Prophecy, Oracles, Fate and Tarot
Does a tarot reading create a self-fulfilling prophecy? Do the cards somehow determine the future? Rachel Pollack, author of 78 Degrees of Wisdom and one of the most important tarot scholars of the modern era, devoted this class to the deepest question in divination. Her answer is nuanced, definitive, and profoundly reassuring: the cards show tendencies, patterns, and energies already in motion. They do not determine outcomes. Awareness of the pattern gives the power to change it.
Pollack builds her argument through an unlikely lens: Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, the most famous story about prophecy and fate ever written. Drawing on her own translation of the play (a collaboration with Greek scholar David Vine), she reads Oedipus not as a victim of fate but as someone who refused to examine himself. The Sphinx’s riddle, whose answer is simply “a human being,” is about self-knowledge. Oedipus could solve it intellectually, but he could not apply that knowledge to his own life. This, Pollack argues, is the warning for every tarot reader: the cards show us ourselves, and if we cannot face what we see, we repeat the pattern.
From Oedipus, the class moves to the Oracle at Delphi. Pollack explores the Pythia, the priestess who breathed volcanic vapors and spoke the words of Apollo, and the famous inscription above the temple: “Know Thyself.” The oracle’s words were always ambiguous. The seeker had to interpret. Misinterpretation was common and consequential. This, Pollack shows, is exactly what happens in tarot: the cards give images and symbols, and the reader must interpret with humility, knowing that the purpose of the reading is not prediction but self-knowledge.
The philosophical heart of the class is Pollack’s distinction between fate and destiny. Fate is external, predetermined, allowing no agency. Destiny is a direction, a calling that the soul participates in creating. The tarot works with destiny, not fate. It shows the current direction and invites conscious participation. The danger is not that a reading creates fate, but that the reader or querent takes the cards as fate and stops exercising choice. This is precisely Oedipus’s error, and it is the error the class teaches you to avoid.
Rachel Pollack passed away in 2023. This recording preserves her at the height of her powers as a thinker and teacher, weaving together ancient Greek drama, mythology, linguistics, philosophy, and tarot practice with an ease that reveals a lifetime of cross-disciplinary scholarship. No other tarot course bridges 2,500 years of Western thought about oracles and fate in a single sitting. For every reader who has wondered what a reading truly is, this class offers an answer that will stay with you.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
What you get
- Recorded video class with Rachel Pollack
- 1 class session (approximately 60 minutes)
- Explores Oedipus, Delphi, and the philosophy of divination
- English subtitles
- Full PDF transcript
- Community forum access
- Lifetime access to all class materials
- 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
