Tarot of Marseilles help desk (Frequently Asked Questions): Non-History

Moongold

Diana ~

Thanks for your response. Where would I find out what some of those symols might be?

I have Irene Gad's Tarot and Individuaton which lists alchemical, qabbalistic, Jungian and "general" associations. From time to time I've read the history and iconography posts here where it seems that symbols are often discussed but they seem to be a mixture of all of the above.

Perhaps that is all one needs to do - develop a good general knowledge of symbols and then just use what seems appropriate according to the context of the reading.

There is no Marseilles LWB I guess. :)

Moongold
 

Diana

Moongold: I'm busy packing for my winter holiday and won't have time to reply before my return. Please remind me if I forget, unless you have received a response in the meantime that satisfies you.

I may not be able to answer you satisfactorily though - but I will do my best. :)

(Although I have a feeling you know all the answers in your heart already... soon you will be my Teacher.)
 

Moongold

This is an observation more than a question.

Sometimes it is hard to know the difference between Batons and Swords.

I have the Conver.

When I went searching for my 4's in order to do an exercise in another thread I couldn't ttell the difference between IIII Swords and IIII Batons. There is no Sword in sight on IIII Swords. I found eventually that (what do you call it?) one element of the design for Swords is curved and blue, whereas the comparable structure for Batons is straight and red. Phew! What do you call this design structure? It would be useful to know.

The 2 of Disks also caused some angst yesterday. The only thing I could find was a card with an S design with 2 Disks nestling in the curves of the S. The trouble is that this card also has Nicholas Conver's name on it and the date 1760 so it could well be the title card of the deck. If that is the case, thenI've lost the original 2 Disks. I used this card anyway!

What other little idiosyncracies like this are hidden away? I must say these two are explicable and endearing. I'm still worried about the 2 Disks, however.

Moongold
 

lark

Ok here goes
Ignorance glaring in the most embarassing way.

I just don't get any of it.
I've studied with the Rider Waite tradition and I do not like numerology.
It just doesn't click with me

When I look at seven cups on a Marseilles card I see my Robin Wood seven or Morgan Greer seven.
And then I think" Why am I doing this?"
I just want my Morgan Greer deck.

But I want to understand
I don't want to be ignorant. I like to learn new things.
I work on intuition and I get nothing from seven cups just sittling there.

I can lay out my Fourniers deck and stare at it and do a reading.
But for me it's purely psychic then.
I could just as easily be staring at a spread of cold cuts.

Is that what it's about?
Am I doing it right and not realizing it?
Or does each little flower, leave and petal have a meaning.
Or do they have meanings you make up?
I am very confused. :confused:

All I know is what I've learned works for me.
If working with the Marseilles means I in effect, have to erase that knowledge and start over, well I just can't do that.
Actually I don't want to do that.

If any one tells me to read a bunch of threads you will make me cry.
I just really want to know what others think about this.
How do you reconcile the two traditions?
 

Mimers

Lark,

Don't be embarrassed! and it is far from being ignorant! If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you.

Here is what I did. I learned with RWS. When I got my Marseilles, I basically looked at the pips like this.... In Gail Fairfields book, Everyday Tarot, she gives basic meanings for numbers, colors and for the suits. Maybe a page of basic meanings for each. I took these and apply them to the Marseille.

For example, (and I am not too shy to pull out that book here) I just pulled the Ace of Cups from my Camoin.

Let's see, the colors red and green strike me almost immediately, so for this reading I would say meanings for those colors are a strong factor. There are many other colors on this card; baby blue, yellow, orange, but those two stuck out for me.
Red to me, is a sign of passion and desire. Green is growth and nuturing.

Then I would think of the number 1. A beginning, or idea. Potential.

This is a quote from Gail's book. Pg 31:

One-Ness(Ace): A Point

This is the begtinning. Something new exists at this point. A seed has been planted, something has been conceived. Something has begun but you don't yet know where it will lead or how it will be defined or developed. You're not even sure it will lead anywhere. It may be only the possibility of a new direction; the seed may sit in the ground and never grow. However the Aces embody potential growth in new directions. They symbolize the urge to initiate new things.

Then I will consider the suit of cups - emotions, desires, feelings, spirituality.

