GeoLund Posted October 9, 2021 Posted October 9, 2021 Hello everyone! I just found and joined this forum today and I'm so happy to be here! A few months ago I was bit hard by the Tarot, Lenormand and Oracle bug and have purchased almost 50 decks on a quest for the perfect one that speaks to me. I'm learning the standard meanings of all of the cards and working on deepening my intuitive skills to assist me with readings. I've done a few that have been shockingly accurate or profoundly influential to the Querent. I absolutely love watching deck flip-throughs on YouTube. I also like creating comparative analysis spreadsheets of the cards and the decks to see which ones have good images and meanings. (Ok, so I'm a bit of a nerd). I'd love to make new friends that enjoy talking about Tarot! In addition to bookkeeping, I'm also a Landlord and a Marriage and Family Therapist. I have three glorious Parrots and two tiny dogs. I live in Aurora which is east of Denver, Colorado. Does anyone live near me? I would LOVE to do a deck show and tell!!! Please contact me if you'd like to chat. I'm eager to make new friends. 🙂 Geo (Are we allowed to give our contact info?)
Raggydoll Posted October 9, 2021 Posted October 9, 2021 Welcome! I edited your post because it contained promotional content. Do read our rules carefully. Also, please don’t try and recruit people from the forum in threads or through PM. If you want to discuss your business, do it in the correct area and follow the rules of that area. Note that you can’t access the Promotional area until you have 5 posts 🙂 https://www.thetarotforum.com/rules/ As for your last question : We don’t encourage anyone to give out private information like email addresses or phone numbers. In fact, we’d strongly advice them not to! Make friends through threads, that has worked for so many of us. It is typically seen as odd or uncomfortable to be contacted by strangers through PM, so public threads are best 🙂
stephanelli Posted October 9, 2021 Posted October 9, 2021 40 minutes ago, GeoLund said: Hello everyone! I just found and joined this forum today and I'm so happy to be here! A few months ago I was bit hard by the Tarot, Lenormand and Oracle bug and have purchased almost 50 decks on a quest for the perfect one that speaks to me. I'm learning the standard meanings of all of the cards and working on deepening my intuitive skills to assist me with readings. I've done a few that have been shockingly accurate or profoundly influential to the Querent. I absolutely love watching deck flip-throughs on YouTube. I also like creating comparative analysis spreadsheets of the cards and the decks to see which ones have good images and meanings. (Ok, so I'm a bit of a nerd). I'd love to make new friends that enjoy talking about Tarot! In addition to bookkeeping, I'm also a Landlord and a Marriage and Family Therapist. I have three glorious Parrots and two tiny dogs. I live in Aurora which is east of Denver, Colorado. Does anyone live near me? I would LOVE to do a deck show and tell!!! Please contact me if you'd like to chat. I'm eager to make new friends. 🙂 Geo (Are we allowed to give our contact info?) Welcome to the forum! 50 decks is a lot in a short space of time 😲 Have you been reading tarot/oracle cards long? I've found that my preferences are changing over the years, the perfect deck for me varies from season to season and as my knowledge and experiences grow It's advised that you don't give out your personal contact information. As Raggydoll said, make friends in the public forums first, it's seen as very forward to just start private messaging people. (You'll get private messaging from 5 posts by the way!)
DanielJUK Posted October 9, 2021 Posted October 9, 2021 welcome to the forum @GeoLund glad you have found our community Hopefully you can learn to use all your new decks 🙂 Did you find the perfect deck for you in the end?
GeoLund Posted October 9, 2021 Author Posted October 9, 2021 @TheThumbPuppy I'd love to share and discuss! I used this sheet when researching the myriad of decks available on the market to help me decide which ones to buy. That is only part of it. I rated over 114 Tarot decks and I add new ones all the time. Later I added the extra columns on the top right but I have by no means finished filling that part out for the 29 decks that I have so far. My opinions of each deck change drastically over time (and are just MY OPINIONS - Please don't attack me!!!!). Some that I thought were too advanced I ended up buying anyway and I will attempt to grow into them as I get better. I realize I need to focus on the easier RWS based decks now, as a beginner, but I have my sights set on other decks to use for readings later, once I know more. Some are good for personal readings and some good for public Zoom card pulls. I think I have something for everyone!
GeoLund Posted October 9, 2021 Author Posted October 9, 2021 Another spreadsheet that I plan to fill out is a card by card analysis of each deck to see which images are especially great at conveying the RWS meanings. There is a tally at the bottom. Theoretically the "best" decks will score highly. 🙂 So far, I really love the Radiant RWS and the Everyday Witch. Llewellyn Classic is good also. Someday I aspire to learn The Star Tarot and The Tarot of Everyday Enchantment.
