Mars
Pisces
The Knave of Cups is “The Princess of the Waters: the Lotus of the Palace of the Floods”
The Knight of Cups is “The Lord of the Waves and the Waters: the King of the Hosts of the Sea”
The Queen of Cups is “The Queen of the Thrones of the Waters”
The King of Cups is “The Prince of the Chariot of the Waters”
Card
Lord of
Decan
In
The Ace of Pentacles is called the Root of the Powers of Earth
2 of Pentacles
Harmonious Change
Jupiter
Capricorn
3 of Pentacles
Material Works
Mars
Capricorn
4 of Pentacles
Earthly Power
Sun
Capricorn
5 of Pentacles
Material Trouble
Mercury
Taurus
6 of Pentacles
Material Success
Moon
Taurus
7 of Pentacles
Success Unfulfilled
Saturn
Taurus
8 of Pentacles
Prudence
Sun
Virgo
9 of Pentacles
Material Gain
Venus
Virgo
10 of Pentacles
Wealth
Mercury
Virgo
The Knave of Pentacles is “The Princess of the Echoing Hills: the Rose of the Palace of Earth”
The Queen of Pentacles is “The Queen of the Thrones of Earth”
The King of Pentacles is “The Prince of the Chariot of Earth”
Card
Lord of
Decan
In
The Ace of Swords is called the Root of the Powers of Air
2 of Swords
Peace Restored
Moon
Libra
3 of Swords
Sorrow
Saturn
Libra
4 of Swords
Rest from Strife
Jupiter
Libra
5 of Swords
Defeat
Venus
Aquarius
6 of Swords
Earned Success
Mercury
Aquarius
7 of Swords
Unstable Effort
Moon
Aquarius
8 of Swords
Shortened Force
Jupiter
Gemini
9 of Swords
Despair and Cruelty
Mars
Gemini
10 of Swords
Ruin
Sun
Gemini
The Knave of Swords is “The Princess of the Rushing Winds: the Lotus of the Palace of Air”
The Knight of Swords is “The Lord of the Wind and the Breezes: the King of the Spirits of Air”
The Queen of Swords is “The Queen of the Thrones of Air”
The King of Swords is “The Prince of the Chariot of the Winds”
Lord of
Decan
In
The Ace of Wands is called the Root of the Powers of Fire
2 of Wands
Dominion
Mars
Aries
3 of Wands
Established Strength
Sun
Aries
4 of Wands
Perfected Work
Venus
Aries
5 of Wands
Strife
Saturn
Leo
6 of Wands
Victory
Jupiter
Leo
7 of Wands
Valour
Mars
Leo
8 of Wands
Swiftness
Mercury
Sagittarius
9 of Wands
Great Strength
Moon
Sagittarius
10 of Wands
Oppression
Saturn
Sagittarius
The Knave of Wands is “The Princess of the Shining Flame: the Rose of the Palace of Fire”
The Knight of Wands is “The Lord of the Flame and Lighting: the King of the Spirits of Fire”
The Queen of Wands is “The Queen of the Thrones of Flame”
The King of Wands is “The Prince of the Chariot of Fire”
Conclusion
Waite, a peculiar Catholic mystic and self-styled scholar who had kabbalistic, alchemical, and hermetic leanings and no real interest in fortune-telling or divination, found himself engaged for a short while in a small experiment—likely for commercial reasons alone although he presented it as otherwise. He would later return to this cursory, almost cartoon version (compared to his later work) of the tarot to recreate the majors for higher mystical purposes. In the meantime, he would go on t
o many other projects and leave the tarot as merely a curiosity. He would not know the industry his deck would inspire, which by a century later had followed his lead and created thousands of similar “experiments” in tarot deck creation, from Gummy Bear tarot to Tarot Illuminati, from Darkana to Shining Tribe.
We imagine Waite would have been gruffly dismissive whilst at the same time astonished and secretly delighted at recognition, on the effect of his little project.
Timeline: Arthur Edward Waite
1857: Born October 2, 1857, in Brooklyn, New York. Parents: Father—Captain Charles Frederick Waite, himself born into a distinguished New England family. Mother—Emma Lovell, English.
