Interview with Rachel True

January 18, 2021 Off By Fire and Lux

Actress and author Rachel True talks with us about her journey with tarot, spirituality and how it led her to a role in the 1996 hit movie “The Craft.” True shares the process of her carefully thought-out book and tarot deck “True Heart Tarot” and what magic truly means to her.

F&L: Rachel, we are very excited to have the opportunity to interview you. Most of us know you and love you from your role as Rochelle from the movie “The Craft.” Can you give us some insight as to what your perspectives or beliefs were in relation to spirituality and the Tarot, prior to filming the movie? Did your role in the movie have any impact on your beliefs?

R: I became interested in Tarot and Tarot cards probably around age 8. I pulled down two books from my parents’ – I’d like to call it the library but it was a bookcase – and one was Carl Jung’s “Man and His Symbols” and then Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil.” Now, I was taught to read very young, so I could read a little bit, but it was the images in them and on the covers. So cut to someone shows up with a Tarot deck and I’m, like, “Oh, my God, I know these images. What is this? This is like a language.” Tarot is a language. And I thought, “Oh, I can speak this language.”

So that began my interest. I was always drawn to the esoteric and, I think like a lot of people out there, was very intuitive. I ended up writing the book because I’ve realized there are ways to clear out the noise and the subterfuge in your head and develop your intuition. And everyone is a little psychic. Some people are really in touch with it and some are not. That’s it.

So as far as “The Craft,” that script came to me because I was already into this stuff. That’s the truth. And “The Craft” did not inform my practice as much as solidify for me that I was meant to be doing what I was doing, because about nine months before “The Craft” script showed up, my TV broke, and we didn’t have cable or anything but I was like, what do I do? Do I fix it? Do I get another TV? And this little voice, I’m going to say Higher Self, my intuition, or if you’re super religious, you would call it God – said “no, don’t fix your TV, you’re supposed to do something else with this time.” So I was like, “Oh, okay.” And I just really delved hard core into Tarot readings. I’d already been doing Tarot readings for myself, my friends, read a lot of books like Mary Kay Greer. I was able to see the patterns of the cards and which cards kept coming up. So then nine months of me doing that, it was really my main focus, my friend Jordan — who was in “Cabin Fever”, called me up and said “There’s this movie you’ve got to read for. It’s called ‘The Craft.’” And that was that.

And just to add to that – something I haven’t said in other interviews – is I had to work really hard to get an appointment for that film. They thought I was too old, too black, too this, too that. So I am saying this to the people reading your blog that sometimes things don’t fall into your lap, you do have to do the legwork to make them happen.

And that is part of the magic, actually. And that is the difference between, I think, real magic and the Secret. Right? Because the Secret was really great ideas but really watered-down eastern philosophy that left out the component of the work you need to do. And it’s like, you’ll think and it’ll show up. Yes, think it. Of course, think it non-stop. Because if I had not stopped and not fixed my TV and studied and listened to my inner voice and really thrown myself into Tarot, I don’t know that that script would’ve found its way to me. And it was kind of one of the first teen movies to go “wait a second, maybe we could put a black person in a lead who’s not just an ancillary character.” I’m proud of that character because I know it’s great for little black girls out there to see someone like them, who looks like them in the movie. And over the years I’ve had many, especially gay men love that character because they felt on the outside too even though they were white. They were still on the outside and super related to Rochelle for just being picked on for something that has nothing to do with anything, sexuality or complexion or any of those things. So I just adore that it has meant something to people.

F&L: You have recently released your very own Tarot deck and book called “True Heart Tarot.” How do you think your deck and approach to reading the Tarot differs from others?

R: Well, I think that there are so very many schools of thought with Tarot that it’s bound to be a little different just because Tarot is a very personal practice. With that said, I do include in the set a full size book, and I don’t call them definitions. I call them interpretations of the cards. I do follow a pretty traditional kind of ideology, though, because I want to give deference to that deck and all the people it’s helped.

But I would say one of the things I’m proud of with my work on this book and I’m super happy with is that I include the way that I learned the cards. Many people are intimidated by how to learn it, so I detail how to use an actor’s way to hook into the emotion of the card that I think will be really helpful for people. We’re much more likely to recall a feeling quicker than trying to memorize 78 cards. So I advise people to learn by breaking down Tarot. There are four suits, right? Earth, air, fire, water. So if you learn those four things, that’s not so hard. I also have broken down in the book numerology. If you learn the energy of the numbers, it’s so helpful, because, for example, if I just told you swords are mind, and if you look in the book and you see that 5 represents conflict and change, you don’t even have to be holding a card to know that card of 5 of swords might mean some conflict and change around something mental, right?

One of the things I suggest in there too, for newbies especially, even for people who’ve been doing it a long time – pull out a card, look at the image. What is it saying to you? Because you’re probably correct in your interpretation of the card. But also, now after you get your visceral hit on it, then go look up the interpretation and you can synthesize the two. Maybe they were exactly the same. Maybe they’re at odds. But you can kind of see where your interpretation of the cards fits into the actual interpretation. And you can add it on to it. It is not one or the other.

F&L: What inspired the specific artwork for the True Heart Tarot Deck?

