Rachel True: Tarot for Your Highest Self 

Host Michelle Tea goes deep with The Craft star Rachel True, sharing their vast knowledge of the tarot and other mystical practices. Plus, we visit MIT’s collection of over 450 indie tarot decks.

Rachel True: What I love about tarot — especially if you're first starting out, someone's first starting out with the deck — is you have to learn to walk before you can fly your broomstick.

[Music]

Michelle Tea: This is Your Magic, a Spotify Original from Parcast Studios and Your Magic Media. I’m Michelle Tea.

And today, I’m talking to Rachel True. She created the True Heart Intuitive Tarot, but many of you also know her as the actress who played Rochelle in the iconic teen witch thriller The Craft. 

After that, we’re going to visit with Your Magic producer Molly Elizalde, who set off to find a treasure trove of newfangled tarot decks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

And finally, I’m going to share a spell to help you bond with your tarot deck. And it will not involve sleeping with it under your pillow. Because you deserve a good night’s sleep.

Stay with us.

[Music]

Michelle Tea: So I want to talk about the tarot deck I use when I’m reading cards for other people. The Thoth Tarot was conceptualized by Aleister Crowley, the 19th century British occultist who was deemed “The wickedest man in the world” by the Daily Express. This was after an English gentleman died mysteriously during one of his rituals. They’d all been drinking cat blood. Nobody likes that.

It’s hard to give a brief primer on Crowley, because his life was wild. He was a Victorian-era trust-fund baby, but he died penniless. He lived most of his life with the funds to travel the world, either culturally appropriating or, I don’t know, respectfully studying various global mystical traditions. This information was filtered through his privileged and problematic world view — he held racist and misogynist beliefs — and it was filtered through his drug-addled mind, as well. Crowley was what in recovery slang we call a Garbage Can, just happy to get high on whatever is available. And in his case mostly cocaine, opium, hash, and heroin. He wrote prolifically, though, and he practiced magic intensely, including sex magic. He had lots of affairs with both men and women, and ultimately created his own religion, Thelema, which is still practiced today. 

Crowley’s original vision for the Thoth deck was reportedly pretty basic, but under the influence of the deck’s artist, Lady Frieda Harris, he was pushed to conceptualize a tarot that brought in his understanding of the Kabbalah, of ancient Egyptian deities, Asian mystical traditions, and his own personal occult investigations. 

Crowley and Harris worked so hard on this deck, with Harris sometimes having to create up to eight iterations of a card before they were satisfied. They jam packed it with so much symbolism, but to me, as a reader, the numerical Kabbalah associations plus the astrological affiliations they gave to each card are what really makes it such an amazing, deep tool for divination and intuitive investigation. 

The Thoth Tarot was published in 1969 — neither Crowley nor Harris lived to see the day — and alongside the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, it’s been the top-selling tarot deck in the world.

Is it weird to do such intense, personal, often feminist work with a deck created by a guy who was in large part a creep? It probably is. But my feminist perspective is, at this point, skilled in accommodating the work of problematic dudes. Dudes who, in spite of their profound intellectual limitation, did manage to create work that means something. Rather than allowing my feminism to be something that limits me, I just bring that critique out into the world with all its problems. So yes, I will read your tarot with a deck of Thoth cards, but I will be sure to call out its creator as a creep when appropriate. 

Now, let’s go hang out with Rachel True.

[Music]

Michelle Tea: Hi Rachel True. It’s incredibly lovely and exciting to be talking to you. Thank you for joining me on Your Magic.

Rachel True: Oh I want to say thank you so much for inviting me on.

Michelle Tea: I love that you were already witch-y when you filmed The Craft. And I'm wondering, how old were you when you discovered that part of yourself?

Rachel True: Well, I think I was a really little baby, actually, when I first started to... My personal feeling is everybody is born with a little bit of awareness. But when I was, I'm going to say I was four to five and I'd been living in foster care and I went to live with my dad and my stepmom, and they had what I called the library, which was in fact just a bookcase. And the two books and the two books that I would pull down were Jung, Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols and Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. 

