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Calliope

calliope@grimoire.social

Joined 1 year, 5 months ago

Ph.D. in literary and cultural studies, professor, diviner, writer, trans, nonbinary

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Rachel Pollack: A Walk Through the Forest of Souls (Paperback, 2023, Weiser Books, Red Wheel/Weiser) No rating

A very good book with some small moments that made me twitch.

So it's a tarot book that doesn't sit down and run through all 78 cards, telling you the meanings. I wish we had more books like this. This particular book is inventive and playful, drawing both on esoteric traditions of tarot and the simple fact that we're looking at playing cards here.

At its core the book is about exploring different means we can draw information and wisdom from tarot, founded on the idea that the tarot is "the instrument of our wisdom."

There's a little more gender essentialism than I expected from Rachel Pollack, but from what I understand, this is a revision of a book first published in 2002.

There's also an understandable but unfortunate -- for me, probably not for you -- tendency to use Pollack's deck she made, and I don't like it …

Robert Place, David Vine: First Occult Tarot (2023, Hermes Publications) No rating

A nice expanded lwb essentially. The book goes through both de Gebelin's and de Melletcs lives and essays, briefly, before turning to describing the cards. Place used Aluette cards for inspiration when de Mellet didn't describe their meanings, as he concluded that's where de Mellet got his pip meanings in the first place.

It ends with a nice, succinct description of how to use de Mellet's divination method, including notes on how to deal with the inconsistencies.

If you get the deck -- and it's lovely -- definitely get the book as well.

Sakaomi Yuzaki, Caleb Cook, Philip Christie: She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat, Vol. 3 (2023, Yen Press LLC) No rating

They're lesbians Harold.

In all seriousness, this series is great. The author is even involved in an organization in Japan agitating for marriage rights for all, and promoted it unabashedly in the book.

The basic premise is two lesbians who haven't realized it yet fall im love over their shared love of food. And also there's trauma, well handled -- new characters in volume 3 include a loud and out asexual lesbian and a young woman suffering from trauma related to eating disorders. The chapters that hit heavy begin with trigger warning in fact.