Major Arcana only?

[shadowrose]

so, there is a deck I'm interested in but it's only Major Arcana cards. How would you use a deck like that?

[Charlie Brown]

Reading majors only is very popular in Europe, especially with the Tarot de Marseille. In my experience, the big difference between majors-only and full deck reading is that you need to have a more expansive interpretive framework since you only 22 cards to express the same amount that 78 does in the full deck. Of course, if you're the type of reader of invests a lot of energy in analyzing the images of the specific deck then you can intuit from the pictures just as easily as you always do.

Something I like to do is use major-minor pairings. I do the first pass at the spread majors-only and then put a minor on top of each major as a means of focusing the direction of the major. Remember, in majors only, I say have much broader understandings of each card. You could easily use playing cards for the second card rather than this deck's non-existant minors.

[Nemia]

I totally agree with what Charlie Brown said, and I would add: I would use it for important readings, not everyday questions. For birthday, anniversary, signpost of the year readings. When I want to understand patterns of my life. Such a deck is also very good for affirmations, meditation, study...

[shadowrose]

aha! thank you very much.

[Amoroso]

There are some beautiful majors only decks, but I don't think I can read much with them. A friend recommended some good books that focus on the majors and discuss them in detail. Most of them are old.

Only one I remembered is Meditations on the Tarot. Its wiki links to a free pdf of the book.

[shadowrose]

that would be interesting. thanks!