Problem with qabalah in the tarot

[Emma Eldritch]

I've been working with tarot cards on and off, for about a year now.  I feel as though I have hit a wall.  As much as I believe the tarot could be an extremely effective tool for several reasons, I am simply not responding to them mentally.  I recently read The 78 degrees of Wisdom, among other books, and I am starting to think that the tarots qabalistic symbolism is...repelling me...I have a bit of a long and arduous history with abrahamic religions and am at the point where they are "salt to my spiritual slug", so to speak.  What I am wondering is this; does anyone else struggle with the qabalistic/jewish symbols that prevail throughout the tarot?  I hate to give up, but I am pretty sure you can't force divination to work and gain any true wisdom from it.

P.s. Yes, I stepped into the tarot with all the wrong ideas (simple formula based fortune telling), but slowly taught myself the facts from the fictions.

 
A'ight. Just as some background... I started reading tarot when I was fifteen. I'm 31 now. For probably... eleven of those years? Qabalah was one of those things that I knew was vaguely connected to the tarot, but that I never really gave a crap about. I, like you, got into tarot for "simple formula based fortune telling." (Which I don't think is a bad thing at all. Shit, 90% of the people you're ever going to read for don't want to hear about their spiritual issues. They want money and looove answers.) I honestly just never really noticed much connection between it and the Qabalah, because at that stage in my development I wasn't reading Hermetic literature. It was the late 90s - I was into Wicca 101. XD

I spent my adolescence in the Bible Belt, and I had a pretty knee-jerk reaction to Judeo-Christian stuff as a result. My first deck was a really goddamn ugly variation on the tarot of Marseilles, so that wasn't a big deal, and after that I got... jeez, probably the Vampire deck? I was gother-than-thou, so that sounds cheesy enough to be likely...

Anyway. My point is that the nice thing about tarot decks is that there are so many you can find something that's not dripping with Judeo-Christian imagery if it bothers you. You can avoid it by finding the right deck.

Like... okay. I own the Vertigo deck. It's my hands-down favourite deck ever. The imagery is from comic books. The Hierophant isn't some pope-lookin dude... it's Morpheus, from Sandman. Are the meanings the same? Oh sure, in a lot of ways. But it's not like if I'm reading the Thoth deck, where virtually every card is screaming, "MAP ME ONTO THE TREE OF LIIIIFE!"  You know? I see Morpheus, and my nerd brain associates with that and not a mystical system I may not follow.

So, if it's just like a bad allergic reaction to Judeo-Christian stuff but you wanna stick with tarot? Peruse the hell out of aecletic.net to find a deck that resonates with you.

And you know, you can always just ignore the books. That's how my mom and sister learned to read cards. Hell, my mom reads professionally and she still couldn't tell you a thing about the Qabalah.

[Laveth]

But it's not like if I'm reading the Thoth deck, where virtually every card is screaming, "MAP ME ONTO THE TREE OF LIIIIFE!"  

 

Lool, seconded! hahaha

[Emma Eldritch]

Lool, seconded! hahaha

 
There's a reason I try not to read the Thoth when drunk. It turns into a rambling discourse on oh my god this is what four means, dude all this Chesed stuff when some poor girl is like, "I just asked about my new job..."

[Laveth]

There's a reason I try not to read the Thoth when drunk. It turns into a rambling discourse on oh my god this is what four means, dude all this Chesed stuff when some poor girl is like, "I just asked about my new job..."

 
I picked up the deck and the explanatory text with it just to see what all the fuss was about... I was not impressed in the slightest. Three magicians? I get the reasoning for having 3, but still...

It's like trying to read a 4 dimensional road map when you don't even really want to get to where it's telling you to go..  :eek:

[Haugatysja]

 I am not giving up, but I will have to broaden my view points on tarot and divination in general before I go on.  Problem is that the internet can be such a wasteland of crumby information and full of instant professionals.  I have been looking into Oracle decks and they seem to be pretty interesting, and more accessible to different views and traditions.

This might have been mentioned before (I haven't read the whole thread), but maybe a more intuitive approach to the tarot would be better than an analytical one. There are decks where the LWB is not very helpful, which makes it necessary to understand the cards in terms of personal symbolism as opposed to general tarot symbolism. Someone mentioned the Lenormand, it's a great system. Though my experience of Tarot vs Lenormand is that tarot focuses on inner spiritual themes, while Lenormand is good for outer, material questions. I hope it's ok to post links:
 
This Lenormand style deck is one of my favourites
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/mystical-lenormand/

The Playing Card Oracles by Ana Cortez is a great system of divination, I particularly like that she uses geomancy. Here's a review of the deck and companion book:
http://bonniecehovet.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/the-playing-card-oracles/

Here's a deck that doesn't follow typical tarot symbolism:
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/circle-of-life/

And another one:
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/sidhe/

I would also recommend Paul Husons deck and book, where he writes extensively about the history of the tarot. He also writes about different traditions of interpretation and influences, like; egyptian magic and the Book of Thoth, Etteilla's system, Kabbala, Golden Dawn and Papus, and also gives suggested interpretations:
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/books/mystical-origins-tarot/
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/dame-fortunes-wheel/

I hope some of this is helpful