different decks, different meanings?

[Wise_Angel]

Do you interprete readings differently according each different deck you use? Do you use different meanings for different styles of decks?

for example, do you obtain different meanings for a same card depending if you use Marseilles deck or Rider Waite?

Thanks

[Charlie Brown]

I tried to answer this question, re: TdM in your other post. As far as reading between different types of RWS decks, for example, I generally keep the same core meanings and will let the images affect the tone of the interpretation moreso than the core content. However, I do sometimes start a reading or choose a deck with the specific intention that I'm going to heavily rely on the images. I did that once with a reading in which a particular hanged man came up. This card had a crowd and in my (confirmed to be accurate) interpretation, the social aspect of the sacrifice was of particular importance. I wouldn't have been able to get that interpretation from just any generic Hanged Man. And I do think it's important that I had set the intention to read more visually than normal before I started.

Usually when I read Thoth (not often), I'm not thinking of the cards' core meanings very differently, but I AM likely intending to use Astrological or other correspondences in explicit ways that I'm unlikely to do if I'm reading TdM or RWS.

I think of the three systems much like dialects of the same language.

[Wise_Angel]

Charlie, thank you for your insights.

nevertheless, I would like to point some aspects. As you know, among French authors, one can find very different and irreconcilable meanings regarding minor arcana. Compare, for example 9 and 10 swords, or 5 of pentacles, between Marseilles and Rider Waite. Meanings are totally different.

[Diana]

Charlie, thank you for your insights.

nevertheless, I would like to point some aspects. As you know, among French authors, one can find very different and irreconcilable meanings regarding minor arcana. Compare, for example 9 and 10 swords, or 5 of pentacles, between Marseilles and Rider Waite. Meanings are totally different.

The issue here is that the RWS minors are really in the face. They don't give you much room for nuances. When you see a guy with swords sticking out of his back, it's hard to see anything else. So dramatic sometimes these RWS cards. They're like some kind of tragic opera with all the dramatics that go with it.

Tarot of Marseilles is much more fluid. With the Major Arcana there is perhaps less room for manoeuvering. But the minors can have a whole range of meanings. They are much more intricate and subtle than the RWS theatrical pieces.

[Nemia]

Usually, there is a reason why I pick a specific deck, and I will take into account the artists' interpretation for the cards. Less for the majors, much more for the minors (where tarot artists have much more liberty for their take a card).

Even in RWS-inspired decks, an artist can give a different take on a card. When the 10/Swords is seen in the early morning light, there is hope - the worst is over. Is there blood or not? I usually try to go with the artist who made the deck. Only when I really get nothing from the card, I return to my inner tarot deck and take the inspiration from there

It's always a balance between the traditional or core meaning - the artists' interpretation - and my own experience with the card. I'm doing it mostly intuitively. It's part of the fun.

[Charlie Brown]

The issue here is that the RWS minors are really in the face. They don't give you much room for nuances. When you see a guy with swords sticking out of his back, it's hard to see anything else. So dramatic sometimes these RWS cards. They're like some kind of tragic opera with all the dramatics that go with it.

Yes. This. It isn't that the 10 of Swords can't mean swords sticking out of the back, but they can mean lots of different things depending on the context.

Just because someone writes in French doesn't make them more correct than anyone else. They're still trying to pin a fixed meaning onto a specific pip, which as Marigold and I have pointed out has problems.

I don't know what you've read, but I've seen some French books with the kind of highly divergent meanings that I think you're talking about. Some of that comes from them using a very different numerological symbolism than I do/ that's common in the anglophone world. Collette Sylvestre, for example, seems to think that the number two is uniformly bad. When reading her, the takewaway doesn't have to be her specific definition of a card's meaning—frankly I think the idea that the 2 of Cups is a malicious card is ridiculous—but to understand the process through which she gets there.

And, to clarify, I never said that TdM pips and RWS minors had the same meanings. I said that a sensitive application of suit + number can usually get you to something that's pretty close to RWS. TdM pips don't have singular meanings. Conversely, good RWS readers aren't just reading the pictures. One doesn't look at the 6 of Cups in the context of a work reading and just start talking about the querent's childhood. There's context and applicability.

