Universal Tarot, Professional Edition (Universal Tarot, edition for professionals). How to choose a tarot deck for serious practice Decks that are interesting at a certain stage of study
IMPRESSIONS FROM THE BOOK
CHRISTINE JETT
“Tarot for professionals. Opening your own business"
The book is very smart. In my opinion, the main idea sounded in it: Tarot as a business is the same business as everyone else, and requires the same attitude. At different times I opened three fortune telling offices. The first and second time I went bankrupt, the third time my office prospered. After the second ruin, I wondered what I was doing wrong. I'm good at fortune telling, but nevertheless I'm a wreck. The answer turned out to be simple: I was a good lead specialist and a terrible administrator. Kristin Jett's book looks at both sides of this process.
Of course, we must take into account that this is a book by an American woman, and many American realities are poorly applicable or not applicable at all in our conditions. Jett's fortune telling session has much in common with a psychoanalysis session, in which both participants are well aware of their roles, rights and responsibilities. But in America, psychoanalysis has been around since the 30s of the last century, and here, even today, it does not flourish in every district of the capital. And here a lot depends on the personal skill of the tarot reader: how much he can build a constructive dialogue with the client. The second striking difference: the difference in the internal positions of our and American clients. Jett describes clients who are ready to actively change their lives and take control of the process. The majority of my clients were and are Shudras, “residents of the outskirts”, firmly convinced that their life flows along a predetermined channel, so there is no problem in seeing in the cards that the girl will get married on May 8, at 17.00, her husband’s name will be Vanya , and he will work as a driver. Okay, at least not with slate...
Jett pays a lot of attention to payment issues. Credit cards, internet payments, etc. It may be relevant for the capital, but it is completely unimportant for the outback. However, the book does a good job of describing a comprehensive approach to setting up a Tarot business that would have allowed me to avoid many of the administrative mistakes early in my career. Actually, organizing and running a tarot business is no different from organizing and running any other business. And for me in my work, the most difficult thing was the realization of the fact that I do not help people, but sell my services. Jett emphasizes this many times in his book.
Jett's advice on how to become a good Tarot professional is no better or worse than the advice of other authors. The main emphasis is on practice and reflection on one’s activities. As they say, you can’t argue.
Some things make you smile: for example, the advice to call a friend to inform him where you have come and when you are going to leave if the session is taking place on the client’s premises. It’s somehow difficult for me to imagine my concern for security issues in such a situation.
Jett gives very good advice not to argue with the client and discuss the issue of a refund in advance. When, how much and under what conditions are you ready to return. Being a politically correct American, she is not aware of the enormous power of the secret mantra "NHH", but nothing can be done about it.
When you carefully read the book, you get the image of Jett as a calm, intelligent professional, restrained in expressing his emotions, as a real, in my opinion, Tarot master should behave.
Creatively rethought in relation to Russian realities and one’s own capabilities, Christine Jett’s advice on organizing a tarot business will be useful not only for beginners. At least I didn't regret the time I spent on this book.
Of course, the choice of Tarot deck is individual, and a lot depends on your tastes. However, if you seriously intend to learn the art of prediction or study the Tarot as an encyclopedia of occult symbolism, you should opt for one or more serious decks that carry a whole history of the development of philosophical thought. How often is it difficult for a novice tarot reader or adept of magical science to understand which deck is worth his time and money, and which is not.
After all, the choice is huge, and the resources are not unlimited. Moreover, I would like to begin to understand the Tarot, if not immediately, then after several months of study. There are decks with which this is simply impossible. But first, I'll tell you what's important in decks. Of course, I will not be able to describe all the existing versions of the Tarot in this article, but after reading you should have a fairly complete idea of what they are like.
Briefly about the method
Each of the major arcana of the Tarot is an archetype, a collective image of a force or energy that causes certain changes in your life. Images of earthly and divine parents, the shadow side of personality, inspiring or terrifying images of sexual partners, as well as various signs and symbols of good and bad luck, movement and stagnation, separation and unification - all this relates to the depths of our psyche. Ideally, a Tarot layout is a photograph of a person, his personal history, mentality and an indication of his prospects in this regard. After all, there is no future whose roots are not in the past. And there is no situation that is not indicated in one way or another by some signs, be it in a dream, a vision or an answer from an oracle.
The minor arcana of the Tarot can be compared to the Book of Changes, the I-Ching. They contain signs of a particular situation. Situations follow one another, but if you follow them long enough, you will notice the repetition of situations. The minor arcana are almost an exact copy of a deck of playing cards, with the help of which you can also predict fate, but this prediction will be quite flat: there will be not enough depth and an answer to the question of which archetype dominates the situation.