Michelle Tea: Light reading for a four to five year old. 

Rachel True: Here's the thing. At that age we could read, we were taught to read very young, but granted, I wasn't reading the big words. I was clearly probably catching a word here and there, but more looking at the images that was on the cover and Man and His Symbols has a lot of black and white pictures in it. And so cut to a few years later when a friend of my parents is over and they pull out a tarot deck. And I'm like, oh my god, wait, I know this. I recognize this. It was like a language. I went, wait, this is like that other thing I used to pull out of the library. And it's a language I can learn to speak. 

Michelle Tea: I love, you know, hearing you talk about this like it's like, OK, like you saw those images and you recognize them, right? So there's this like sort of like basic, you know, brainy intelligence. But I feel like there's something going on, it's really talking about your mind and having the mind of a tarot reader or maybe even a mind that sort of I mean, I don't know if you write poetry, but it makes me think of the mind of a poet where you were able to actually make these larger leaps like it might not have been so evident. 

Rachel True: Do you think? Because to me. 

Michelle Tea: To you, you're like, it was very evident. 

Rachel True: Yeah but to you, too you, I'm sure for you too it would be screaming at you. It was literally like, look at me. I am saying something also because I... Maybe again, growing up like a Jewish intellectual dad. Right. We had all these sort of interesting esoteric books around and discourse around things that maybe just didn't happen in every household as well as I grew up when I was a small kid in New York City. And there's so much energy. 

Michelle Tea: Oh yeah. 

Rachel True: So very much energy coming at you, unlike California, where all the energy is coming from the volatile earth here. So I knew as a little child, I felt very overwhelmed or I felt that energy intensely. And I remember being mortified that I would laugh. I would hysterically laugh every time I saw little babies when I was around that age. And I was embarrassed by it because I didn't understand why I would just hysterically laugh. And now I get that that was just the energy connection. I was picking up on their joy. 

Michelle Tea: Oh gosh. 

Rachel True: The joy of a baby who's not smashed down by life yet. Yeah.

Michelle Tea: I'm just imagining, like, tiny you in New York and New York is an overwhelming city to any adult who isn't particularly psychic. You know, it's just a lot, like what did little tiny, you know, esoterically sensitive you do to help yourself with that overwhelming energy that you were sensitive to? 

Rachel True: Honestly, as a small child, I was just overwhelmed a lot, you know, because I think it's a skill set we develop. A lot of young empaths hit me up in my DMs right. And they're like, “I'm an empath.” Which will be the whole sentence. And then I'm like, "And?" But then the rest of the sentence sometimes will be, "I'm an empath and there's so much stuff coming, people come at me so much, what do I do?" And I'm really big. And maybe this is because I'm like an old Gen X battle-ax. But I'm like, let's frame no, but seriously, because I'm like, let's frame it differently. You're not a victim. You are gifted with this. And everyone has this extra sense is my particular take. Although I argue I think Fairuza Balk and I got in an argument, she's like, "Not everyone is magical, Rachel." And I was like, "No, but I think they are." It's just really buried. 

Michelle Tea: I agree with you. 

Rachel True: And and yeah, I think it's really buried in most people. Or as a friend of mine said, they're like, "OK, fine, Rachel, everyone's psychic. But like some people are at the Super Bowl and some people are in the peewee leagues". 

Michelle Tea: Yeah, totally like some people. Sure. You're your you have psychic potential, but like you're just never going to uncover it in this lifetime.

Rachel True: Or you have no interest.

Michelle Tea: Usually right yeah. That’s because you have no interest. 

Rachel True: I like to say, listen, they're not going to stop. So it is your responsibility or my responsibility when I am in a supermarket, if I feel overwhelmed by the energy then I need a protection. And I do something as silly as, you know, I picture myself in a medieval suit of armor. I do. In the supermarket. And then when the stuff really comes at me, that visor goes down and that's my way.

