Sola Busca

[inomminate]

Hi
I am starting to look at the Sola Busca and I wondered if anyone reads with it. If so Do you read by intuition or do you have meanings for the unique majors. The only book I have on the Sola Busca is The Game of Saturn by Peter Mark Adams. This is a fascinating book but it is not a manual for divination.

inomminate

[Joan Marie]

I do read with it. But I go in and out of moods for it. When I am in the Sola Busca mood I am all in.

I think the Sola Busca requires a completely different approach because the imagery is not random, therefore I think it requires something more than intuition, but as you know from reading The Game of Saturn, there exists no manual for this deck. I think you have to have a sense of allegory and that can take some time to develop.

There are a couple of good threads on this forum already regarding the Sola Busca. (you can use the search tool under "quick links") The Sola Busca really is an enigma. People are always searching for the key to it. But it always seems like the more questions you ask, the more are raised.

There is an interview I did with Sola Busca expert Giordano Berti: Elevating Dimensions: Giordano Berti on The Sola Busca

I have planned for a long time to try and write something about how I use this deck but so far I have not yet done it. I guess I'm finding it hard to explain what having a sense of allegory means. The Sola Busca reminds me of that saying about how you can hold quicksilver (mercury) in the open palm of your hand but if you try to squeeze it, it just slips through your fingers.

[inomminate]

Hi
Thanks for the reply. The quick links will be very useful and the interview is interesting material.

I like your mercury image. When I was young, before health and safety, I used to play with mercury and I remember that when you thought you had it all together it used to split into fragments. This reminds me of tarot as well.This experience of it slipping through our fingers may be the best we can get if Waite is right that the deeper meanings of tarot cannot be put into words or images.

I am interested in your allegory idea and would like to hear more about it.

inomminate

[SaturnCeleste]

There is a new edition of the Sola Busca that is due out in the middle of February that is supposed to come with an actual guidebook. I have 3 other Sola Busca decks now but I'm waiting for this new one. It's on preorder!

Sola Busca Tarot: Museum Quality Kit

[CaraHamilton]

I read with it out of interest and use intuition based on the artwork. I do not read with it often though. A new edition coming out, that is super news SaturnCeleste. I'm going to have a peek.

Cara
https://secret-tarot-garden.com/

[Parzival]

I have the Lo Scarabeo Sola Busca. It's beautiful yet eerie and hard to read. I wonder if anyone has thought about the two opposite interpretations: Berti and Hurst see the deck as about alchemical/Neoplatonic self-transformation, while the "Game of Saturn"approach is that the deck is a "dark grimoire" or malefic"" instrument of power. Wow! What a difference in the way the deck is seen. Personally, I have studied Michael Hurst's extensive review of the suits and agree with him( see "Deciphering the Sola Busca Pips"in tarothistory forum) --the deck isn't malefic at all to me! It's an amazing blend of alchemy, the four temperaments, neoplatonism, and christology. How do you see it? Maybe it's just mysterious, magnificent art.

[SaturnCeleste]

I have planned for a long time to try and write something about how I use this deck but so far I have not yet done it. I guess I'm finding it hard to explain what having a sense of allegory means. The Sola Busca reminds me of that saying about how you can hold quicksilver (mercury) in the open palm of your hand but if you try to squeeze it, it just slips through your fingers.

The way I would like to read this deck is to research the figures in the major arcana and look into them as a class of archetypes. Even refer back to the historical artwork of the deck, right down to the early Italian humor in art but I have never had the time. The minor arcana is not that hard to read. But I do agree it is a wonderful art deck!

[Parzival]

Yes, it's easier to manage meaning with the minor arcana-- it has more accessibility than the mysterious majors. But if the minors are all about self-transformation (Berti,Hurst) then I think the majors would be about that too. Maybe the majors demand our looking for the light in their darkness without reacting with fear at their lack of transparency. And the courts are so beautifully expressive of all we are as humans.

[giordanoberti]

Hi everyone,
probably few of you know that in 1994 a book by Sofia Di Vincenzo, dedicated to the interpretation and use of the Tarola Sola Busca, was published in Italy.
It was the first time that a scholar understood that the Sola Busca Tarot is a treatise of spiritual alchemy ... not a book of black magic, as someone has recently told

That book (with my preface) was published in English in 1998, but it has been out of print and can not be found for many years.

In a few months I will publish a new edition of that book (in English), for the delight of the many fans of the Sola Busca Tarot all over the world.

I will keep you informed

[Parzival]

Thanks for bringing back soon Sofia Di Vincenzo's pioneering work; I read some insightful quotations of hers in Michael Hurst's overview of the Sola Busca pips (Tarot history forum), which affirmed my intuitive sense that these images are about transformation of the soul and not degeneration of the soul -- this seems clear through the cups, for instance, which affirm the magic of music, playful creativity, and nature, etc. Thanks for all your good work for the Sola Busca and for Tarot Art and spirituality as a whole. I look forward to your new edition of Vincenzo's work, hopefully with some additions of your own.