1858: September 29, Waite’s father dies aboard a merchant ship on one of his voyages and is buried at sea (Gilbert, 1987). His sister Frederika Harriet is born this year in Yonkers, New York, three days after their father’s death (Gilbert, 1987).
1860: July 6, US census records surviving Waite family.
1861: England census records: Arthur Edward Waite, aged three, living with his mother and sister at 3 Castle Terrace, Marylebone, London, England. Emma Waite has returned home to be closer to her family. One of her sisters married the brother of novelist Charles Dickens (Gilbert, 1987).
1863: October 8: The Anglican Waite family converts to Catholicism (Gilbert, 1987).
1870: Schooled at the Bellevue Academy under principal George White (Gilbert, 1987).
1870: Later this year he transfers to a school run by a Mr. Kirby (Gilbert, 1987).
1871: England Census records: Arthur Edward Waite, aged thirteen, living with his mother and sister at 4 St Ann’s Gardens, Kentish Town, London.
1871–1873: Arthur purported to be a “day boy” at St. Charles’s College, a Catholic boys’ school.
1874: May 11: Arthur is working as a “lad clerk” in the Auditor’s Office for the Great Western Railway Company at Paddington Station, London. Commencement salary: £20.
1874: September: His much loved sister Fredericka dies only days away from her sixteenth birthday “from general debility,” after suffering from scarlet fever (this condition is known to weaken the heart in some cases). She is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery London. Waite was very devastated by her death.
1875: Arthur leaves his clerk job (Gilbert, 1987)
1875: The opportunity of a place at University falls through due to ill health (Gilbert, 1987)
1875: In the winter months, Arthur recuperates in Ramsgate, Dumpton Gap.
1876: June 27: Arthur receives a letter from the poet Robert Browning, who was kindly sending him feedback on his interest in pursing a writing career in poetry (Gilbert, 1987).
1876: He receives a legacy from his paternal grandfather (Gilbert, 1987).
1877: He contributes a series of essays, “Essays for idle hours,” to the Catholic Weekly, The Lamp (Gilbert, 1987).
1881: England Census records: Arthur Edward Waite, aged twenty-three, living with his mother at 41 Walterton Road, Paddington.
1888: January 7: Marriage banns read at St. Luke’s Church, Paddington, London between Arthur Edward Waite, aged thirty, and Ada Alice Lakeman.
1891: England Census records: Arthur Edward Waite aged thirty-three living with his wife Ada Alice, aged twenty-three, and daughter Ada, aged two.
1942: May 19: Arthur dies at Gordon House, Bridge, Kent, England, aged eighty-four years. October 12: Will probate to the Venerable Kenneth Harman Warner. D. S. O. Archbishop of Lincoln. Effects £4,607 4 shillings and 6 pence. Burial place: St Mary’s Churchyard, Bishopbourne, Kent. At the foot of his resting place is carved “EST UNA SOLA RES.” This was a phrase used by Waite in Hidden Church of the Holy Grail and means “there is only the one thing,” signifying the unity of all spiritual paths.67
[contents]
Four
The Waite-Smith
Tarot Deck
The designs in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck exemplify what Smith sought to express in all her paintings and drawings—mysticism, ritual, imagination, fantasy and a deep experience of the emotions felt, but not always understood, in everyday life.
–Stuart Kaplan, The Encyclopaedia of Tarot Vol. III (1990), 33
The First Use of the Waite-Smith Tarot
As a groundbreaking publication, the Waite-Smith tarot required advertisement and marketing, and it also ran into production problems requiring a recall of the first print run.68 The first images started to appear in articles and a book, very shortly before the deck went into publication. These few images show that Pamela possibly created a black and white pen and ink version of the cards first—possibly having drafted them in pencil. She then submitted these drawings and a copy was made for her to colour. Her colouring was then used to create the lithography colours, which she was certain would be done “probably very badly.”
The first images also show a few examples where the cards that were printed include design elements not present in the first images. It was perhaps that Pamela sent slightly incomplete designs to meet one deadline that were then tidied up for the printing deadline. Pamela had written that the deck would likely be ready for December 1, and an early advert promised December 10. She had completed the images by her letter of November 19 at the latest, having started no earlier than June of that year; she arrived back in England on May 24, 1909, having been away in New York for four months visiting Stieglitz for her exhibition.
