TdM - why not read it as other decks?

Farzon

So, the Trionfi della Luna have rekindled my interest in the Tarot de Marseille, which I had put aside in favor of all the other decks this year. And while I'm still troubling myself with the thought of which deck to get to begin with - the CBD, the Hadar or both - I'm digging through all the fascinating threads here about how to read the pips.

I try to figure out numerology and how that would change the meanings, but I always end up in my cozy world of GD meanings. I guess it's some kind of confirmation bias that always leads me back there. However, one thing wonders me and I haven't found an answer to it yet:

Why would you even change the way you read when you switch to pips? I mean, the GD most probably designed their system working with Tarot de Marseille style decks.

I know that there can't be a definite answer to this question; I'm more interested in your individual approaches and thoughts anyway!
 

Barleywine

I gravitate toward the same fall-back approach, and it's been said here before that there's really no good reason why we shouldn't use what we know if the result is satisfactory. That said, since there isn't a TdM "traditon" for purposes of divination, I try to stick with suit/element and number correspondences and downplay the astrological and qabala stuff. Since it's the pip cards that give me the most trouble, I've been considering the "pips-as-trumps" model as well, and my thinking on this has been enhanced by my study of the Voyager Tarot, which uses a similar concept (that is, the numbered suit cards share strong connections to the Major Arcana of the same number or that reduce to that number by numerology).
 

Richard

.....Why would you even change the way you read when you switch to pips? I mean, the GD most probably designed their system working with Tarot de Marseille style decks.....

There is no need to charge the way you normally read the minors unless you just want to try something different. No one knows exactly how Marseille decks were traditionally read. The oldest information we have is probably from esoteric readers such as de Gebelin, Levi, and Wirth, from which the GD system naturally evolved.

Modern writers on interpreting the Marseille have generally avoided esotericism and devised their own systems, which often try to be intrinsic to the deck itself rather than using external information from numerology, astrology, alchemy, or Qabalah. This is fine if that's what you want to do, but to me it seems rather artificial to dodge the natural evolution of Tarot interpretation.
 

Richard

.....Since it's the pip cards that give me the most trouble, I've been considering the "pips-as-trumps" model as well, and my thinking on this has been enhanced by my study of the Voyager Tarot, which uses a similar concept (that is, the numbered suit cards share strong connections to the Major Arcana of the same number or that reduce to that number by numerology).

Actually, trumps 1 through 10 relate to the 10 Sephiroth (except for the exasperating Justice/Strength problem), so "pips as trumps" is actually indirectly related to Qabalah.
 

Barleywine

Actually, trumps 1 through 10 relate to the 10 Sephiroth (except for the exasperating Justice/Strength problem), so "pips as trumps" is actually indirectly related to Qabalah.

One thing that James Wanless (and also Elizabeth Hazel) did was use numerological reduction to broaden the scope of pip and trump correspondences. So the Aces relate not only to the Magician but also to the Wheel of Fortune and the Sun. Wanless went further and brought in some kind of numerological ciphering that I'm not familiar with, seeing the second digit of a two-digit trump as relating that trump to the pips of the same number. He relates Death to the Empress and the number Three because there is a "3" in "13," whereas it would normally reduce to "4," the Emperor. I'm going to get to the bottom of that because it seems kind of squirrely to me.
 

baconwaffles

Well, essentially read however it works for you. I use tdm and I read the pips as I would regular playing cards. Given their common ancestry to me they are all the same. so really, if the system work for you than why change.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
 

Redfaery

I've fallen head over heels with my Visconti, and I'm still learning to read it, but...to me it comes down to the fact that the cards just look and feel very different. I don't read my Shadowscapes the same as my RWS, so why would I read a pip card like a fully illustrated landscape?

One of the things that actually really drew me to the Visconti and is drawing me towards TdM is the freedom with regards to the interpretation of the pips. They're so *spare*. That's actually become a good thing to me. I can use pretty much any system I like to read them.
 

Lee

I agree with what others have said. One of the fun things about TdM decks is that they free you to explore other ways of deriving meaning for the pip cards. But you can read them any way you want. If you use RWS meanings for TdM pips, no one will tell you that you're "not reading TdM." Or if they do, they'll get some disagreement from me. :)

For TdM readings exchanges, we've established a convention that folks shouldn't use RWS-inspired pip meanings for those readings, in order to avoid frustration between RWS folks and non-RWS folks. But in general, by all means read them however you like, and however you choose to read them, enjoy them! Personally, I like to experiment, so I change things up every now and again.
 

Padma

I was wondering if this old thread would help you all.

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=112327

I must admit to not loving the Marseille, but I did learn on it (without any LWB or instruction) and I did find the pips speak, if you will only give them time to do so. :)
 

JylliM

Like Baconwaffles, I read pips like playing cards. I also keep it simple with trumps - no esoteric or internal correspondences, or deep and meaningful symbolism inherent in them for me. Having switched to TdM from RWS, I have to say that illustrated pips jar now, as the images seem so prescriptive. Obviously, it's totally your choice as to how you choose to read, but I think you could enjoy trying something different with a different style deck. I did!