Tarot Card Combinations Research

[Igraine]

HI EVERYONE!

I'm new here :)

I did a search for TAROT COMBINATIONS.  I've been very fascinated and focused on this aspect of reading spreads lately.  I didn't see anything in the search but I'm new to that!  Any suggestions on how to search for this topic on the sight are very welcome.

If nothing comes up, where would be the appropriate place to start such a discussion?  I've found some useful info online but nothing that really resonates profoundly.  

I'll take any book suggestions gladly as well, if you can personally recommend them. ;)

Thanks for reading and have a TeaRiffic Day!

Iggi

[Raggydoll]

Why not start such a discussion in Tarot meanings 🙂

 

https://www.thetarotforum.com/forums/forum/98-tarot-meanings/

[Guest]

Hello, Igraine

 

If you would like to learn to interpret tarot cards in pairs, you could study my sequential method, which is intended for use with any pattern sheet that is comparable to the Tarot de Marseille patters (I use the Swiss Tarot by AGM-Urania).

 

I have uploaded to my website the chapter from my book in which I provide instructions for interpreting coat or court cards.

 

My website is titled Diary of a Fortune-Teller.

 

 

Regards

KevinM

[Carla]

13 hours ago, Igraine said:

HI EVERYONE!

I'm new here 🙂

I did a search for TAROT COMBINATIONS.  I've been very fascinated and focused on this aspect of reading spreads lately.  I didn't see anything in the search but I'm new to that!  Any suggestions on how to search for this topic on the sight are very welcome.

If nothing comes up, where would be the appropriate place to start such a discussion?  I've found some useful info online but nothing that really resonates profoundly.  

I'll take any book suggestions gladly as well, if you can personally recommend them. 😉

Thanks for reading and have a TeaRiffic Day!

Iggi

Hi Igraine, what deck(s) do you read with? 

[spider]

Hi Igraine

I have just read Tarot Interactions by Deborah Lipp.  It claims to support you to become more intuitive, psychic and skilled at reading cards; it is one of the few books (on tarot) that I have read from cover to cover without thinking that the author has started repeating themselves to make the book bigger!!

Would recommend

If you start a discusson, I will chip in.

[Igraine]

22 hours ago, Raggydoll said:

Why not start such a discussion in Tarot meanings 🙂

 

https://www.thetarotforum.com/forums/forum/98-tarot-meanings/

@RaggydollThank you!  I'll check that out!

[Igraine]

9 hours ago, KevinM said:

Hello, Igraine

 

If you would like to learn to interpret tarot cards in pairs, you could study my sequential method, which is intended for use with any pattern sheet that is comparable to the Tarot de Marseille patters (I use the Swiss Tarot by AGM-Urania).

 

I have uploaded to my website the chapter from my book in which I provide instructions for interpreting coat or court cards.

 

My website is titled Diary of a Fortune-Teller.

 

 

Regards

KevinM

Hello @KevinMThank you!  I'll visit your website. 🙂

[Igraine]

9 hours ago, Carla said:

Hi Igraine, what deck(s) do you read with? 

Hi @CarlaI have a lot of decks but currently I'm studying RWS, Marseilles, and Thoth.

[Igraine]

9 hours ago, spider said:

Hi Igraine

I have just read Tarot Interactions by Deborah Lipp.  It claims to support you to become more intuitive, psychic and skilled at reading cards; it is one of the few books (on tarot) that I have read from cover to cover without thinking that the author has started repeating themselves to make the book bigger!!

Would recommend

If you start a discusson, I will chip in.

Hi @spiderThat sounds like a good book, thank you! 🙂

[Carla]

9 minutes ago, Igraine said:

Hi @CarlaI have a lot of decks but currently I'm studying RWS, Marseilles, and Thoth.

Well, that pretty much covers it, LOL.  

[Igraine]

@Carla 🙂 . Which decks do you use?  My heart belongs to RWS to be honest.  But my first deck is the Hanson Roberts.  I've used it so much some of the cards are bent and about to split!

I find I channel different energies with the different decks.

[Carla]

48 minutes ago, Igraine said:

@Carla 🙂 . Which decks do you use?  My heart belongs to RWS to be honest.  But my first deck is the Hanson Roberts.  I've used it so much some of the cards are bent and about to split!

I find I channel different energies with the different decks.

I use TdM. My reading decks are the two Flornoy restorations. 

 

In the past, I had a huge tarot collection, but I've moved away from that, I guess it was a phase (a 10 year phase!). I have a lot of decks on offer at the moment, actually, check my profile see if you fancy any of them. 

[Raggydoll]

28 minutes ago, Carla said:

I use TdM. My reading decks are the two Flornoy restorations. 