Each Tarot deck also contains 16 face cards representing people. The meaning of these cards is considered the most complex. On the one hand, they depict a person who is involved in the situation. On the other hand, they can indicate the character traits of the person being told fortunes. These qualities can help or hinder him on his path, depending on the color of the minor arcana.
Truly valuable Tarot decks are distinguished by the fact that they have a strictly ordered system of interpretation. Interpretations are not taken out of thin air and the imagination of the author, but are derived from a finite number of symbols and signs.
In the “correct” decks, all these signs are marked on the cards and help at one time or another during practice to see one of the necessary symbols and apply them in interpretation. The word “correct” is in quotation marks because, on the one hand, almost every magical or tarological school considers only its interpretation to be correct, and on the other hand, each drawn deck has the right to exist within its own boundaries - either for meditation or for personal understanding its author.
In the “correct” decks, each card corresponds to one of the five elements (elements), one of the seven planets and/or a zodiac sign. Each major arcana carries the same information as a deity, which can be found, if desired, in each of the pagan pantheons of antiquity and even in monotheistic religions in the form of the names of god, angels and saints. Therefore, the major arcana have only one meaning: in front of us is either a planet, an element, or a zodiac sign. All these keys are contained in the Rose Cross of the Rosicrucians.
And here is an image of the Rosy Cross, containing all the keys to the Tarot and the occult tradition. On the cross, the central rose consists of petals with one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The Kabbalah is another way of interpreting the Tarot, and knowledge of it is contained in the Sephiroth of the Tree of Life.
Each face card (or court card, as they are also called) is a combination of two elements - for example, fire and air, water and earth. In the best decks, the minor arcana correspond to the planets in the zodiac sign and element.
Tarot card images must take into account correspondences with the elements and planets. They must be of the appropriate color, and their heroes must bear symbols that correspond to the gods of one or more pantheons.
Best decks
Aleister Crowley or Rider-Waite?
Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot deck is a treasure trove of symbols. Compared to other decks, there is much more detail in its major arcana. Its study may take many years, but in the art of prediction you will advance further than those who use simpler decks. You will not depend solely on intuition or the grace of the gods to show you the right cards. You will know their exact decoding. But the deck is certainly not suitable for those who do not want to delve deeply into the nature of the Tarot. This is not a toy or entertainment. The deck holds secret keys to human abilities, and if you are looking for Tarot to just want to tell your fortune at Christmas time, do not take it.
The Rider-Waite deck is also a useful tool for fortune telling and the study of symbolism, and many tarot readers choose it exclusively. In any case, in the depiction of the major arcana, every detail of the image of the central figure carries a symbolic meaning, although there are many orders of magnitude fewer such details than in Crowley.
It is also difficult to trace the system in the interpretation of the minor arcana. For Waite, it is based on a system of fortune telling using ordinary playing cards, while Crowley correlates his minor arcana with the planets in the zodiac sign, calculates the cabalistic meaning, and gives the corresponding hexagrams from the I Ching and geomantic signs. Although the system seems complex at first glance, in the end it is more orderly and logical.
Tarot of Papus and Oswald Wirth
These decks have a different, but rather logical system of correspondences from the previous two decks and, in general, displays important aspects of the archetypes that are embedded in the idea of each of the arcana. They contain quite a lot of symbolism, details, symbols that will help to understand them not flatly and specifically, but in a general way, in order to grasp the meaning for a person of the idea that stands behind them. Several times I have heard the opinion that the predictive power of these decks is quite high. Difficulties can arise only when correlating these cards with Hebrew letters. Also, the numbering of the arcana raises some doubts, but, in theory, this should not greatly affect the predictions.
Decks that are interesting at a certain stage of learning
Marseille Tarot
Drawn quite simply and flatly (there is clearly a lack of color palette), the deck is useful for studying the Tarot as a worldview system for humanity. Without the Tarot of Marseilles, it will be difficult to understand the history of the deck, which slowly but surely changed, without the Tarot of Marseilles, which is an intermediate link between the oldest decks from the time of Visconti and the more modern Papus and Waite ones. However, it is unlikely that it will be possible to fully understand the system of Tarot symbolism and learn the art of prediction from scratch using only this deck.
Tarot of the Order of the Golden Dawn
Suitable for those who are determined to study Jewish-Egyptian magic and Kabbalah. The deck is a reflection of the worldview described in the book by Israel Regardie, “The Complete System of the Order of the Golden Dawn.” It was from this deck that Aleister Crowley drew inspiration when creating his own, although the decks are not very similar to each other. More suitable for the study of symbolism than for prediction. The problem with this deck is that there is little literature on its interpretation, so the decoding of some symbols remains a matter of guesswork.
