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Rachel Pollack

Rachel Pollack Books

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“Divination” derives from the Latin word divinatio, to divine. Whatever the method, when we do a divination we seek to understand, in some small way, the spiritual patterns that underlie our lives. Divination systems, especially the more elaborate ones, almost always reflect a religious or philosophical system. We may read the Tarot as a party game, but the game works because the symbols on the Tarot cards describe the deeper truths that give meaning to our lives. And it works because the Tarot consists of pictures rather than words. While it is true that people have written hundreds of books about the Tarot, and that most people who want to use the cards in a reading look up their meanings in a book such as this one, the Tarot remains first and foremost pictures - mysterious, evocative, suggestive of whole worlds of meaning.”

“The ancients could communicate with the gods in two ways. First, it was (and is) possible to go into a trance and visit the gods in their celestial retreats, as the great shamans have always done. More easily, and less dangerously, they could let the gods speak through code, that is, divination, using dice, entrails, bird patterns, yarrow sticks, cards.”