Mary K. Greer
One of the most respected voices in modern tarot. Author of eleven books, recipient of the International Tarot Lifetime Achievement Award, and a teacher whose work has shaped how a generation reads the cards. Study with Mary at your own pace.
Biography
A Life in the Cards
Some people discover tarot. For Mary K. Greer, tarot discovered her.
In 1967, while studying at University, a friend handed her a copy of Eden Gray’s The Tarot Revealed. What she found in those pages wasn’t fortune-telling, it was a mirror. She recognized the Major Arcana as a map of the psyche, closely aligned with Carl Jung’s archetypes and Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. That insight has guided her work for nearly six decades.
Her 1984 book Tarot for Your Self changed the field. It was the first to offer in-depth techniques for reading tarot as a practice of personal inquiry, not by memorizing someone else’s meanings, but by discovering your own relationship with each card. The approach was so influential that it reshaped how an entire generation learned to read.
For eleven years, Mary taught on the faculty of New College of California in San Francisco, where she developed tarot as an interdisciplinary subject weaving together art, literature, history, and depth psychology. During those years, she also studied witchcraft, astrology, Kabbalah, and Native American traditions, and founded T.A.R.O.T. (Tools and Rites of Transformation), an educational center for divination and transformative arts.
For more than three decades, she co-taught seminars with Rachel Pollack at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, a collaboration that became legendary in the tarot world.
She holds an M.A. in English Literature and has authored or co-authored eleven books, including the COVR Award-winning 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card and the scholarly biography Women of the Golden Dawn. She has lived in Japan, Germany, England, Mexico, and across the United States, and currently resides in Northern California. Widely regarded as one of the most important tarot teachers alive today, she continues to write, teach, and explore new frontiers of symbolic consciousness.
Specializations
Areas of Expertise
- Tarot self-reading techniques (pioneer of the field)
- Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey in the Major Arcana
- Tarot court cards
- Tarot history and iconographic research
- Golden Dawn tarot traditions and theory
- Alchemy in tarot symbolism
- Petit Lenormand divination
- Kabbalah
- Tarot and Jungian archetypal psychology
- Pamela Colman Smith and the Rider-Waite-Smith deck
- Birth cards and tarot numerology
- Reading tarot reversals
- Women of the Golden Dawn
- Women's spirituality and magic
- Playing card divination
- Professional tarot ethics and practice
Approach
Teaching Philosophy
Mary approaches tarot as a mirror, one that reflects what we already carry within us. Her role as a teacher, she says, is that of a “midwife of the soul.” Her methods are interactive, experiential, and empowering, designed to help students trust their own perceptions rather than rely on someone else’s interpretations.
She teaches tarot as an interdisciplinary practice, drawing on art history, literature, depth psychology, and mythology to illuminate the cards from many angles. Whether she is exploring the alchemical symbolism hidden in the Rider-Waite-Smith imagery or guiding students through the birth card system she helped popularize, her classes invite personal discovery over rote memorization.
Her approach is scholarly without being dry, and deeply personal without being prescriptive. In Mary’s classroom, every reading becomes a conversation with the deeper self — and every student is encouraged to find their own voice within the cards.
Bibliography
Published Works
The William Blake Tarot
Affiliations
Professional Affiliations
Mary’s work has always lived at the intersection of scholarship, spiritual practice, and community. These roles reflect the breadth of her contribution to the field.
Grandmaster (CTGM) · American Tarot Association
The Certified Tarot Grand Master designation is the highest honor bestowed by the American Tarot Association, reserved for those whose life’s work has fundamentally shaped the field. For Mary, it recognizes not only the depth of her scholarship and the breadth of her published work, but the countless students and readers whose practice has been transformed by her teaching. It is a recognition of lasting influence, the kind that quietly reshapes a tradition from the inside.
Arch Priestess-Hierophant
Fellowship of Isis
Founder
Iseum of Isis Aurea
A center for spiritual practice and ritual teaching, founded by Mary as an expression of her commitment to living wisdom traditions.
Founder
Tools and Rites of Transformation (T.A.R.O.T.)
An educational center for divination and the transformative arts, dedicated to framing tarot as a tool for reflection and meaningful change.
Professor of Women’s Studies (former)
New College of California
Where Mary brought tarot into the academic world, teaching it as an interdisciplinary subject integrating art, literature, and psychology.
Learn
Classes by Mary K. Greer
From the symbolic roots of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck to the art of the Lenormand Grand Tableau, Mary’s classes draw on decades of research and her distinctive approach to tarot as a practice of self-discovery. Whether you are picking up a deck for the first time or deepening an established practice, there is something here for you.
Featured Class
Nearly five decades of experience distilled into one comprehensive class. Begin with your very first card combination and progress all the way to reading the full 36-card Grand Tableau, guided by one of the most respected teachers in modern divination.
Connect
Connect with Mary
Visit Mary’s blog for her latest research, follow her on social media, or explore her classes here at Global Spiritual Studies.