﻿ 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.
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Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca, and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a Ph.D. 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 - the 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 still stands as 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 mentions Smith as a very ‘skilful’, 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, also,
a few years in Kingston Jamaica whose folklore, full of fantastic characters and spirituality,
ended up being quite influential on her art, as well as on the otherworldliness
of her writing. Smith was first and foremost a storyteller with impressive artistic skills.
Dennis Dennisoff explains that there was 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
at all interested in finding scientific validation for her synaesthesia - an attitude that accords
with her free-spirited personality, who had little attraction towards institutionalised
training as shown by her uncompleted degree at the Pratt Institute as well as at 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. As he, himself,
states to be 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 found in the
teachings of the Golden Dawn. We also see in the trumps symbols associated with Rosicrucianism,
like 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'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's path as a metaphor for the journey of the soul.
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 being the figure of Eve
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 quite to achieve wealth, love, or other such mundane goals.
Waite was ultimately a mystic and all of his endeavours were aimed at achieving 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 own 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.
Waite 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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Bye for now.
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