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Haindl Tarot, Major Arcana, Rev Ed.
The Haindl Tarot is the most comprehensive Tarot ever--a contemporary deck that illustrates traditional archetypes with modern symbols. The cards interweave themes of ecology, mythology and the Goddess, with true visionary power.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
23 people are currently reading
155 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Pollack
207 books344 followersRachel Grace Pollack was an American science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot. Pollack was a great influence on the women's spirituality movement.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 17, 2011
I've been using these cards and these books for over 16 years. I love this deck for the imagery contained within the cards. Only a small pamphlet came with the cards themselves so I felt it necessary to purchase the companion books for both the Major and Minor Arcana when I first bought the deck. I don't recall spending more than $10 per book at the time. What I've found most interesting throughout my research about this deck is that I see numerous posts indicating how this deck is not for newbies to the tarot. This is the first and only deck I have ever owned. I felt an immediate attachment to this deck and have spent years bonding with these cards. After almost two decades with the Haindl Tarot, I continue to be amazed by some of the new insights I have whenever I use the cards, meditate with them or look at them. I would highly recommend this deck and the books to people, but I will also say that choosing the appropriate deck all comes down to individual preference. If you feel a strong connection to this deck, buy it. If not, choose another brand of tarot cards. It's that simple. Enjoy!
March 25, 2022
Just as with the minor arcana book for Haindl Tarot, the meanings are very muddy and contradictory at times. The runes and Hebrew letters don't add to the meanings but confuse them even more, at least in Rachel Pollack's interpretation. A great case for more is not always better. I still find some of the artwork appealing and I feel like I could read with this deck, but after jumping from one failed simile to the next, I really don't want to.
January 22, 2012
Wish I could get a copy of this. I thought it was two volumes. Last I checked, it was over $200. Oh, well. I have the deck and love it!
2012 update: I now have a paperback of this longed for book by Rachel Pollack! I love this deck, its complexity and yet ease of reading and find Rachel's commentary very helpful.
If you love tarot, are looking for a new deck, are eclectic in your belief systems, this is for you.
The artwork is spectacular, engaging, magical, poly-cultural and delightful.
2012 update: I now have a paperback of this longed for book by Rachel Pollack! I love this deck, its complexity and yet ease of reading and find Rachel's commentary very helpful.
If you love tarot, are looking for a new deck, are eclectic in your belief systems, this is for you.
The artwork is spectacular, engaging, magical, poly-cultural and delightful.
Read
February 21, 2011i actually only have the deck but going through set of cards with such detail and multiple layered meaning as these is entirely like reading a book, and a very good book at that.
October 28, 2012
Best (only?) book for readers of the Haindl Tarot. To get better at reading I will have to read other works as well but this is where you should start.
Currently reading
September 25, 2017Very interesting book.
The meaning of The Fool made me think of the character Hamlet. Shakespeare's character plays the mad man, the jester, during the whole play and at the same time is able to see a truth nobody else can. He feels something he cannot quite put into words: ''And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?''. Also the Hebrew letter for the Fool, Aleph, is a silent letter; ''the rest is silence'' being Hamlet's last words. Rest, in music, meaning an interval of silence between notes.
I could add to it next to Hamlet, Ibsen's dreamer, Peer Gynt.
Another interesting thing about The Fool, his limitations, is Pollack saying he is a necessary stage everyone passes but one in which we cannot stay forever, otherwise in this state of nothingness we would never change and therefore never acquire wisdom. Wilhelm Stekel, an austrian psychiatrist, in a book I read recently, states that in order that we go on in life psychologicaly healthy we must let our infantile needs and urges behind us, he understands many neuroses as forms of infantile fixations, things that bar our maturing. There's a similar thought in the Bible: ''When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.''
The journey through the Major Arcana is a journey of learning to speak, writes Pollack. So as Fools, like children and poets, we babble, babble not the truth, we babble at the brink of it, because only as sensible observers we aren't truly living.
Zero is Fool's number or position. The number '0' bears the egg shape, as the origin of something yet undefined. That idea reminded me of a machine in a japanese anime relating the existence of God to the concept of zero in mathematics, saying that zero ''it's a symbol that denies the absence of meaning, the meaning that's necessitated by the delineation of one system from another. In analog, that's God. In digital, it's zero.''
I think I gonna go mad reading and thinking about those relations.
The meaning of The Fool made me think of the character Hamlet. Shakespeare's character plays the mad man, the jester, during the whole play and at the same time is able to see a truth nobody else can. He feels something he cannot quite put into words: ''And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?''. Also the Hebrew letter for the Fool, Aleph, is a silent letter; ''the rest is silence'' being Hamlet's last words. Rest, in music, meaning an interval of silence between notes.
I could add to it next to Hamlet, Ibsen's dreamer, Peer Gynt.
Another interesting thing about The Fool, his limitations, is Pollack saying he is a necessary stage everyone passes but one in which we cannot stay forever, otherwise in this state of nothingness we would never change and therefore never acquire wisdom. Wilhelm Stekel, an austrian psychiatrist, in a book I read recently, states that in order that we go on in life psychologicaly healthy we must let our infantile needs and urges behind us, he understands many neuroses as forms of infantile fixations, things that bar our maturing. There's a similar thought in the Bible: ''When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.''
The journey through the Major Arcana is a journey of learning to speak, writes Pollack. So as Fools, like children and poets, we babble, babble not the truth, we babble at the brink of it, because only as sensible observers we aren't truly living.
Zero is Fool's number or position. The number '0' bears the egg shape, as the origin of something yet undefined. That idea reminded me of a machine in a japanese anime relating the existence of God to the concept of zero in mathematics, saying that zero ''it's a symbol that denies the absence of meaning, the meaning that's necessitated by the delineation of one system from another. In analog, that's God. In digital, it's zero.''
I think I gonna go mad reading and thinking about those relations.
March 30, 2023
This and the Minor Arcana book are excellent companions to the Haindl Tarot. It will provide insight into the cards and how special they are, rich in symbolism and knowledge. I use this book every day to help me understand the "card-of-the-day" that I pull from the deck. Not for the faint of heart. If you have the courage, it will take you to the next level of your life.
November 20, 2021
I fall in love with the mysticism and mythology every time i read it!!!
November 28, 2007
not a deck/book for newbies. the images are muddy and complicated and trigger something primal rather than obvious. muted and dark. a very odd deck and the book offers some fresh ideas on the card translations.
November 16, 2015
Excellent guidebook to the beautiful Haindl Tarot. Like 78 Degrees of Wisdom it is written in a very readable and informed style that approaches the broad strokes of each card as well as each symbol in detail.
June 10, 2013
(see my review of Book II)
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews