In the winter of 1969-70 I was teaching English at the StateUniversity of New York in the town of Plattsburgh, near theCanadian border. Plattsburgh in winter becomes horrifically cold,often -30°C ( -22°F). Linda, one of my fellow teachers, did not drive,and even though she lived only a ten-minute walk fromcampus, would sometimes wait an hour or two for someone to driveher home. One day in early 1970 Linda offered to do a Tarot readingfor me if I gave her a lift. I had never seen Tarot cards. I knew of themonly from T. S. Eliot's poem The Wasteland, with its 'Madame Sosotris... the wisest woman in Europe/With a wicked pack of cards.' 

I remember nothing of that first reading other than the impactthe cards had on me. I knew of nothing like them - their brightcolours, their vivid yet mysterious scenes, their strange figures withexotic names: the Magician, the High Priestess, the Hanged Man ...Linda was not an experienced reader. For many of the cards sheconsulted a book. Rather than lessen the allure, this only heightenedit, for the cards and the text seemed a kind of art form all its own. 

Tarot books were simple in those days. Commonly they woulddescribe the card, oddly repeating what you could see with yourown eyes, though with subtle points that seemed to open the wayto a greater story. 'In a state of dejection, a woman and child areferried across the water to a calm shore' (A Complete Guide tothe Tarot, Eden Gray). But who are these people? Why are theydejected? What waits for them on that 'calm shore'? Followingthese descriptions, the books would give formulas for fortunetelling, phrases such as 'Journey to a new home' (Gray). Thepossibility of discovering secrets and predicting the future attractedme, but the cards themselves, and the words that went with them,told me that I must find a set for myself. 

It was not easy to find Tarot cards. Only a couple of years laterthey would begin appearing everywhere, but at that time it tookseveral weeks of searching before I could locate a deck in an oddlittle shop in Montreal, a place even colder that Plattsburgh. Alongwith the cards I bought Eden Gray's book, whose work gives simple formulas yet also openings to the Tarot's deeper levels (for thecard described above she characteristically adds, 'Also a journey inconsciousness'). Gray's descriptions captured the special wonder ofPamela Smith's Rider edition drawings, with their delicate cartoon like images concealing a vast system of symbolism and philosophy.Some time later I found a copy of A. E. Waite's own book on thecards, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, which contained allusive andcomplex statements on the trumps, but also pages with the individual pictures and, under them, the same kind of descriptions as givenby Eden Gray. 

  Like Linda, I began reading with the cards in one hand and thebook in the other. Some of those early 'readings' still astound mewhen I think of them. In particular, I seemed to uncover myfriends' extra-marital affairs. 

At the end of the year, Linda asked me for a reading. She wastaking a leave of absence to teach for a year in Copenhagen andwondered what the cards predicted for her. I told her she wouldmarry a Danish man and not return. She laughed, having resignedherself to the life of a spinster. The following Spring the schoolreceived her resignation. Due to her impending marriage to aDanish teacher, she would be staying in Copenhagen. 

If the readings intrigued me, something else excited me more.One afternoon another teacher came by, and we went through thecards one by one, ignoring the book now and just playing with thepictures. Russ was a poet and I wrote fiction. Ignoring the conceptual structures as well as the predictive formulas, we just looked forstories, working from the pictures but also Gray's and Waite'sdescriptions. I remember the moment when I realized that the Tarot opened to worlds beyond their surface scenes and 'official'symbolism. We were looking at the ten of Pentacles, and especiallythe white-haired man in his coat of many colours. He looks like abeggar, I thought, but clearly he is much more. And no one seehim, only the dogs. Odyssesus! I thought. The old man isOdysseus, returned to his home after 20 years and disguised as abeggar, to be recognized only by his ancient dog. When I looked atWaite's description I discovered themes similar to those in theOdysssey, in particular the need for security versus the desire foradventure and risk. 

I did not think that Smith and Waite and deliberately codedOdysseus into the ten of Pentacles. That would have been far lessinteresting than the other possibility, that we could discover figuresfrom mythology and literature in these pictures, these openings todifferent worlds. 

So began my study of the cards, not from texts or symbolismor diagrams, but from the pictures themselves. To a great extent,the material in this book does not derive from teachers on Tarot(I never studied with anyone or took any classes) but just fromworking with the cards: looking at them, thinking about what isgoing on, considering the number and the imagery, comparingthe cards to characters and stories in myth and popular culture -and doing readings. 

In those days a long-time split still existed in the Tarot world.On one side stood the grand tradition of the occultists, fromAntoine Court de Gebelin down through the Hermetic Order ofthe Golden Dawn and its descendants. On the other we found thetradition of readings, almost despised by the occultists. To someextent, this reflected a gender split as well. The great esoteric writers were almost all men (Dion Fortune being the most famousexception). Tarot readers were mostly women. It is not an accidentthat when most people visualize a Tarot reader, they see a womanin a headscarf. 

In the 1980s a group of writers, primarily women, began to takeTarot in a new direction. Such people as Mary Greer, AngelesArrien, James Wanless and Gail Fairfield began with a knowledgeof the occult tradition (and also the ideas and techniques ofpsychology and counselling) but focused their work on the undeveloped potential of readings to illuminate human experience.Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom, originally published in two parts in1980 and 1983, was one of the first books in this movement. Following the traditional method of card-by-card explanations ratherthan the emphasis on techniques in such books as Mary Greer'sTarot for Yourself or Gail Fairfield's Choice-centred Tarot, Seventy-eightDegrees of Wisdom nevertheless attempted to give people a tool tounderstand and ultimately transform their lives.        

