Eden Gray (June 9, 1901 – January 14, 1999) was the professional name of Priscilla Pardridge, an American actress, and writer on the

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...

meanings of

tarot cards Tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a set of playing cards used in tarot games and in fortune-telling or divination. From at least the mid-15th century, the tarot was used to play trick-taking car ...

and their use in

fortune-telling Fortune telling is the spiritual practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115–116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle ...

Early life

Gray was born and raised in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, the daughter of Albert Jerome Pardridge.

Career

She changed her name when she moved to New York in the early 1920s when she began her acting career. Her acting career was temporarily put on hold during World War II when she became a lab technician with the Woman's Army Corps. She also earned a Doctorate of Divinity degree from the First Church of Religious Science in New York. She opened a bookstore in the 1950s called Inspiration House Publishing, selling books on the occult and metaphysical issues. In the 1950s she wrote ''Tarot Revealed'' which was an introductory work to the tarot. She moved to

Vero Beach, Florida Vero Beach is a city in and the county seat of Indian River County, Florida, United States. According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,354. Nicknamed "The Hibiscus City", Vero is situated about south ...

in 1971. She was a member of the Vero Beach Art Club, Riverside Theater and Theater Guild. In the 1960s, through her books, Gray had an integral part in the creation of the contemporary interest in esoteric Tarot in general, and the Waite–Smith Tarot deck and the Fool's Journey interpretation of the Tarot trump cards in particular.

Personal life

She was married to Lester Cohen and had a son, Peter Gray Cohen. Peter was also known as Peter Gray.

Death

She was 97 years old when she died at IRM Hospital in Vero Beach on January 14, 1999.

Works

* ''Tarot Revealed: A Modern Guide to Reading the Tarot Cards''. Inspiration House, New York, 1960. reprinted,

Signet Books The New American Library (also known as NAL) is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948. Its initial focus was affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction, but it now publis ...

1969 * ''Recognition: Themes on Inner Perception'', Inspiration House, 1969 * ''A Complete Guide to the Tarot''.

Bantam Books Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin Jr., Sidney B. K ...

and

Crown Publishers The Crown Publishing Group is a subsidiary of Penguin Random House that publishes across several fiction and non-fiction categories. Originally founded in 1933 as a remaindered books wholesaler called Outlet Book Company, the firm expanded into ...

, New York, 1970 * ''Mastering the Tarot: Basic Lessons in an Ancient, Mystic Art''. Crown Publishers, New York, 1971

Dutch editions

*''Het geheim van de Tarot: de magische kaarten die verleden en toekomst onthullen'', translated by

Wim Gijsen Wim Gijsen (20 August 1933, in Zwolle – 30 October 1990) was a Dutch science fiction and fantasy writer. Biography Wim Gijsen was one of the Netherlands' most successful writers of modern science fiction and fantasy books. Previously he had be ...

, Kosmos-Z&K, 1996

Spanish editions

*''Guía completa para el Tarot'', Editorial Diana, Mexico, 1976

Partial filmography

*'' Lovers in Quarantine'' (1925) *'' The Man Who Lost Himself'' (1941)

References

Sources

Birth information is from the 1910 U.S. Census (on

Ancestry.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. It is owned by The ...

) and death information is from the Social Security Death Index, also on Ancestry.com.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Eden 1901 births 1999 deaths 20th-century American actresses 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American writers American occultists People associated with tarot