But my thing was for everyone out there who's framing stuff as this is happening to me, I'm a bit of a victim in it. I'm like, let's just turn it around. You are gifted and how can you protect yourself? Because that's more active to me. And you can do something about it. 

Michelle Tea: Do you feel like magic and witchcraft and spirituality can help with these sorts of communication issues that everybody has? 

Rachel True: Oh, definitely, what I love about tarot — especially if you're first starting out, someone's first starting out with a deck — is you have to learn to walk before you can fly your broomstick. But it's really great if you just start to understand the concept of the cards and what they are. So I use them very much as a shrink-in-a-box, like I say, to help ferret out what is this issue, go. "Oh, me and my friend are having some friction. What's the root consciousness of it? What's going on here? And more importantly, what's my part?" 

My dynamic with the cards is always changing. You know, my understanding of the cards. Now, when I get the High Priestess, I'm like, of course, when I was 22 and got the High Priestess with the, you know, the traditional Rider-Waite deck and she's so white and buttoned up and I just thought, who is the schoolmarm? I didn't understand the depths, you know. I mean I really didn't. I read some books and Mary K. Greer and all the books that were around then, but I did not have a relationship with the cards the way that I do now. And even though I've written a book on it, I will always be a student of tarot.

I will always be studying, and the dynamic will always change because now I love the High Priestess because now I'm like, you don't know what she has on under that robe, you know, like all you know is the austere outside. So I'm saying, if you learn the cards and you learn a spread, then you're given so very much more information to to bounce off. 

I have a spread of my own in the book where one of the positions is, is this thing I want in alignment with my higher self. Because I don't know about you Michelle...

Michelle Tea: Ooh that is such an important question that never gets asked in my world. Yeah, totally. 

Rachel True: Right? 

Michelle Tea: Totally. 

Rachel True: Because you- so many things, people, places, things doughnuts I have desired that were not that were not good for me in any way, shape or form. 

Michelle Tea: Definitely. 

Rachel True: When I first started, and you too, I bet there was a lot of reverence with starting an esoteric practice. You had to do a lot of work. You had to go to the bookstore. You had to find the person you connected with, you to get rid of the books, you didn't you had to try things. And now it's a little instant Lipton's, instant cup of soup. 

Michelle Tea: I mean, I think there's a lot about that that's really good, because I do believe that they're that, you know, these practices are so self-defined anyway to a certain extent, you know, and so people feeling empowered to kind of like create their own spiritual practice, I think is really cool. 

Rachel True: There is no, I agree with that. There's no right or wrong way. And that's why I actually go out of my way to say interpretations in my book, because they're not definitions, there's many schools of thought on all of these things. 

Michelle Tea: Yeah it's probably unfortunate that there was so much sort of weird, I guess, like gate, gatekeeping around mysticism, where you had to feel like you had to prove yourself. It's probably better better that it's not like that. But I kind of enjoyed it. Like, I liked feeling like I was like, you know, this might be because I'm a trashy New England Gen X battle-ax. But like, I liked just the same way where I'm like, oh, we couldn't Google, you know, anything. Like we had to find weird shit on our own, like, and then have people throw bricks at our heads for looking funny.

Rachel True: Listen, that's it, you have such a good point, because I do actually try I'm like, wait a second, you're at that dangerous get-off-my-lawn age, Rachel. So you need to be like what you just said is beautiful because it's bringing people into an esoteric practice. 

And for me personally, I. I like that my face is out there associated with it now because there's so many Black and brown people who have been told it's out of alignment with whatever their religion is, Christ consciousness or Judaism or whatever, which is insane. It's not. It's so beautiful in tandem with, I say it’s a great way to clear away the noise and the anxiety and the subterfuge so you can actually hear your higher self is what I call it. But if you're super religious or not even super religious, but if you call it God, then it's a way to hear if God is everywhere and God is inside you, it's a way to hear God clearer. 

