To those who read Tarot in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s...

Ronald McDonald? Again?

Barleywine said:

). And I think tarot has changed a bit, with much quicker "turn-over" of new decks and and the lightning-fast exchange of ideas on the internet. But it does resemble a "fast-food" culture. Perhaps we could reinvigorate it by hiring the out-of-work Ronald McDonald to be our "Pied Piper" into a new Golden Age of magical tarot "arch-eminence." He's certainly "Fool-ish" enough in a tawdry sort of way. Sorry. Two cups of coffee does that .
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The Ronald McDonald/Tarot thing has been done already by some Tarot game players on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G8PiIHh7h8

I was in high school and college during the '60s, and in those days everything was Astrology (and no, despite living in Connecticut, I never connected with that Astrological Society, though I'd have loved it dearly), and that has been an interest of mine all along. I do remember "head shops," but I don't really remember if they had Tarot decks. I seem to recall that a local mall bookstore did have a few decks; that's where I first saw the Fergus Hall. (I can't even remember the name of the store, though I spent plenty of time in there; I think that was in the early '70s.) Anyway, it was about a decade before I met some magic-minded people, in the SCA and in science fiction fandom, and by then I was finding other "New Age" stores; there seemed to be a lot of them around in the '80s, plus the vendors who sold at science fiction conventions. The whole magic thing included Tarot, of course, as well as a lot of material on Paganism and ceremonial magic and far more astrological books than I ever thought possible. So I got into Tarot rather sideways. I had books before I had decks, just because I wanted to learn so much.

Have things changed? Yes, most of the stores I remember have gone away; the people either gave them up or moved or died. There are fewer such stores now. There used to be one I could walk to; no more. And even workshops at esoteric conferences and Pagan events don't do as much with Tarot as they used to, more's the pity. I suppose the attitude among organizers is that Tarot has been popular so long that most people either know what they're doing or have sufficient access to the knowledge that workshops are no longer needed or wouldn't fill up enough to warrant the time or space for them.

A lot of the "magic" has gone out of the esoteric scene, it seems. But then I don't know how much of my wistfulness is due to no longer being a starry-eyed newbie. I do miss being starry-eyed...

Morwenna said:

Have things changed? Yes, most of the stores I remember have gone away; the people either gave them up or moved or died. There are fewer such stores now. There used to be one I could walk to; no more.

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If you're anywhere near Windsor, CT, there is Mondazzi Books not far off I-91. Their website is www.discountnewagebooks.com, but they have a walk-in warehouse store that, on a scale from "useless" to "fantastic," I'd rate a "very good." I managed to walk out with the Shining Tribe and Pythagorean decks at steeply discounted prices on my last visit. A plus is that they have a really large (in this layman's eyes, at least) craft bead selection in another area of the store.

I'm not near there anymore (New Haven now, though I grew up in East Windsor), but it's not so far away. And both the Tarot and beading sections sound interesting! Thanks for the tip!

The only shop around me now is Curious Goods in West Haven, a couple of blocks from the green.

These are all fantastically interesting stories. The thing that interests me the most is comparing people's attitude to tarot pre- and post-internet. The internet changed lots of things a great deal; When it comes to tarot that change meant we all suddenly have instant, full access to HUGE bodies of information, from books in electronic form to articles, scans of decks, videos and so on. The other change with the internet was we suddenly all had each other; Like-minded people were drawn together on email groups, forums and chatrooms, able to discuss tarot and magick freely, openly, even anonymously if they wanted.
The changes brought about by the internet are phenomenal, amazing, revolutionary, and yet it seems a lot of people feel that a little of the magic was lost, that tarot was suddenly no longer secret, or special, or arcane. It would be easy to dismiss these feelings and compare them to the feeling people get when the obscure band they are into suddenly gains mainstream acceptance, but maybe this isn't an analogous situation.
I think it's still possible in this internet-enabled day and age to recapture some of the old feeling of tarot as special. If you meet someone in the real world, (aka "meat-space") and by some chance remark you find out that they are into tarot, leading you to have an interesting conversation with them, then that I think will still feel special and cool, despite the fact that you could instantly, any day of the week, find thousands of similar people online at the click of a button. I imagine going to a tarot club, meet-up, lecture or talk in real life would be similarly more "magical" than the online equivalent.

I received my first deck as a gift from my mom who thought it was funky and fun looking in 72 - it was the Hoi Polloi and I recall it as being the coolest thing ever - and mind you as someone else said you didn't trust anyone over 30 and besides at 15 who thinks their parents know anything cool - I recall holing up in my room with the lights off, candles on and incense going and my little parchment paper key to the cards booklet. The feeling was that I *owned* something magical and powerful and mysterious. I know we all talk about 78 pieces of paper but this felt definately special. The whole world was different then - people were all about Astrology and I Ching and Tarot. It was harder to find decks in those days but we had great stores in Old Town in Chicago and you could buy yourself some rolling papers and a 1JJ all the the same shop

I first got into tarot in the late 1960's. I was given the 1JJ Swiss and hated it. So I got the Universal Waite to replace it. At that time there weren't a ton of decks to choose from, the way there are now. I remember Waite and 1JJ Swiss. That was it until the Aquarian appeared around 1970. If there was a tarot community, I sure wasn't aware of it. We didn't have the internet then. If you wanted to have an interest group of some kind, you put up a hand-written sign at the local head shop or occult shop. Maybe you ran a small ad in one of the local papers like the L.A. Free Press or the Berkeley Barb. The "metaphysical" places were true occult shops back then, not new age stores as we have now. You could get amulets, figural candles, annointing oils, and all sorts of things in those shops, including tarot cards. We had the Sorcerer's Shop and the Ram. The head shops had tarot cards too, along with posters, newspapers, paperback books, rolling papers, patches and other affordable things. Not the pricey chachkis you see at the stores calling themselves "head" shops nowadays. It was a totally different time and culture. I think of it as the Love and Magic time. Tarot wasn't the commonplace mainstream thing then that it is now. I felt that it was a very mystical secret thing, one of the "Dark Arts." It was something I was very private about. I believed that the cards had power. I also believed, as I was taught, that bad things would happen if I didn't return all of the cards back to their box in order. It really was a magical universe, and astrology was very omnipresent. We didn't have a ton of tarot books to choose from. There was Waite's Pictorial Key and a couple of Eden Gray books. Interpretations were predictive, the type of meanings considered "fortune-telling" nowadays when introspective, psychological readings are favored. I didn't see tarot decks conspicuously displayed in book stores until the 1980's. At first you could only find Motherpeace at the feminist bookshop, and then it was everywhere. I got Barbara Walker back then too. I always think of the 80's as the time when tarot really took off. It wasn't a magic time, though. That was long gone. Now that decks are everywhere and I have way too many, I miss those simpler times. But would I give up all my cherished decks? No!!! I'm way too attached (sigh).

WyrdRaven said:

I first got into tarot in the late 1960's. I was given the 1JJ Swiss and hated it. So I got the Universal Waite to replace it. At that time there weren't a ton of decks to choose from, the way there are now. I remember Waite and 1JJ Swiss. That was it until the Aquarian appeared around 1970.

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Universal Waite? wasn't that 1990?? Wouldn't that be the Rider Waite?

If I had seen the Rider Waite and not the 1JJ Swiss back in 1981, I know my tarot journey would have been so different. Sometimes I regret the years I wasted before I found my love of tarot again.

Le Fanu said:

Universal Waite? wasn't that 1990?? Wouldn't that be the Rider Waite?

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You're right! I meant to say "University Books" Senior moment!!!!! LOL