An Interview With Nina Lee Braden

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Mar 3, 2003

Q: How is Tarot for Self Discovery different from other books about Tarot?

A: Tarot for Self Discovery, follows in the footsteps of much late-twentieth century work on Tarot. Drawing deeply on its psychological uses, it's really a self-help book that uses Tarot as a tool. The reader is guided, step by step, to work on exercises that use Tarot cards to help with gaining self-knowledge.

Q: What do you mean by self-discovery?

A: For me, self-discovery is the never-ending process of self-knowledge. We learn about ourselves. Some of what we learn is pleasant and positive. Some of what we learn is unpleasant and negative. The goal is to learn, to see clearly all sides, all aspects, all parts. After self-knowledge comes the choice of what to do with this knowledge.

Q: How does Tarot aid this?
Tarot for Self-Discovery actually combines several of these with Tarot in some of the exercises. Tarot speaks to the subconscious mind. By concentrating on the images and what they say to us, we can bring forth insights from our subconscious to our conscious mind.

Q: What got you thinking about using Tarot this way?

I have been fortunate to study the work of many fine Tarot teachers and authors: Mary Greer, Rachel Pollack, James Wanless, Amber Jayanti, and Paul Foster Case, to name a few. All of these authors stress the versatility of Tarot and also stress uses of it other than as a tool for fortune-telling. So, almost from the start, I saw Tarot as an extremely versatile tool.

I got the idea for the exercises themselves because I was looking for a way to build a small, intimate, online Tarot community. I thought that by working the exercises as a group and sharing our experiences we would get to know each other, the Tarot, and ourselves. The exercises just sort of "happened." I didn't set out to write a book full, nor, indeed, did I even set out to write more than a few exercises.

Writing exercises evolved as the best means for working with that group. After a while, I discovered that I had a large number of them. When I got the opportunity from Llewellyn to write a book as a part of their new series, Special Topics in Tarot, I decided to develop them into a book.

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