Are these Tarot Cards? Or different chapters in a story being told? And what’s the hidden meaning behind the Rider Waite Smith Tarot Deck?
Let’s find out.
Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca, and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a PhD and a university lecturer and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick, Paganism, Shamanism, and all things Esoteric.
Today’s episode is brought to you by the friend of the symposium James Vitale who kindly commissioned this video, choosing its topic. Thank you so much for doing so and I hope it brings some value to your journey.
The Rider Waite Smith Tarot Deck is named after the publisher, writer, and lead creator, Arthur Edward Waite, and the artist who created the images on the cards, Pamela Coleman Smith. It was published in 1909 and became the first commercially available Tarot deck in England, and it is still the most popular.
After the dissolution of the Golden Dawn and the formation of different spin-off groups, one of which was led by Waite, a few of the original members of the order began to divulge the teachings they had learned within the order. So, when Aleister Crowley published the Secret Attributions of the Golden Dawn, Waite felt he could publish his Tarot deck without infringing any rule of secrecy from the order that substantially influenced the significance and symbolism of his deck. Waite chose Smith to be the artist to draw his cards and paid her a flat sum for the commission. In an article Waite wrote for the Occult Review, intending to publicize his deck, he mentioned Smith as a very ‘skillful’ and original artist and hinted at another contributor, which might have been William Butler Yates.
Having lived between England and the United States, Pamela Coleman Smith spent a few years in Kingston, Jamaica, whose folklore, full of fantastic characters and spirituality, influenced her art and the otherworldliness of her writing. Smith was, first and foremost, a storyteller with impressive artistic skills. Dennis Dennisoff explains an interesting phenomenon occurring in the early 20th century that saw artists relying on the occult, occultists relying on positivist science, and scientists relying on aesthetics to validate something called synaesthesia. These, at the time, conflicting discourses offered Smith a synaesthetic model to define the imagination as a sensory experience and mysticism as a sensory medium. Interestingly, Smith was not interested in finding scientific validation for her synaesthesia. This attitude accords with her free-spirited personality, which showed little attraction towards institutionalised training, as shown by her uncompleted degree at the Pratt Institute and the Golden Dawn’s training in natural magic. That said, when it comes to the Rider Waite Smith Tarot deck, it is most likely that Smith was following detailed instructions provided by Waite. He states that he is responsible for the symbolism on the cards in his “The Pictorial Key to the Tarot.”
As for the scheme of their cards Waite and Smith probably drew inspiration from a 15th-century Ferrarese deck called Sola Busca. All the cards, except court cards, and aces see indeed Roman numeral numbers at the top while the trumps are numbered 1 to 21 with the Fool being assigned the number zero. Aces, court cards, and trumps bore that name at the bottom of the card, and the suits used are borrowed from the Golden Dawn decks with the employment of the signs of Swords, Wands, Cups, and Pentacles, while the court cards appear more traditional and less inspired by the Golden Dawn scheme, the symbolism found on the cards was elaborated by Waite himself with clear inspiration from the works of Éliphas Lévi, Paul Christian and Papus. For Waite, the cards were a symbolic representation of the mystic initiation and a metaphor for spiritual rebirth.
Speaking of Mathers and Papus, he stated that they provide a spiritual history of man or of the soul coming out from the eternal passing into the darkness of the material body and returning to the height.
As Helen Farley highlights, the astrological and kabbalistic significance of the Tarot trumps was laid out quite clearly by Waite with the High Priestess resting her foot on a crescent moon and the association between Venus and the Empress through the heart-shaped shield bearing the sigil of Venus that leans against the throne. Similarly, we find a reference to the sign of Aries on the arms of the throne of the Emperor. Notably, these correspondences were the same as found in the teachings of the Golden Dawn. In the trumps symbols associated with Rosicrucianism, we also see the recurring roses and crosses represented throughout the major arcana. For instance, the card of the Fool holds a white rose in his left hand while the Death shows the mystic rose – a symbol of life on his banner. Waite’s tribute to Freemasonry can be appreciated in the black and white pillars of Jachin and Boaz on the Priestess card and in the presence of the Sphinxes on the Chariot Trump. On this latter card, we also find the lingam inspired by Éliphas Lévi’sLévi’s use and here seen in a modified version of the Tarot de Marseille. There are also significant representations of light, such as solar disks, wheels, and arcs, which show the sun’ssun’s path as a metaphor for the soul’s journey. Gold also plays a substantial symbolic role in this deck and represents the spiritual ascent. It is also essential to highlight that Waite’s occult philosophy was infused with Christian mysticism, which is evident throughout the cards; examples are Eve’s figure in the Lovers Trump and the four living creatures of Ezekiel in the World card.
As you know from my previous video on Arthur Edward Waite, his main focus when engaging with magic and divination was not to achieve wealth, love, or other mundane goals. Waite was ultimately a mystic, and all of his endeavours aimed to achieve that divine unity he so often talked about. Indeed, in his work “The Divine Union,” Waite emphasized the role of the mind in translating the mystical experience, even within one’s consciousness. Language is, in fact, inadequate and not in the slightest comparable to the overwhelming transformation of the self that comes with the mystical experience.
xxxWaite sees the mystic as an intensely practical person and the mystical life as an exploration of the self as well as the most difficult enterprise which can be undertaken by human mind. The final stage of the divine union cannot be attained in this life but other states can. And having that final flickering goal as a lighthouse guiding one’s path appears essential to the mystic’s journey. A journey mirrored and aided by this symbolic and arcane deck that was designed to tell stories on lives as much as to read souls.
And what do you think about this topic? Do you use or know or have researched this Tarot deck? Let me know in the comments section.
Thank you again James Vitale for commissioning this video and happy birthday to you.
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REFERENCES
Denisoff, D. (2017) Pamela Colman Smith, symbolism and spiritual synaesthesia. In: The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875–1947. Routledge.
Farley, H. (2009) A Cultural History of Tarot: From Entertainment to Esotericism. London, I B Tauris & Co Ltd.
Gilbert, R.A. (1987) A.E.Waite: Magician of Many Parts. First Edition. Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, Aquarian Press.
First uploaded 9 Aug 2021