Alright, let’s talk about my time messing around with the Marseille Tarot cards. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and decided this was the deck. I’d been using the usual Rider-Waite style decks for ages, you know, the ones with pictures on every card telling a story.
But I kept seeing these Marseille decks pop up. They looked kinda raw, old-school. Less hand-holding with the pictures, especially on the numbered cards, the pips. Mostly just the symbols – cups, swords, coins, batons – arranged there. Honestly, they looked difficult. But something about them pulled me in. Curiosity, I guess. Maybe I was a bit bored too.
Getting Started
So, I decided to just grab one. Didn’t spend ages picking the “perfect” version. Found a pretty standard, affordable one that looked clear enough. When it arrived, opening it up felt… different. The colours were starker, the lines bolder. Less dreamy than the decks I was used to. Holding the cards, they felt sturdy, like tools.
First flip-through? Yeah, those pip cards. Just patterns of swords or coins. My first thought was, “How the heck am I supposed to read these?” No little scenes of people doing stuff to give you clues. It felt like jumping into the deep end.
The Practice – Or Trying To
I didn’t really follow a specific book at first. I figured, let me just sit with them. I started by just looking at one card each day. Really looking. Noticing the details, the colours, the way the lines felt.
Then I tried simple pulls. One card for the day. Then maybe three cards – past, present, future, or situation, action, outcome. Simple stuff.
- Shuffling: Felt different too. Less about gentle mixing, more like really working the cards.
- Looking at Pips: I started focusing on the number and the suit energy. Like, okay, Four of Swords. Four feels stable, maybe stuck. Swords are about thoughts, conflict. So, maybe feeling mentally stuck or needing a mental pause? That kind of logic.
- Court Cards: These felt a bit more familiar, but still very direct. Less personality, more about social roles or types of energy.
- Major Arcana: These felt powerful, stark. Less complex maybe, but hitting harder.
It was slow going. Really slow. Some days I’d pull cards and just draw a blank. Especially with combinations of those pip cards. Felt like looking at abstract art sometimes and trying to make a concrete story.
Figuring Things Out
What helped was stopping trying to make them like RWS cards. I realised I had to meet the Marseille deck on its own terms. I started paying more attention to:
- The direction things were pointing.
- The colours used and where.
- The overall flow and pattern in a spread, not just individual card meanings.
- How the numbers felt – odd numbers felt more active, even numbers more passive. Simple observations like that.
I also started reading less about specific meanings and more about the structure – the suits, the numbers, the flow through the Major Arcana. It became less about memorizing meanings and more about learning a visual language. It felt more intuitive after a while, but it was an intuition I had to build up through sheer practice and looking.
Where I’m At Now
So, do I use the Marseille deck all the time now? Nope. I still use my other decks too. But working with the Marseille definitely changed how I read all tarot cards. It made me look closer at the basics – suit, number, image composition – even on fully illustrated cards.
It feels more direct, sometimes brutally honest. Less psychological maybe, more focused on the situation’s structure and energy. It’s a different tool, good for different things. It took effort, and honestly, it was frustrating sometimes. But pushing through that and finding my own way to connect with those stark images felt pretty rewarding. It’s like learning an old, slightly grumpy language, but one that tells it like it is.
