In her new work, Rachel Pollack takes readers deeper into the Tarot than many would have thought possible. With tales of myth, history, and personal gnosis we move from the origins of the Tarot thourgh the origins of the universe... and through the inner workings of our own souls.

Although this book is not about how to read Tarot, it will do more to enhance your reading skills than almost any other book. (Assuming a basic knowledge of the cards.) It provides methods for using Tarot to enhance spiritual study and self-exploration, and for broadening the use of Tarot beyond simple divinitation or meditation. Also, by comparing and contrasting how different Tarot authors have intrepreted different key concepts and cards, it gives the opportunity to expand your own visions.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in taking Tarot beyond fortune-telling.

The author begins her book with a "Gallery of Quotations," utilizing diverse sources--a Reconstructionist Jewish prayer book, personal correspondence, T.S. Eliot, and the Bible. Being a font of fabulous quotations, Pollack is also self-referential.

In the ensuing chapters, like the reverently irreverent Tracy Ullman, Pollack takes on such subjects as the Tarot's origins, wisdom questions (as opposed to asking, "Will X marry me," she asks, "What is marriage?"), Jewish and Kabbalistic thoughts as they pertain to the Tarot, and formulating new versions of the Fool's Journey. The author does a reading for God ("God's Reading") and finds Christian symbolism abounding in her own Shining Tribe deck when she performs "A Reading for the Resurrection: Easter 2001."

What do I mean by reverently irreverent? Some might call doing a spread for God irreverent. Yet Pollack's awe is reserved for what is truly profound, and part of that profundity is in pushing the limits of what we have done before or think we know. She pushes those limits not out of irreverence, but reverence for the truly infinite. And for the tarot, in what it can offer us in terms of infinite wisdom

If you have been fortunate enough to attend a workshop with Rachel Pollack, you know that her style is humorous and digressive. She is widely read and thinks and speaks in an unconventional, intellectually searching voice. This voice is manifested in The Forest of Souls, far more than in her previous tarot writings. I could actually hear her in my head, alluding to Professor Irwin Cory and tales of her dog's exploits. The tone of the book has an immediacy and vitality that makes it easy to read, which is an amazing feat, as the concepts and thoughts are both complex and challenging.

They are also unique. I cannot think of another book like this in the tarot oeuvre. It is also demanding, particularly in its structure. While Pollack offers us a panoply of different ways in which we can use the tarot, this is no traditional workbook. She describes what she has done, but she certainly doesn't set up a format that we can follow by rote. She doesn't make it easy. One example is her approach to alternative Major Arcana journeys. I am excited by doing one of my own, but I must admit I would have preferred some step-by-step instructions, even as I feel challenged in a positive way. Pollack's Forest of Souls isn't a stop on the Carnival Tour. This isn't the Easily Digestible Approach to Tarot, but one of visionaries, dreamers, and explorers. Only adult tarot readers need apply.

In high school, I read Elie Wiesel's The Gates of the Forest, a moving novel about the holocaust and Kabbalah. I remember being so engrossed in this book that I was shocked to feel something wet on my shoulder. It was a tear that had fallen without me even being aware that I was crying, so enmeshed was I in that compelling story. The title of that book, so similar to Rachel's, brought that memory back to me. The synchronicity of the subject matter seems to align with the magic of the Tarot, another inviting and complex forest for which we are blessed to have a guide like Rachel Pollack.

In the beginning of her book, Rachel Pollack quotes from Stephen Karcher's TaChuan, the Great Treatise: "Erect the gates. Then the transformation can take place between them." In that sense Rachel's book might well be called the Book of Gates. Step through her gates for transformational experiences with the Tarot.

Tarot readings, Rachel informs us, are not ways to reveal secrets or to describe the future. They are gates to new perspectives; they allow us to "explore possibilities outside our normal ways of thought."

In Forest Rachel reminds us that in a Tarot reading, the card is only half the answer, while the other half lies in the way in which we interpret it. What, she asks, if we do readings not just to reveal the forces that shape our lives, but also to embrace them? This book will inspire you to do just that, and contains many examples of how to seriously "play" with Tarot cards, and Tarot readings. Her points are illustrated with cards from many different decks.

I am in my third reading of this book, and I love it more each time as I ponder different ideas--ones I only briefly considered the first or second time through. If you will let it, this is a book to shake your boundaries regarding both personal growth and Tarot work.

Rachel gives a little nudge to those boundaries right away with the "outrageous" (meaning delightful and serious) idea of considering that God consulted the cards to create the world, and even of attempting to discover the "very reading that God received." Tarot at play.

You will be stimulated by Rachel's ideas to rethink some of your own ideas about Tarot and Tarot readings, and, maybe, to even have more fun with your cards.