GeoLund Posted October 9, 2021 Author Posted October 9, 2021 Another thing I did was to use a flat bed scanner to create images of the exact same card from 6-8 decks per image so I can compare and contrast, which will help me to fill out the sheet. I finished one batch of 78 scans from 6 decks and I have at least 2-3 more sets to do to capture more of the decks I own. I sure wish I had more time to devote to my obsession! Sadly life, parrots and work gets in the way!
GeoLund Posted October 10, 2021 Author Posted October 10, 2021 @TheThumbPuppy I really appreciate you sharing! We must think similarly in some way. 🙂 I just love organizing data! Especially on a topic that interests me. I'm fortunate to have a job where this skill is required. I track Registrations for both online and in person Metaphysical Fairs and Panels. I think it's related to having the Scholar archetype. I also have Artisan - so I like my data to look pretty and I like to analyze beautiful things - hence my love of Tarot Cards!!! My third archetypal talent is Sage, so I like to talk to others and tell stories about my analysis of beautiful things. Rofl! I look forward to meeting other folks here who are similar.
stephanelli Posted October 10, 2021 Posted October 10, 2021 I love the analysis you both have worked on! Thank you for sharing your spreadsheets! @GeoLund@TheThumbPuppy Although I love a good spreadsheet, I haven't made any for tarot/oracle decks in this way. I think that's because I'm very selective about what decks I actually buy. Have you tried oracle decks at all? I'd be interested to see how you'd go about doing a similar spreadsheet for what to buy for those because they are all so varied. I'm working on a spreadsheet of my daily readings with the Witches Wisdom Tarot at the moment. I started my data on Jan 1 and am planning to draw for the whole year. So the spreadsheet will be so I can see what suit I had more of/less of, what card came up the most throughout the year, are there any I haven't had etc. I think it will be an interesting way to analyse it! It's a still a work in progress though. And I still need to copy the data across from my handwritten journal. 😆
GeoLund Posted October 10, 2021 Author Posted October 10, 2021 @stephanelli Yes, I tried Oracle decks before Tarot. I thought they would be easier to read since they were open to creative interpretation. I struggled with all 20 of the Oracles that I purchased. Then I tried Lenormand and I LOVED it. I just bought the Gilded Lenormand deck and I love it. Only learning 36 card meanings really appealed to me! THEN the Tarot bug bit! I liked the idea that there was a "standard" set of meanings for each of the 78 cards but unlimited ways in which artists could portray those meanings. Knowing that there was an underlying meaning for each card enabled me to practice my intuitive skills when looking at the art. The presence of structure in Tarot appealed to me and I found it lacking in Oracle. I have a really hard time reading purely intuitively without feeling like it's b.s.. I will work on overcoming this feeling and allowing messages to flow through me in a more natural way. I struggle with anxiety and have learned that anything that makes me more anxious also KILLS my intuition to the point where I have nothing to say in a reading. I learned this from being a practitioner in online panels with an audience watching the live reading. Yuck! Not a good format for me!
gregory Posted October 10, 2021 Posted October 10, 2021 10 hours ago, GeoLund said: Another thing I did was to use a flat bed scanner to create images of the exact same card from 6-8 decks per image so I can compare and contrast, which will help me to fill out the sheet. I finished one batch of 78 scans from 6 decks and I have at least 2-3 more sets to do to capture more of the decks I own. If you get Orphalese (the paid version; you can only do 3 decks at a time for free) you can set up to compare cards from LOADS of decks... Page 1 of - very many. I have about 100 decks in there that will come up.
GeoLund Posted October 12, 2021 Author Posted October 12, 2021 On 10/10/2021 at 3:22 AM, gregory said: If you get Orphalese (the paid version; you can only do 3 decks at a time for free) you can set up to compare cards from LOADS of decks... Thanks so much @gregory for this fantastic tip!!! I had never heard of that software, but I paid for it last night. How fun! Unfortunately only 9 (out of 29) of the decks that I own are in the database of scanned decks. 😞 But that still saved me a few hours of scanning! Do you have any decks that you highly recommend I check out that are in the database, somewhat true to RWS meanings, colorful, and hand drawn or painted art? For reference I like Everyday Witch, Star Tarot, Wheel of the Year, and Robin Wood Tarot. Plus I kind of like Tarot Illuminati even though it's CGI.
