For those Dopers who use a Tarot deck or Tarot decks, which one is your favorite and why?
Mine used to be the Robin Wood Tarot deck (link to Aeclectic.com, link to Amazon.com). The depictions (even in the Minor Arcana) are very well done and bring out the meaning of the card without the reader having to resort all the time to the small handbook with the interpretations of the cards. (I haven’t worked with Tarot cards for so long that I’ll need to see if I still feel a connection with them.)
The Tarot deck I was thinking of was the Robin Wood when I clicked on this thread. I use it more for questions on mundane issues, specifically because of it’s artful depiction of the Minor Arcana.
For more complicated love and spiritual issues, I use The Lover’s Tarot
The imagery makes sense to me. It always makes complicated or confusing issues more transparent and managable.
I also use the Rider Waite with varying frequency and success.
I haven’t read in a long time, mainly because of my two decks, one doesn’t work for me and the other is missing a card. The one I liked was the Mythic Tarot. All the images are related to Greek mythology to help you remember the meanings of the cards. I also liked it because I study mythology a bit as a hobby.
I have a number of decks, but my favorite is [rurl=http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/voyager/]Voyager, mainly because the cards are so detailed and unusually beautiful. They are fairly large too, which is a bonus for me.
Hee. The Stick Figure Tarot was my first tarot deck, too – mostly because the concept suited my personality right down to the ground. Theoretically all correct, but in practice, mugging the concept and running off with the goods, giggling all the way. I knew he quit making those, but I didn’t know how many there were, exactly.
I also have the first printing of the Vertigo tarot by Dave McKean and the companion book written by Rachel Pollack. I should dig out them again sometime – I haven’t looked at either in a dog’s age, but I got 'em because I enjoy McKean’s work, plus the bonus tie-in to Neil Gaiman’s oeuvre. If I could find my way around the camera/computer tools as well as he could, I’d be in seventh heaven.
The Robin Wood Tarot is one of Pepper Mill’s favorites becase she’s good friend of Robin’s, and she actually posed for two of the cards in the deck! (Her face doesn’t show, though. We do have a drawing by Robin of Pepper Holding a Griffin up in our living room that does show her face.)
Another deck Pepper likes is the Morgan’s Tarot Deck, since it’s so untraditional and thoroughly off-the-wall.
Pepper’s got quite a large collection of Tarot decks. THe one I like best is the New York Tarot, in which each card is a photograph taken in New York City. I’m a big NYC fan, so I’m partial to it. Plus, it’s interesting to see which landmark they used for each image. Strength, for instance, has Quentin Crisp posing under one of the lions in front of the NY Public Library on 42nd street.
Another vote for the Morgan’s Tarot Deck. I have been using it for years. I like how it tends to slap you upside the head with its answers sometimes. And it has the “Doo-wacky-doo” card, which you gotta love.
I quit pulling them out at Waffle House in a hurry, though, after this one waitress wouldn’t shut up about calling me ‘Miss Cleo’.
Sacred Circle is my favorite. The imagery is lovely, and the cards are big enough for my wussy little hands to shuffle. I use it most of the time. I was given the Witches Tarot as a gift, and I keep it in my travel bag. I have never used them for divination, per se, but as a tool to help me think through many aspects of a given situation. They have also helped me make a few bucks here and there. Total strangers want a detailed reading? Sure, $5.