Examples of Tarot Decks
There are hundreds of Tarot decks out there each one depicting the archetypal images in the style of the artist who created them.
Kathleen had asked each of us to bring a specific deck of Tarot cards to the class, the Morgan-Greer Tarot deck, which was sold at a local metaphysical shop. Today this deck can easily be purchased online.
Cards from the Morgan-Greer Tarot Deck (X of Swords & The Moon)
Kathleen knew the meaning of the cards by the specific images shown on the Morgan- Greer deck so if we were to learn her method we needed to have this particular deck. She even had a few extra boxes on hand for purchase if someone hadn’t been able to find the deck beforehand. I vaguely remember that she learned this method of reading Tarot from a woman sometime ago but the details escape me. The Morgan-Greer Tarot deck is a very pretty, renaissance-style deck and it is similar to the more popular Rider-Waite Tarot deck.
Cards from the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck (X of Swords & The Moon)
Kathleen taught this class to us in person and all in one day! One of the reasons she wanted us all to use the same deck was because these are the cards she knew how to read and if she were going to help us with our readings later in the day she needed to be able to look at the cards she knew. If anyone had decided to bring a different deck of Tarot cards to the class she would not have been able to interpret them visually, and therefore not be able to help that person decipher their readings.
My intention is to teach Kathleen’s method in the same way she taught us that day. It may take you a day to learn or it may take you much longer, it’s up to you. If you are interested in learning this technique of reading Tarot cards then I recommend you use the Morgan-Greer Deck. If you have your heart set on a different Tarot deck you should be able to learn this technique using it as well, it just may be a little cumbersome as I will be giving explanations of each card, and doing example readings, using the Morgan-Greer Deck.
Tool Kit for the Soul 
Everything I know about Tarot I learned from a James Bond movie. It was an early Roger Moore vehicle called Live and Let Die (1973). Jane Seymour was his love interest. She played a priestess of some sort who told the future using Tarot cards. Her boss, a villainous drug lord, played brilliantly by Yaphet Kotto. Set largely in occult infested Louisiana it was an over the top, action packed Bond movie, I’ve probably seen it six or seven times.
Now, I don’t know if I was just an overly sex-obsessed 13 year-old with a severe Jane Seymour infatuation or if I was truly interested in Tarot, but in either event I came across, and bought, an officially licensed James Bond, Live and Let Die Tarot deck. It was cool. I loved the illustrations and I made a half hearted attempt to understand how to use them. Well, the knowledge never stuck and I have no idea what happened to that deck of Tarot cards, but If I come across them I will bring them to Peet’s for show and tell.
As I read your blog on learning to use Tarot cards, this is largely what I think of. This Bond movie. I suspected there was more than one version of Tarot cards, but do these different versions lead to different interpretations? No, I think not. But that is certainly the case given different versions of the bible. One gets a different interpretation from a King James version versus the NIV. It seems to me there is only one way to use a Tarot deck and interpretations do not differ simply because the illustrations do. That fact that this is not the case for bibles is sort of telling about religion overall.
I will proceed to the next chapter of your Tarot tutorial. I am now getting interested to know exactly how you use the deck. As I recall from my Live and Let Die Tarot instructions, you can lay down the cards in different patterns. Whether a card is presented upright or inverted does make a difference in what the card says. That’s perhaps the extent of my Tarot knowledge, so these tutorials will really help me get a better grasp of how it works.
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