Our presumption is that she worked on the majors with Waite in London (from York Mansions) first before leaving for Smallhythe, where she quickly created and completed the minor arcana and court cards. The whole process took between five to five and a half months at most. We do not believe that Pamela was further involved in any creative changes to her original images, revisions, or other work—and in fact we have no evidence as yet that she ever worked with tarot again.
The first published use of the Waite-Smith tarot was in 1914, shortly after its publication. In the book Card Reading by Minetta (with an introduction by “Sepharial”), published by William Rider & Son (the deck publishers), is a chapter on “the ancient tarot,” which includes an illustration of a spread with the Waite-Smith images in black and white.
A Delightful Experiment
What existed as tarot at the time just prior to the Waite-Smith deck in 1909 was mainly within the bounds of secret societies and obscure esoteric literature. There was a heady ferment of ideas on the subject with various authors vying to claim knowledge of the mysteries within the images. However, the reality of the situation was that there were the same number of decks of tarot playing cards available in Europe (such as the Marseilles and Etteilla decks) as there had ever been; the Sola Busca deck (with its scenic pip cards, which we’ll explore later) presented at the British Museum; and the hand-drawn versions within the Order of the Golden Dawn.69
The Waite-Smith experiment actually vanished fairly quickly from the market. W. W. Westcott, a founder member of the Golden Dawn, wrote in 1922—only ten years following the deck’s publication—that of the tarot packs of the time, “Almost always those procurable in England come from North Italy, the English have not printed any Tarot Cards with the ordinary English suits, but I hear that a lady has drawn some of her own designs for Tarot Trumps, but for these there is no general sale.”70 There is certainly a slightly condescending attitude here to Pamela’s work, and it would not be until the 1960s, after her death, that the deck would reappear in any popularly received manner.
Waite writes in his memoirs that his work on the tarot was a “delightful experiment with the so-called Tarot Divinatory Cards” (SLT, 184). He describes Pamela as a “most imaginative and abnormally psychic artist” who had little knowledge of the consequences of the rituals and ceremonies she loved and into which she had drifted.
His part in their creation, he wrote, was to see that the designs kept the “hiddenness” of the paths he was exploring. He be
lieved that the symbols of the cards were indeed “gates which opened on realms of vision beyond occult dreams.”
He goes on to say that rather than have Pamela pick up casually any “floating images” from his mind (or the mind of anyone else), he saw to it that this did not happen. We believe this was particularly for the major cards, as he continues to say that he had to carefully spoon-feed her design of the Priestess, Fool, and Hanged Man. The latter in particular he had very particular ideas upon, as we will see later in this book.
Waite’s conception of the tarot was summarised by him as belonging to Éliphas Lévi, Paul Christian, Papus, and Oswald Wirth (SLT, 187). We will show in a following chapter how this melting pot of influences formed the alchemical prima materia for the Waite-Smith tarot.
The author Israel Regardie saw Waite’s contribution to the tarot more critically:
Waite, from where I sit, had about as much insight into that [the personality link to the Minor cards] and other matters as my beautiful Siamese cats. If anything, I have a sneaking suspicion that his artist, Pamela Coleman [sic] Smith, also a member of The Golden Dawn, was a strange clairvoyant creature whose inner vision must have had a greater effect on Waite than Waite did on her. Furthermore, I have always suspected that the real shining light behind this and so many of the other Golden Dawn concepts emanated from the fertile brain and vision of MacGregor-Mathers about whom we know so very little.
—Israel Regardie, in a letter to Muriel Hasbrouck,
October 25, 1974
The First Waite-Smith Decks
The history of the printing of the Waite-Smith decks has been elsewhere detailed beyond the scope of this present book.71 Our interest here lies in the two-party publication of the deck, and that the first printing company, Rider (actually an imprint), became immediately and forever associated with the deck. Many students still refer to the deck as the Rider-Waite or Rider-Waite-Smith deck, a naming convention that perhaps can be seen as less equal in recognition of the contributing players. In strict tarot study terms, the deck should be called simply the Waite-Smith tarot, noting the designer and artist, not the printer or publisher. It has not been published by the Rider imprint for many years.