[Diana]

I don't know what you've read, but I've seen some French books with the kind of highly divergent meanings that I think you're talking about. Some of that comes from them using a very different numerological symbolism than I do/ that's common in the anglophone world. Collette Sylvestre, for example, seems to think that the number two is uniformly bad. When reading her, the takewaway doesn't have to be her specific definition of a card's meaning—frankly I think the idea that the 2 of Cups is a malicious card is ridiculous—but to understand the process through which she gets there.

Some French authors and so-called Tarot experts rely on the RWS meanings for pips. I've seen this more and more on the internet. It makes me want to wring their necks and tell them to think for themselves instead of spouting stuff that they've not even considered where it could come from.

Just because it's French doesn't mean it's all fine and dandy. Some French tarologists today still think that the Tarot comes from Egypt. Not surprising as it's one of their kinfolk who made up the whole thing (with good intention I'm sure).

[katrinka]

Yes.
There are several main systems that people use: Golden Dawn (of which there are variations -RWS, Thoth, etc.), Other Occult such as Wirth/Lasenic, TdM (harder to pin down, but usually a mix of number and suit meanings similar to playing card reading, with a bit of riffing on the images) and, for lack of a better term, Everything Else (Etteilla, Papus, yadda yadda.)

And I agree with Charlie's "I generally keep the same core meanings and will let the images affect the tone of the interpretation moreso than the core content". Well said.

[Charlie Brown]

, Other Occult such as Wirth/Lasenic,

Thanks for the kind word, Katrinka. I didn't realize that Wirth rose to the level of a separate system. You don't happen to have any links to a decent summary, do you?

[Wise_Angel]

Dear friends, thanks for your answers.

Of course, the aspect of authors being French don´t make them better than other. All traditions are interesting and all of them contribute to wisdom developement in different aspects and degrees. Nevertheless I think there is an interesting aspect regarding this issue. Marseilles Tarot is French, and the tradition of esoteric tarot begun and developed in France for first time, before that in any other country, so I consider French authors specially interesting regarding Tarot, specially Tarot of Marseille, because they were pioneers. And it draws my attention the fact that in French world of tarot, there are so different even irreconciliable meanings for minor arcana.

[Charlie Brown]

Can you really say they're irreconcilable though if you don't have a firm sense of their derivation? You keep speaking as though these cards have a singular unitary meaning. I'm honestly doubtful that the authors your thinking about even feel that way. I notice that you're heavy on claims to authority but light on citations.

[Diana]

Nevertheless I think there is an interesting aspect regarding this issue. Marseilles Tarot is French, and the tradition of esoteric tarot begun and developed in France for first time, before that in any other country, so I consider French authors specially interesting regarding Tarot, specially Tarot of Marseille, because they were pioneers.

This is I think no longer valid. Perhaps twenty years ago, I would have said that the Tarot of Marseilles was so little known in the English speaking world, that this would was the case. But now I don't think the French have a heads up over the English speaking TdM authors anymore.

The Tarot of Marseilles was not designed for divination. It was Eteilla, the 18th century French occultist, who thought this was possible and devised a means of divining with it. It was a bit risky for him as people no doubtly scoffed at him for lowering himself to "such a level" by using such a noble game of cards for divination. But his ideas stuck and developed.

As it was not designed for divination like a Lenormand oracle for instance, no "specific" meaning exists. It's all just a question in the end of personal interpretation by observing the cards and also of course using our intution. Because all divination requires some kind of intuition. That is developed over time.

[katrinka]

, Other Occult such as Wirth/Lasenic,

Thanks for the kind word, Katrinka. I didn't realize that Wirth rose to the level of a separate system. You don't happen to have any links to a decent summary, do you?

I'll look for links.
As far as a separate system, it's apples and oranges, since you can make a big "Occult Tarot" box and throw him in with the Dawn, etc. But the Hebrew letter assignments are different. Wirth assigns Aleph to the Magician a la Levi, and continues in order until card 20. He then assigns Shin to The Fool and Tau to The World. Death does not have a name or Hebrew letter. Compare to the Golden Dawn table, which starts with Fool/Aleph:
http://www.billheidrick.com/works/tarottbl.htm

[Diana]

Wirth's book, The Tarot of the Magicians, which is now translated into English, is well worth the read. It's one of the few books I kept when I cleared out my tarot stuff.

I hope the translation honours his treatise.

