The Scholar—
A. E. Waite
The practice of painting among women has been clumsily cultivated;
it remains a bad imitation of Nature, whereas it might be a great art.55
–A. E. Waite, 1907
Arthur Edward Waite (1857–1942) had just turned fifty-three at the time Pamela posted her letter announcing her completion of the deck. During the time of its creation he had been living at 31 South Ealing Road in London, within reasonable commuting distance of Pamela. When Pamela was in London during that year and not visiting Ellen Terry at Smallhythe, they would have been able to meet with not much difficulty. How often they met and at what length we have no known record, although our guess is that they did not meet too often, despite Waite suggesting he had to “spoon-feed” certain images to Pamela. They could have communicated by telephone; we know that Pamela had a telephone number at York Mansions, which was “Metropolitan Midland Southern 276.” Waite’s later writings and memoirs do not refer to her in the manner of a close confidante or friend. He refers to her only as she was seen by those around her, not with any personal touch.
In the year preceding his design of the tarot, Waite had become increasingly disillusioned with what he termed the “pseudo-occult side of things” (SLT, 172). This was despite his writing for the Occult Review. He was often writing on the mysteries of the Grail and the Arthurian Quest, which he viewed as a secret mystical tradition and not a historical account. He saw King Arthur as “not of this world, or of the immediate next either. It is of pure Romance, which indeed is truer than history, because it belongs to the eternal spirit of things.”
His mind was also turning to Freemasonry and its mysteries in a search for the secret sanctuary, some rite or mystery beyond those designed by alumni of “Lodges and Taverns round about Covent Garden and Fleet Street, in early Georgian days” (SLT, 176). These thoughts took shape over this period and were published as the Secret Tradition in Freemasonry in 1911, the year following the tarot.
Waite was immersed in the secrets of the Grail legends and Freemasonry when he conceived the tarot. He was also working on revising his work on grimoires (magical spell books) for the Rider publishing house, a company that survived, according to Waite, due to its prior publishing of the Timber Trade’s Journal. In this he was encouraged by Ralph Shirley (1865–1946), who appears to have held a good relationship with Waite. Shirley had founded the Occult Review in 1905, and also edited the Horoscope, an astrology journal, and Light, a Spiritualist journal. It may even have been Shirley who suggested the deck, as Waite was quite dismissive of the work, and Pamela was likely brought in purely to execute the artwork. Of course, Waite could have seen Pamela’s work and thought “that would be good for a deck” or Pamela herself might have suggested it.
At the time, Waite was living with his wife and daughter at Sidmouth Lodge, a house located in Ealing, just eight miles north of the river Thames from Pamela. This has since been demolished, although we have located a photograph of the building. His signed census form shows that he held himself as a “Secretary of public companies,” although he added underneath “disengaged at present.” He also notes that he is “born of American father and English mother” and is a “life resident in England.” It was perhaps this half-stepped out-of-place condition that was a common bond between Waite and Smith, as it would be ten years later with John Trinick, an Australian born to English parents who spent most of his life in England and who executed Waite’s second tarot deck.
The Steps to the Crown
Waite saw the tarot as a story of mystical and spiritual ascent, from the mundane world to the divine. He viewed the map of this ascent primarily on the Tree of Life, with the tarot cards as illustrations of the journey. He concentrated mainly on the twenty-two major cards, which correspond to the twenty-two paths of the Tree of Life, rather than the minors and court cards, which correspond to the four worlds and the ten Sephiroth on the Tree. This is because it is through the paths that we ascend, according to Kabbalah, as we learn each of their lessons. The paths also represent the world as we perceive it as we ascend though the ten grades of the Sephiroth, returning to divine union.
So the major cards are the major lessons of life, as we learn them, and the minors are the grades of divine creation through the four worlds.
We will take a look in this chapter at how Waite hid the secrets of this kabbalistic teaching in a lesser-known work, Steps to the Crown, and how that corresponds to and illuminates his concept of tarot as an illustration of these steps. We will also show how the preface of this work summarises Waite’s view of the four worlds and the levels of human experience, and apply it to the court cards.
Steps to the Crown was published in 1906, four years prior to the Waite-Smith deck, and is a collection of what the Tribune newspaper review of the time called “terse and pregnant” aphorisms. According to Gilbert (1983), many of these aphorisms were published by Waite previously in Horlick’s magazine, which he edited, and later fifteen were printed by Florence Farr in A Calendar of Philosophy, in 1910.