[Music]

Michelle Tea: Listen, I want to pick cards for you. 

Rachel True: OK, OK. 

Michelle Tea: Would you let me read your cards? 

Rachel True: Yes. 

Michelle Tea: Do you, is there anything in par- and it's an honor, may I say. Is there anything…?

Rachel True: I'm going to say this. I have I think what's been on my mind lately has been my last relationship. And what will my next one like love life stuff I guess. I've learned a lot of lessons from my last one. 

So I guess around love because I write about this in the book that it's the one thing I haven't really manifested the way that I, I would want in this life. I've always been so career-focused or maybe I even talk about it. I think I had a broken heart and I in the 90s and I remember saying, that's it. I am never feeling this way again. I am putting all my focus on work. I will never, you know. 

Michelle Tea: Yeah I relate to that. Let's just, let's just see what's in the love sphere. 

Rachel True: You know what, it's, it's all going to be work cards now because I asked about love.

Michelle Tea: Well, you know, we're going to interpret them as love. So even if you get work cards, it means that you are- I'm would interpret that as...

Rachel True: Working towards love. 

Michelle Tea: Exactly. OK, I'm going to shuffle right now. 

Rachel True: Alright.

Michelle Tea: Thinking about specifically the lessons that you're bringing with you from this last relationship. So let's see. OK, so I'm picking three for that, and now what does the sphere look like that you're moving into? What does the little pink brick road of love that you're skipping down, where is the, what little cul-de-sac are you skipping into? What does this look like? What's the vibe? 

All right. Let's see, what are these, what are you bringing with you from this last relationship. Wow. This relationship is over. This relationship is definitely over. 

Rachel True: What did you pull? I'm dying to know because I actually while you were doing it, I pulled three cards too, just to see. 

Michelle Tea: Did you? 

Rachel True: I won't even tell you I'm curious what you got. 

Michelle Tea: OK, Queen of Swords. 

Rachel True: Yep. 

Michelle Tea: Came up first, OK, followed by the Emperor and then followed by a card particular to the Thoth deck, the Aeon, which is the judgement card. 

Rachel True: Right. Yeah. 

Michelle Tea: Which is about leaving your past behind. It's like this is this card is this question. It's like you're leaving your past behind. Take a look behind you. What what would you have done differently? What will you do differently in the future? How did you use your resources? Did you make the can you stand by the choices? It's a reckoning so that you can then with almost like a clean slate move into your future, even though your future might be uncertain. You might be this little little ghost baby chewing your finger, saying, how am I, what am I going to do? It's OK. You'l, you’re going to figure it out. It's promised in the card right. 

Rachel True: I do feel like a ghost baby, by the way. 

Michelle Tea: Did you end it? Did you end this relationship? 

Rachel True: You know what um, originally no, but I made a decision mentally to not hold on to it anymore. So I made. So yes. I didn't end the dynamic with him. But I ended it with myself. If that makes any sense, I made... 

Michelle Tea: It makes perfect sense and it makes the best sense because that's ultimately what's most important. And that's what she's doing. The Queen of Swords. She's sitting up, you know, on her cloud. I love that she's in a cloud throne in this deck because it's about having detachment and distance and being able to look at your situation almost dispassionately, intellectually, so that you can make a good decision and not be so overrun with emotion and this and that. But be be up there looking down and being OK, you know, something. Not going to do that. Not going to do that.

Rachel True: Sure. 

Michelle Tea: That person's gone. That that pattern is gone.

Rachel True: No and I love that card for the first card because I'm again a water sign and my emotions tend to be all over the place. So when I move into that energy it is usually. 

Michelle Tea: Yes. 

Rachel True: I've swum through the depths and gotten to some logical place.

Michelle Tea: Totally. And then like the centerpiece right is this Emperor card. And it's just like, I love this. It's just like you like taking full responsibility for your own life and your purpose and your energy, packing it up and moving on. It's like you are the king of your castle. It's almost like it's business, even though it's not. But it's like seeing it for what it is, not letting it hamper you, knowing that you have this like like road to keep marching down. Bossing

Rachel True: I like that interpretation because it's bossing up because I know a lot of people, especially some women, can have negative interpretations of the Emperor, which I get that right. But I also think there's that other side of just taking control of our own destiny. 

Michelle Tea: So this looks great. It looks like. Yeah. Lesson learned. Action taken ready for the future, you know. And now what is this future energy coming up for love. It is, it looks a little hesitant and trepidatious. That's what it looks like. 

Rachel True: Do tell. Do tell. 

Michelle Tea: We got another queen leading, leading the trio. It's the Queen of Disks, which is Capricorn. 

Rachel True: Yeah. 

Michelle Tea: So, you know, it's like she has already been through it and she knows about it. Right. So there's a certain knowingness and it's like this is really interesting. It's like, what do you do when you've been through relationships? And you know how like your illusions about romance maybe have been trashed through experience and yet you're still a romantic creature and you want connection. So it's like, you know, she's just sitting there pondering this, like how when I know when I know all there is to know about love, how then do I go forward? 

Rachel True: Yes. And one, I just want to throw in an exercise that I did when I realized that my heart was kind of locked up. I did this exercise where I pictured, took the stairs from my head to my heart, right. Walked from my mind palace down to my visualization. 

Michelle Tea: I love this.

Rachel True: And when I got down there, it was, it was a heart-shaped building, but it was like little pieces of wood, like roof shingles were all over it. It was wood. Right. So first of all, I had to pry those off to get to the opening of the — anyway, long story short, when I opened the door, sand came out of my heart. 

Michelle Tea: Ooh stop it. 

Rachel True: I went, oh, OK. I have to let that sand out and start refilling it with living things and blood. And you know what I'm saying, just as an exercise for people listening. That way you don't get bogged down by I don't have what I want because I oh, my heart is shut down. I could stay sad about that or I could try to open it back up. 

Michelle Tea: And I love that you did it through this visualization and that you got such potent imagery. 

So look at your next card here. You got the Four of Cups, which is called Luxury in this deck. It's moon in Capricorn. And this is like, there's been a certain amount of emotional stability that's been reached. And we're talking about love and your process, around love. So like you, as you're saying, like you were shut down, you're not shut down anymore. Like the cups are golden, the water is, you know, clean. This is how we see the difference between, like healthy emotions and unhealthy emotions in this deck is like the state of the water and the state of the cups. But it's choppy at the bottom. So there's a little bit of like, OK, I'm I got my I got my grounding. I'm a little stable. 

I can see my heart being open.  It's open. But here's the thing about this is the choppy water at the bottom. These are going to get these are going to get the cups are going to get knocked over. So it's like this is the information that you're sitting with. It's like, all right, I'm good. I'm open. My heart's going to get hurt again because that's what happens to hearts. Right. So what do you do with that knowledge? Because your heart is very important and you don't want it to get all boarded up again. You want to keep it healthy and open. So you got to move slowly so that you can care for it. It's just like if you see the picture on this card is this beautiful tree and there are these lovely big flowers growing and there are these big leaves that grow and curl around the flower to protect the flowers. 

Rachel True: I think that's great. And I think it's the last thing you said was really true, because I think in one of my last encounters, I kind of fell back into some old patterns. You know, I hadn't dated anyone in a minute. And I just was like ah and I went back to old, that don't serve me, don't work dadadadada. 

Michelle Tea: I just love your whole jam. I love the way you think about things. I love. I just I love like the way that you do self care in your own brain. Like, I just I like your philosophy of emotions and of self. And it has been such a delight to get to have this really cool conversation with you. 

Rachel True: I appreciate the reading. Just so you know, look what card. I'm using a different deck. I'm not even using mine because there was another deck closer to me. But look what came up in this deck too.

