Hello there, my lovely! I'm Duchess Pearce, a practising witch, and reader of tarot, oracle, and runes! On this blog, you'll find reviews of decks, the occasional DIY project, and anything else divinatory.
When I first started reading tarot half a decade ago I started with a generic Marseille deck (so generic that I cannot tell you who even produced it, and the box is right on my shelf) and i just couldn’t get into it. I had no connection to it, and I have discovered in later years, that Marseille just isn’t for me. I like my pictures, thank you. Anyway, despite this lack of connection with that deck, I felt a pull towards tarot, and later, I found out about the Rider Waite Smith deck, and that many hundreds of decks had been created based on that system, in all shapes, sizes, and levels of “seriousness” (this is a chat for another time).
It was about this time that I found that I connected to some decks better than others, and that the same is true for other people. For example, Arwen Lynch’s first deck (first deck she connected with, check out the link for a wonderful interview with her by Ember Honeyraven for that full story and a lot more besides!) was the Herbal Tarot. My sister adores that deck, and she reads with it with ease. So, I had a go with it and… Nope. Total wall. Can’t do it. Can’t get anything from it. But people are different, and it’s not a fault with the deck nor me, our energies just don’t work together.
At time of writing, I own 6 tarot decks (and I have 2 travelling to me, expect to see reviews on them!) and even with such a small number of decks, I have decks I don’t turn to as often as others. I reach for the Alchemy Gothic Tarot (a Marseille deck) for Hallowe’en parties, as its spookiness is perfect for the time of year, and for entertaining. But none of this surprised me, different decks have different feels and moods, so depending on mine, I’ll reach for certain decks over others.
What has surprised me, however, is that I cannot use all decks for everyone.
When I was doing my test reading for AsktheAnswer, I used my go-to deck, The Mystical Cats Tarot (pictured above with four pieces of Tigers Eye), because I have such a strong connection with it, and it’s very soothing for stressful moments like that one. However, I found it damn near impossible to read it for him. It wasn’t that I couldn’t at all, but it was a real struggle, which through me somewhat. I’d never had any problems from my kittens before, so why now?
For my phone clients since, I’ve been using the Rider Waite Smith deck for my phone clients, and I’ve found that I’ve had no problems whatsoever, and works for my phone clients more than any other deck I have. As a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about why this might be.
My first thought is that I think that when you make a very personal connection with a deck, the deck wants to be used for you, and no one else. Like a duckling imprinting on the first creature it sees, a deck imprints on the people it reads for. And since my Cats have been guiding me and my sister pretty much exclusively since I got it, it doesn’t want to be used for someone else. Since I don’t read for myself very often with the RWS, it doesn’t have that same very personal connection.
Another theory I have is that because the RWS deck is THE deck, it’s a Jack of all trades deck. Because whilst I usually read the Cats for myself, on and around the Sabbats I gravitate towards the Green Witch Tarot, or for quicker, less in depth spreads, I’ll pick up The Major Victoriana deck. I don’t ever really reach for the RWS because of this; it has no ties to anything, nothing that it can do for me that other decks won’t do better. Obviously, I’m not saying that the RWS is a bad deck, it’s just that I’m always drawn elsewhere.
Jumping off from that, because the RWS is so impersonal, it can be used for anyone. Of course, I connect with all my clients, but without prior knowledge of them, who they are and what they like, I can’t inflict a certain theme on them. What if my client hates cats?! (Cat haters are out there, I don’t know how, but they exist.) In fact, as it happens, the charming gentleman who conducted my test reading had 9 rescue dogs, and maybe that’s part of the reason my cats didn’t want to talk with him.
But, what do you think? I’d love to hear more from other readers on this. Do you find some decks work for some people that won’t work for others? Do you have a specific deck that’s only for you? And what about those who have their cards read? Do you care about what deck they use, or are you more concerned with them getting the message?
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