Originally published in the Seeker's Journey
Volume 1 · Issue 1 · July 03

15 Minutes With Rachel Pollack

By Debra

Rachel Pollack’s talents are many.  Not only has she written many Tarot related books, which include 78 Degrees of Wisdom, The   Complete Illustrated Guide to Tarot, The Forest of Souls - A Walk Through the Tarot.  She also has also written the texts for the Haindl, Salvador Dali and Vertigo decks.   Ms. Pollack also created the Shining Tribe Tarot (formerly Shining Woman) deck and book set.    Her fiction works include:  A Secret Woman, 2002; Burning Sky, 1998 (a collection of short stories); Godmother Night, 1996 (Winner of the 1997 World Fantasy Award) and several comic books, including the Doom Patrol.  Ms. Pollack’s books have been translated into eight languages.

DG: Let’s talk a little bit about The Shining Tribe. What inspired you to create it?

RP:       At the time I created The Shining Tribe, I had been working with the Tarot for many years and felt I wanted to do my own deck.  It just seemed like a good thing not to be using other people’s creations all the time and try doing my own.  I always loved so-called primitive, tribal, and prehistoric art.  At the time I was doing a lot of pilgrimage trips to sacred sites where there was primitive art, so that became the inspiration for how my deck would look.  I was very happy with the way it turned out.  Many people have had a very good reaction to the deck.

DG:       I understand that when you initially did the deck, the original title was The Shining Woman Tarot, and then it was changed to The Shining Tribe.  Why was the name changed?

RP:       Well, there were actually several reasons.  One was we were doing a new edition, and I wanted to make it plain it was not the same deck just brought out unchanged.  I changed four cards completely and altered four more.  That is eight, a significant number.  I made color changes and other small changes in quite a few more cards.  Also, it seemed a lot of people misunderstood the name Shining Woman, thinking it was a deck just for women.  Actually my concept was that Shining Woman was the World card and meant basically the Goddess…. the Divinity.  But a lot of people, because of our social structure, interpreted the women in it to mean that no men were allowed.   I read some reviews that said there were no men in the deck, which was strange because there were quite a few images of men. I chose The Shining Tribe because it created a nice myth from the spirits that gave us the Tarot in the beginning, and the people that use the Tarot, creating a kind of tribal mix.  I think that is a nice way to look at it. 

DG:       Do you have any other literary projects you are working on right now?

RP:       I have a book coming out next June from Llewellyn, The Kabbalah Tree, which is very exciting.  The book is based upon a painting entitled The Tree of Life by Hermann Haindl.  I am also doing a book on teen Tarot…. Tarot for Teenagers, which is a lot of fun.  And, I have several fiction projects that are in progress at the moment.               

DG:       Please tell us a little bit about how you came to the Tarot?

RP:       I was teaching college in a very cold place, Oxford, New York.  One of the teachers didn’t have a car, and she would do anything for a ride home - it could be 20 degrees below zero sometimes.  One day she said if I would give her a ride home, she would read my Tarot cards.  Up to that time, I had never seen Tarot cards.  I knew them only from T. S. Elliot’s The Waste Land, which I had studied in college and enjoyed very much.  You know it is funny because I realize I remember nothing of the reading at all…not the slightest thing…not a word.  What I do remember is the cards and being captivated by the mysterious pictures and the text that sort of explained the images, but was just as mystifying.

DG:       What deck did she use?

RP:       It was the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which was really the only deck available at the time.  It would be about another year or so before any other decks would come out.  The book was probably Eden Gray, which was also one of the only books available at that time.

DG    Many tarot readers use your book 78 Degrees of Wisdom as a foundation for both learning the tarot and as reference in doing their readings. How long had you been reading Tarot when you wrote the book?

RP:       I discovered the Tarot in the spring of 1970 and immediately started reading with it and just exploring.  There really wasn’t that many books to read about the Tarot, so I did my own connections and things based upon what Waite had written.  I did that for a few years and then in 1977 I needed a job. Rather than go for the traditional jobs, I decided to try and teach Tarot.  I was living in Amsterdam at the time, and I applied at a center where they taught Yoga, Meditation, and esoteric subjects.  I taught there for a year and a half or so.  It was at that time I started compiling what I learned about the cards for the sake of the class.  I wrote a journal of everything I knew about each card.  In essence it was teaching that became the basis for 78 Degrees of Wisdom.  It was published in the first part of 1980.  I started writing Wisdom about eight years after I stared using the Tarot.

