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What deck(s) do you use and why?
Do you think individual decks (instances of the same design) have their own personalities - like, do you expect your copy of Rider-Waite to behave differently from my copy of Rider-Waite?
Do you use different decks for different readings?
Do you put the Crowley and Waite decks together and shake the jar to see if they'll fight? (Don't laugh, I've heard of people doing it.)
Does a deck work better if you receive it as a gift than if you buy it? Is it necessary, or unthinkable, to steal your deck? (All positions I've heard people advocate seriously.)
These days I mostly use the Manara Erotic tarot. Probably an unusual choice - I think that deck was primarily designed as an "art" deck rather than for serious divinatory use - but I've found that it seems to work well for me, even for the non-sex-related reading I usually do. There are a lot of things in the design of that deck that I think could either be very clever, insightful choices on the part of the designer, or else just random stuff he did for artistic reasons on which I'm imposing my own tarot-related assumptions. For instance, I like how the Knights are all female; that nicely solves the imbalance a lot of people object to in the court cards (three men and one woman per suit, in traditional decks) in a way that I think is definitely right for this particular deck. I also like the skinny Empress - it's a clever way to update the card image to the modern setting.
I also have a Rider-Waite deck I use when I do readings in public. It's familiar and non-scary to most people, and it's cheap and easy to replace so it doesn't really matter if it gets dirty or ruined in the places I take it.
I rarely use my copy of the Crowley Thoth deck. It doesn't seem to speak to me as well as some of the others. I feel like it speaks in the voice of its designer (metaphorically - I don't believe in tarot working by a "channeling" mechanism to any spiritual being other than my own unconscious mind) and most of the time I don't need to hear what Crowley has to say on any given subject. Smug bastard. I do really like the book he wrote about it, though, partly because of its random and uneven nature. He'll write ten pages about one card, then half a paragraph about another, and then oh look it's five pages of drug visions, and then back to the list of individual cards...
I have a whole bunch of other decks, most of which seldom see much use.
Do you think individual decks (instances of the same design) have their own personalities - like, do you expect your copy of Rider-Waite to behave differently from my copy of Rider-Waite?
Do you use different decks for different readings?
Do you put the Crowley and Waite decks together and shake the jar to see if they'll fight? (Don't laugh, I've heard of people doing it.)
Does a deck work better if you receive it as a gift than if you buy it? Is it necessary, or unthinkable, to steal your deck? (All positions I've heard people advocate seriously.)
These days I mostly use the Manara Erotic tarot. Probably an unusual choice - I think that deck was primarily designed as an "art" deck rather than for serious divinatory use - but I've found that it seems to work well for me, even for the non-sex-related reading I usually do. There are a lot of things in the design of that deck that I think could either be very clever, insightful choices on the part of the designer, or else just random stuff he did for artistic reasons on which I'm imposing my own tarot-related assumptions. For instance, I like how the Knights are all female; that nicely solves the imbalance a lot of people object to in the court cards (three men and one woman per suit, in traditional decks) in a way that I think is definitely right for this particular deck. I also like the skinny Empress - it's a clever way to update the card image to the modern setting.
I also have a Rider-Waite deck I use when I do readings in public. It's familiar and non-scary to most people, and it's cheap and easy to replace so it doesn't really matter if it gets dirty or ruined in the places I take it.
I rarely use my copy of the Crowley Thoth deck. It doesn't seem to speak to me as well as some of the others. I feel like it speaks in the voice of its designer (metaphorically - I don't believe in tarot working by a "channeling" mechanism to any spiritual being other than my own unconscious mind) and most of the time I don't need to hear what Crowley has to say on any given subject. Smug bastard. I do really like the book he wrote about it, though, partly because of its random and uneven nature. He'll write ten pages about one card, then half a paragraph about another, and then oh look it's five pages of drug visions, and then back to the list of individual cards...
I have a whole bunch of other decks, most of which seldom see much use.
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What deck(s) do you use and why?
I've only been studying Tarot for about a year. In that time, I've acquired a small (but ever-expanding) hoard of decks, partly in search of the perfect deck (still searching) and partly because I love getting 78 pieces of art for between 20 and 30 bucks. My main reading deck is the Robin Wood, which is gorgeous and luminous and very friendly to beginners. My only complaint with it is that this deck has the standard elemental associations wherein Wands = Fire and Swords - Air. This has never made sense to me, but while I have found decks that equate Wands with Air and Swords with Fire, which does make sense to me, I haven't found a traditional RWS-style deck that does so.
I use the Hanson-Roberts and the Universal Waite as study aids to help me become more familiar with the standard iconography. I also use the Voyager deck when I want to stretch a bit, and I love the Tarot of the Magical Forest, and Zach Wong's amazing Revelations Tarot, which is awesome for working with reversals as each card is "double-ended, with an upright and reversed image merging in the center of the card". I have a pile of other decks, but I don't use them as often.
Do you think individual decks (instances of the same design) have their own personalities - like, do you expect your copy of Rider-Waite to behave differently from my copy of Rider-Waite?
I'd never really thought about that. I do think that the way I handle a deck and the energy I put into it changes it, so in that vein, I guess my Waite would probably be a little different from yours. I think this has a lot more to do with the reader and zir relationship with the cards than with an inherent value in the cards themselves. They seem to start out in a pretty neutral state. Then again, the only second-hand cards I've had have been gifts from a friend who energetically cleansed them before giving them to me. I have a used deck on order. Maybe that'll feel different?
Do you use different decks for different readings?
Mostly, I'm sticking with the Robin Wood, although I find that the Tarot of the Magical Forest is really good for readings about dreams or issues of imagination and Voyager is good when I need a very different way of looking at something. The Voyager Tarot is a bit beyond me for everyday, but it's awesome in small doses.
Do you put the Crowley and Waite decks together and shake the jar to see if they'll fight? (Don't laugh, I've heard of people doing it.)
Heee! This is the first time I've ever been tempted to buy the Crowley deck! I wonder if I can achieve similar effects by putting the Waite and Hello Kitty Tarot together? I'll be spending the next week entertaining wildly inappropriate speculation on the effects of putting the Manara Erotic and Gummy Bears together and shaking the jar. ^_^
Does a deck work better if you receive it as a gift than if you buy it? Is it necessary, or unthinkable, to steal your deck? (All positions I've heard people advocate seriously.)
I've been given several decks by generous friends, and I've really liked them all, but I've had the best results with decks that I've chosen regardless of whether I've bought them for myself or received them as gifts.
It's unthinkable, unethical, magically and spiritually stupid, and just gross to steal a deck. I can't imagine using a tool as powerful as the Tarot that I've tainted from the beginning. Buying a deck is not just an exchange of money, but an exchange of energy as well, a gift for a gift, coin for cards. If I like a deck enough to want to own it, I better save my pennies and support the creators of the deck. Gods know the artists get precious little by the time everyone else gets their cut.