Tarot With A Spanish Deck, another variation Options

Greetings,

Ive been reading some posts and have come across certain variations (Faustian, Thoth etc.), my question is...is the Spanish deck used for tarot just as good as any other?

The Spanish Deck or “Baraja” as opposed to the French Deck or “poker deck” is the lesser archana. It is swords wands coins and cups. It is used to play many really cool games that I miss incredibly since returning to the US.

Now Back to the point…can you use them for Tarot…Short answer “Yes” but without the Major Archana it is not Tarot.

Long answer, “no not really” there are many reasons why, mainly for me it is a question of the symbolism. Most playing decks do not have anything other then the items represented. There is no image of flying sticks for the 8 of wands, or images of fancy in the 7 of cups.

Ultimately it depends what you are doing, in most cases for me, Tarot is more about the feeling I get from the card in that place of the arrangement then the “book” definition.

In a card like the 9 of swords, in most decks, you immediately upon seeing it get the concept of nightmares. General meaning in the card is worry for worries sake, or worrying to an overwhelming degree, where it is affecting the person being read about in a bad way. However based on other things like the 9 of pentacles (usually meaning maternal comfort, or solitary wealth and so on) being right before it… could mean that your mother in law coming to live with you is going to drive you insane. Or any other woman of solitary stature.

You cannot gather that with the Spanish Deck…however you cannot get that from some tarot decks because the depictions of the cards are very different thus the meaning changes.

However, I think the Spanish deck would be great as Flash cards to memorize definitions. And if used that way you could use them for divination. However your take on the 7 of swords, 6 of swords and the ace of swords will be totally screwed up, if you play “truco” a lot, not to mention the other cards.

That Said, you can usually use the Tarot Decks (though they cost a lot more) to play any of the Spanish deck games. However many occultists/new agers would freak out. Depending on my mood I would do it just for that.

Hope that helps