Then I will mix it all up and interpret, like this:

Lark, you have a desire to feel the same passion and love for the Marseille that others here do. This desire must be nutured. Seeds take time to grow, so go easy on yourself. See it as a new adventure that is worth trying. If it doesn't work, don't be overly emotional. This might not be what you inuit to, that is all. If that is the case, let the seed lie dormant and send that beautiful energy into something that will fulfil you spiritually.

Blessings,
Mimi

If you are interested in this book, I highly recomend it. It is Everyday Tarot by Gail Fairfield ISBN 1-57863-268-4
 

Moongold

Hi Lark.

I think we can continue to use both the Marseilles and other types of decks. The Morgan Greer was the deck I learned on and I love it still. Some decks are perfect for different types of readings, I think. Ancestral Path is wonderful for past life readings, and I really love the Tarot of the Sephiroth which uses symbolism , numerology and Qabalah in a really effective way. The graphics are just great too. At the moment I am reading a lot with the Ancient Egyptian and this is just a beautiful deck.

The further I explored the Tarot, the more interested I have become in astrology, numerology and classical symbols. That is what has led me to the Marseilles. To be perfectly honest, if it wasn’t for the consciousness about the Marseilles at this site I would not have pursued it. It is quite a hard system to understand for anyone, let alone a beginner who hasn’t been brought up with it. Now that I have some other knowledge, I am finding it easier to “see” things.

There is a certain purity about the Marseilles, and that along with the history, makes it interesting to me now. The Marseilles does reflect the social structure of mediaeval Europe, which can be a blockage in itself but once you get past that you can focus more on the principles. At this stage for me, these seem to be quite abstract, allowing for quite creative interpretations. I don't always feel like that, however, and always read with ither decks as well.

I am getting a little involved now because I’ve reached the stage where I’d like to understand more and to experiment. I doubt, however, that the Marseilles would ever replace my use of other Tarot decks. That is the beauty of Tarot. It is so diverse, and it had to evolve and change if it was to remain relevant and dynamic. It’s like language. In fact, it is a method of communication with the Divine, and if it had not become more diverse, it would have died or lived only in Museums and parts of Europe. LOL. At least, that is my humble opinion.

I wouldn't worry. If you ever feel interested you can always pick it up. Please don't feel that you are missing anything essential because you're clearly a beautiful reader already and you should follow your heart and your experience with this.

Moongold
 

Lee

Moongold said:
There is no Sword in sight on IIII Swords.
Hi Moongold, I'm not sure if this is what you mean, so please forgive me if you already know this, but perhaps this will help. On the Swords cards, those curved black lines are actually supposed to be swords, albeit somewhat abstract swords. So the four curved black lines are actually supposed to be four swords.


lark said:
When I look at seven cups on a Marseilles card I see my Robin Wood seven or Morgan Greer seven.
And then I think" Why am I doing this?"
I just want my Morgan Greer deck.
Hi lark, please don't get frustrated. The questions that you are asking are the same questions anyone asks who has learned on RWS-type decks and then looks at Marseille decks and wonders how to read with them.

There are several posts in the History and Using Tarot forums by Rusty Neon and myself, speculating about various methods one might use to read non-illustrated pips. However, since you don't want to be referred to threads, I won't link to them! :) My position is, the Marseille pips were designed to play card games with and not for divination, so therefore one should feel free to read them any way one wants, since there is no one definitive agreed-upon method.

When you say you think of illustrated decks when you look at the Marseille pips, you bring up a very important point. I know some people on this forum think it's completely and outrageously wrong, but the fact of the matter is that there are people who read Marseille and other non-illustrated-pip decks in just this way. In my opinion there is nothing inferior about this method as opposed to the numerology method, because both involve arbitrarily assigning meanings to things which weren't designed to convey meanings.

Personally, for what it's worth, I find the number-plus-suit method by itself to be not particulary enjoyable. I can read in this way, but it's not as much fun as reading with pictures. Nevertheless I frequently experiment with it. I do find that looking at the flowers, etc. on the cards adds an interesting level, although it still feels like a stretch for me.

