Rating: 
Summary: Digs deep, strikes gold
Review: A serious, passionate book for intermediate to advanced tarot students. One of the few tarot books that has inspired me to pack the margins with notations and put post-it notes on pages.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Resource
Review: As a Tarot beginner, I found this book to be both insightful and a little wordy. First of all, I must say that all in all, this book is an incredible resource! If you can get past the Psych-101 lectures, you will find incredibly astute and deep meaning in 78 Degrees of Wisdom. Rachel Pollack did a great service in combining these two volumes, and made Tarot accessible and easy to personalize. I would recommend this book (and have) to anyone looking for 'real' help in understanding the fascinating world of Tarot.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Resource
Review: As a Tarot beginner, I found this book to be both insightful and a little wordy. First of all, I must say that all in all, this book is an incredible resource! If you can get past the Psych-101 lectures, you will find incredibly astute and deep meaning in 78 Degrees of Wisdom. Rachel Pollack did a great service in combining these two volumes, and made Tarot accessible and easy to personalize. I would recommend this book (and have) to anyone looking for 'real' help in understanding the fascinating world of Tarot.
Rating:
Summary: 5 stars all the way!!!!
Review: Excellent book. Deep esoteric wisdom rides through every page.
Rating:
Summary: Forget Formulas - Let the Tarot Speak it's Language.
Review: I bought this book along with others because of the great reviews I saw. However, most of the other books did not live up to the great reviews. With one exception. SEVENTY EIGHT DEGREES OF WISDOM. This book doesn't give you formulas to memorize and it moves away from tradition and dogma. Ms Pollack asks the reader to let the tarot speak it's own unique language to each individual reading, querent, student and situation.It gives the historical, mythological, spiritual, etc., meanings and attributions for each major card and also her personal insights and experience. She does the same for the minor cards, however, she doesn't go much into history and myth here but delves into her own experiences and interpretation. She also has GATE cards that allows the reader to get connected to particular cards that elucidate the intrinsic meanings of the suit. I'd love for her to do a book about meditations on the tarot. To the back of the book there is an exposition on doing divination with the cards and she gives examples of the two spreads she covers to explain them better. Her Work Cycle spread is one with promise although I was left wanting a little more. I can't seem to find a resource where one can learn more about this spread. There is one thing that I would ask every newbie to do when studying the cards. Get a resource that details occult symbols and colours. See how they fit into the particular cards and then you have a more detailed description of the cards. The meaning of some cards often don't appear in the artwork (figures etc) however the colours (red, orange, black etc) and the symbols (white rose, black staff, circle, etc) will clear up anything you have a question about. Also, see MK Greer's book: Tarot for youself and Rachael Pollack's new book: The Forest of Souls. Phoinix Sky
Rating:
Summary: This book truly opened a door.
Review: I bought this book when I decided I wanted a more evolved/distinctive explanation of each of the cards and have hardly been able to put it down. I was concerned that the explanations might be too negative, but that wasn't the case. I've started doing readings for myself and others based on what I've learned from Rachel's book and the results have been astounding. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in pursuing this rewarding path.
Rating:
Summary: Five stars and worth every one of them!
Review: I have been studying the Tarot about two years know. This book was one of the first ones I purchased. My interest in the Tarot is to understand it for myself rather than to give readings (though I am starting to read for myself). If you are looking for intellectual depth and thought as you approach the Rider-Waite deck, this is the book for you. I echo another reviewer in that I have never highlighted, cross-referenced and generally marked up a book as I have this one. This is not a casual read! It's a book to be taken very seriously. If you don't immediately get that she is writing from very deep and spiritual place, then I suggest the book it not for you. Check out her encyclopedia as well if you just want to wallow in beautiful graphics. It's a great way to get exposure to many many decks. Thank you, Rachel, for your wonderful masterpiece!
Rating:
Summary: The Bible of Tarot
Review: I've read dozens of tarot books over the years, and if I had to toss them all away except two or three, this book would clearly be one of the keepers. Pollack writes clearly and outlines both her own philosophy and the philosophy of others. Her outlook is broad rather than limited to formulaic "meanings". Most important in my mind is that she can explain why multiple interpretations are not contradictions. It may sound corney to say, but this book stirred up my mind as much as an examination of the cards. This book is a cup of coffee for your spiritual/mythological mind. Ms Pollack, Thanks!
Rating:
Summary: A Tarot Must!
Review: I've seen this book listed as beginner, as well as more advanced. I think its extremely useful to both. Some beginner tarot books read like "how to's for a fortune telling game".. For tarot enthusiasts that want a serious beginners book, yet one that is still easy to understand.. this is it! The book goes into both the historic / symbolic history of each card, as well as providing divinitory meanings. Excellent!
Rating:
Summary: The Best book on TAROT.
Review: If you are a Tarot beginner, you will be temted to buy at least 10 decks before even doing any reading at all, you will also buy about 5 tarot books to explore. I have passed that road too, and yeah there are a lot of good books for beginner. Time after time, you will come back to just one deck: Raider White deck, and for me the miniature deck (the size of almost a usual regular bicycle deck). And you will start to forget all the book and time to time come back to the very few books you love. And this one is it. It is a very rich book with deep reading of all the cards. It touch you and teach you deeply and teach you how to grow your own way of reading the pictures of tarot deck. This is not for the ultimate beginners! But invest in this one. After you get "bored" to the beginner books of tarot, you will start to appreciate this book. It is not for the people who just "want to know a bit" about tarot. In fact if you only want one book on Tarot, this is it.
The book describe deeply and richly for each card.
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