When reading tarot cards, many decks have been designed through the years, adding imagery that personalizes a deck for a specific purpose or trade. A great selection of styles and artistry has emerged, some with highly regional attributes and properties affiliated with the area where the cards were produced.
One of the most significant decks, when reading tarot cards among the English-speaking countries, is the Rider-Waite deck, often just referred to as the Rider deck. The Rider deck was first published in 1909. Among the French-speaking population, when using the cards , the Marseilles deck is the most famous and widely used. The Tarot de Marseilles employed a basic pattern, which many studied to create their own designs. A particularly popular Marseilles design dates back to 1760. The Marseilles decks usually incorporate recurring patterns on pip cards, while the Rider-Waite decks depict full scenes, when reading tarot cards.
Another regional deck is the Swiss one. reding this deck, the High Priestess and the Hierophant are replaced by Juno or Jupiter cards. In one particular tarot deck designed in Florence, Italy, there are 96 cards instead of the normal tarot deck of 78 when reading tarot cards. This version, the Minchiate, includes astrological symbols in its set of cards.
Aleister Crowley is known for his Thoth Tarot deck of cards, for which he employed Lady Frieda Harris to paint the images. Crowley instructed Lady Harris on how he wished the images to be portrayed. When reading tarot cards, Crowley’s Thoth Tarot deck heightens the visual experience of the cards and is widely regarded as the most sophisticated deck ever printed.
Contrasting the brilliant colors and visual experience of Crowley’s tarot deck designs are the black-and-white line prints of Paul Foster Case’s B.O.T.A. (Builders of the Adytum). this deck style is intended for the recipient of the deck to color his or her own interpretations in and among the black-and-white lines.
When reading tarot cards, modern decks grow each year in variety and seem almost endless. The Tarot of the Cat People is especially designed for cat lovers. The Tarot of Baseball replaces the traditional suits with baseball bats, baseballs, baseball mitts (or gloves), and the bases in the game. The Silicon Valley Tarot incorporates such personalities as The Hacker, The Layoff, The Garage, and Flame War into its Major Arcana cards . The suit cards in The Silicon Valley Tarot include Cubicles, Networks, Disks, and Hosts. The Robin Wood Tarot deck when reading tarot cards keeps a lot of the Rider deck themes but adds some colorful Pagan symbolism to the artistry of the card’s images.
the images on the cards can vary and are open to each individual’s interpretation. The basic meanings of the cards remain the same when reading tarot cards, even if interpreted within a wide range of understanding.