Grigori
archer1 said:It is nothing like a regular deck the cards have 2 sides Eastern and Western Magical traditions....As for me it is rather confusing.....
Archer asked if there were any good ways to start working with this deck in readings. I've not even considered attempting that, as it didn't appeal to me as a reaading deck, and I think it would be a deck I would find difficult to read with. There are no real images in the cards as with other decks, you have one side with alchemical elemental triangles, and the other with names and attributes from the Enochian Watchtowers. Have you tried any readings with it Archer? I'd be really interested to hear feedback from anyone who has. Its much more sparse than a usual deck, and more heavily reliant on the various attributions.
It seemed strange to me that in the book they recommend using the deck for divination as a way to learn the attributes. Apart from rote learning some canned LWB style meanings, I don't know how you could read it in depth without a good working knowledge of the Elements, I Ching, Enochian, Astrology. A huge amount of study.
I've been using the deck a little and studying a lot, but focused on scrying, rather than using it for readings. My thought was that was a better way (for me) to try and understand it. I guess I would suggest the same to others. Start by focussing on the Element Triangle side and forget the Enochian for a little bit. If you focus on a few of the cards in particular, it might be easier to relate to knowledge from orthodox GD tarots. Kind of like reading with just the majors, before staring on the minors.
The GD Skrying has a card for the pure element of each suit (like the aces in tarot) and cards for the combinations; Fire of Air, Water of Earth etc. (which is sort of like the Court Cards in a regular deck). 20 is a more manageable number to begin with I thinnk. Then when you feel more comfortable with them you could add in the rest of the cards, Air of Fire of Water, Water of Earth of Earth etc.. The Keywords/Titles will obviously help too, and so would some knowledge of the IChing which has been used to derive a lot of the meanings in the bulk of the cards.
Fudu posted this thread recently that might be of use also. Ways to familiarize yourself with the elements. http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=108076
Maybe also working on using the cards in scyring might be of benefit. Archer mentioned they have some of Regardie's books. I forgot which ones have sections on using the tattwas for scrying, but some do. I know "The Golden Dawn" does, and assume "Scrying on the Tree of Life" did. I think it was connected to eastern tattwas, but the process would be the same for the western ones in this deck. There is also a section on that in the Cicero's book that comes with the deck.
Personally I don't see how I could read with the deck otherwise, especially the Enochian side, which seems to me it would need a fair bit of experience with Enochian scrying before it would be usable in readings. Though apparently the Cicero's suggest the opposite of that.