Rachel Pollack's Tarot Wisdom: Spiritual Teachings and Deeper Meanings

I'm new to reading Tarot. I started with Joan Bunning's Learning the Tarot, and while that book is fantastic for getting your toes wet, and remains a useful resource, it didn't offer enough depth for me. Rachel Pollack's Tarot Wisdom is exactly what I was looking for -- an in-depth look at each card, its history, and its meanings that I will be able to use for years. The thoroughness really helps me get a feel for each of the cards, and the more esoteric info about the Kabbalah, numerology, etc, will be useful as I gain more practice and familiarity with the cards. This is one of those books that you can read and re-read, and get something new with each reading. For each card, several different versions are shown: Visconti, Marseille, Rider, Golden Dawn Ritual, Egyptian, and Shining Tribe. The comparative approach is very useful as an accompaniment to the discussions of symbology, and helps to show how the cards and their meanings have progressed over time. Also useful are the lists of historical interpretations of the Major Arcana cards, and how those have differed from and/or influenced contemporary meanings. I also really enjoy the Wisdom Readings that are included throughout the book. Each of the Major Arcana has a reading, as well as one each for the Court Cards, Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles. The Wisdom Readings help to reinforce the meanings of the cards, and what those cards signify to me personally. For example, a few of the questions from A Fool Reading are: How have I been a Fool in my life? Where in my life do I need to be more Foolish? Where do I find the Fool outside myself? One note: the book includes the author's personal experiences with and interpretations of the cards, as well as the more academic information. The personal anecdotes, while interesting, aren't for everyone. I would also have preferred not to have the inclusion and explanations of the author's Shining Tribe cards. However, these two drawbacks don't lessen the overall usefulness of the book. This book would not be suitable for a beginner who just wants an overview of Tarot, who wants to keep things simple at first and memorize a few keywords for each card. However, for a beginner who wants to immerse themselves in layers of meaning and symbolism for each card, this book is outstanding.

Rachel Pollack has been a fixture in the tarot community for almost thirty years, and ever since her best seller, 78 Degrees of Wisdom, she has been an international tarot authority, and for good reason. Her treatment of the tarot is extensive. I would venture to say she spends around 10 pages per trump. She delves a little into the history and development of the tarot, but only enough to enrich our current understanding of the symbolism. She deals with the historical devleopment of each trump insofar as its symbolism is concerned. She includes about 4-5 examples of each card at th beginning of her treatment and uses the Golden dawn Magickal tarot, her own Shining Tribe Tarot, the Rider-Waite Tarot, the Egyptian Tarot, and the Marseilles tarot. The strength of this book is the development of the IDEAS in the tarot. Rather than simply giving a list of meaning and associations, Mrs. Pollack explains the "why" behind everything and makes you relate your own life experiences to the energy and ideas of the cards in question. Another great aspect of this book is her inclusion of mythology to illustrate the major points in the tarot. Fallen angels, the rise of Zeus, Persephone's Journey into the Underworld and numerous other myths all serve to illustrate the timeless message of the tarot that mythology has echoed throughout the ages. Some meanings for divination are given, but her focus is on using the tarot as a tool to enhance your life and for self-development. It is one of the major armaments in the occultist's bag of tricks that is used to try and rend the veil and experience the oneness of the perennial philosophy. I can safely say that is you can only purchase one tarot book or you are looking to learn the tarot from just one source for now, this has to be the top recommendation. It has everything.

This book was a lot of fun to read. My second book on Tarot, which I am happy I bought and read! The suggested Tarot readings at the end of each chapter are very revealing and I can assure your that your will learn more about your self from these exercises than from encyclopedias of recycled "self-help" books. It feels like a game, but at the same time the knowledge and information you are getting from the cards is so serious that you cannot avoid but respect and grow from its revealing messages. Rachel Pollack is probably one of the best writers on the occult and mystic subjects right now: she is enjoyable, informative, and above all writes in a way that you simply cannot stop reading. This is a book that is not only intended to be read from beginning to end, but it will also be very useful as a reference book. I foresee myself using this book for a long time, even rereading it more than once. A lot of the information, even though clearly explained, I didn't appreciate it on the first read. In other words, it is a deep book and with each reading you'll go deeper and broader into the knowledge and wisdom of the Tarot. I am glad this book introduced me to Rachel Pollack as a writer and to the wisdom and knowledge of the mighty Tarot.