 

In the past, I had a huge tarot collection, but I've moved away from that, I guess it was a phase (a 10 year phase!). I have a lot of decks on offer at the moment, actually, check my profile see if you fancy any of them. 

We have a trade/sell section that is only available for paid subscribers. We don’t allow trading or selling outside of that area. So no promoting of sales in the other threads. Just thought I should mention that. It’s safer for everyone involved and it provides this forum with well needed subscription incomes 🙂

[Igraine]

@Carla. I see!  If I join Ill check it out. 🙂

[katrinka]

On 9/22/2019 at 1:44 PM, Igraine said:

 

I did a search for TAROT COMBINATIONS.  I've been very fascinated and focused on this aspect of reading spreads lately.  I didn't see anything in the search but I'm new to that!

....

I'll take any book suggestions gladly as well, if you can personally recommend them. 😉

Hi, and welcome. 🙂

When you say "Tarot combinations", people tend to think of that as "reading the cards like Lenormand", but it's actually the way that the Tarot was always read (and is still read in some parts of the world.)  Lenormand, Sibilla, Kippers, etc. just didn't catch on in the Anglo world until fairly recently, so they survived without getting "Waite-ified", (or whatever you want to call it.) By that I mean you don't read the cards as little islands unto themselves, in combination with the positional themes but not the nearby cards. Rather, the cards are usually (but not always) laid in lines, boxes, or tableaus and read in combination with neighboring cards.

With the TdM, the transition to combinations is easy, since it's essentially a deck of playing cards. These blogs are the place to go:  Kapherus/Cardseer's https://artofcartomancy.blogspot.com

and Andy Boroveshengra's https://abfortuneteller.home.blog/2019/08/12/a-brief-typography-on-reading-pip-cards/

Andy reads French, so he's well versed in the writings of Silvestre, Sédillot, Unger, and others that we've been deprived of. If you can read French, you've got a huge advantage and I may well be asking you what to do at some point! (Here in the US, the bulk of our Tarot books are the "how to read Tarot without studying" variety. 😩) There's a lot of German books I'd love to be able to read, as well.

 

This book is the best I've found on the subject https://smile.amazon.com/Untold-Tarot-Reading-Ancient-Tarots/dp/0764355619

I want to mention here that combination lists are good as suggestions, but are not really meant to be memorized. Andy has stated that cards are read like a sentence, so you can think of a pair of cards as "noun-adjective" or "noun-verb" if you're stuck. (Just remember that's a practice technique and not a hard and fast rule.)

When you get into Golden Dawn decks like the Thoth and the RWS, you can use these same techniques. The trick is to strip the cards down to their essences. Most available Tarot writings tend to be verbose - you can't build combinations from walls-o-text rhapsodizing on details. I've found this site to be valuable. I've referred to it for both RWS and Thoth, since Crowley and Waite were using the same method but Waite purposely hid some things: https://www.corax.com/tarot/cards/index.html

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2019 by katrinka

[Carla]

2 hours ago, Raggydoll said:

We have a trade/sell section that is only available for paid subscribers. We don’t allow trading or selling outside of that area. So no promoting of sales in the other threads. Just thought I should mention that. It’s safer for everyone involved and it provides this forum with well needed subscription incomes 🙂

Sorry, I looked for one but couldn't find it. Forest for the trees kind of thing most likely! 

[Raggydoll]

5 hours ago, Carla said:

Sorry, I looked for one but couldn't find it. Forest for the trees kind of thing most likely! 

It’s okay! But if you are not a paid subscriber then you won’t be able to see it, that’s the whole point 😀

[Igraine]

@katrinka Thank you so very much for your thoughtful and detailed response and the welcome! 

I will look into all of it. 

I don’t speak French but I’m currently studying it at a very slow pace. 

This is going to provide me with lots of positive and informative reading material that I can access on my phone. I’ll check back as I go.

 

Thank you again!

[Raggydoll]

6 hours ago, katrinka said:

Hi, and welcome. 🙂

When you say "Tarot combinations", people tend to think of that as "reading the cards like Lenormand", but it's actually the way that the Tarot was always read (and is still read in some parts of the world.)  Lenormand, Sibilla, Kippers, etc. just didn't catch on in the Anglo world until fairly recently, so they survived without getting "Waite-ified", (or whatever you want to call it.) By that I mean you don't read the cards as little islands unto themselves, in combination with the positional themes but not the nearby cards. Rather, the cards are usually (but not always) laid in lines, boxes, or tableaus and read in combination with neighboring cards.