Tarot Visconti-Sforza
One of the oldest decks that have come down to us. They say that it was assembled from several Milanese decks that were in circulation during the reign of King Visconti. He himself ordered one of them from the artist. The deck contains some important keys that help you better understand the meanings of each of the major arcana.
Tarot Liber T “Stars of Eternity”
Those who like Aleister Crowley's Tarot of Thoth will be interested in studying this deck. The major Arcana are depicted here in less detail, but the minor ones are beautiful because they tell a certain myth that can be useful for their understanding. It is difficult to use this deck for fortune telling, because the interpretation of the minor arcana is not always limited to the myth they tell, but it is very advisable to know it and keep it in mind when using the Thoth Tarot.
Tarot of the Lon by Milo Duquette
This is a deck not for fortune telling, but for magical rituals. In addition to some additions to the symbolism of each arcana, this deck is especially necessary for those who practice Enochian magic, as well as other evocations of spirits, as it contains a system for combining Enochian tablets and spirit sigils with Tarot cards.
Russian Tarot, Egyptian Tarot, Italian Tarot
We see in these decks a pursuit of stylization, which harms the information content of each of the arcana, but this group of decks deserves a few minutes of our attention (provided that the symbolism of the Tarot is already well known to us).
Indeed, the image of Ivanushka the Fool from the Russian Tarot is close in meaning to the Jester from the Thoth Tarot, but this is only one aspect of the idea contained in the lasso. If we are talking about the Egyptian Tarot, then Thoth really perfectly corresponds to the idea of the Magician card, but, firstly, other meanings and ideas that it contains are lost (and which are well revealed if we study several serious decks at the same time), and secondly secondly, the opportunity to combine symbols inherent in the gods of different pantheons is lost.
The most useless decks
"Frivolous" decks
Tarot of gnomes, angels, witches, vampires, etc. In such decks, in pursuit of style, the very versatility of the symbols is lost. Each of the arcana may have only one coincidence with more serious analogues, or may not have it at all. For example, an angel on a card from the Guardian Angels Temperance deck can pour white liquid from one vessel to another, and on the Justice card there will be scales, as in serious decks. But all other matches will be lost.
The fact is that these decks cannot be true: in the Tarot there are simultaneously gnomes, witches, and angels - but they are not the main characters, but only accompany secret and multifaceted symbols, which are best depicted in the form of human figures ( as in Waite and Visconti) or in the form of impersonal deities (as in Crowley). The main thing in the Tarot is an archetype that can be described with the help of symbols, and no dwarves themselves are able to do this without leaving a trace of their “dwarven” energy, if such is even possible.
Standing a little apart are such decks as Madame Lenormand cards, Osho Zen Tarot, Tarot Manara, as well as many designer decks. The fact is that at one of the degrees of initiation, each magician must draw his own deck. There are too many designer decks to list here. Lenormand cards and most of the author's decks are more like solitaire for fortune-telling, rather than a serious generally accepted (at least within one of the schools) system of correspondences. In principle, you can tell fortunes using coffee grounds, animal entrails, and Lenormand cards. But fortune telling on the Osho Zen Tarot is hardly possible. These are more of a meditation card. The only thing we don’t know is why such cards are called Tarot?
Tarot of Hieronymus Bosch, Sandro Botticelli, etc.
These decks don't work at all. They are even worse than the previous type, because modern compilers simply took them out of the paintings of various characters and placed them on the lassos. For example, the real Pope from Botticelli’s painting “The Temptation of Christ” migrated to the Hierophant (High Priest, Pope) map. Venus from the painting “Birth of Venus” - on the Empress card. But Tarot is different in that color matches and various details are important. If Bosch or Botticelli painted their popes and empresses without wanting to compare them with certain arcana (often their goal was to ridicule a certain person in power or talk about an impending coup), then the Tarot from such pictures simply will not work. After all, in the Tarot there are not specific popes and empresses - they are collective images that carry such depth that can never be represented by a specific person. Well, in general, artists who draw Tarot at least think about the Tarot and the symbolic figures that need to be depicted, whereas in the case of artists’ Tarot, ready-made figures are pulled onto the lasso (read - pulled by the ears).
The exception is Giger's Tarot, who, in any case, participated in the creation of the deck. But this deck is too specific and is hardly suitable for everyday use.
