I have a deck, but I rarely use it lately, after my mom cornered me and made me do a reading for her.
I still love my cards, though, and would like to be able to do it again, though I wasn't always great.

Aw, naturally this thread has to open up while I'm rushing to get out of the house to go on vacation   I'll contribute when I get back!

this is kind of inspiring, to see so many other people who read!
er... i just remembered the name of my deck. it doesn't have the box anymore, so i couldn't remember. it's the Robin Wood deck. i think it's beautiful. i also have the slightly strange habit of sniffing them, because i love the way they smell.  "<<

the Lunatic Deck is nice, too. i'd never seen it before now.

Alithea wrote:

I also really like the X/1999 deck I have, becuase it was a gift, and as such holds...a certain different feeling.

I have the same deck. Shit yeah.

My only issue is that the pictures used for the Minor Arcana have nothing to do with the card meanings. It's a doujinshi deck, and I can't help but feel that the authors just slapped any random artbook picture onto the cards they felt like, as long as the swords cards had swords in them. But I LOVE the Majors. CLAMP did those illustrations specifically for a Tarot deck, so they fit beautifully.

Seishirou is one hot Death.

Yes, indeed, those. My all-time favorite manga is Tokyo Babylon, and I was utterly OBSESSED with that and X in high school. Subaru/Seishirou OTP.

Hiraku wrote:

Trench Kamen wrote:

Yes, indeed, those. My all-time favorite manga is Tokyo Babylon, and I was utterly OBSESSED with that and X in high school. Subaru/Seishirou OTP.

X was my fave back in high school, especially during my junior year when I was OFFICIALLY OBSESSED with everything CLAMP does.

Back on topic, though, I love tarot readings, but I can never understand what the purpose of the Minor is. Anyone cares to enlighten me? (I remembered Hyacinth did a reading for me long time ago)

I read somewhere that Tarot was originally used just to play cards, so the Minor Arcana would be the equivalent of a regular deck of cards. 'Course, I was reading this on Wikipedia, so I could be wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_arcana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot

...

Subaru and Seishirou are very, very pretty together.

i'm not sure if you guys are aware of it, but there IS an Utena Tarot. it only consists of the Major Arcana, though.
and, while searching around for it, i came across this, as well: The Ohtori Tarot

Hiraku wrote:

Back on topic, though, I love tarot readings, but I can never understand what the purpose of the Minor is. Anyone cares to enlighten me? (I remembered Hyacinth did a reading for me long time ago)[/color]

My understanding -- which, according to one school of thought, is as good as anyone's, since the cards' meaning is specific to the reader and the querent -- is that the Minor Arcana is smaller and more specific than the Major Arcana.  For example, if you drew the Devil (a Major Arcana card) in a position corresponding to your past, I'm going to be prone to infer that bondage (to yourself or to others) has been a defining theme of your life to date, that much of the narrative of your life can be understood as a struggle between you and the forces that keep you from realizing your potential.  On the other hand, if you draw the Eight of Swords in the same position -- a Minor Arcana card depicting a woman tied up aside a row of swords planted into the ground -- I'm likely to imagine that you have recently escaped from a specific situation that kept you bound.  Do you see the difference?  The Devil was a big thing, a theme of your whole life; the Eight of Swords was a small thing, one moment in that narrative.

I have precious little practice reading, but I'd be willing to try giving a reading over chat sometime!  IM me if you're interested and if I have time and am in the mood I'll give it a shot   Just be warned that I have almost no experience with it and don't believe there's anything mystical about the cards; it's all in how you understand them.  They're a great tool for helping you look at things from new perspectives.

I actually have two decks (one dragon themed, and one with Japanese ukyo-e prints), and though it's been quite a while I still know how to do readings.

However, I don't believe in it for a second and simply use it to impress girls who like that kind of stuff. Am I a horrible person or what?

OnionPrince wrote:

However, I don't believe in it for a second and simply use it to impress girls who like that kind of stuff. Am I a horrible person or what?

Only if you deliberately stage readings that lead them to believe that you're the perfect guy for them.
I don't believe in the ability to tell the future from pieces of cardboard either, but from what I've gathered, they're not a half-bad way to put your thoughts into order, and reading a bit about yourself with their aid. I've never owned a deck, but I've thought about giving Crowley-version a try, some time - you got to respect a magician who kept repeating his entire career "don't believe anything I say", and still had and even today has a strong, unquestioning following.

I tend to use mine as an introspection tool. The cards from my deck are unusually busy, and if I look at them a while my eye is drawn to certain things. I don't really use them in a "predicting" sense, just as a self awareness sort of thing. When I read for others I also ask them what they notice particularly about the cards.

I spent over an hour with my brother yesterday working on the Battlestar Galactica Tarot.  He doesn't know much about the cards, so he was more of my sounding board than anything else, but we did end up filling every trump with a character.  My favorite placement was Kara Thrace as the Wheel of Fortune.  Not only does she fit the symbolism perfectly, you can just see the Eye of Jupiter superimposed behind her on the card...

It was an easy choice, though.  There are really only two or three potential Wheels on the Galactica cast, and I was in love with the next most likely candidate -- Gaius Baltar -- as the Hanged Man.