Reading through everyone's answers here, I'm struck by the fact that we don't agree! Some decks come up a lot, but on the whole each reader has a different most-readable. I wonder what the criteria are - if there are any.
For me...
The
Tarot Nova is probably the most readable I have.
I wish I could nominate the Wild Unknown; I love it, I love reading with it, and (unlike some people) I can always get meaning from it without any trouble, but I don't find it exceptionally readable.
I do find the
Tarot Illuminati absolutely readable. As much as the Nova, I think. I pretty much hear the voices of the people in the images, with the Illuminati.
The
Gilded comes very easily to me as I learnt on it, but the courts have never spoken to me and the deck itself isn't particularly special to me any more. Sorry, Gilded aficionados. The
Connolly (I have the mini) is my most recent deck but equally easy to read, more so than the RWS for me; with the Connolly, the cards glance at each other and indicate where my eye needs to travel around the spread more than other decks.
When I fancy reading Marseilles style (or my half-baked version of that method), I have a
Swiss 1JJ which is very easy - once I had my system with the numbers. This is for non-intuitive reading, which I need more when reading for myself and can't trust my intuition to tell the truth. It's like doing sums to produce sentences and it works great. That's the pips, and I read the majors my usual way, and the courts by listening to them as people (which generally I can't do with court cards in other decks. Call me odd.
)
Never (yet) had any inclination to try the Thoth, but you never know, one day I may get bitten by that bug.
The
Blue Moon Tarot gives loads and loads, one card at a time. I "never" do one-card readings, just can't do them, but with this I can't do any other kind of reading.
Also I read well with this one for myself, and can't use it for other people (though that may just be me being possessive, as it is extremely special to me).
But top prize for readability, for me - since that's the idea here
-
the Tarot Nova.
It is also the first deck with which I was able to pull off reading it like it's just an image, like there are no assigned meanings. I was always intrigued by that approach, but i could never ignore the assigned tarot meanings before. With this one, I can turn off the traditional associations and draw meaning from the cards like pre-school child "reads" a storybook: turning pages and talking to herself about what is going on.
I would love to achieve this and never have, but am encouraged by what you say, Vesper. Maybe it's not just me, maybe I simply haven't found the right deck for it yet.
Same here, UniversesCollide. I would have always said my Robin Wood was my most readable deck and the one I often reached for. However, I took it with me on a visit to family in Sweden, as they wanted tarot readings, and I just couldn't read with it at all! it was just giving me garbage. Thankfully, I also took a Lenormand deck--and while I am still learning the Lenormand and wouldn't consider myself good at reading with it yet--I was able to do better with that.
I am not sure if my Robin Wood deck just needs a rest or what. I will probably grab another tarot deck to use for awhile and give RW a rest for awhile. Though RW is always with me when I travel and I would say is still my go to deck and probably my fave reading deck.
You've made me think - do some decks shrug off the energies from readings better than others? Are some more likely to have someone's energy, or the emotions from a reading, cling to them? Do some need resting and/or cleansing more often? I wonder if that similarly varies by reader, or if it varies by the deck itself (assuming it varies at all).