[Charlie Brown]

I'll look for links.
As far as a separate system, it's apples and oranges, since you can make a big "Occult Tarot" box and throw him in with the Dawn, etc. But the Hebrew letter assignments are different. Wirth assigns Aleph to the Magician a la Levi, and continues in order until card 20. He then assigns Shin to The Fool and Tau to The World. Death does not have a name or Hebrew letter. Compare to the Golden Dawn table, which starts with Fool/Aleph:
http://www.billheidrick.com/works/tarottbl.htm

Please don't put yourself out, Katrinka.

Ooof. I don't pay the slightest bit of attention to the hebrew letters. It's all Greek to me.

[Wise_Angel]

Can you really say they're irreconcilable though if you don't have a firm sense of their derivation? You keep speaking as though these cards have a singular unitary meaning. I'm honestly doubtful that the authors your thinking about even feel that way. I notice that you're heavy on claims to authority but light on citations.

Charlie: I didn´t intend to do a comparative exegesis of French tarot bibliography. We do not need it in order to know that Franch and Anglo-Speaking Countries Tarot schools differ between them greatly. I suppose you have read French authors -since 19th until present- and have noticed that there are many differences of meanings compared with English tradition ones. They are different. Of course cards have not a small range of meanings, but I think there is a limit. For example, if some authors speak of ten of swords(upright) as a generally harsh card, and other interprete it as one of mental-spiritual balance, as well as positive changes, evidently if not totally, there are two almost irreconcilable interpretations. Each person will feel more inclined towards one or the other, but my initial doubt was if one uses a Marseilles deck, he should interpret more according authors of this school, and if reading Rider Waite, interpretation should more rely on Golden Dawn School based meanings.

Regarding what marigold said, I did not mean, of course, that best authors writing on Tarot of Marseilles have to be French. I said that the pioneers of Tarot were French, and, mainly: the pioneers of Marseilles Tarot, so, in this case, I think the main sources should be French. Very different if you study Rider Waite. IT is like you are learning German, your best teachers will be native German, not from Italy, and vice versa.

Thanks

[Charlie Brown]

I don't know. Balance is hard to achieve and even harder to maintain. Buddhist/Zen monks have a reputation for being some of the most balanced people in the world. There lives often seem pretty harsh.

[Anouk]

I feel the imagery of the card needs to be considered, or why have a variety of decks? All our actions and choices are relevant to the reading, including our choice of deck.

Today, for example, I pulled the Two of Cups for my daily card. Knowing that it can't refer to romance or partnerships, that in fact any form of love isn't relevant to me today, I needed to look closer at the imagery.

Then of course we build our own experiences and relationships with cards over time. One of my personal experiences with the Two of Pents is that it can mean "things are still up in the air." where I've never seen that interpretation from anyone else. Does that make me wrong?

The cards are, afterall, pieces of printed cardboard. What matters is how our intuition and higher wisdom relates to what's shown, and the imagery is important.

As for differences between TdM and RWS, there are core meanings that they share. Vincent Pitisci made an interesting and quick video on youtube about it.

[BlueStar]

It's always a balance between the traditional or core meaning - the artists' interpretation - and my own experience with the card. I'm doing it mostly intuitively. It's part of the fun.

I think my experience is pretty much the same. I have the core meanings in mind but that doesn't mean that's always what I see in the cards, I read more intuitively and my interpretations and intuition are very much linked to the imagery of the cards. Sometimes that lines up with the core meaning, sometimes not (I've had some delightful unexpected surprises in that respect). I think of it more like scyring into the card.

I do find that meanings can have a different nuance or be even more different depending on the deck, and I find myself drawn to using a particular deck for any given reading, or thinking about the style and imagery of the deck in relation to the question e.g. which one is likely to have the feeling or imagery most suited to answering the question to be posed. So far, this has worked for me.

[Diana]

My personal experience has not been very fruitful if I try and put interpretations from another school of Tarot into a different school (like putting TdM meanings into a reading made with the RWS). It hasn't worked well. It turns out half baked. Unless I can find a real reason for linking the two, I don't think I'll attempt it again. It may work better with the Thoth though. I'll try once and see, but haven't yet had the occasion.

[Amoroso]

I try to remain true to the spirit in which a deck was created especially if it has a system all its own. I do sometimes slip into my default school when a card confounds me but oftentimes I just sneak a look into the companion book.