Waite himself notes that several of the aphorisms are taken from De Senancour’s Libres Meditations d’un Solitaire Inconnu (1819). He had actually translated De Senancour’s book Obermann three years prior in 1903, having been drawn to this French essayists’ work through Matthew Arnold’s poetry. It may be that Waite identified strongly with the lonely, pained, unrecognised, and highly sensitive writings of the “unknown recluse.” He wrote in his introduction to that work that “the important point about Obermann is that it is a soul recounting its experiences, recording its speculations and registering its questionings in the valley of the shadow.”56
Waite saw Meditations as a spiritual sequel to Obermann.57
In the preface to Steps, Waite wrote succinctly about the Kabbalah and the grade system of the mystical and magical orders. He remarked, “It is by many stages and through many slow graduations that we approach the great things.” The word “grade” means “step,” so it is no doubt he was considering these grades of advancement in his book of aphorisms.
He also states, without naming the Kabbalah other than as “an ancient secret doctrine,” that the four worlds of Kabbalah relate in reverse to the four stages of human thought. Here we present a table of these correspondences, using Waite’s own words and allusions to the biblical journey of the Israelites, which is also referred by Waite. As the four worlds and levels of thought relate to the court cards, we can clearly see a useful relationship.
|
Court Card |
Journey |
Level of Experience |
Kabbalistic World |
Nature |
|
Page |
Egypt |
The Dark Night of the Soul |
Assiah, the world of Action |
Shadows and rebellion, divorced from grace, inhibition, normality |
|
Knight |
Red Sea |
The Great Discontent |
Yetzirah, the world of Formation |
Diverse quests, first signs of awakening, seeking for the land of true patrimony |
|
Queen |
Sinai |
The First Lights |
Briah, the world of Creation |
The waking soul following the light to where it will be taken; grace operating |
|
King |
The Promised Land |
The Promised Land |
Atziluth, the world of Emanation |
All time flowing into the mystery of God; working to make sure both the calling and the election |
The allusions of Steps are carefully and secretly constructed according to kabbalistic principles, whether on purpose or just out of habit, it is difficult to tell. The book is divided into four sections, corresponding again to the four worlds and court cards.
Finally, in the penultimate aphorism, Waite again clearly references all the Sephiroth of the Tree of Life without mentioning the Kabbalah. This can be used to apply to the ten numbers of the four minor arcana suits as we show in the following table.
|
Minor Number |
Sephirah |
Nature |
|
Tens |
Kingdom |
Shadow of the divine |
|
Nines |
Foundation |
Qualification and guardians |
|
Eights |
Glory |
Movement against rejection |
|
Sevens |
Victory |
Seeing the heights, preparation |
|
Sixes |
Beauty |
Advancement, proscription, asceticism, concupiscence |
|
Fives |
Judgement |
Judgement and clemency |
|
Fours |
Mercy |
Compassion and consolation |
|
Threes |
Understanding |
Exalted light of understanding |
|
Twos |
Wisdom |
Exalted light of wisdom |
|
Aces |
Crown |
The great light in concealment |
Waite and the Lady of Stars
The secret of the twenty-two major arcana of the tarot as seen by Waite is the secret of the Shekinah, a Hebrew name used in Jewish mysticism for the “divine presence” or “holy spirit.” His unpublished writings and several recently published private notes clearly demonstrate that he saw the major arcana as an illustrated narrative of the relationship of our soul to this divine presence. It is specifically a manifest presence, one that can be experienced by the mystic or magician in the heights of esoteric rapture.
The establishment and fulfilment of this relationship was taken by Waite as the aim of the mystic, and he set out its course upon the kabbalistic Tree of Life upon which the tarot was arranged as a sacred map. Whilst this had earlier been done by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, of which Waite had been a member, he later developed his own map—one more suited to a mystical rather than a magical perspective—and taught it in his secret order, the F. R. C. (Brothers of the Rosy Cross).
It is that map which was revealed in Abiding in the Sanctuary (2011) for the first time in a century, and to which we now return, to show particularly how certain cards represent different stages in our spiritual path to the divine. We will introduce the concept of the Shekinah and then use Waite’s own words to explore different cards. We will also show how these can then be used in deep spiritual readings for oneself or others. Finally, we will map out the course of spiritual ascent as viewed by Waite, using his own secret mapping of the tarot on the Tree of Life.
