Tarot Wisdom by Rachel Pollack

Reading Tarot Wisdom had a profound effect on me. Not so much because of what it taught me about tarot, but because of what it taught me about myself. It also gave me a renewed sense of freedom in how I work with the tarot.

About Tarot Wisdom

Tarot Wisdom is presented in three sections: The Major Arcana, The Minor Arcana, and Readings. In the Major Arcana section Rachel Pollack showcases her ability to bring together her vast range of knowledge and experience with the scholarship of others. She generally does this in a personable and accessible manner albeit I don’t feel this is a beginner’s book. There is just too much to take in.

This is a book that only she could have written because she weaves personal stories throughout the Major Arcana write-ups. Although, I know that some people don’t like the inclusion of personal anecdotes, for me they help tie everything together. They show that tarot is not just an academic pursuit, something we learn and then know. It is a lived experience that connects us with our life, our experiences, and our way of viewing the world. One of the best ways to do that is through story.

As Rachel Pollack writes:

I do not consider Tarot scientific…. I see it as a story, as myth.

In the Introduction she unpacks this idea beautifully.

The Major Arcana

For each of the Major Arcana entries, she includes images of the Visconti, Marseille, Rider, Golden Dawn, Egyptian and her own Shining Tribe Tarot versions. Plus, throughout the text, she constantly references her own Shining Tribe Tarot. This is not a deck I connect with at all. Yet, for the most part, it was interesting to discover the thinking behind, and the inspiration for, each card.

The inclusion of the astrological correspondences, the Kabbalistic letter, the path on the Tree of Life and card meanings ensures you can use Tarot Wisdom as a learning tool. However, for me, its strength lies elsewhere. Rachel Pollack’s contemplations and her intellectual comparisons between cards, systems and ideas is fantastic. So is the way that throughout it all she encourages readers to uncover and discover their own understandings.

She does this in several ways.

Firstly, for each Major Arcana card she takes excerpts from Mystical Origins of the Tarot by Paul Huson. These show how the card interpretations have changed over the years. Beginning in 1750 with Pratesi’s Cartomancer, she moves through to Waite’s explanations from the Pictorial Key to the Tarot published in 1910. These transformations in meaning encourage you to question the card interpretations we often take for granted. It’s true the meanings gain gravitas through repetition, and that in itself is an important aspect. But, as I alluded to earlier, Rachel Pollack frequently points out that we should not dismiss our own interpretations.

Secondly, she includes a spread at the end of each chapter. These spreads are intended to help you connect your own experiences with the particular card. I only read a chapter a day so that I could dedicate the time to the relevant spread. Without initial intention, once I’d completed the reading, I sketched the card. Not only did I notice things I hadn’t previously, it also slowed me down and gave me time to strengthen, and add more, connections. Mary K Greer suggested as much in her book 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card.

Thirdly, as is no surprise, she proposes many interesting ideas that really open up your thinking. My copy reminds me of my university days. So many sentences are underlined and the margins are full of thoughts, ideas and questions triggered by the material.

Finally, this is a highly quotable book. An example from The Fool is:

The Fool does not think of himself as innocent or free. He just is.

And these ideas stick in your head.

The Minor Arcana

However, while the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana run to 253 pages, the fifty-six cards of the Minor Arcana only receive 179 pages. Once you read through the interesting opening to the section, the write-ups are more akin to a standard tarot resource for learning the card meanings.

Since she divides the Minor Arcana into two sections there’s another great introductory element for the Court cards. Here she offers various suggestions on how you can approach them. Many of these are fun and encourage personal connections to the cards. In bringing them to life in this way she successfully demystifies them.

Readings

The final section is titled Readings. In this chapter, she gives her take on “common tarot rules” such as “the need to wrap your cards in silk,” a discussion on questions, and several spreads. A few of these spreads I really look forward to exploring.

About the Author

I’ll start with a brief quote from the opening page of the book. It begins, “Rachel Pollack was a poet, an award-winning novelist, a world authority on the modern interpretation of Tarot cards, and a Tarot card artist.” I’ll add that she also taught and lectured extensively about both tarot and writing.

In regards to tarot, if you do a book Google search, Seventy–Eight Degrees of Wisdom, is very likely to appear. It was the first of the twelve books that she has written on the subject. Others include: Soul Forest: Twenty-four Tarot Writings; Seeker: The Tarot Unveiled; A Forest of Souls: A Walk in the Tarot; The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Tarot; The Haindl Tarot: A Reader’s Workbook; The Vertigo Tarot; The New Tarot; The Open Labyrinth; and Teach Yourself Fortune Telling.

Wrapping it all up

This isn’t a book you grab to just quickly look something up. There are much more suitable books for that, such as Tarot Revealed and Tarot Plain and Simple. However, as my margin notes and underlining suggests, I will be revisiting this book often. There are many ideas and questions I want to explore and I thoroughly look forward to doing so.

Publishing Details

Pictured version of Tarot Wisdom published by:

My copy is the First Edition, Thirteenth Printing published in 2023 by Llewellyn Publications

Pages:

480 pages