DG:       If you went back now and rewrote 78 DEGREES OF WISDOM, is there anything you would change?

RP:      Well, probably I would do a couple of things a bit differently.  At that point, the standard for tarot books was to interpret what the cards mean.  I didn’t question that.  I just wanted to interpret them in a much deeper way than was done before.  So, I decided to keep that approach.  I saw my audience as people who did not know nything about Tarot, but had a real affinity for this kind of subject. I know I would certainly keep that, but would also do more in the way of exercises for readers to find their own approach to Tarot.  I have urged others to work more with the pictures before they actually read the text.

DG:       How many copies have been published and been purchased?

RP:       It is hard to say.  I have not kept track over the years, but I believe it is a large number because it sells consistently and is printed in quite a few languages as well. Every six months, I get a royalty statement, and it does pretty well.  There are many copies in German.  However, there are no German editions at the moment because of various problems within the publishing field.  But when it was available, Wisdom sold very well in Germany, Denmark, Spain and Portugal.  The book has literally been around the world.

DG:       What advice would you give both beginning and seasoned Tarot readers?

RP:       For beginning Tarot readers, I would say to start doing it right away and not feel they have to memorize before they begin.   They need to know they will grow as they do it.  Their first readings might be clumsy and they might feel they are not getting anywhere.  In fact, the more they do it and the more they practice the more they will come to start seeing it for themselves and understand their own approach.  I would tell them to definitely use the books that appeal to them, but to not be limited to that.  As for the seasoned readers, what I would suggest is to always go back to the images and not think you know all there is to know about it.  If you consider that at any point, you can always have a fresh approach.

DG:       Have you ever had a slump where you didn’t feel like studying or even picking up your cards?  Maybe the best way to phrase it is “reader’s block”.


RP:       Well, I would not call it reader’s block.  But, yes, there are times perhaps no one called, or I just was not interested in reading for others or myself.  Most of the time when things are not happening, I am busy doing other things.  There are also times in readings when I feel I have no idea what the cards or a particular card is saying.  I know what the symbolism is, but I have no idea how this applies to the person.  To me that is always a clue to ask the person what they think is going on in the picture.  Usually they will say something that will surprise me, and I find it is different than the traditional approaches, but is really relevant to the issue.

DG:       Do you feel learning the images and their meanings are important or should intuition play a larger role?

RP:       I think you should do both.  I believe some people rely solely on intuition and that works for them because they never really studied anything.  Other people ponder the books deeply and that works for them. But, for most people it is a mixture.  Most readers need to really look at the pictures and get what it is saying to them personally and also connect with the person they are reading for.  At the same time, the more you know, the more opportunity you have to find a meaning that is useful.  Ideally, readers would know the symbolism backwards and forwards in every detail and then just kind of forget about it and let that serve intuition rather than control intuition.

DG:       Do you follow any rituals before and after you do a reading?

RP:       It varies.  Usually, I try to set a nice setting for the reading.  I will put down a reading cloth.  I have this beautiful scarf with astrological images and tarot images that someone gave me.  I will spread it out and light some candles to make a sacred space for the reading.  As far as actual rituals, the main thing I do is shuffling the cards myself before and after the reading, in a sense to loosen them up and inaugurating the energy of the reading and ending the energy of the reading.  

DG:       Have you seen any new decks that piqued your interest?

RP:     There is a deck from Germany I like very much by Marguerite Peterson. I don’t think it is available in this country yet.  I like the Tarot of Prague, which is based on images from the City of Prague and the Czech Republic.  I recently saw a privately made art deck called the Mary-el Tarot, which I thought was really stunning.  There are always interesting decks that come out.  

DG:        Do you collect decks?

RP:       Yes I do.  I probably have about four hundred of them.  I keep them all over the place!  In cabinets, bookshelves, on the floor and on my desk - sort of all over the place.

DG:   What about your plans for the future?

RP:      I am always writing and have many more ideas than I have time to do them.  Mary Greer and I hope to lead a trip next year to Ireland and Great Britain to the sacred sites and do tarot readings and explore their meanings.  This would be very exciting, and I am hoping it will happen. In February, I am going to Hong Kong; March I am teaching with Kaitlain Matthews in England - I love her work. I also teach writing that keeps my schedule full with more things than I possibly have time to do, which is better than the alternative, but it still gets crazy.©  Editor’s Note:  Rachel Pollack’s website can be viewed here.