John Waterhouse Oracle Deck

seven stars said:

From what I have seen, most Oracle decks are around 35 cards. I was thinking people might go through this deck & decide if they want to use all of these images or take some out & narrow down the deck.

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This is one reason why I have not been into oracles much.

seven stars said:

I'm thinking I want to spend some more time studying each of the paintings & what has been written about them, what they're titled, what they're supposed to be about, etc. I think that would help greatly in getting a good reading out of them.

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This is what I plan to do. I just found out some interesting stuff about the painting called Crystal Ball. The skull that was originally on the table (and has now been restored again) was painted over by a previous owner in the 1950´s. So, as an oracle card it might read "fear of death" "hiding something" "fear of the truth" (-in addition to all the other meanings it can have). Fascinating!
I think we should have a Study Group for this deck but I´m not sure how it works with oracles. I´ll have to check the Study Group guidelines and then I´ll start one.

seven stars said:

Up till I met you guys I was *strictly* tarot.

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Well...up till I met you I was strictly tarot


ETA: Here is the new Waterhouse Study Group Index

If you start a study group on this oracle please pm me - I want to join it.

=))

seven stars said:

If you start a study group on this oracle please pm me - I want to join it.

=))

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Me too please! And thankyou seven stars for the beautiful deck. Thankyou also Rachelcat for the list!

Those of you who are studying this deck...if you're taking notes on it and maybe making your own guidebook/journal, did you somehow label or number the cards yourself? I was thinking of journaling the cards and making lists of potential meanings but then I realized I'm not sure how I'll know which card is which, unless I describe each one. I'm considering using a gold paint pen and putting a small number somewhere on each card.

I've got this deck but haven't used it yet; I've been wondering how I could know which was which too, Swedishfish. I had the Earth Oracle and trimmed it of all borders and keywords, but then used an oil-based, gold Sharpie paint pen to write the page numbers on the back of the card in order to find the card in the booklet. Here's a picture:
http://www.tarotforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=70532&d=1402342200
I might do the backs of the Waterhouse in the same way.

I'm not sure what the point would be in numbering the cards?

Of course it's different for me because every day I have people saying "I want Miranda on the pouch and Boreas on the journal....(etc)" so, after looking up pix so many times you get to remembering which painting was Boreas.....

But either way, for me, once I've looked up one of his paintings & read all about it, it's stuck in my head & I don't confuse Boreas for Miranda. And, even if I forget the actual name of the piece I still remember what it was about anyway.

If you're journaling, my suggestion would be to xerox tiny black & white images to put next to the title in your journal. Maybe do them in alphabetical order if you're particularly organized. And, if you're going by cards that you've studied, take out the cards that you don't know until you've had time to read up on them.

I've actually found more images I wish I had included & was thinking of coming out with a little supplemental pack, but, it WAS 80 cards, maybe that's enough.

I love this deck and would love the supplemental pack!

seven stars said:

I'm not sure what the point would be in numbering the cards?

Of course it's different for me because every day I have people saying "I want Miranda on the pouch and Boreas on the journal....(etc)" so, after looking up pix so many times you get to remembering which painting was Boreas.....

But either way, for me, once I've looked up one of his paintings & read all about it, it's stuck in my head & I don't confuse Boreas for Miranda. And, even if I forget the actual name of the piece I still remember what it was about anyway.

If you're journaling, my suggestion would be to xerox tiny black & white images to put next to the title in your journal. Maybe do them in alphabetical order if you're particularly organized. And, if you're going by cards that you've studied, take out the cards that you don't know until you've had time to read up on them.

I've actually found more images I wish I had included & was thinking of coming out with a little supplemental pack, but, it WAS 80 cards, maybe that's enough.

Click to expand...

I wasn't planning on reading about the actual paintings; that's an interesting way of going about it, though! I didn't want to learn about the actual paintings because I thought it might interfere with the meanings I wanted to associate with the cards, if that makes sense. For example, if a certain card to ME was a positive, joyful card but then I learned it was really about a tragic love story, I would have a hard time not reading it as a sad, tragic card and love stories gone awry.

I didn't plan on learning the names for the paintings, hence my thoughts about numbering them!

Now that you've brought up the idea of reading about the paintings and the artist's intent, I'm kind of interested in doing that...but one of the reasons I bought this deck was I loved the idea of an oracle that truly became my own, where I came up the meanings based on just what I saw and not what anyone else intended.

ETA- of course now that I've gone back and actually read this thread, I see that much of it is about learning the paintings! I just picked the longest Waterhouse thread to post my question on, without reading the thread first. Sorry about that!

Oh, and I'd totally buy a supplemental pack!

BodhiSeed- that's exactly what I'm thinking of doing. Something simple and not so noticeable. Maybe even on the backs.