Читать книгу Step by Step Tarot - Terry Donaldson - Страница 6

One of the most important matters in the first stages of your Tarot quest is the selection of the deck which you are going to work with.

A few words of warning on this.

It could be that someone has walked into a bookshop and bought you a deck of cards already; or passed on to you the cards which were used by their great aunt back in the nineteenth century.

There are many different kinds of Tarot decks out there. Some are oriented towards specific sets of legends, e.g. Greek, Egyptian, Arthurian. And unless you are familiar with those sets of legends already, you are going to have to handle two sets of learning: the principles of Tarot readership on the one hand and the belief system or symbolic system contained within the deck’s imagery.

There are many decks in which the Minor Arcana are shown not by any picture, but by what we call ‘pip’ symbols, e.g. sets of swords crossed over each other, or rows of cups lined up against each other. But to learn from these decks is going to involve a great deal of memory work as well.

Another category to avoid would be decks which are heavily laden with huge quantities of symbolism, magic, astrology, alchemy, etc. The reason again is obvious: far too much to take in all at once.

Once you have a solid basis to work from, you will find that bit by bit all these other weird and wonderful decks start opening themselves up to you. But until you have a really solid foundation, leave them well alone.

It is important that you select your own deck, so this will entail going alone to a bookshop that specializes in Tarot decks and looking at the portfolio which they will invariably have. Here, you can look through a vast selection of different decks, with all the cards held behind a sheet of transparent film.

Ask for some guidance from the assistant if you are unsure and don’t be afraid to say that you are just starting out on the road of readership. You will find that they may well have a recommendation to make.

Probably the best decks to work from as you learn the Tarot are the Ryder-Waite and Morgan-Greer decks. But in the end it will have to be your own choice.

As you progress in your studies, it is very likely that you will build up your own collection of different decks and will have them out on the table when people come for readings, so that as you begin the session, you will be able to ask which deck they would like you to read from.

If you have already selected a deck for yourself or feel drawn to work with the deck you have, then fine. This is going to be the one for you!

All you have to do now is to follow the training steps and we’ll be turning you into a reader!