The Book Of THoTH

Just wondering what deck everyone has . I myself collect them so I at last count now have 20 decks . The ones I work with are celtic dragon and shapeshifter . Depends on what is needed is the factor on what cards i use . I have thoth deck , well worn path , Liber T , tarot of dreams , tarot of the 78 doors , druidcraft , robin wood tarot and more. What do you have ??

I've got a mini-Waite, and a Halloween deck someone gave me to make amends for losing a book I'd lent him about Tesla's inventions.

I use The Tarot of the Witches mostly.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/portalsupp ... ?album=109

I only have three decks, Rider-Waite, Crowley's Thoth and Nathalie Hertz' Vampire Tarot.

I've owned upwards of a dozen different decks over the years, but nothing ever clicked for me until I hit the Medicine deck.

I own and use the Medicine cards and the Native American Tarot currently. Probably won't add anything else, since between them they offer a pretty comprehensive coverage for my purposes.



Tiger

I love the medicine deck they are lovely looking cards and they seem to call me . I only collect the decks that "feel right" I do have one deck the thoth cards , that i really do not like the imagry . But like robin alot of people like them and have found them to be great cards. I know what you mean about the clicking thing tiger , like I have said I only use 2 decks cause they click with me and I have not be off ever with these cards . How did you all pick your cards ??

I've been reading cards since 1973. Back then, there weren't many choices, so I learned on a traditional French deck, but quickly went through 3 Rider-Waite decks.

Through the years, I've gotten many decks, but the only one I use and definitely the most powerful one for me is the Thoth deck.

Hello empath !
Wow reading for 33 years!! what do you think about the computer generated cards?? You have probably seen cards change over the years . You think they have become too commercial ? A friend of mine says the newer ones have become more commercial and is hitting on the fluffies . " Fluffies" are people who only dabble in the craft to look cool to friends but have done no research or actual study into it. I myself think to each his own I love some of the new decks that are computer generated . Does anyone have any comments to this ? Tiger I know you been reading for awhile too what do you think?

I had a friend who used the Medicine deck in commercial readings... while observing her at work, I found I was getting "hits" on what cards were coming before they were turned up, and meanings for the cards despite the fact that I had no clue about the deck at all at that time. that was the start of it for me with the cards.

Prior to that I'd been working sans tool for a number of years, doing straight clairvoyant readings.



Personally, i don't think the genesis of the tool has any importance at all. Hand drawn, commercially printed, 'puter generated... all that counts imo is that the symbology is suited to the user and is either complex enough or simply ambiguous enough to allow the info from ozone sources to be surfaced from the subconscious into the conscious mind.



Tiger

I pretty much straddle the fence of 'fluffies' v. traditional decks v. none at all.

I certainly agree with Tiger that whatever works for you, works and shouldn't be second-guessed.

"Traditional" decks like the Rider-Waite and Thoth were created by serious students of the occult in collaboration with artists. Every detail of every drawing -- color, fabric pattern detail, etc. had esoteric and phenomenological symbolism that relayed the depth and meaning on a subconscious level. Reading these decks for all the nuanced meanings requires in-depth study.

However, now that Tarot has become a 'fashion statement' of sorts, there are many stylized and thematic decks out there that have lost the esoteric connections that are inherent in the Tarot. A reader may intuitively 'get' the card, but many of the cues are missing.

For example, one may be able to use a fluffy deck and get a clear reading that a new suitor is not sincere or appropriate; but will the fluffy deck convey the querent's over-arching pattern of committment aversion that results in attracting only emotionally unavailable or unreliable partners? These archetypal patterns are embedded in the well thought-out Tarot decks and are discernable to the reader.

Well, this is my take anyway. I started with the old French Tarot and found it to be rather harsh and unyielding of its secrets. I suppose that opaqueness is what inspire Waite and Crowley and others to fashion Tarot cards that truly conveyed their profound and esoteric legacy.

Tarot of Marseilles
Tarot of Cat People *
Osho Tarot
Native American Tarot
Druid Animal Cards
Celtic Tree Tarot
Shapeshifter Tarot *
Ogham Rune Cards

* = ones I actually use regularly

That's all I can come up with from memory, I'm sure I have a few more stored in boxes somewhere.

Marseilles is the deck I use the most, I have another deck, I am just not sure exactly what it is, was made here in Oz anyways, plus I have a deck I made myself, which I use for the real important stuff, and I also only ever use it for myself.

tiger wrote:
I had a similar experiance with shapeshifter deck. This is why I got them as my second deck.
tiger wrote


I have to agree with you 100% .

Empath wrote



I myself look at the cards and go with the "flow" of the cards breaking each one down in my head and telling them what came out to me . The cards are really juust a "helping" medium for me . Like reading auras I see the colors . I could break them down to what most people would say about each color or the missing area of their aura but i go with what comes from the ozone . I don't know if anyone else does this but this is how I do things. Do you ??

Nimh I love the images on the Druid Animal Cards!! They are beautiful!! I can understand why you use them. You find the shapeshifter deck works well too! I love those I use them for really in depth readings .