Sequence of studying maps
First, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the Rider-Waite Tarot. It is the most popular, and you have probably already seen it. Then it makes sense to look at the Visconti-Sforza Tarot to see that the Tarot has its own unique history. Then you should purchase Aleister Crowley's Tarot of Thoth and books on its interpretation and delve into the history of occult symbolism. After a fairly intense strain of your brain and putting the symbolism of the Tarot into a certain system, you can quickly study all the other Tarot decks (except for the most useless ones).
After some time, you will see for yourself how well you can distinguish serious decks from frivolous ones, useful from useless ones, and also decide which system of correspondence and school of interpretation is closer to you.
The Waite Tarot is the most popular deck created by the famous mystic Arthur Edward Waite in 1910 and has rightfully been called a classic for decades. The author carefully and skillfully continued the tradition of the ancient original Tarots of Italy and France, and the artist Pamela Colman-Smith illustrated the arcana, based on Waite's instructions and sketches.
Italian illustrator Roberto De Angelis, inspired by the work of Weist and Colman-Smith, has recreated their Tarot in a slightly more modern style. Tarot readers call his deck the “Universal Tarot” and recommend it to both beginners and professionals.
Given improved edition of the Universal Tarot created specifically for those who tell fortunes a lot and constantly - professional tarot readers and all those who often and persistently practice divination. The cards are flexible and smooth, easy to shuffle, and large in size, which is extremely convenient for professional fortune-telling, when the tarot reader points the querent to the symbols and images of the arcana and interprets them for him. Also, the large size of the cards is indispensable when giving lectures or conducting group meditations. The cards are coated with a reinforced varnish coating so that they retain their original appearance for a long time even with intensive use.
In addition to the deck of cards, the kit includes instructions in several languages.
IMPRESSIONS FROM THE BOOK
CHRISTINE JETT
“Tarot for professionals. Opening your own business"
The book is very smart. In my opinion, the main idea sounded in it: Tarot as a business is the same business as everyone else, and requires the same attitude. At different times I opened three fortune telling offices. The first and second time I went bankrupt, the third time my office prospered. After the second ruin, I wondered what I was doing wrong. I'm good at fortune telling, but nevertheless I'm a wreck. The answer turned out to be simple: I was a good lead specialist and a terrible administrator. Kristin Jett's book looks at both sides of this process.
Of course, we must take into account that this is a book by an American woman, and many American realities are poorly applicable or not applicable at all in our conditions. Jett's fortune telling session has much in common with a psychoanalysis session, in which both participants are well aware of their roles, rights and responsibilities. But in America, psychoanalysis has been around since the 30s of the last century, and here, even today, it does not flourish in every district of the capital. And here a lot depends on the personal skill of the tarot reader: how much he can build a constructive dialogue with the client. The second striking difference: the difference in the internal positions of our and American clients. Jett describes clients who are ready to actively change their lives and take control of the process. The majority of my clients were and are Shudras, “residents of the outskirts”, firmly convinced that their life flows along a predetermined channel, so there is no problem in seeing in the cards that the girl will get married on May 8, at 17.00, her husband’s name will be Vanya , and he will work as a driver. Okay, at least not with slate...
Jett pays a lot of attention to payment issues. Credit cards, internet payments, etc. It may be relevant for the capital, but it is completely unimportant for the outback. However, the book does a good job of describing a comprehensive approach to setting up a Tarot business that would have allowed me to avoid many of the administrative mistakes early in my career. Actually, organizing and running a tarot business is no different from organizing and running any other business. And for me in my work, the most difficult thing was the realization of the fact that I do not help people, but sell my services. Jett emphasizes this many times in his book.
Jett's advice on how to become a good Tarot professional is no better or worse than the advice of other authors. The main emphasis is on practice and reflection on one’s activities. As they say, you can’t argue.
Some things make you smile: for example, the advice to call a friend to inform him where you have come and when you are going to leave if the session is taking place on the client’s premises. It’s somehow difficult for me to imagine my concern for security issues in such a situation.
Jett gives very good advice not to argue with the client and discuss the issue of a refund in advance. When, how much and under what conditions are you ready to return. Being a politically correct American, she is not aware of the enormous power of the secret mantra "NHH", but nothing can be done about it.
When you carefully read the book, you get the image of Jett as a calm, intelligent professional, restrained in expressing his emotions, as a real, in my opinion, Tarot master should behave.
Creatively rethought in relation to Russian realities and one’s own capabilities, Christine Jett’s advice on organizing a tarot business will be useful not only for beginners. At least I didn't regret the time I spent on this book.
