Your most UNREADABLE deck

journeyinghome

There have been SO many.....

But perhaps the Thoth has been the most curious. It was at one point my main reading deck. Then, it wasn't. And now if I see the cards someplace, I think "how the heck did I ever read with that?" I doubt I would get any sense out of it now.

The Raven's Prophecy is the one I'm struggling with at the moment.
 

Barleywine

I also have trouble reading with decks that have mainly portrait-style art. The messages just turn out too flat and vague.

I think there is a necessary balance between artwork and symbolism to make a deck readable.

Thanks for putting words to a couple of my own percptions. The first one is probably why I haven't warmed up much to the Morgan Greer; the faces are too . . . well, "in your face." On the other point there is an old 10cc song called "Art for Art's Sake" that sums it up perfectly (although it's about the music business). It goes "Art for art's sake! Money, for God's sake!" If you can stand another cultural allusion, some decks make me think of the Wendy's commercial where the old woman says "Where's the beef?"
 

Padma

Hmmm...I have had a few. Sold them or traded them. I think the worst one, the one I really could not read with, at all, was Lisa Hunt's Shapeshifter deck. It lost me at hello. Then there was the Prague - too cold and calculating, with a tendency to being sarcastically rude, I found - as well as being quite obscure upon occasion. As though on purpose.

The Victorian Romantic was too supine and floppy - always just on the edge of having a fainting spell - and the kings specifically really put me off.

Nothing beat the Cosmic for being nasty - I never once got a pleasant card during a reading with that deck. Loved the quirky Hollywood art though! Sadly, it did not love me back.
 

Thoughtful

l would second the Golden, Kat Blacks. It just leaves me cold its like drawing blood from a stone, had it when it first came out. Its still with me as l cannot bear to part with a firstborn.
Kats other deck The Touchstone was also unreadable for me all those close up smug and unfeeling faces, l wanted to punch them :joke:
 

Michellehihi

Of those that I own now? Margarethe Petersen. Good art, but doesn't speak to me at all. I'm still giving it a chance. I wanted to have it so badly but it's so intensely personal and I feel we don't really fit together, the deck and I.

I have the Margarete Peterson and I am doing one card contemplation every day, and journaling on it, and this way I get to understand her art. You are right, it is a very personal deck, but I totally understand it. What I do is I contemplate the card and journal on it BEFORE looking at the LWB, and when I get to read her description, I am always right to the point with her.
 

rylla

Transurfing, Australian Contemporary Dreamtime, William Blake (actually I don't owe that any more), Oreste Zevola, HazelMoon's Hawaiian. Hard to read with any deck with 'pip' cards (they don't talk to me).
 

rylla

I think there is a necessary balance between artwork and symbolism to make a deck readable.

Definitely! That's the magic combination (and the basic recipe) for a tarot deck :thumbsup:
 

chahruzu

I really like the artwork on it but the Ukiyoe deck doesn't work for me in readings. Perhaps it's a cultural disconnect.
 

Cocobird55

Vertigo. Every time i tried i went blank. Same problem with Deviant Moon. Finally gave them away.