Raggydoll Posted October 12, 2021 Posted October 12, 2021 8 minutes ago, GeoLund said: Thanks so much @gregory for this fantastic tip!!! I had never heard of that software, but I paid for it last night. How fun! Unfortunately only 9 (out of 29) of the decks that I own are in the database of scanned decks. 😞 But that still saved me a few hours of scanning! Do you have any decks that you highly recommend I check out that are in the database, somewhat true to RWS meanings, colorful, and hand drawn or painted art? For reference I like Everyday Witch, Star Tarot, Wheel of the Year, and Robin Wood Tarot. Plus I kind of like Tarot Illuminati even though it's CGI. Two beautifully drawn decks are Witches wisdom tarot and Lightseers tarot. Witches wisdom does deviate a lot from the RWS though. But Danielles art makes it all worth it.
GeoLund Posted October 12, 2021 Author Posted October 12, 2021 Thank you so much @Raggydoll for your suggestions!! I agree that the art in Witches Wisdom is divine!! The images are a far cry from RWS which would make it trickier for a beginner. Maybe I can grow into it later!! I'm curious, once you spend time with the deck, do you find the underlying meanings for each card to be anything like the RWS meanings? Or is it a whole different ball of wax? 🙂 (Sadly, it hasn't been uploaded to Orphalese yet.) As for Lightseers, It must be wonderful because EVERYONE around me locally is using it!!! For that very reason, I've never explored it and was hoping to find some equally good, off the beaten path alternatives. I had hopes for Modern Spellcasters and also for Elemental Wisdom Tarot. We shall see! If anyone else has suggestions, I'd love to check them out! (Big bonus if the deck is on Orphalese and not OOP, just in case I need to buy it after seeing it!)
GeoLund Posted October 12, 2021 Author Posted October 12, 2021 On 10/9/2021 at 3:58 AM, DanielJUK said: Did you find the perfect deck for you in the end? @DanielJUK I have definitely NOT reached the end!!! ROFL I'm still searching for the perfect one! But so far, Everyday Witch is the best for me overall, followed by any deck that sticks fairly closely to RWS since those are the meanings I'm working on learning. My eccentric side would like to find something a bit different from the norm. 😉
gregory Posted October 12, 2021 Posted October 12, 2021 4 hours ago, GeoLund said: Thanks so much @gregory for this fantastic tip!!! I had never heard of that software, but I paid for it last night. How fun! Unfortunately only 9 (out of 29) of the decks that I own are in the database of scanned decks. 😞 But that still saved me a few hours of scanning! You have found the HUGE collection of member scanned ones ?
Raggydoll Posted October 12, 2021 Posted October 12, 2021 2 hours ago, GeoLund said: Thank you so much @Raggydoll for your suggestions!! I agree that the art in Witches Wisdom is divine!! The images are a far cry from RWS which would make it trickier for a beginner. Maybe I can grow into it later!! I'm curious, once you spend time with the deck, do you find the underlying meanings for each card to be anything like the RWS meanings? Or is it a whole different ball of wax? 🙂 (Sadly, it hasn't been uploaded to Orphalese yet.) I think it differs a lot. I don't really try and apply RWS meanings to it so I can't say how well that would work. The Major Arcana is ordered very differently so that might stump someone, especially if they are used to the traditional "fools journey" thing. 2 hours ago, GeoLund said: As for Lightseers, It must be wonderful because EVERYONE around me locally is using it!!! For that very reason, I've never explored it and was hoping to find some equally good, off the beaten path alternatives. I had hopes for Modern Spellcasters and also for Elemental Wisdom Tarot. We shall see! I do see why you´d want more "off the beaten path" alternatives. I like indie decks too. Most of my collection is made up of such decks 😄 How about the Sasuraibito tarot? Its unusual and reads really well. I think it would work nicely for beginners.
stephanelli Posted October 12, 2021 Posted October 12, 2021 2 hours ago, GeoLund said: Thank you so much @Raggydoll for your suggestions!! I agree that the art in Witches Wisdom is divine!! The images are a far cry from RWS which would make it trickier for a beginner. Maybe I can grow into it later!! I'm curious, once you spend time with the deck, do you find the underlying meanings for each card to be anything like the RWS meanings? Or is it a whole different ball of wax? I'm also a huge fan of the Witches' Wisdom Tarot. With decks like this that differ so much from the RWS, I treat them more like an oracle deck with their own individual meanings. It's nothing like the RWS, particularly with the major arcana as Raggydoll says! It is so different but it has an amazing guidebook and the more you work with it, the more meanings you get stuck in your head or the easier it is to intuitively read the cards.
