Beginner confused with minor cards meanings

Nemia said:

Within a few WEEKS? A wunderkind.

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Saying I'm aware of them in no way means I've mastered them. I'm just saying that before exploring these different approaches I want to compile a database of keywords for each card in divinatory and self-learning readings.

Tiggy-cat said:

Just my 2 cents, but I'd see the Thoth deck as pretty tricky for a brand new reader, just starting out. I've always found it confusing, with the different hierarchy and titles of the courts than any other deck I've seen, and some of the card names ("Virtue??) have never made much sense to me in relation to any other meanings I've come to associate with each card.

Not meaning to make it all more complicated for you, but Thoth has always struck me as kind of it's own animal in terms of Tarot decks and meanings.

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The illustrations of the major arcana in the Toth deck speaks to me in a way no other deck I've seen does. I really appreciate the symbolic value of the cards and the overarching thelemic dogma of the new Aeon is to me so deeply relevant that, to be honest, for me I feel there are no other alternatives in terms of tarot decks.
The major difficuly compared to decks in the Rider/Waite tradition is that the minor cards' illustrations are abstract. But I don't think that means the interpretations people based on the R/W pips' scenes and characters become irrelevant. I think that these meanings and symbols have been so widely used over time that they are hard-wired in the collective unconcious in a way that their use can be pertinent no matter what the system of symbology. As long as the reader consciously integrates and sythesises these meanings and make them his own I mean, there's no reason why they shouldn't work, right ?
As for the titles of the minor arcana, I really don't pay them much attention. Or just as some kind of mnemonic.

Edit: Btw, maybe this can help some people, I've realized thanks to Duquette that the number card's titles are attributed more as the result of an astrological/qabalistic formula than for representing the core meaning of the card as a divinatory tool.
The formula in question, Duquette, tells us, is the following :

(Number of Suit) + (Planet in Zodiac sign) = Small Card

Here's and excerpt of his book illustrating said formula quite clearly :

"Take the Seven of Disks, Failure, as an example:

-The good news is we have Saturn in Taurus. Saturn is very happy in Taurus. It is one of the most stable match-ups of sign and Planet imaginable.
-The bad news is that Saturn and Taurus find themselves in the seventh sephira, Netzach, which holds a horribly imablance position on the Tree of Life.

On the other hand:

-The good news is that Netzach is the sphere of Venus and Venus rules Taurus.
-The bad news is that all this is in Assiah, the lowest of the Qabalistic worlds, an environment so earthy that Venus is totally dethroned from here accustomed place in heaven. Add to that the fact that this is happening so low on the Tree of Life that the bad news is amplified to such a disastrous level that the good news is just not good enough to make any difference... and so we have FAILURE"

I find it quite a stimulating exercise to apply that formula to each of the minor cards. The potential for deepening one's undersating of the cards such meditations can offer is tremendous. (Although to be honest, from the demonstration above we can basically rule out all the sevens as being pretty bad ^^)