The Shekinah
The leading kabbalistic scholar, Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), describes the Shekinah as the “divine presence” and corresponding to Malkuth, the final Sephirah on the Tree of Life. That is to say, it is the ultimate manifestation of the divine, through the ten stages and twenty-two paths of the Tree of Life. The Shekinah is often seen as a feminine presence; Scholem writes, “The emphasis placed on the female principle in the symbolism of the last Sefirah heightens the mythical language of these descriptions. Appearing from above as ‘the end of thought,’ the last Sefirah is for man the door or gate through which he can begin the ascent up the ladder of perception of the Divine Mystery.”58 The Shekinah is also the nature of divine providence in the world, the action of the divine in our reality, even if it is based on higher—more spiritual—principles.
The separation of the soul from the divine is given in much of Kabbalah as a story of exile and redemption and of the separation of a man and a woman, often depicted as king and queen. The narrative of the fallen woman and her return to grace is one of many symbolic stories that are more deeply read as the return of the soul to divine union.
It is through the symbols of the tarot, particularly those depicting a feminine presence, that Waite saw this eternal story, and taught its mysteries in secret.
The Shekinah Cards
Waite saw all the cards as aspects of the Shekinah, but some more than others. He wrote that the cards were illustrations that not only explained but extended the meanings of the paths on the Tree of Life. His writings explore these meanings working from the Sepher Yetzirah, the Book of Formation, a touchstone of kabbalistic study. He also refers to his own correspondences between the Hebrew letters on the Tree of Life and the tarot, which further illuminates his concept of each of these sacred symbols.
We here present the Shekinah cards and their correspondences, and demonstrate for each how this can illuminate our readings and give Waite’s own wisdom through these particular cards.
Temperance: The Lady of Reconciliation
Temperance reconciles water and fire for Waite; it is the “cleansing” and the “saving” of divine connection. As such, it is a far more alchemical understanding that Waite had of this card than the version Pamela painted for his first deck. In fact, his second version of Temperance, in the Waite-Trinick images, shows a far loftier concept of the card. The Golden Dawn had two images of this card, and Crowley took from the alchemical version as Waite did with Trinick, but not with Pamela. He was perhaps keeping the secrets of its alchemical correspondences from the masses.
The World: The Soul of the World
The image of the World is seen by Waite as the archetypal state of Paradise—a Hebrew word meaning simply “garden”—and the divine indwelling in all things. This perfect state, where the divine world and the mundane world are one and the same, is the state to which the symbolic journey of the major cards leads the pilgrim.
Waite and the Way of Faerie in Tarot
The “Great Beast,” Aleister Crowley, was notorious for his lampooning of fellow magicians, occultists, and poets. In particular, he repeatedly attacked Waite, even entitling a false obituary of the poor man as “Dead Waite” whilst Mr. Waite was still alive. This lampooning was so extensive and so successful that even now, a century later, we often consider Waite a “dry stick,” an ex-railway clerk and manager at the Horlick’s food factory who used thirteen pages when just a sentence would have sufficed.
The story is far more complex, and Waite had far deeper currents and emotional appreciation than we might think. In fact, it might even be said that Crowley was intensely jealous of Waite’s natural and developed mystical sense and experience, which gave rise to his critiques. As he wrote: “Any path will lead him who is born to the Quest.”59
In this chapter we will introduce you to a secret side of Waite you may not have encountere—a fey, haunting, romantic, intensely personal, and mystical side, captured in Waite’s The Quest of the Golden Stairs (1927). This was written seventeen years after he designed the tarot with Pamela, and ten years after his second tarot project, the Waite-Trinick tarot.
The Spectator newspaper of the time (July 23, 1927), in a brief and positive review, advised readers not to expect “tawdry glitter and silvery sentiment” with the faerie tale, but instead set off on a pilgrimage into “more than a tale, as admirers of Mr. Waite will recognise.”
This pilgrimage is written in twenty-two chapters, and as we are “admirers” of Mr. Waite, we should immediately recognise that anything written in twenty-two chapters may indeed be “more than a tale,” and perhaps modelled on the same number of paths of the Tree of Life and their corresponding tarot cards. In fact, the book contains “marginalia,” brief titles given at certain points of the text, in much the same way that Aleister Crowley’s Wake World (1907) used, to highlight the correspondences to the Tree of Life used in that text—which was also a pseudo-fairytale.