GeoLund Posted October 12, 2021 Author Posted October 12, 2021 Thank you both @stephanelli and @Raggydoll again for the feedback and suggestions! Sasuraibito reminds me a bit of Britt's 3rd Eye Tarot and Witches Wisdom reminds me of the Spacious Tarot. I have both of those decks and probably would not try to read from either one without considerably more study. But that's cool! I'm really excited to learn more. I just need to restrain myself and attempt to learn the RWS a bit more first. and yes @gregory, out of all 2389 uploaded decks, they only have 10 out of my 29. (I didn't count Druid Craft earlier because I didn't download it since I don't usually use it.) I counted the Star Tarot but it's only the Majors and they chopped off the labels - so not terribly useful. Using the software, I figured out how to do deck comparisons with the same card the way I do my scans. Is there an easy way to get it to display all 78 cards of a single deck? Thanks in advance!
gregory Posted October 12, 2021 Posted October 12, 2021 I've never tried to do that; I will do later; I'm on my way out. What decks are in your collection? (It isn't good on uploads of lenormand etc...)
GeoLund Posted October 12, 2021 Author Posted October 12, 2021 Beginner’s Guide to Tarot Radiant Rider Waite tin Llewellyn's Classic Tarot Robin Wood Tarot Everyday Witch Tarot The Dark Mansion Tarot Angel Wisdom Tarot Everyday Tarot Mini Modern Witch Tarot Crystal Unicorn Tarot Golden Girls Tarot Mucha Tarot Tarot of the Cloisters Wheel of Fortune Tarot Witches Tarot Druid Craft Tarot Universal Celtic Tarot Tarot of Positive Clarity Illuminati Tarot Spellcaster Britt's Third Eye Tarot Crow Tarot Star Tarot Wheel of the Year Tarot Spacious Tarot The Quest Tarot Osho Zen Tarot Elemental Wisdom Tarot THE EVERYDAY ENCHANTMENT TAROT @gregory Those are just the Tarot decks - not counting any Oracle or Lenormand. I need the guidebook for Britt's Third Eye so I hope someone loads that one up soon! 🙂
gregory Posted October 12, 2021 Posted October 12, 2021 Rats. I have scanned a load of mine to Orphalese standard - and - not any of those ! Sorry !
ReadmeNew Posted October 19, 2021 Posted October 19, 2021 Hi! What decks would you say are your favorite?
GeoLund Posted October 19, 2021 Author Posted October 19, 2021 6 hours ago, ReadmeNew said: What decks would you say are your favorite? Good question @ReadmeNew! I have 31 decks now and no longer feel compelled to keep purchasing! The ones I like best can be divided into different categories. I will also share my thoughts on some of the others in the hopes that it will shed light for people who are still seeking their perfect deck. 1) RWS & clones: * Radiant Rider Waite (basic must have) * Gilded Tarot Royale (used for readings, my current favorite! Thank you SO much @cirom for designing this deck!) * Llewellyn Classic (simple rws) * Crystal Unicorns (use for kids) * Tarot Illuminati (very detailed art, busy) * Tarot Mucha (old fashioned vibe) 2) true to RWS meaning but really different art: * Everyday Witch (used for readings) * Light Seer's (inner work) * Tarot of Everyday Enchantment (study for now, maybe read with later) * Angel Wisdom Tarot (used for readings, meanings written on each card) * Wheel of Time (lovely art) * Dark Mansion (very clever) 3) perfectly fine decks that just don't resonate with me at this time: * Robin Wood Tarot * Modern Witch * Golden Girls * Wheel of Fortune (oil paintings) * Witches Tarot * Tarot of the Cloisters (stained glass art) * Everyday Tarot (simplified RWS outlines) 4) specific themes/styles that I am not currently connecting with: * Druid Craft * Universal Celtic * Modern Spellcaster * Elemental Wisdom 5) intriguing decks that will require more study before I could use them: * Star Tarot (Love the art! Eventual goal to use this for readings after I study it more) * Osho Zen Tarot (beautiful art, not obviously rws) * Spacious Tarot (simple but profound) * Crow Tarot (busy, art with lots of textures) * Britt's 3rd Eye Tarot (great for teens) * Quest Tarot (lots of extra symbols on each card, runes, I-ching, astrology, gems, etc) I hope this helps people find their perfect deck without spending as much money as I did! The Orphalese program is wonderful for doing side by side deck comparisons! I wish @gregory had told me about it sooner!
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