Michelle Tea: It's what it's the She Wolfe deck. Yes? 

Rachel True: She Wolfe deck, yeah yeah yeah.

Michelle Tea: I love the She Wolfe deck. Oh it's so gorgeous. 

Rachel True: Yeah. And we got a couple of the same cards. 

Michelle Tea: So you've got the Aeon you pulled that is a deck that also uses the Aeon card instead of the Judgment card. 

[Music]

Michelle Tea: The She Wolfe deck is just one of hundreds of creator-driven tarot decks that have been unleashed upon the world in recent years. In an effort to really explore the extent of the tarot renaissance we’re in, our producer, Molly Elizalde took the train from Brooklyn to Cambridge, to visit MIT, where a librarian has gathered over 450 specimens of unique, artist-created tarot decks. Let’s see what she found. 

[Music]

Michelle Tea: Molly, I met you because I was reading your tarot cards a couple years ago. A few years ago.

Molly Elizalde: Yeah. 

Michelle Tea: Yeah. And you didn't have a tarot deck yourself then?

Molly Elizalde: No, I never had a reading, but I guess I didn't really understand what tarot was. It just seemed like sort of a fun, mystical thing to do. But when you gave me this first reading, it was just very affirming to everything that was going on in my life. And it almost felt like therapy. And I just realized that, you know, you could use tarot as a as a way to know yourself better. 

Michelle Tea: If I remember correctly, you were interested in acquiring your own deck, but I think you had caught wind of that myth that you weren't allowed to buy your own tarot deck — that it had to be gifted to you.

Molly Elizalde: Yes, I had been dropping hints to my friends like, oh, wouldn't it be fun to do tarot readings, guys? And nobody got the hint. 

But you gave me your blessing that it was OK to buy your own first deck. And I was on my way to London and you had just been on your UK book tour and you didn't get to go to this witchy bookshop in London called Treadwell's. And you sent me there. And there were all these amazing decks. And I just felt really overwhelmed and I didn't really know where to start, but I knew the Rider-Waite [00:03:19] and I was like, that's meaningful to like have a classic thing. So I bought the Rider-Waite deck

Michelle Tea: I mean, I think you did the right thing. It is the ultimate beginner deck. I think it's good to familiarize yourself with it. So what did you think of it? What did you think of the Rider-Waite Smith deck? 

Molly Elizalde: I don't know if at the time I really understood, like the energy that you could have between you and a deck, but like I was just so focused on, like, what is the right meaning of these cards. But then you also told me about this amazing collection at MIT, and I just really wanted to know more. 

Michelle Tea: I could not believe it when I learned that at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, right, in their library, they have a special collections department with a very cool librarian, Emilie Hardman, who was acquiring a ginormous collection of artist-created independent contemporary tarot decks. 

Molly Elizalde: So we started out in her office where she happened to have some boxes of tarot that hadn't been archived yet at the library. 

Emilie Hardman: We’re building this as a study collection really, like something that is used in a reading room and can be protected and we take that really seriously.

Michelle Tea: Thinking about the way tarot is regarded by our culture, you know, how why are they acquiring tarot decks which are sort of, you know, predicated on this idea that intuition is real? Maybe clairvoyance is real like stuff science is has always shook their head at.

Molly Elizalde: I mean, Emilie really placed it within this sort of world of like math and gaming that is such a part of the culture of MIT and you know, really is thinking of tarot as a text. 

Emilie Hardman: Like it's just an unbound book. And I really can't think of any other text that has been so comprehensively, so often redone.

Molly Elizalde: Out of all the decks that we looked at in her office, you know, I just had this realization that contemporary living artists were actually reinterpreting this ancient practice. And I thought that was so cool.

Emilie Hardman: We’re really looking for decks by artists who are taking apart archetypes and offering them up to new ways for their communities and for their own practice.

Molly Elizalde: So Emilie and I kept looking at different decks in her office and we kept pulling the Star card. 

Molly Elizalde: The Star!