So if we take a look at a sample chapter title, for example, chapter 13, “The Obscure Night of Faerie,” and its subtitle, “Where is the Hand that Leads?” we might wonder if this is the Hermit card, where the Hermit leads us through the dark night. When we turn to the chapter, in the second paragraph, we immediately read, “Behold now, he stood again in the presence of that Wise Master who was the Hermit of his first quest.” Other chapters mention specifically the Tower, the Moon, the Sun, and the Wheel of Fortune, whilst still other chapters appear more subtle reflections of the twenty-two majors.
There are also clear kabbalistic and Golden Dawn ritual allusions throughout the book; the very first line is “There is a Crown suspended in Faerie … ” which refers to the first Sephirah of the Tree of Life, Kether, meaning “crown.” The final chapter is entitled “enthronement,” referring to Malkuth, the Kingdom, the tenth and lowest Sephirah on the Tree. The word “kingdom” is used on the very final page, “The power shall not pass from Faerie, nor the kingdom fall away … ”
The Golden Dawn teachings of ritual and Kabbalah are given in titles of the characters that accompany or guide Prince Melnor on his way to reunite a ring of power with his bride-to-be. We meet such characters as the “Keeper of the Precincts” although there are also faerie titles including the Daughter of Stars, a title given by Waite in his unpublished notes on the tarot for the Star card itself. Elsewhere in the text we discover allusions to the paths on the Tree of Life, some more explicit than others; “I see a path opening and a crown at the end thereof” is given in the chapter that appears to be of the High Priestess, in turn allocated to the path that connects to Kether, the Crown.
The rainbow bridge of QShTh is described by Waite as a “cloud” between the four lower “towers” of the mundane world and the seven “towers” of the faerie world, i.e. the Sephiroth on the Tree of Life. There is also a clear description of the Abyss, the state that separates the upper three Sephiroth on the Tree of Life from the lower seven that are manifest.
There are also fleeting alchemical references, including an alchemical ritual and nods to the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. That Waite presented all this teaching in a complex fairytale romance is somewhat astonishing, given that the main storyline seems almost incomprehensibly complex even without these layers. However, for the purpose of this section, we would like to present a summary of his view on the tarot as seen through the lens of Faerie—even if it is via complex Kabbalah and Waite’s personal version of Catholic mysticism.
This overview may give you a new appreciation of the major arcana when carrying out readings, particularly if you are using the Waite-Smith deck. If you are working with fairytale-style decks, you might enjoy comparing Waite’s view with your deck.
We have given the cards in the order they appear in the book, which may or may not be a different sequence on the Tree of Life used by Waite at that time. He had certainly already developed his own system of correspondences ten years earlier for the Waite-Trinick tarot (which was different from the Golden Dawn system) and may have continued to further refine his system. This order certainly appears closer to his Waite-Trinick layout than the Golden Dawn/Crowley systems for example, commencing logically (for the Tree) with the Emperor and Empress—male and female duality.
The numbers here are the chapter numbers, not the card numbers. We have also provided a quote from each chapter that may be used as a “faerie oracle” by considering a question, shuffling the twenty-two major arcana, and then selecting one and reading the corresponding oracular quote as your answer.
For example, “What is the situation regarding the project delay?”
Card: The Hierophant—in Waite’s system, this is the Priest of Stars, and the quote we have chosen from that chapter is “A bye-lane, a narrow lane, a very crooked path, a track over green meadows, a path beside the brook. But this is the way into Faerie, and this goes also through.” This means that the project delay is indeed going to go on, but it is the only way to go through.
That was a real reading—and very, very, applicable.
For keen tarot students, we have also provided a three-card spread based on Waite’s Faerie lore following the list below.
The Major Arcana of Faerie
A Three-card Faerie Reading
In this reading, we use the major arcana only and select three cards for the following oracle:
If we selected out the three cards, asking a question on behalf of a client who sought advice about Internet bullying, we might receive:
We would interpret these cards and suggest to the client that the lesson they were being taught is to find those who supported their aims and vision, and wed with them. The situation they were facing, according to the College of Maidens, was to teach them with whom not to be connected. The Court of Stars offers the outcome as eventually turning a corner—the light of tomorrow will bring new insight and is likely to be very different than today. In terms of taking action, the College of Magic suggests gathering people who share the same vision together, and ensuring that vision is manifest by completing projects and tasks.
This is an entirely practical and applicable reading, given in the guise of Waite’s Faerie symbolism as it corresponds to the tarot. Perhaps you can try your own reading and share it with us on our social media pages and groups!
