

In my opinion, after following these steps, you know now everything that anyone else here knows about reading Marseille pips. The only thing the "Marseille experts" have that you don't is experience, and that's only gained by practice.

There really isn't any more information other than what I've written here in this post. If you want to see people doing it as an example, then just go to the H&I forum index and look for the practice reading spreads that Rusty Neon started. Those posts will give you an excellent idea of how to go about doing it. But I don't think there's a body of knowledge out there for you to find. I think the general methodology is relatively simple. Just grab a deck and start laying out cards.

If you hunger for more, then I can only say that I've spend many pleasurable hours wandering around in old posts and threads, using the Search feature or just scanning down the forum index. It's fun.

Hope this helps --
Lee

Thanks Lee!!!

This is EXACTLY the post I was talking about....I copied it off and added it to my Marseille journal....

Now that I actually have a deck to look at, I have begun working on these definitions...thanks again for sharing your ideas Lee...hopefully it will be as helpful to others as it was for me!

Luna

My pleasure!

-- Lee

Sorry for the long post..

Edited Here:
Lee, while I was composing this long winded post, I see you've posted something I find really helpful! Thanks for your advice. -r

Post:
I'm coming from somewhere a little different than others posted I think. In some ways, perhaps at an advantage to learning to read with the Marseilles.

I'm fascinated with the history and origin of tarot cards, but have always been somewhat skeptical about readings. Mostly, I think, because of a distrust/disbelief in the reading systems.

Recently I acquired the Tarot of Prague which was the very first deck that really made me want to read with it, and I like the way that Baba Prague interprets the Waite system in her book.

However, I've also acquired the Hadar and Dodal and they have been calling to me too.

Here's the possible advantage: I am just learning to read, I have formed pretty strong interpretations for the Major Arcana, but the courts and pips are pretty much an open canvas for me. I have no history with the Rider-Waite system, so don't bring that along.

Fundamentally, something about the Rider-Waite system bothers me. Perhaps I need to read his explanations as to why he assigned the meanings he did but they just don't jive with me. (Swords as air/thought make "sense", but the heavy negativity assigned the suit seems off to me)

So I'm busy trying to find/create a system that makes sense to me. As I'm working, I'm finding more and more that the illustrated pips are a distraction.

Here's what I'm doing:
Because I work in the web industry, I've been using Dreamweaver for years. I'm creating an HTML based journal where I am gathering pictures of all the decks that I think are historically interesting, or simply inspiring. I have those images along the side of each page, one page for each card, plus a page for categories like Wands, Courts, 10s, etc. Then I am collecting information, mostly historical, about the iconography, interpretation systems, anything that seems relative.. it might be a poem by Rumi or an image from a cathedral. I add anything that makes it clearer to me.

When looking at the cards, I just pull up the "site" in my browser, and use it as a reference as I'm learning. When something strikes me as interesting or I have a thought or inspiration, I open Dreamweaver and add it to the appropriate page. This is working really well for me.

If anyone would like to suggest other ideas that would be beneficial to my studies, or system, I am always eager to learn.

robert