Super

Se você busca uma visão multicultural e interdisciplinar do tarô, este é o seu livro! Aqui, Rachel Pollack explora as várias histórias, significados e tradições por trás de cada uma das 78 cartas do tarô, comparando os baralhos de Waite, Marselha, Visconti, Egípcio, Golden Dawn e o Shinning Tribe, criado por ela mesma. Para cada carta, Pollack explora referências da mitologia grega e egípcia, contos de fadas, histórias da Bíblia, tradições da Europa medieval, arquétipos psicológicos de Jung, astrologia, numerologia, cabala e taoismo. Você encontra os significados dados à cada carta por estudiosos do tarô famosos dos séculos 18 e 19 e, claro, interpretações práticas para leituras do dia-a-dia. O que eu gosto nesse livro é o equilíbrio entre significados profundos, que nos fazem refletir sobre cada carta, e significados mais "pés no chão", para leituras referentes a amor, trabalho, autoconhecimento, etc. Super recomendado para quem tem um conhecimento inicial de tarô já bem definido e deseja se aprofundar mais. Um bom conhecimento de Inglês é bem necessário.

From the back: "Offering an abundant array of new ideas mixed in with enlightening discussions about Tarot's checkered past, this guidebook features innovative ways to interpret and use Tarot...All seventy-eight cards are explored from fresh angles: history, art, psychology, and a variety of spiritual and occult traditions, using cards from seven diverse decks so you can easily contrast and compare." Touted as the follow-up to "Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom", in most ways I think this book actually goes way beyond the original. "Seventy-Eight Degrees" will remain a "bible" because it takes a clear look at the Rider Waite deck, while also examining psychological aspects and offering practical and insightful approaches to a number of spreads. "Tarot Wisdom", though it is certainly accessible to the beginner, is more a book to grow with. There is much here even for the knowledgeable and experienced tarot reader. The book is divided into four main sections: The Major Arcana, The Minor Arcana, The Court Cards, and Readings, as well as having a 25 page introduction. Each of the seventy eight cards is given from 2 pages (the Minors and Court cards) to 16 pages (for the Fool), with most of the Majors having at least 10 pages each. As the blurb states, illustrations from seven different decks are shown, in black and white, to give a feel for the variety of meaning that has been expressed in each card. In fact, the same six decks are used to illustrate the majority of the Majors: the Marseille, Rider, Golden Dawn Ritual, Egyptian, Visconti and Shining Tribe (Rachel's own deck). Meanwhile, the Minors are illustrated with the Marseille, Rider, Golden Dawn, Visconti, Sola Busca and Shining Tribe. The Sola Busca is considered the first deck historically to have had illustrated pips, so its inclusion for the Minors makes sense, trying to show the development over time of the meanings attributed to and illustrations used for them. Finally, the Court cards show the Marseille, Rider, Golden Dawn, Visconti and Shining Tribe. I love this aspect of the book - it's not just academic information and lists, but also beautiful images and really seeing what she's talking about, and perhaps making your own new connections in the light of these comparative images. This use of multiple images matches up with the fact that the book gives a wide variety of attributions for each card, including, but not limited to: Astrological, Kabbalistic, Pythagorean, Picatrix (from an arabic esoteric text), Elemental, Sephirah, Golden Dawn Title (for the Courts), Rider physical quality (for the Courts), Rider theme and associated Majors (for the Minors). The bulk of the book is made up of a discussion of each card - including history, esoteric aspects, personal anecdotes, some questions it may raise - a whole spread for each of the Majors, and a spread for each suit, as well as a spread for the Court cards. There are also a number of one card and two card spreads, and six multiple card more general spreads. "Tarot Wisdom" also talks about, and gives some examples of, wisdom readings. Basically, you use the tarot to ask philosophical questions - divination in the sense of talking with the divine - rather than simply trying to find out more about your own, or someone else's life. This is a concept Rachel Pollack introduced in "The Forest of Souls", and which I find quite profound - I've always gotten a lot out of the wisdom readings I've done. As well as a general introduction, the book gives an introduction to each of the sections. For the Majors, this discusses the correspondences that Rachel Pollack chooses to highlight: it's a non-systematic approach, focusing on what she personally considers most relevant. So, this may seem rather eclectic or opinionated to those who have a preferred system. However, this is partly explained by her discussion of the Majors as a path to spiritual enlightenment - as such it is a personal path, and also a mystery. The book is designed to give pointers to possible paths for different people, rather than claiming to give any definitive answers. In this respect, Pollack talks about the esoteric history of the Tarot, but argues for there being no "scientific" or correct interpretation. She explains her own structural approach to the Majors, dividing them into three lines of seven, representing three different phases in people's lives, but also looking at these as columns of three - the common threads that return at different levels and in different ways at various times. Although she offers "divinatory" meanings, Pollack mainly wants to open up the interpretation of the cards, rather than narrow it down. The Minor Arcana introduction has a sub-section on the suits: their history; mythological, biblical, kabbalistic and elemental attributions; their relation to the Majors and the Virtues. Another sub-section on numbers: general numerology; Rider Themes (comparing all the Rider aces, all the Rider twos etc); Pythagorean and Kabbalistic numerology; and astrological decans. As for the Court cards, Pollack offers a number of ways to explore them, including drawing a house for each "family" and asking questions about what they're like, where they'd live, and what it would be like if they swapped houses for the weekend with another Court (very a la Mary K.Greer - not surprising as they've been teaching together for nearly two decades). The section on "Permutations" uses a formula to create different "families" of the Court cards, for example Page of Cups, Knight of Swords, Queen of Pentacles, King of Wands, asking how this court would be different than if all the members were from the same suit, or from other permutations. There are also sections titled: "If Court Cards Are People, Who Are They?", and a discussion of "Significators", giving Waite's approach, and Pollack's own. Then, my favourite: "Movie Stars, Fairytales, Superheroes, and Noble Worthies" - exploring who each Court card could be from any area of interest, and suggesting a fun superhero quaternity method of looking at them (Hero, Partner, Nemesis, Sidekick). There are also sections on elemental attributions, the various name changes that have been made regarding the Courts (in particular by the Golden Dawn), and the Court Cards on the Tree of Life. Finally, she looks at the Courts as "A Progression of Qualities" - once again a structural, developmental approach. So, there's plenty to help deepen understanding of the Courts - and that's before we even get to the discussion of each card and related images! As well as offering the spreads described above, the "Readings" chapter has a section discussing some "rules" about tarot reading - mainly to disclaim them. This was the most "beginner"ish section of the book, and one I feel it could have done without. However, I imagine it was felt necessary in order to be able to sell this as a book for every level. Altogether, "Tarot Wisdom" is both academic and accessible, profound, yet profoundly readable. Whether you want to study it from cover to cover or dip in and out to find what you want at any given time, it's a wonderful, fascinating book, full of insight, anecdote, and information.

