And--Even More Lore!
Continuing a series of HML excerpts . . .
I’m going to repeat this bit of text at the top of every excerpt post, in case of newcomers.
If you missed the first two Lore excerpts, catch up here and here.
I decided to choose these excerpts at random, by looking at a small version of the source, and grabbing an entry that looks about the right length. This approach should leave plenty of room for serendipity!
Reminder: The excerpt format starts with my original, unrevised review from History, Mystery, and Lore, followed by a quote from the reviewed book. Then some follow-up notes, new information, etc.
Freer, Jean. The New Feminist Tarot, Aquarian Press, 1987.
Though the feminist note here is occasionally a bit distracting (especially the many different spellings of the word “women”—wymn, womben, etc.), this is a thoughtful and distinctive book. Freer’s insights into the significance of the Tarot and the subtleties of the reading process will be of interest to intermediate readers looking for fresh perspectives. Traditional interpretations and spreads are given mild “Dianic" (Wiccan) revision, with a result that is provocative but not confrontational. There are excellent remarks on shuffling and on inversions, along with a good set of keywords for both the major and minor arcana cards. A surprising—and very useful--glossary of words pertaining to esoteric studies (and feminist Wicca) rounds out the book.
As Hawaiian Kahuna magic teaches us, the more a channel is travelled, the stronger it becomes. Our intention for the future definitely effects its unfoldment. Hence the importance of only giving our energies to what we wish to accompany us into the self-created future. It is with this insight that we integrate people and nature, earth and heaven, space and time, receptivity and creativity. This vision is an entirely new quality of life.
So far, I’ve started work on these excerpt posts by trying to find out what has happened since to the author and his/her book. Along the way, serendipity took me to something else of interest. But in this case, I decided to create a wider frame for the author’s life, and a sharper focus on the book itself. That approach seems to have made the post is a bit longer than usual. (Fair warning!)
For starters: Freer has led a very active life (understatement), both before and since publication of The New Feminist Tarot—a book that seems to occupy a fairly minor place in her life story. On the other hand, Freer seems to have occupied a relatively major place in the discourses of British feminism, which I’ll get to in a moment.
First, though, an outline of her life story so far. You can read the detailed version on her website, but in order to give a streamlined view, I’ve put it into bullet points.
Born in Los Angeles, where she was “put in” psychotherapy as both a child and adolescent. She moved to Berkeley, participated in protests, took LSD, and completed an undergraduate degree.
In 1969, she moved to the UK for political reasons, participated in more protests, had a four-year, full-scale Freudian psychoanalysis, studied Montessori, married someone, and lost her U.S. citizenship. In 1973, she was initiated into a particular type of Wiccan practice by Zsuzsanna Budapest. For several years, she studied Buddhism and occult sciences.
Seemingly in the same timeframe, she became a massage therapist and nutritionist (though seems to have moved away from both); studied crystal healing, the Alexander Method, and Bach Flower Remedies; took up drumming; and saw clients as a “counselor.”
In 1979, Freer began reading Tarot in a Glastonbury bookshop. By this time she was deeply involved in pagan feminism, conducting Dianic rituals with a variety of different groups
In 1989, Freer seems to have done a sort of life reset—getting a divorce, returning to the U. S., regaining U.S. citizenship, becoming a radio producer, and completing a master’s degree. From 1992 to 1994, she served as “Priestess-in-Residence” at the Topanga Canyon ranch of noted archaeologist Marija Gimbutas.
In 2001, Freer moved to Paris, where she undertook studies in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), as well as alchemical bodywork—and became a French citizen. After eight years, she returned to Britain (with a detour through India), unexpectedly reconnected with an old friend, got married, and moved to Australia, where she is now pursuing a Ph.D., and continues to practice as a spiritual counselor.
As you can see, Tarot came and went in this life story, as it does in many others. But I decided to outline the whole description because it’s a veritable catalog of Tarot-adjacent affinities. Based on her self-story, Freer seems to have touched every “counterculture,” “alternative,” and “New Age” base I can think of!
But I also provided this account at some length because it presents the aspects of Freer’s life that she now chooses to highlight. Today, there is nothing about Tarot or feminism or Dianic Wicca on Freer’s website, except for brief biographic mentions. In the foreground, we have:
Which I don’t mean as a criticism, at least not exactly. Just as an observation that Tarot often becomes wrapped up in other ideas—and can easily be distorted to fit a particular point of view. It can also be left behind when the new wears off, or it no longer serves a particular purpose.
In this case, it turns out that Freer herself hasn’t provided much context for her book on Tarot. So for more perspective, I turned to Shai Feraro’s study Women and Gender Issues in British Paganism, 1945–1990—and learned that during the later 1970s and 1980s, Freer was regarded in feminist circles as a radical theorist.
Her book on Tarot was first written in 1982, and published by a small feminist press under the title Toward a Reclaimed Tarot. It seems to have reflected certain controversies in the pagan community at the time, as well as Freer’s own experience and insights. Five years later, the book was picked up by Thorsons/Harper Collins, and published in a “revised, expanded” edition.
The internal dynamics of “pagan politics” during this period are much (much!) too complicated to summarize. But Freer’s approach was characterized by some commentators as “Goddess Fundamentalism.” For example, according to Feraro:
Throughout the 1980s Freer voiced vocal criticisms of both British Wiccans and non-separatist Goddess women who acted in disharmony with her own vision of Dianic ritual working. In an article written for Arachne she urged those participating in women's circles to keep their thoughts “womonly and creative”, and avoid introducing “ideas that have no place in magical womon space (talk of men or male gods for example)”. Freer “wholeheartedly disagreed” with the use of recorded music within the circle, and explained that “it is a patriarchal trick to offer goddess artificial (man-made) sound”.
Needless to say, I knew nothing about this background of ideas when I originally reviewed A New Feminist Tarot. Now that I’ve revisited the text, I still like Freer’s general approach to the reading process—but her frequent gender distinctions stand out in a different way.
You can form your own opinion of the 1987 edition, which is available for free from the Internet Archive.
If I started this post all over again, I would probably write it differently. But in the interests of time and transparency, I’ve decided to share the text more or less as it popped off my keyboard!
See you soon. C