Tarot & Theme Decks - When is it not Tarot?

[greatdane]

That's really interesting to a newbie...

Since I just must feel a connection to the images, is it an oracle if it doesn't follow a given system? Can something be touted as tarot because of number of cards and titles given and not be tarot? Oh, this is good....

 

[Lillie]

Well, I suppose there are two questions going on here.

The original question being 'If we use a tarot deck without reference to it's system, are we really just using it as an oracle deck?'

A further question that arises from the first is 'What is a tarot deck anyway? Is it just defined by the number of cards and suits, or is there more to it than that?'
This second question is interesting as there are many decks that call themselves tarot but deviate in small or great ways from the standard structure.

This second question has been discussed many times before and I believe that the general thought is that the tarot is defined by its suits and it's trumps but that it is flexible enough to allow some changes, some adaptations and still be tarot so long as it adheres to the general structure that we all know and love.

The other question, is using the tarot intuitivley, without regard for the 'official meanings' simply using it as an oracle deck regardless of its true definition.

And there is going to be a lot of disagreement here. There are a lot of intuitive readers, many of whom I have great respect for. And anyway, people are allowed to do whatever the hell they want with their decks.

But all the same, their right to do so does not alter the terms of the question. Are they, in fact, using their tarot decks as tarot, or as oracle decks?

I would say yes, they are using it as an an oracle, the images become springboards for their innate intuition or their psychic faculties or whatever and they disregard the tradition or official or historical meanings of the cards.
If tarot is indeed defined by its structure then to my mind the structure must be there for a reason. The suits, the names, the trumps and the courts must all have some inherent place within this structure and this is provided by the traditional meanings that define the suit of deniers/pentacles/discs to be the suit of the merchants, of money and of the physical realm and so on.

Of course a well designed tarot should reveal these aspects through the art, and therefore should touch the intuitive readers intuition in a way that should trigger thoughts of whatever the card is supposed to be about. However there are some occasions when the intuitive reader will look at a card and be drawn to a single, perhaps insignificant part of the image and their intuition will tell them to take this one aspect out of the context of the card as a whole and because of that they will interpret what would normally be a bad card as a good one. This to me is using the tarot as an oracle.

And it's not to say that this is wrong, it is often damn well right. If you get a gut feeling you ought to go with it. However to read the a card in defiance of its symbolism and its place within the structure of the deck is to step outside the boundaries of tarot and to use it as something other.

Like using a walking stick to thwack a mugger around the head. It might be perfect for the job, it might be exactly the right thing to do in the circumstances but it is not what it was designed for and in the moment of the thwacking it ceases for that time to be a walking stick and becomes a weapon.

But this is just my opinion, and I'm sure other people will disagree.

 

[ncefafn]

This second question is interesting as there are many decks that call themselves tarot but deviate in small or great ways from the standard structure.

But what's the "standard"? Where does it come from? Upon whose authority are to we to take it?

For instance, in Diary of a Broken Soul, the image of the Five of Clubs (first deviation from a standard in tarot) is of one angel holding or comforting another angel. That doesn't conform to the RWS or the TdM Five of Wands. (I don't know enough about the Thoth to say one way or the other on this issue.) So does that deviation make it not a tarot deck? If I read it as an RWS Five of Wands, regardless of the imagery, would that make it a tarot deck?

I don't really have any answers to these questions. I'm just wondering aloud -- or in 0s and 1s, as the case may be.

 

[Sinduction]

Where are these "official meanings" and who came up with them? Seriously, every book I read is different. I don't think anyone can say, "This card always means this." It all changes with context, that's what makes it reading, it is totally subjective and up to the reader.

And if the card meanings are constantly changing, then what makes it still tarot? Or are you (general you) saying that the meanings never change?

And if tarot is such a system then how can there be three different sub-systems?

I am curious about this debate because while I have studied and read tarot for years and years, I am an intuitive reader. And I only became a good reader once I began to read intuitively.

 

[zan_chan]

I feel more and more these days as if I don't really believe in the intuitive reading of post-GD decks that very clearly fall into the WS or Crowley patterns. There are definitely official meanings to the cards, as it were. The Golden Dawn came up with all this stuff, didn't they? The question of why the cards look like they do is an important one that doesn't seem to get asked nearly as much as I would assume it should. Every time you do a reading with a post-GD deck, you're using, or at least accepting, everything that the GD put into choosing the meaning behind the image for that card; things like astrology and kabbalah and so on and so on-- its all there whether you choose to see it or not. "Intuitive" reading, to me, seems to fall somewhere between ignoring what is the obvious meaning of the card (really, RWS-inspired decks aren't that difficult to figure out, are they?) or it could mean using the image to derive at the meaning the GD had intended in the first place.

As for newer decks that try to be different, even they usually end up being GD-based in the end. The Greenwood is an RWS/Thoth mix basically (sure it moves some majors around, but then so does the RWS...)

It just seems that saying that there are no "official" meanings to decks that are very much part of a singular tradition would be paying very little respect to the people who made this whole tarot world possible to begin with....

 

[Lillie]

But what's the "standard"? Where does it come from? Upon whose authority are to we to take it?