Aleria wrote



I have not heard of many making their own decks in this day and age there are a few out there that do . They are more personalized I gather?


Thelmaddona I seen your cards they are nice too ! I feel like a kid in a candy store LOL

I can't wait for the Gaian Tarot to be finished! The Major Arcana are done and the Minors are still being created.

Pandora wrote:


Yes they are, and I find them mostly to be more accurate than store brought cards. I am also a heavy believer in that things created with ones owns hands hold much more power than something created by another. The pictures on my cards reflect what each card means to me, in each card is a small peice of my self and my power. It took almost a year to make the entir deck, but well worth the effort. I actually have a few freinds who have made thier own cards, like me they believe in the power of creating your own Besides, cards are now more about trend than power, imo.

The Waite deck. It makes the most sense to me.
Have considered a tarot or two of my own, based
upon occupations.

I've got the Rider-Waite deck, but I don't believe in Tarot or astrology. Nice pictures though...

Anybody play Magic? Pokemon? At least there is a point to playing those games... Entertainment value..

I own the phoenix deck and the anime deck

I used to play magic the gathering before I got into the occult now I use the cards for insperation for my servitors and new spells

Iron_Phoenix

<< ThoTh deck, Crowley

tarot are arcane flashcards for everything we can remember & very handy for translation of mistranslated popular texts.

i'm pretty new to it, but the metaphors are eternal & i have a grea appreciation for how little i truly understand.^^

I've got the Davinci Enigma Tarot, they was a prize for winning a Witchy Quizz at a Children of Artemis event!

thanks

Scapini's Medieval Deck. He was highered to replicate the Visconti deck (which is the oldest known deck I believe). A Beautiful deck !

Anyone used the HP Lovecraft deck? I thought it was kinda neat...

So here's a question... Perhaps this is relevant to all divination in general. How does it work? Big question I know... Let me see if I can explain a little better...

You take a tarot deck, and lay the cards out for someone, and the cards will fall where they may. But lets say you don't know the meaning of some of the cards so you look them up. And somebody somewhere assigned some sort of meaning to those cards, and voila there is the answer. But if you didn't know the meaning of the card in the first place, then how could it mean anything? How does the card know that someone on the internet says it's supposed to mean X.

Does that even make any sense?

Has anyone used regular playing cards for Tarot? I tried this once, using the 7 fates spread. Then I looked up the meaning of each card that I had dealt out. I was pretty scared by some of the messages I was seeing. (I actually did it twice, the first time I layed the cards out in the wrong order.) Because I had to look up the meaning of all the cards, I'm really not sure how much validity they could have had. But I found it very interesting that I got similar results on both attempts, even though one time I did it 'wrong'. Is there really a wrong though?

The reason I tried this in the first place is because I've always had really good 'luck' with card games, and thought playing cards could be a good tool for me. Unfortunatley I'm horrible with numbers and I don't think I could ever remember all the meanings for the cards. So maybe 'standard' tarot would be better for me to try. I'd probably have better luck relating to images.

The cards are just tools, imo. Dead pasteboard. It's the reader that does the work; all the cards are is a vehicle for the intuitive subconscious to use to "surface" the information from the esp/psi/mystical input channels in a form that the conscious mind can grasp.

All that really counts is that the symbology of the tool be suited to the user's intuitive nature and that the symbol set be either ambiguoous (sp) or complex enough to allow ample room for the information to be fitted into acceptable form.



Tiger

The Holy Tarocchi are tools yes, but they are so much more . . .

"On our plane of ordinary experience, symbols are merely arbitrary representations of an inner, intelligible significance. They are the visible signatures of a metaphysical or a spiritual grace, as it were. In the Astral light, however, these symbols assume independent existence revealing their tangible reality, and hence they are of the utmost importance."
. . . . Israel Regardie

I have the Thoth deck, the Golden Dawn Magical Tarot, the Robin Wood deck and the Builders of the Adytum Tarot. I don't use my cards for fortune-telling, but as meditative tools. As I understand it, these cards are designed to activate latent archetypes within one's psyche.

Last year I was involved in a group meditation where a Tarot card was drawn each week by our leader as a point of focus. This worked out very well.
I sometimes would supplement this with by throwing an I Ching hexagram; the correlation was amazing.

Hey now....

Tarot cards, as meditative tools. This I find really interesting? Is their any where I can read more about this? Some decks are pretty than others for this purpose?

Don't know of any sources in particular. Many western occult traditions view Tarot primarily as a meditative device, fortune-telling being a modernized, exoteric adaption. The Golden Dawn Magical Tarot comes with a nice little booklet that outlines the western use of Tarot. I believe the booklet is adapted from the book Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition by the Ciceros, so perhaps any Golden Dawn or hermetic book that touches on the Tarot would be a fine place to start. Also anything by Paul Foster Case. A survey of the Western Mystery Tradition in general might also yield some pertinent info. The art of Googlemancy should produce some good reading material.

L. V. X.,
SZC