A top tarotist’s secrets to personal growth, one card at a time. The two volumes of Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom have inspired a whole generation of tarot students. It has often been described by readers, booksellers, and teachers as the “Bible of tarot readers.” It is also often cited as one of the landmark books in modern tarot, and it helped to launch the “Tarot Renaissance” of the 1980s. The two texts-one for The Major Arcana and one for The Minor Arcana–appear together in this volume, which is a reissue of the 1998 edition first published by Thorsons. Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom draws on mythology and esoteric traditions and delves deeply into the symbolism and ideas of each card. It also gives the cards a modern psychological slant based on the pictures rather than a system of occult symbolism. This endlessly useful reference tool provides a concise history of tarot, introduces common spreads, and is a clear and readable book for both the beginning and advanced tarot student.
One of the best book you’ll ever read on Tarot….. Rachel Pollack’s SEVENTY-EIGHT DEGREES OF WISDOM is a key work described by many (including Joseph Campbell) as an important source for understanding the wisdom of the Tarot. The book appears to have been first published in the early eighties in two volumes, one dealing with the Major Arcana and the other with the minor Arcana. Since few authors examine the minor cards Pollack’s book is a must for serious students.
Not for the Beginner, but… This revised and slightly expanded version of two long sadly out-of-print books (“78 Degrees of Wisdom: Major Arcana” and “78 Degrees of Wisdom: Minor Arcana”) is a welcome addition to any serious Tarot reader’s library.Although I wouldn’t normally recommend this book for the Tarot beginner, I’d recommend it highly to serious students of Tarot wanting to know more about the many different meanings of Tarot cards. Some beginners might find Pollack’s usages of the definitions of cards to be more than the superficial ones.