Emilie Hardman: Yeah, maybe the Star is like our guiding card for this.

Michelle Tea: Like you guys would just grab a deck randomly to investigate the art. And the card that you plucked was the Star again and again. 

Molly Elizalde: Yes, and it was kind of convenient because it allowed us to sort of compare the differences between how these artists were interpreting the Star. 

Michelle Tea: It's like the tarot could not help but respond to you in the way it is meant to, which is, you know, uncanny and trying to communicate a message, a pictorial message to you. And honestly, the Star, it's so interesting that it's that card because the Star is a card about it's a visionary card. In a way, it could encompass tarot as a project because the tarot is such a giant project, 78 cards, trying to touch on different aspects of human experience in this really, you know, staying true to these old traditions, but modernizing it. That's the Star. It's about cosmic inspiration, which the tarot obviously is. So it was talking to you!

Molly Elizalde: It totally felt cosmic because it was the first story that we were reporting for this crazy podcast we were starting and we kept, we kept pulling the Star. And it just felt really it just felt really meaningful. 

Michelle Tea: So out of all of those decks, like did you see what did you see that was really surprising and super unique or made you think about tarot differently?

Molly Elizalde: Yeah, I mean, at the time, what I knew about tarot is that, you know, you buy a deck and you get the cards and maybe a little booklet that describes some of the meanings. But Emilie also pulled out some decks that came with hand knit pouches and crystals and even jelly bellies. 

Michelle Tea: Oh my god, I wish all tarot decks came with jelly bellies. Did you get to reach out and actually meet any of these genius tarot creators? 

Molly Elizalde: Yeah, so Emilie pulled out a really amazing box set that came with a bound book and a deck by the artist Courtney Alexander, the deck is called Dust II Onyx. 

Emilie Hardman: Courtney has articulated this is a, this is a deck that anyone should be welcome to use, but in terms of why she made it, she made it for Black folks to work with, to use, to see themselves in.

Molly Elizalde: In the deck she uses images of, you know pop culture figures like Michelle Obama, Maya Angelou, Grace Jones. And the cards were just so textured. You know, in her original works, she used materials like sand, glitter, spray paint. So Courtney told us a little bit about what inspired her to make this deck. 

Courtney Alexander: It wasn't necessarily that there weren't decks that had Black people in it. It was just that none of those decks were created by a Black person. There was so much nuance left out of the work of other people because they just did not have that lived experience and the dedication to Black liberation and healing.

Molly Elizalde: Courtney even reinterpreted the language of the cards, the suit of cups became the suit of gourds and she even renamed some of the major arcana. 

Courtney Alexander: With the Hanged Man card, I change the name to Suspension because obviously, like with Black culture and and Black American culture and history of lynching, being triggered by that that type of imagery or wording that creates a different response. And even if we try to ignore it, to look past it, for some of us, it's a really difficult imagery to not see.

Michelle Tea: It's so exciting that people are entitled and empowered people like Courtney to go in and just say, like, we're going to make this for Black folks because, you know, everyone everyone should have a tarot deck that resonates with their experience. 

Molly Elizalde: Right, and Courtney explained some of the experiences that people who use her deck have when they do readings. 

Courtney Alexander: It does have its own energy. And every person that I've talked to extensively have said the messages really dig deep and that there's a visceral response, whether it's through crying, people just have a really deep response to the messages they receive through the cards. And to know yourself and to know your people, it's not like a novelty or trivial by any means. It's also incredibly healing and affirming, and caring as well.

Michelle Tea: Exactly, I mean, the tarot is a tool for healing, it can be incredibly healing, it reflects your own experience back at yourself with with clarity, with art. It allows you to see your own journey as this heroic journey, as this almost cinematic journey that's being reflected in art. It's such a gorgeous experience. And, yeah, it should be absolutely tailored as tightly to your unique experience as possible. 

