Creating your own deck

[Polkacat]

If you were an artist and were to create your own deck, how important would tarot card symbolisms be?

 

 

 

[gregory]

If I were creating a tarot deck - VITAL. Otherwise it wouldn't be a tarot deck.

 

If I were creating an oracle deck - anything goes.

[Polkacat]

30 minutes ago, gregory said:

If I were creating a tarot deck - VITAL. Otherwise it wouldn't be a tarot deck.

 

If I were creating an oracle deck - anything goes.

How do tarot decks and oracle decks differ from eachother?

[DanielJUK]

22 hours ago, Polkacat said:

How do tarot decks and oracle decks differ from eachother?

 

All card decks are oracles for divination, so strictly tarot is an oracle. However we tend to separate Tarot and then Oracles (non Tarot). The difference is that Tarot has strict rules in it's system, it has to have 78 cards, 22 Majors, 4 suits of the Minors. Non Tarot Oracles can have any system or cards they like! So to make a tarot deck you need to have the 2 of Cups and Hermit and this and this and the symbolism is important to reflect the meaning. But if you make an oracle you can make cards however you want! The hard thing with making an oracle is how to make it balanced, you need cards that cover whatever comes up, negative and positive! Both have their own challenges creating them.

[Grandma]

On 2/7/2023 at 4:52 PM, gregory said:

If I were creating a tarot deck - VITAL. Otherwise it wouldn't be a tarot deck

This, exactly. I'm always bemused by people who declare that they read Tarot completely intuitively, not using traditional meanings. I don't know what that is - interpreting pretty pictures maybe? - but it definitely not reading Tarot.

[gregory]

ER - there we have to differ, Grandma dear.

[Grandma]

Huh? I thought I was agreeing with you, gregory honey. 

[gregory]

1 hour ago, Grandma said:

I'm always bemused by people who declare that they read Tarot completely intuitively, not using traditional meanings. I don't know what that is - interpreting pretty pictures maybe? - but it definitely not reading Tarot.

 

I read that way. But a) I cannot do with with an oracle deck and b) we were talking about creating a tarot deck. I would NOT be OK with one that disregards everything that makes a tarot deck TAROT.

When I made mine, I absolutely used what I knew of the "generic" symbolism and meanings etc. When I read with it - I look at the pretty pictures.

[Grandma]

Oh, very interesting. When I read with yours, I use both traditional meanings and the pretty pictures. It's a very readable deck in both ways.

[gregory]

I'm not looking to plug it here - but that is VERY interesting. Because the tarot stuff IS in there. And the fact that it IS in a tarot deck is - I am SURE - what makes it possible; for me to read TAROT decks this way, but not oracles (or pix form magazines, as someone once suggested ought to work for "someone like me". It almost validates the feeling I had when I decided to make it in the first place !

[DanielJUK]

You tend to find with oracle cards that you get meanings with the card, the artist / creator explains it all. Sometimes you get loads of text in the card 😠which hides the art!

But Oracles do work much better in my opinion when you read the art, find the message yourself. Maybe that is just my reading style but it does give a better reading

The problem is that the artist making their message in the card art has different degrees of how good it is! There are good and bad oracles and a lot of them very mass market and bland! So I would argue that the card art can be unreadable because it doesn't represent the original intention well. With Tarot, It's easier to fall back on the tarot system and ignore these problems with the card art.

[Grandma]

On 2/9/2023 at 6:44 AM, gregory said:

Because the tarot stuff IS in there. And the fact that it IS in a tarot deck is - I am SURE - what makes it possible; for me to read TAROT decks this way,

I don't see how it could work otherwise. The "pretty pictures" are after all the author/artist's interpretation of the agreed upon meaning of the card. Whether one consciously focusses on the meaning or not, it's there. An Eight of Cups, for example, where all the symbols and imagery suggest a happy reunion would not make sense at any level, nor a Ten of Cups showing parents crying over the grave of a child. Where did THAT grim image come from, Grandma? 

 

Anyway I think this is what you're talking about. I know you will tell me if you are not. This IS a learning forum!