R: I really went back and forth on what I wanted my deck to be, because on one hand I’ve been doing this for decades, so I wanted to design a really symbol-heavy, esoteric, out-there deck, and then I had to bring it back down to earth and realize “Hey, how about you design a deck that is completely accessible to beginners, but hopefully with enough layers that the more practiced person will see that and the beginner will eventually uncover.

I did in the end design them with artist Stephanie Singleton, a Canadian artist who did the illustration. She’s super talented. It was an interesting process. I basically wrote a second book for her. I would pull all the artwork, like pictures, references, and then I would write up what I wanted, I wrote up the original definition of the card, and I would write up what I wanted my card to be. So around this time we were doing the sword suit and all my hair broke off. And you know, it really informed my card because I realized it didn’t hurt me, Rachel, to go do the big chop, cut off all the damaged hair. It hurt my ego a lot and my pride, but it did not physically hurt. Much like the person in the 8 of swords card [in Rider-Waite Smith deck], my card has this person with this octopus-like hair, and we really went over how long the hair was, and back and forth on stuff like that, but the concept is – the person in the card is tied to this 8 of swords with split ends but if they cut it off it wouldn’t really hurt and they could lift up and go on doing what they’re supposed to be doing. But maybe ego, pride, fear, whatever, is keeping them tied to it.

So some cards came up organically in the moment out of something I was going through. Other ones were things plotted out. But what I wanted to do is remain true to Rider-Waite Smith and to have some as a homage to Pamela Colman Smith, who was the artist on the Rider-Waite Smith deck and she was not included in the name of the deck until like a “minute ago.” She was a mixed chick, kind of a bohemian artist renaissancey woman, so I really felt connected to her when I was working on the book and the deck, and it all kind of felt very full circle, and that’s why she’s my dedication in the book.

And one thing I know about my deck is that it is very readable. That was the whole point of it was that it should be easy for someone new to catch on, it should be comfortable for someone who’s already a Tarot reader. I couldn’t fit in every culture. I wish I could have, but I couldn’t, but I wanted to give it a nod. I grew up in New York city and when you’re a city kid, you’re around everyone and you celebrate every holiday, all cultures, so I wanted to try to put in as many as I could. Because as beautiful as it is to grow up only around your culture and feel really comfortable, it’s also great to see how other people live and how much we all have in common.

F&L: As alternative spiritual practices become more mainstream, people seem to be seeking direction and answers. What guidance can you give our readers who are starting out on their journey of reading Tarot and/or practicing alternative Spirituality?

R: Personally I think it’s great that people are looking at alternative ways, because I think – I guess my hope would be that people could see that all of this works in tandem with the religion you already grew up in. There is nothing out of alignment with Tarot cards and Christ’s identity, or any of that. What I hope is that this energy, speaking of whole circle, is going back to our roots especially let’s say in the Black American culture. When we look back to the religions of Africa there is so much ritual and ceremony and magic, and then when we’re brought here where religion was used a little bit as a yolk, and now it’s not a yolk. It’s something that’s beautiful and community pleasing for people and brings us together, but I think we’ve lost some of our old magic, stuff they talk about it in the Old Testament. I think it’s really just us coming back to our roots rather than a New Age thing. It’s an Old Age thing. What’s crazy to me is that we’re calling nature worship that it’s under – nothing wrong with Pagan, but I’m saying today Pagan has this slight weird connotation to it and it shouldn’t! It’s the sun! People would die without it. So I think that hopefully it is less of a trend and more of just people incorporating this into their everyday lives, because that only advances us as a society when we’re more enlightened.

F&L: How would you say the Tarot has assisted you in your personal growth, spiritually and your day-to-day life?

R: Tarot can absolutely be used for divining and all of that stuff, but honestly, one of the ways I love to use it and why I wrote the book was, it is amazing as a personal practice for self-reflection and for revealing to us some of our patterns – good and bad – so that then we can make choices that are better for us. So I feel like Tarot in tandem with therapy is amazing.

Tarot is very much a mirror and shows us our reflection, so I do find you have to be a little brave at trying to look into your shadows side, because Tarot will bring up and show you quite often your shadow side. And I don’t like looking at my shadow side but I like kind of ferreting out the truth, because I as a twenty-something younger person, I think was like “can you believe this asshole did this to me!” And now the question should be “why do we engage with the asshole?” Take the onus off the other person because it’s not about them. I can only look at my own behavior. The clearer you are with yourself and you understand your motivations – because it’s OK to make shitty choices I think as long as you own them. If I go get a box of donuts right now and four days later I gain five pounds, I have to acknowledge that yeah, I gained five pounds because I ate that box of donuts. I can’t go “I can’t believe I gained five pounds. Why?” I can’t be a victim.

So once we own stuff, that is when our magic, our personal ability to manifest and our personal magic is really unleashed, if you ask me. I think it’s hard to be a magical person if you’re bullshitting yourself. And again, we all have sides we don’t necessarily like or things we do that are not great, but, again, I say own them, because then you have some ownership. If you make a choice to fuck someone over, at least own the choice instead of gaslighting yourself. I think it’s just been important for me and it’s helped me stay grounded as a person and if I’m grounded as a person then my magic will really fly.