So wow Molly, at the end of this journey, you you must have been a little bit like mind-boggled from just having been exposed to so many tarot decks. It's almost like you went overboard trying to solve your problem. Like, how did you how did you then move towards a deck that felt like it spoke to you? 

Molly Elizalde: I would say I was even more overwhelmed than I was at Treadwell’s. But then then you told me about an artist named Mary Elizabeth Evans. And I bought her her deck called the Apparition deck. And I had seen her give a reading with this deck on Instagram. And I just really loved sort of like the whimsical illustrations. And for me, it wasn't necessarily about like a lack of representation, but maybe more about giving myself the freedom to interpret the images in a way that I really understood. You know, the Rider Waite  didn't necessarily speak to me because I was so focused on, like, what is the right answer? 

Michelle Tea: You were oppressed by the, like by its history, it sounds like. 

Molly Elizalde: I was and there's this one card in the Apparition deck and, you know, I got it at the very beginning of the pandemic and this it has this like M.C. Escher-ish, endless no-exit staircase. 

You know, we were all in lockdown and I was here in New York where things were really bad. And so this deck that's just sort of very sweet and whimsical, in this moment where you're trying to figure out what to do with yourself and where to put your energy, having a card that felt like it represented me was just so much more meaningful. 

[Music]

Michelle Tea: I love a tarot love story with a happy ending. I am really glad Molly found a deck she can relate to and bond with and really grow a relationship with. 

[Music]

Michelle Tea: If you are looking to get closer to a new deck, or just want to rekindle a lost spark with one of your well-worn favorites, here is a little ritual I do to bond with my cards.

I do want to say, first and foremost and all that, the best way to bond with your deck is by using it regularly, and studying it. But I like to do this bedtime ritual to get into the realm of the subconscious, the psyche, where so much of our intuition resides. This is a ritual to help you get to know a new deck, or just reacquaint yourself with an older one. 

First, you need the deck you’re wanting to bond with. Do this early in the day, or even in the morning. Shuffle the cards, and ask the deck to give to you one card that represents an important aspect of its spirit or its vibe. When you’re done shuffling, pick that first card off the top. Study it. Gather items from around your house that resonate with the imagery on the card. Toys, statues, food. Candles and crystals or pieces of fabric that reflect the card’s color scheme.

That night, arrange an altar by your bed. Put your deck there, and the objects you’ve collected. Meditate on the image before you sleep. Ask the deck to come to you in your dreams, and reveal images that deepen your understanding of it. Now go to bed.

Most of the time when I do this ritual, I don’t even remember what I dreamt! You know how dreams are. But scientists believe we have 3-7 dreams a night, so I just trust that my psyche was in active communication with the spirit of my deck. 

I do always feel closer to my tarot after having done it, and I bet you will too.

[Music]

Michelle Tea: I think a good tarot deck feels like a friend, and we created a lot of  friendships today! We made fremenies with old school occultist Aleister Crowley, we made new besties with sassy Scorpio Rachel True, we watched sparks fly between Molly Elizalde and her own chosen tarot deck, and we forged a path for you to level up your intimacy with your own cards. 

Relationships are the conduit through which magic really flows, whether it’s the connection between a tarot reader and their querent, an elder witch and their newbie student, or between you and your own highest, most divine self. We hope that all your relationships are friendly, healing, inspiring, and full of magic.

[Music]

Michelle Tea: Thanks for tuning into Your Magic. Make sure you follow us on Twitter and Instagram @thisisyourmagic, subscribe to us here on Spotify, just do what you got to do to make sure you never miss an episode. You can email us at hello@thisisyourmagic.com, we’d love to hear from you. 

This episode was produced and edited by Molly Elizalde, Tony Gannon, Raven Yamamoto, and Vera Blossom. We got production support from Veronica Agard and Kristine Mar. Our executive producers are Ben Cooley, myself, and Molly Elizalde. Our original theme music is by John Kimbrough. Special thanks to Erin Kelly. 

Join us next week for a conversation with Raveena. Thanks for listening!