With the TdM, the transition to combinations is easy, since it's essentially a deck of playing cards. These blogs are the place to go:  Kapherus/Cardseer's https://artofcartomancy.blogspot.com

and Andy Boroveshengra's https://abfortuneteller.home.blog/2019/08/12/a-brief-typography-on-reading-pip-cards/

Andy reads French, so he's well versed in the writings of Silvestre, Sédillot, Unger, and others that we've been deprived of. If you can read French, you've got a huge advantage and I may well be asking you what to do at some point! (Here in the US, the bulk of our Tarot books are the "how to read Tarot without studying" variety. 😩) There's a lot of German books I'd love to be able to read, as well.

 

This book is the best I've found on the subject https://smile.amazon.com/Untold-Tarot-Reading-Ancient-Tarots/dp/0764355619

I want to mention here that combination lists are good as suggestions, but are not really meant to be memorized. Andy has stated that cards are read like a sentence, so you can think of a pair of cards as "noun-adjective" or "noun-verb" if you're stuck. (Just remember that's a practice technique and not a hard and fast rule.)

When you get into Golden Dawn decks like the Thoth and the RWS, you can use these same techniques. The trick is to strip the cards down to their essences. Most available Tarot writings tend to be verbose - you can't build combinations from walls-o-text rhapsodizing on details. I've found this site to be valuable. I've referred to it for both RWS and Thoth, since Crowley and Waite were using the same method but Waite purposely hid some things: https://www.corax.com/tarot/cards/index.html

 

 

 

So many great tips and resources 💗 I agree that it would be amazing if we all could read French! I used to know German back in school but have forgotten most of it. These days I read Swedish, English, Norwegian and danish. Unfortunately we don’t have that many old books on cartomancy or tarot published in Scandinavia. 

[Carla]

3 hours ago, Raggydoll said:

It’s okay! But if you are not a paid subscriber then you won’t be able to see it, that’s the whole point 😀

Oh! Right! Senior moment...

[_R_]

For the “classic” Marseilles combinations, take a look at the two Grimaud LWBs in English, which you can find here: https://www.scribd.com/document/343958901/Grimaud-Tarot-de-Marseille-Booklet and https://www.scribd.com/document/399373114/1970-Grimaud-Tarot-of-Marseilles-English-LWB

 

There are a handful of French websites which also address the issue of encounters:

http://www.voyance-letarot.com/voyance/combinaison.html
https://predictionsvoyance-avenir.fr/cartomancie-apprentissage-gratuit/tarot-de-marseille-interpretation/combinaisons-tarot-de-marseille
http://associationtarot.com/index.php/category/associations-tarot-combinaisons-des-lames/
http://www.avenirfacile.com/tarot-cartomancie-combinaison.html

 

This site includes a useful article on (one way of) deriving one's own combined meaning from a pair of cards: http://les-mots-clefs.com/tarot-combinaisons/

 

Google Translate has made some significant progress in the past few years, for those who cannot read French.
 

Ultimately, you'll need to see what makes sense to you, based on your own observations of the combinations, in terms of their associated symbolism, combined visual characteristics, or as a result of feedback from your reading etc.

[joy]

Great contributions everyone, well done. I think it is time to move this thread to 'Talking Tarot' seems to make much more sense there. See you over there 🙂

[zedekiel]

On 9/23/2019 at 3:43 AM, KevinM said:

If you would like to learn to interpret tarot cards in pairs, you could study my sequential method, which is intended for use with any pattern sheet that is comparable to the Tarot de Marseille patters (I use the Swiss Tarot by AGM-Urania).

 

I have uploaded to my website the chapter from my book in which I provide instructions for interpreting coat or court cards.

 

My website is titled Diary of a Fortune-Teller.

Hi KevinM! I just wanted to tell you that after looking at this thread, seeing your comment, checking out your site, and seeing some of the other comments youve posted around here on readings, the way I view card combinations has improved dramatically! I don't use the sequential method but the way you talk about the cards and their combinations has been incredibly beneficial to my learning, even through the standard reading format that I do. I get so much more information from the cards than I did before so I wanted to thank you since I was lucky enough to come across this thread and all the resources people provided and your work!

Thank you thank you thank you everyone!

[Ix Chel]

Here are some usefull links:

Brigit Esselmont https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-combinations/ &

https://www.biddytarot.com/ultimate-guide-tarot-card-combinations/

Josephine Ellershaw http://www.learn-tarot-cards.com/tarot-card-meanings--combinations.html

[Guest libra]

Wanna know what I found really helped me learn to read cards in tandem? Not being super serious about it! Check out the blog "unhelpfultarot" on tumblr for example -  http://unhelpfultarot.tumblr.com. It's silly read on pairs of cards, and loosening up like that actually really makes reading on combinations flow way more naturally for me than any amount of set method could!