We hope this section inspires you to find a copy of Waite’s The Quest of the Golden Stairs and read it with an appreciation of the allusions Waite is creating to Kabbalah, tarot, and the mystical quest. It is indeed a pilgrimage of the soul that is being described in the book, presented as Faerie lore. Waite brings to life the eternal “dream of Nature” that is Faerie, and takes us to the very Court of Stars, the Dream Tower, the City of Morning Light, and the College of Magic. In doing so, a gate opens to a new appreciation of the world, of tarot, and of Waite himself, perhaps more of a romantic mystic and fey dreamer than you might ever have expected.
Waite and Tarot
Waite first wrote about tarot as early as 1887, in a short article in Walford’s Antiquarian magazine. This magazine was edited in name by G. W. Redway, but in practice by Arthur Machen, a longtime friend of Waite. The article was titled “The Tarot: An Antique Method of Divination,” which Waite introduced as “a very curious and oracular method of divination by cards of a unique character.”
It is interesting how he described the majors, so we reproduce that here in its entirety:
Even in this earliest writing, Waite is keen to create correspondences to antiquity; for him, Pope Joan has the attributes of Isis, and the figure of the Empress has striking analogies to Venus/Aphrodite. The Pope sits between the hermetic pillars of Jakin and Bohas; later Waite moved these to the High Priestess card.
Most of all at this time Waite was seeing a correspondence to the Apocalypse using Éliphas Lévi as a source of kabbalistic knowledge to unveil the secrets of the tarot with “those who are gifted in the discernment of curious analogies.”
The vision of heaven identical to the twenty-second key is described as “a throne surrounded by a double rainbow, together with the four sacramental animals of the Kabbalah.” He draws a veil over these speculations and concludes “these coincidences are, at least, very curious, and afford much food for thought.”
Waite on His Own Writings
Waite was not shy about referring to his own anonymous or nom de plume writings. Here he is speaking of his own book, in decrying the “fortune-telling” nature of tarot in his Key to the Tarot:
There is a current Manual of Cartomancy [his own, under the name Grand Orient] which has obtained a considerable vogue in England, and amidst a scattermeal of curious things to no purpose has intersected a few serious subjects. In its last and largest edition it treats in one section of the Tarot; which—if I interpret the author [himself] rightly, it regards from beginning to end the Wheel of Fortune, this expression being understood in my own sense.
Waite goes on to say he has “no objection” to this interpretation, whilst condemning it as merely a “conventional description,” and then deems other designs and images of the Wheel as mainly “invention in support of a hypothesis.” At no point does he reveal any alternative or secret version of the card which is to be supposed from his statements.
Waite on the Purpose of Divination
Waite wrote that the oracle “ … does not solve doubts concerning the Trinity, or explain mysteries of eschatology—except indeed indirectly, by counsel, interpretation, and turning the intention of the seeker towards those holy things in which doubt and difficulty dissolve.” 60
On their use as divination, Waite follows Antoine Court de Gébelin as considering the tarot more useful than other modes of playing-card reading, “containing as it does in a certain sense the entire universe, and the different states of which man’s life is susceptible.”
He references in this early article the works of Lévi, Paul Christian, and Frederic de la Grange. The only mention of a method of reading is a brief and less than useful mention of the “grand key” method (covered elsewhere in this book) as arranging the cards “either in a square or a triangle, placing the even numbers in opposition and conciliating them with the uneven.”
With regard to the minor arcana, it is most likely that Waite presented Pamela a version of Book T, the Golden Dawn’s teaching document on the tarot. She would not have had a copy of it herself at her grade, so the notes or a copy would have been from Waite.
The titles of the cards are given in this document based on their kabbalistic structure, so Pamela was unconsciously modelling the images on a purely kabbalistic pattern. In effect, she intuited the Kabbalah through the images.
In January 1905, a new publication called The Occult Review began to circulate. The many issues were like an esoteric journal that would span some forty-five years. The luminaries of magick would come to write for it, including Waite, Crowley, Farr, Hartmann, Maitland, and Dion Fortune. The subjects were diverse, covering but not limited to book reviews, Buddhist doctrine, hauntings, reincarnation, magical lodges, tea-leaf reading, hypnotism, astral travel, vampirism, and talismans.
The Review was under the editorship of John Shirley (1865–1946), who was also editing director of William Rider & Son, a role and association he held for more than thirty years.61 Shirley and Waite together produced a large amount of material, and Waite writes that there was often “more things than one pending between Shirley and myself.” 62 In fact, in 1921, Waite even received advice from a cartomancer, Soror Una Salus, who assured him that he would “hear something very much to my advantage in a business way.” Waite’s attitude to the reading, writing in later life, is that it was no more than an offer to “turn out the cards,” which seems somewhat dismissive.
