Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom

Tarot Terry

I have just started reading this book, and I LOVE it! If you have already read this book, I'd like to know what you feel is the most important thing you learned from it.
 

Scibility

I really loved this book too. I think she really did an outstanding job of explaining both the psychological aspect of Tarot, as well as the spiritual aspect of Tarot. The portion I found most memorable is the symbolism, because I spent a lot of time studying the symbolism of the RWS cards, and she presented the symbolism in a way that connected so well to the psychology and the spiritual meaning of the cards.

Great Book. The style the book is written in seems similar to many of the books of that time that are now out of print, or maybe not as popular as they once were. It's pure, honest, and she presents the information without the reader feeling like she is trying to force feed them. I guess what I'm trying to say is the book is written without any trace of ego seeping in. She simply presents the truth the way she sees it, backs it up with certain basic facts, and she does a fantastic job of it. Enjoy!
 

Tarot Terry

Thank you for your response. I know exactly what you mean about an Author's ego tainting the material that is being offered. I like Rachael's 'voice'. Assured without being arrogant. Gentle without being patronizing. I also love the way she clarifies the difference between the subconscious mind and the unconscious mind. I WAS confused!
 

KatherineMarie

Love this Book!

I have just started reading this book, and I LOVE it! If you have already read this book, I'd like to know what you feel is the most important thing you learned from it.

I am so glad others love this book! I have read many books on Tarot and this is my absolute favorite for many reasons. Not only does she have thorough and interesting descriptions of the individual cards, but I really like the way she breaks the Major Arcana into 3 separate lines of 7, pulling the Fool card out of the mix....

1) The Worldly Sequence-- developing a personality or "mask", the ego, outer self
2) Turning Inward-- discovering inner "true self", death of the ego, reconciling inner w outer
3) The Great Journey-- release and experience of major archetypal energies... still coming to understand this last line

The other thing she pointed out that I thought was helpful was the Four Card Pattern of Duality and Unity. (pages 12 and 13) The Fool and the World, representing unity at different ends of the spectrum, and the Magician and Priestess beginning the separation, or split of unity into two different parts, dark and light. I didn't pay much attention to this when I first read the book, but I highly recommend looking at it closely.

Lastly, I think that her Work Spread at the end of the book is very well thought of because it allows for a more dynamic interpretation style.

I'd love to hear more about what you think of this book!

Katie
 

IXTheHermit

That is my favorite book about tarot! The thing I love most about it was the way she connected tarot with other separate ideas and theories. I loved the parts about Jungian psychology, Cabbala, Hinduism… It even had a paragraph in which she used the life of Gautama Buddha as a parable referring to a card (I don’t remember which one, but I think it was the Chariot).

What I kept from that book (which by the way was the first I read about tarot), was a feeling that everything is connected with each other, in a way that we cannot understand. We just have to have faith in it. We cannot feel it with our physical senses, but the net connecting all around us is there, and that is the deepest essence of the cards, in my opinion!
 

Richard

Ever have questions like this: Why is there an Empress and an Emperor when the deck already has four queens and four kings?

[size=+1]The most important thing I got out of the book is the fundamental difference between the majors and minors![/size]
 

3ill.yazi

What KatherineMarie said, basically. I've read other books which discuss the Fool's Journey, but she breaks it down systematically in a way that helps one look at spreads.

I like her voice as well. She's my latter-day Eden Gray (I'm an Eden Gray fan and will defend her to the, well, flaming). By that I mean that I've read other books of tarot meanings, heftier ones, but I find nuances and shades of meaning here that others don't get or explain well.

edit: And I'll add that I like this book better than Tarot Wisdom, which was just too unmanageably long for me. It reads to me like an extended director's cut of 78D, though I suspect it's a great resource for others.
 

DamianStraton

Ever have questions like this: Why is there an Empress and an Emperor when the deck already has four queens and four kings?

Oh yeah, but I don´t have the answer, lol.

[size=+1]The most important thing I got out of the book is the fundamental difference between the majors and minors![/size]

Gee, I hope you learned a little more that that! It´s a great book!
 

Richard

Oh yeah, but I don´t have the answer, lol.



Gee, I hope you learned a little more that that! It´s a great book!
I only said that was the most important thing I learned from the book, not the only thing. Most people seem to skip over her discussion of the difference between majors and minors, or else they simply reject her explanation.
 

DamianStraton

I only said that was the most important thing I learned from the book, not the only thing. Most people seem to skip over her discussion of the difference between majors and minors, or else they simply reject her explanation.

Very true.