For instance, in Diary of a Broken Soul, the image of the Five of Clubs (first deviation from a standard in tarot) is of one angel holding or comforting another angel. That doesn't conform to the RWS or the TdM Five of Wands. (I don't know enough about the Thoth to say one way or the other on this issue.) So does that deviation make it not a tarot deck? If I read it as an RWS Five of Wands, regardless of the imagery, would that make it a tarot deck?

I don't really have any answers to these questions. I'm just wondering aloud -- or in 0s and 1s, as the case may be.

Standard structure is what I said.
At the point you quoted I was talking about the structure of a deck, the the trumps, the courts, the minors the suits.
In all these ways Ash's deck conforms to the standard structure of a tarot deck.

78 cards, 22 trumps, 4 suits, 16 courts.

It is therefore a tarot deck, by definition. However should you take one of the cards and use it to put your mug of tea on (No, I realise no one would do that!) it would have become a coaster while still being a tarot card.

Odd that you should have brought up this deck as with the slots and the house building it has added something to the basic usage of tarot while still remaining very firmly a tarot deck, and still adhering for the greater part to the standard symbolism*.

In my post I said (or at least I hope I said) that a tarot deck is defined by it's structure. Trumps, suits etc.

The use of a tarot deck, whether it is used as an oracle or a tarot depends on how the cards are read.

*see below.

 

[Lillie]

Where are these "official meanings" and who came up with them? Seriously, every book I read is different. I don't think anyone can say, "This card always means this." It all changes with context, that's what makes it reading, it is totally subjective and up to the reader.

And if the card meanings are constantly changing, then what makes it still tarot? Or are you (general you) saying that the meanings never change?

And if tarot is such a system then how can there be three different sub-systems?

I am curious about this debate because while I have studied and read tarot for years and years, I am an intuitive reader. And I only became a good reader once I began to read intuitively.

Every deck is different.
The standard (or official) meaning for a card is what ever the artist intended to put there.

Crowley wrote a book about what his cards meant so we would all know, Waite did the same. Ash wrote many posts on this forum about what her cards mean.

Yes, everything changes with context. Bad crap happens, but if it happens to you or to someone who deserves it or to someone you hate then the interpretation of it can be radically different while still remaining bad stuff.
A man with 10 swords in his back is a man with 10 swords in his back whether you are sorry about it or glad. It is never fluffy bunnies bouncing through happy happy land. And if it does mean that to a reader then they have stepped beyond the meaning that ought to be inherent in the card and are using it as an oracle.

Tarot adapts and changes through time, RWS and the Thoth are not the Marseilles, tarot changed and split and went down a different path with somewhat altered 'official' meanings.

So, to my mind the official meaning depends upon the deck and upon the intention of the creator and the artist.

But its just my opinion, and anyway, it's only tarot, it's not like it's important or anything.

 

[JSNYC]

Wow, great question Bat Chicken.

The Tarot is the Tarot. If someone truly understands the Tarot, they can make large modifications to the deck and still have a very valid Tarot deck. If someone doesn't understand the Tarot, even the smallest modification can be abhorrent. And since the Tarot can mean very different things to each one of us, even truly understanding is a vague qualification.

In reference to ncefafn's query; if someone understands the Tarot, and they get a deck that speaks to them (in that language), then that is a Tarot deck. Arbitrary qualifications are not necessary, 78+ cards, card and suit names, etc.

As in everything with the Tarot, it is the message that is important, not the medium. For the beginner this can be confusing, that is why the Rider-Waite is often the most recommended, it is (one of) the most universally acceptable decks. However, the Rider-Waite structure is not nearly as important as the Rider-Waite message.

 

[greatdane]

ooh, interesting, Lillie

Your sentence about what the artist intended for the meaning. So those lwb's that are more reviews or their thoughts when not written by the artist, they may be great at provoking thought, but they mean little re the meanings if not written by artist, or at least very in tune with the artist's conception?

A lot of decks that are based on RWS, but have very different images, one couldn't use a standard RWS book for then? If it IS the artist's conception re actual meaning of the card they designed......?

I won't change how I am coming to know the cards. I look at the cards, I look at meanings from one or two books, and then I read how I read. If the ARTIST wrote comments or the lwb, I look at that, but in the end, isn't it always about what we see? In some ways, isn't a tarot, even following the structure of RWS or any other system, still an oracle when our intuition overrides a card general meaning?

 

[kittiann]

In my opinion, tarot v. oracles is mostly about structure. It has to, 1) conform mostly to the general pattern of 78 cards, 22 trumps, 16 courts and 40 small cards; and 2) you must at least base your readings on a set structure or system of meanings. Reading purely on intuition makes those 78 cards an oracle deck. But I don't think using a diffferent system (eg using RWS meanings for the Thoth) makes it non-tarot. It just makes it non-Thoth tarot. Like for TdM decks: there is no set system, we know nothing about how or even if it was intended to be read, but as long as you have a system (numerology, flora-interpretation, whatever) it's still reading the tarot. If you don't have a system, then it's not. In order for it to be reading tarot, the structure and the numbers that make the deck tarot must be taken into account; no matter what the numbers or suits mean, thy have to mean *something* that's not just intuitively reading the pictures. If there's no structure, then you're not reading tarot, just 78 pictures (not that there's anything at all wrong with that )