Waite had been working at the time with a number of publishers, including Redway (who had gone out of business), Ballantyne, and Kegan Paul. However, it was during 1909 that he had become closer to Rider, as Shirley had taken his “first real holiday” since taking over the publishing house and had left Waite in charge of editing the Review.
Shirley would have been very enthusiastic about a tarot deck, we are sure. In fact, it may have even been his idea—he was always seeking new ventures. He saw the aim of the Review and his other ventures as “raising the standard of Occult and Psychic investigation to a higher level and of drawing together the more intellectual spirits interested in the subjects with which it has dealt, by affording a common platform on which they could write for the furtherance of a movement which is yet destined to play a leading part in evolving to a higher and more spiritual level the humanity of our Twentieth Century world.” 63
Writing in his biography, Waite saw his own role in rather vague terms; he speaks of “under my auspices,” providing “proper guidance” and cards “produced under my supervision.” These sound like a claim to involvement in something in which the author is not entirely involved. There is no clear statement that Waite provided rigid guidelines or Pamela surprised him with wild variations to his concepts nor anything definitive.
He saw the major and minors arcana as very separate: “I satisfied myself some years ago, and do not stand alone, that the Trumps Major existed originally independently of the other arcana and that they were combined for gambling purposes at a date which is impossible to fix roughly. I am concerned only for the present needs with the Great Symbols. They are twenty-two in number … ” 64
He also states that “their connection is arbitrary … the Lesser Arcana being allocated to their proper place in cartomancy and the Trumps Major to their own, which is to seership of another order”65
It is in The Occult Review (vol. X, no. 12) that Pamela’s artwork debuts with several card drawings in black and white being used to illustrate Waite’s article, “The Tarot: A Wheel of Fortune.” There are four major cards, four court cards, and four minor cards included to showcase the deck. Waite is more strident here in owning the design than he would be in later years; he writes, “I have embraced an opportunity which has been somewhat of the unexpected kind and have interested a very skilful and original artist in the proposal to design a set, Miss Pamela Coleman [sic] Smith, in addition to her obvious gifts, has some knowledge of Tarot values; she has lent a sympathetic ear to my proposal to rectify the symbolism by reference to channels of knowledge, which are not in the open day; and we have had other help from one who is deeply versed in the subject.” 66
It is most likely that Waite presented Pamela a list of keywords and concepts taken from Book T. As this was above Pamela’s grade in the Order—and we know Waite kept his oaths very seriously—we cannot imagine Pamela was given the whole manuscript, nor much of the significant symbolism. Furthermore, we know from other accounts that Pamela was not an intellectual learner but more an intuitive and immersive acquirer of information.
The advert in 1909 by Ralph Shirley suggests in a footnote that “I may mention that the artist, Miss Colman Smith, made a careful examination of numerous tarot packs from the 14th century onwards before undertaking her work.” It is probable that this “careful examination” came from one or just a few trips to the British Museum, again possibly accompanied by Waite, given the timescales.
In the following table, we present the bare bones of Book T, which Pamela may have been working from to design the minor arcana and court cards.
|
Card |
Lord of |
Decan |
In |
|
The Ace of Cups is called the Root of the Powers of Water |
|||
|
2 of Cups |
Love |
Venus |
Cancer |
|
3 of Cups |
Abundance |
Mercury |
Cancer |
|
4 of Cups |
Blended Pleasure |
Moon |
Cancer |
|
5 of Cups |
Loss in Pleasure |
Mars |
Scorpio |
|
6 of Cups |
Pleasure |
Sun |
Scorpio |
|
7 of Cups |
Illusionary Success |
Venus |
Scorpio |
|
8 of Cups |
Abandoned Success |
Saturn |
Pisces |
|
9 of Cups |
Material Happiness |
Jupiter |
Pisces |
|
10 of Cups |
Perfected Success |
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 Knight of Pentacles is “The Lord of the Wide and Fertile Land: the King of the Spirits 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” |
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|
The Knight of Swords is “The Lord of the Wind and the Breezes: the King of the Spirits of Air” |
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|
The Queen of Swords is “The Queen of the Thrones of Air” |
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|
The King of Swords is “The Prince of the Chariot of the Winds” |
|||
|
Card |
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” |
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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 to 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