An Interview With Rachel Pollack - Page 3
© Elizabeth Bissette
A Yes. Many people have responded that way. The book focuses on wisdom instead of the personal nature of life and of the world. It helps people to see that you can do that with Tarot.
It also shows how it's possible to give different kinds of readings. It asks different kinds of questions than readers may be used to, focusing on wisdom instead of the personal nature of life and of the world. It's important for us to know if we're going to get a job or find a partner but also really important for us to understand the spiritual side of things. I hope it helps people to see that you can do that with Tarot.
Q How can your example readings, and the spiritual stories you tell, help people in their daily struggles with relationships, work, family?
A A lot of the stories are about peoples struggles. A lot of the things spiritual tradition addresses are people's struggles to find who they are, what they're doing, what's underneath the surface. Tarot is great way to look at these kinds of things.
Q Your approach to Tarot reading is not the usual fortune-telling. How do you apply spiritual traditions to the Tarot?
A I tend to look at a tradition that interests me then transfer what it's saying to Tarot. For example, there's a tradition in Judaism that the 5 books of Moses existed before universe. I look at what that's saying, what it means and transfer it over. What if Tarot was something that existed, in the sense of archetypes, before the ordered universe? What would that mean? How would we look at it differently?
Another way is to devise readings based on spiritual traditions. I take parts of traditions and make readings based on that. For example, Christmas; you might have as a Christmas question, what is being born in me? What divine thing is coming into my reality? What kind of spiritual gifts am I getting?
On one of my favorite sayings is by Rabbi Hillel: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?" I set up a reading using these 3 questions. I teach creative writing at the graduate level and when I held a workshop about using Tarot for creativity, I suggested the students do this spread for character in book.
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