As to the very good question of why then would one read with the Marseille instead of an illustrated deck, the answer to this is that it can be an interesting exercise to have general meanings in mind for the card but not actually be looking at a picture. I've found it helpful, when reading this way, to call to mind the RWS picture just to remind me of what card it is, and then try to not keep the picture in mind but rather just a general meaning (for example, "sneakiness" for the 7 of Swords). By doing so, you may find that reading with the non-illustrated deck is limiting in some ways but freeing in others, because you can combine meanings and relate them to each other more freely than when you have the pictures in front of you.

Reading in this way (that is, by keeping in mind RWS-type meanings) actually has an advantage, because it allows you to read with any non-illustrated-pip deck (there are lots of nice ones, including the Ancient Italian and the Visconti, and modern ones like the Art of Tarot or the Mystic Meg), because you're not using the pictorial elements which are distinctive to the Marseille, like the flowers and stems.

As far as reading with cold cuts, Umbrae would probably say that that's not a bad idea! :D

Hope this helps --
Lee
 

crystal cove

Your mind was open enough to want to understand Marseille decks and you checked it out. I don't consider that ignorant. People who read only Marseille decks don't consider themselves ignorant for not liking/getting/whatever-you-want-to-call-it RW or Thoth decks. In fact, I'm willing to bet that they all checked them out. For whatever reason, they decided that Marseille decks were for them. It's the same thing as your preference for your Morgan Greer. You've found what works for you but you're open to other ways; nothing wrong with that.

I know that psychics have their own ways of reading cards, but I'm not one of them so I need the numerology and suits to bring the Marseille decks to life. Plus, for me personally, it makes perfect sense. I'm all for intuition and abstraction, but there needs to be some underlying "order" to something for it to reasonate with me. I really don't have any clue of how you would read pip decks without using numerology. Maybe there is someone here that has some advice that would be useful to you.

As far as abandoning other systems for Marseille decks, I don't think it's desirable or necessary. If you look closely at RW or Thoth type decks, they DO use numerology. They just don't announce that its what they are doing because they usually choose one interpretation of a number to use for the image or keyword on the card. To me, there are more similarities than differences. I'm sure others have a different point of view, but that's mine. :D

Don't worry about not clicking with a particular deck or style of reading. In the end, it really doesn't matter how you access the information you need, as long as you get it.
 

Rusty Neon

Colours

Lee said:
This is just my opinion, but in my opinion the answer to the questions about colors is, you're free to interpret the colors however you want. There are no standard color interpretations, because, as Moonbow* has pointed out, each deck's colors are different, and I imagine that Marseille authors (who write in French which I can't read) interpret the colors differently as well.

In view of the many colour schemes around for Marseilles decks, I'm tending towards a colour-blind approach to colour when using Marseilles decks. There's a thread on the question of whether or not to interpret colours in the Tarot de Marseille, and, if so, what colour interpretations:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22233

The various modern-day colour interpretations you find in French language tarot books are often 'borrowed' from Paul Marteau's classic book on the tarot published published in the 1940s. The respective creators of the two new "restored" Marseilles decks-- Jodo-Camoin and Kris Hadar -- also have their own views on the meanings of the colours. However, generally speaking, whoever the author, the meanings for the colours are often similar as they are intuitive and/or based on traditional occult, alchemical or folk meanings. It can be helpful to at least review and consider those colour interpretations as a starting point, with a view to arriving at your conclusions. However, in the end, no-one has the monopoly on colour interpretations. You're free to use colour associations that appear right to you.
 

Moongold

Lee said:
Hi Moongold, I'm not sure if this is what you mean, so please forgive me if you already know this, but perhaps this will help. On the Swords cards, those curved black lines are actually supposed to be swords, albeit somewhat abstract swords. So the four curved black lines are actually supposed to be four swords.

Ahem.................Hahahaha......

I didn't know that. Thanks for the explanation, Lee.

They look so like the Batons. Hmmmmm.........:D There are real swords on other Swords cards, however.

Where does that saying Call a spade a spade come from? Well ....here they call Batons Swords and make them a different colour.

And can anyone help with the 2 Disks, or are they called Pentacles?

See Lark, if you're still watching :). This is hard stuff, and there are no books.


Moongold
(Creeping out to find a book somewhere......)