Robert M. Place's newest book, Astrology and Divination, is published by Chelsea House as part of their Mysteries, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena series. The cover, which can be seen on the left, is illustrated by Place, as are most of the illustrations within. This is a full-color, 136 page, hard-cover book with sidebars, a timeline, and endnotes, and it covers all aspects of divination. The list price is $29.95.

Summary

Can we see into the future to tell if we are going to be happy or rich? What does fate have in store for us? These are the kinds of questions that come up when most people think of divination, making it seem like mere fortune-telling or, worse, just plain superstition. Rather than predicting the future, however, divination provides insight and guidance to help a person create the future. It is a way of contacting part of the human mind that resides in the unconscious, providing greater perspective and access to psychic abilities. Astrology and Divination is an overview of the history and forms of divination that have existed in human culture around the world since prehistoric times. Delving into the reasoning and psychology of divination, it looks at divination methods including dreams, Tarot, astrology, palmistry, and other body readings, the I Ching, and other oracular methods.

ISBN-10: 0791093859
ISBN-13: 978-0-7910-9385-6

Chapters include:

Wise Dreams

Confronting the Divine

Give Yourself a Vision

Omens

Astrology

Divination Games

The Tarot

The Name of Pamela's Deck

When The Tarot deck that Arthur Edward Waite paid Pamela Colman Smith to create was first published by Rider, in England, in December of 1909, there were no other Tarot decks published in an English speaking country and it was simply called Tarot Cards. It was accompanied by Waite's book, The Key to the Tarot. The following year Waite added Smith's black and white drawings to the book and published it as the Pictorial Key to the Tarot. In 1971 an American publisher, U.S. Games, bought the right to publish the deck and published it under the title The Rider Tarot Deck. In later editions they changed the name to Rider Tarot and then Rider Waite Tarot.

Today most writers and scholars, in order to recognize Smith's contribution, refer to the deck as the Waite-Smith Tarot. By what ever name it is still the most popular Tarot deck in the world but it is important to honor Smith as the designer. Some authors seem to be confused on this point and claim that Waite was the designer. But Waite could not draw and although he had some ideas about the symbolism of the Tarot that he no doubt told Pamela about she spent six months in her studio creating the illustrations and it is doubtful that Waite was hanging out there with her all of that time.

To Order

Astrology and Divination (Mysteries, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena)

click on the title and go to Amazon.com