かなりのボリュームのある本(480頁)ですが、著者Rachel Pollackは作家でもあるので文章は流麗です。 著者の以前の著作の"Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom"のUpdate版という感じを受けました。 大アルカナ1枚の解説には約8-10頁ほど費やしています。ただ、その解説については冗長な感じをうけました。 大アルカナカードについては、Paul Husonの著作からの引用ですが、正位置の意味だけA.E.Waite、Levi、Mathers、黄金の夜明け団などのカード解釈の意味を掲げています。逆位置の意味は各大アルカナカードの説明文書の最後のほうに書かれています。 小アルカナのほうですが、小アルカナの数札の解説は1頁、コートカードの解説も実質1頁です。小アルカナには前述のA.E.Waite、Levi、Mathers、黄金の夜明け団などのカード解釈の意味は記されていません。ただし、正位置・逆位置の意味が端的に記されているので、大アルカナよりは理解しやすいと思います。 Rachel Pollackの著作の中で、大アルカナカードの1枚1枚を深く知りたいという点では本書は有益だと思いますが、単にタロットを占うという点だけでは鏡リュウジ氏訳の「タロットバイブル（原著名"The New Tarot Handbook" 朝日新聞出版）」の方が、カードを端的に説明しているため良いのではないかと思います。

When I ordered "Tarot Wisdom" I was looking for a book to help me learn to interpret tarot cards with more guidance than a paragraph or list of key words for each card. This book does so much more. It takes the reader on a journey through ancient history while comparing various traditional and more modern decks. Each major arcana ends with a spread exercise to help you experience and more fully understand each card and it's significance to you. Details in the illustrations are explained with a conversational tone which feels very inviting and makes it easy to read this huge book. The author is completely knowledgeable and makes it feel like the reader is her apprentice. We are lucky she has chosen to share her wisdom and experience in this guide.