  The book and its ideas evolved over time. A year after my friendLinda moved to Denmark, my partner Edith and I also moved toEurope, expecting to stay a year or two. I returned to the UnitedStates 19 years later. (Edith remained in Europe, where she teachesTarot and reads professionally. She is, and has always been, as theDedication to this book says, the best reader I know.) We took ourcards with us, laying them out on tent floors by candlelight, carrying them in our backpacks through rainstorms and snow until theytook on the look of a deck handed down through generations. 

In France we met a group of artists renovating a medievalchateau. They looked with astonishment at our Rider pack, just aswe were amazed to discover the game of Tarot that they played witha set of cards showing elaborate courtly figures but little symbolism. 

Every year, when we visited our friends and family back in NewYork, we brought our cards with us. In the Summer of 1975 Edithand I spent several days at a beach house with her cousin and a fewfriends. The first evening, Marilyn, a therapist, asked me if I wouldteach her about the cards. Over the next few days we spent hourson the beach, going over the symbolism and philosophy, examiningthe structure, comparing the messages in the cards to ideas in psychology. At the end of that time we each had learned something.Marilyn felt comfortable enough with the cards to begin usingthem for her clients, and I discovered that I had something to teach. 

A year and a half later, I needed a job. I had been working parttime while continuing to write, but the work I was doing hadended, and after considering teaching English at a Berlitz school Idecided to do something more radical. I went to the Kosmos Meditation Center and asked to teach a class on Tarot. 

     The programme committee listed to my ideas, and then asked ifI would do a sample reading. Usually I hate doing public readings, especially as a challenge, but there was obviously no choice. Theonly woman on the committee volunteered. When we laid out thecards I saw such heartbreak that I knew the only thing I could dowas read the cards as if no one else existed in that room but her andme. 'Have you suffered a great deal of pain over a relationship?' Iasked her, and she began to cry. The reading described the situationin depth, including ways for her to go on with her life. When wefinished there was silence for a moment, than the head of the committee asked me 'When would you like to begin your class?' Onlymonths later did I learn of the complex relationship between himand the woman who had offered herself for the reading.

  The class ran for two years. Out of it came a small but dedicated community of Tarotists, several of whom moved deeply intostudies of Kabbalah. To organize the class I needed to develop andcodify my understanding of the cards. Along the way I decided totransform my class notes into a book. When I had enough material to show a publisher, I went to speak to Warren, an Americanwho was managing Amsterdam's finest esoteric bookstore. I askedhim if he could suggest a likely publisher. 'Well,' he said, 'we mightbe interested.' The store's owner, Nick Schors, primarily a dealer inrare books, had decided to branch out into original works. 

Thus, Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom began as a discussion on abeach in New York and came to life first in a Dutch translation. Iam indebted always to Nick for taking a chance on an unknownwriter, and for the various international editions he and his sonDavid have arranged for this book - including the English editionby the Aquarian Press.

  For various reasons, earlier editions of this work were publishedin two volumes. Part II, The Minor Arcana, opened up the studyof the cards even more than Part I (on the Major Arcana), for atthat time (and even today) very few Tarot books gave serious attention to the suit cards. And yet, I had thought for a long time that asingle volume would be a good idea. For one thing it would makethe book easier to use, for people who found two volumes awkward to consult. This new edition has also given me the chance tomake some changes. In the 18 years since Part I was published, Ihave continued to work with Tarot and to learn its history. Whilethe book remains substantially the same- I would not radically alter something so many people have found helpful - I have gonethrough both parts carefully, revising whatever stood out in thelight of new knowledge. 

One thing I might have done differently if I were writing the booknow: in Part I, I used the idea of ancient European initiations basedaround the story of the Holy Grail and its attendant objects. I am lessconvinced now that such secret groups actually existed. The Grail mayhave been a wholly literary invention (though based on earlier Celticmythology). Nevertheless I have let these passages stand, for the ideaof Grail Mysteries and initiations forms a valuable Tarot myth.

At the time I first wrote Seventy-eight Degrees virtually no Tarotbooks compared different decks. While I focused on the Rider pack,I tried to use other cards for contrast and to illuminate symbols.Since writing the book I have created my own deck, Shining WomanTarot. I decided not to bring it in here (or any other decks createdsince 1980) so that the book would retain its original character.   

  In the years since Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom I have writtenten further books on Tarot. But this book will always remain special, not just because it was my first non-fiction book (my firstnovel came out the same year), but also because of the many people who have told me how much the book has meant to them, howit has helped them use the cards to change their lives. I rememberone woman in particular, Aster (a name that means Star). Aster hadsuffered neurological damage in an airplane so that reading oftenproduced intense headaches. Refusing to give up her plans she hadenrolled in medical school, persuading the school to allow her totake all her exams orally, and persuading her friends to take turnsreading her her study material so she could memorize it. But Asteronly spent half the year in school. The rest of the time she lived onthe Greek island of Mykonos, where she supported herself readingTarot cards - on the beach. Shortly after I met Aster, I went to aparty at her apartment. Her shelves held very few books, for afterall she could hardly read. But among the few books, two volumesstood out by their tattered look, worn from constant use. Theywere, of course, her copies of Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom.   

  In honour of their different ways of showing faith in this Bookof Tarot, I dedicate this new comprehensive edition to Nick Schorsand Aster Schelp.