Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot Read online

  Marcus Katz

  © www.derwentphotography.co.uk

  Marcus Katz is a professional tarot teacher at the Far Away Centre, a contemporary training centre in the Lake District of England. As the codirector of Tarot Professionals, the world’s largest professional tarot organization, he has studied and taught tarot for thirty years and has delivered more than ten thousand face-to-face readings. His first book, Tarosophy, has been termed a “major contribution” to tarot by leading teachers. Marcus is also the cocreator of Tarot-Town, the social network for tarot, with more than ten thousand people worldwide sharing innovative tarot development.

  Tali Goodwin

  © www.derwentphotography.co.uk

  Tali Goodwin is the marketing director and cofounder of Tarot Professionals, the largest professional tarot organization in the world. She has coauthored innovative teaching books such as Tarot Flip, which is regularly in the top ten best-selling tarot books on Kindle. Tali is a skilled researcher and is credited with bringing the long-hidden Waite-Trinick Tarot to publication in Abiding in the Sanctuary: The Waite-Trinick Tarot. She also coedited the leading tarot magazine, Tarosophist International, in 2010–2011.

  Llewellyn Publications

  Woodbury, Minnesota

  Copyright Information

  Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot: The True Story of the World’s Most Popular Tarot © 2015 by Marcus Katz and T ali Goodwin.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this e-book, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  First e-book edition © 2015

  E-book ISBN: 9780738744360

  Book design by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

  Cover images: High Priestess and 6 of Swords from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck used with permission of

  U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT. © 1971 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. Further reproduction;

  iStockphoto/33518356.©Lonely__

  Editing by Laura Graves

  Interior art:

  All right reserved, and further reproduction prohibited for the following:

  Illustrations from the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck®, known also as the Rider Tarot and the Waite Tarot, reproduced by permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902 USA. Copyright ©1971 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck® is a registered trademark of U.S. Games Systems, Inc.

  Illustrations of Majors, Minors and Court cards taken from the Pictorial Key and the PAM-A deck © 1909, used with permission from private collection.

  Illustrations by Pamela Colman Smith, courtesy of Koretaka Eguchi. (xv, 24, 96, 98, 247)

  Image of Shakespeare’s Heroines Calendar, courtesy of Mark Samuels Lasner Collection. (4)

  Images of the Rose Cross Lamen, courtesy of James Clark. (16, 17)

  Images by Edward Burne-Jones, licensed from the Trustees of the British Museum. (38, 39)

  Image of Pamela Colman Smith by Alphaeus Cole, courtesy of Stuart Kaplan. (41)

  Image of Pamela Colman Smith in Gillette Castle, used with permission from Gillette Castle State Park. (51)

  Images of the membership roll of the Golden Dawn, licensed from the Library of Freemasonry, London. (52, 53)

  Images from the Gypsy Tarot, courtesy of Nora Huszka. (59)

  Images from Smallhythe Place, licensed from National Trust Images. (100, 101, 104, 153, 224, 231, 232, 265, 275, 287, 291)

  Illustrations from the Sola Busca Tarot Deck, Wolfgang Mayer edition, issued by Giordano Berti and used with permission. (207, 218, 233, 238, 260, 282, 292, 304, 312)

  Photographs of Ellen Terry’s Cottage, licensed from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. (250, 306)

  For further illustration and photo credits, see Art Credit List. (449)

  Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

  Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

  Llewellyn Publications

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  2143 Wooddale Drive

  Woodbury, MN 55125

  www.llewellyn.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Dedications

  To C.C., B.C., and Mr. B.E. (Who Guard the Axis).

  To my brothers Michael T. Goodwin and Geoffrey C. Goodwin.

  In Memory of Smudge the cat, Beth Cat, Snuffles, and all those cats who abide with us.

  And As Ever, Above All, this work is dedicated to

  Anistita Argenteum Astrum

  The Priestess of the Silver Star

  She whose light leads the way to the Arcanum Arcanorum,

  The Secret of Secrets.

  Vos Vos Vos Vos.

  V.V.V.V.

  Acknowledgments

  We would like to thank Susannah Mayor, National Trust Warden at Smallhythe Place, and the National Trust for permitting us access to their archives throughout the research for this book. 1 We would also like to acknowledge Susannah in pointing us to Winchelsea through Pamela’s sketch of Tower Cottage. This led to the trip that revealed some of the more astonishing examples of real-world models for what has become the world’s most popular tarot deck.

  We would also like to thank the staff at the V & A Theatre archives for their assistance and considerable patience whilst we made our way through hundreds of folders and thousands of images to discover just two important photographs. The staff at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library (Yale University) and others have assisted the research and production of this book.

  The staff at the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London, have provided kind assistance and access to their archives for much of the Golden Dawn material in this present book.

  In particular we would like to personally thank two Japanese collectors who have provided materials from their personal collections, and Kenji Ishimatsu in particular for also organising a collection of scans of the original and earliest editions of the Waite-Smith deck from various collectors around the world. The card images used throughout this book are from that collection, with permission and our thanks. Koretaka Eguchi provided us high-resolution scans from his substantial collection of related Colman Smith materials that include the Green Sheaf magazines.

  Giordano Berti provided images of the Sola Busca deck from the Wolfgang Mayer edition (1988) and permission. This limited edition deck is a beautiful reproduction of the Sola Busca.2

  Stuart Kaplan, Bobbie Bensaid, and Lynn Araujo of U.S. Games Systems kindly provided a scan of a newly acquired portrait of Pamela and gave us permission for usage, which we acknowledge and for which we give our thanks.

  The RSA (Royal Society f
or the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) confirmed Pamela’s membership, based on the provision by Corrine Kenner of a signed bookplate from Pamela’s own hand which bore the letters “FRSA.”

  The work of Robert Gilbert on A. E. Waite and Mary K. Greer on Pamela Colman Smith has been the bedrock upon which this present book was built, along with enthusiast sites online. We hope to have extended this research in new and exciting directions, particularly with regard to Pamela’s contribution to the deck.

  Finally, we would like to acknowledge and thank Barbara Moore for her support and friendship and for creating the opportunity to make these new discoveries available to a wide audience through Llewellyn Worldwide.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Dedications

  Foreword

  Prologue

  One: How to Read the Tarot

  Two: The Pixie—Pamela Colman Smith

  Three: The Scholar—A. E. Waite

  Four: The Waite-Smith Tarot Deck

  Five: The Major Arcana Unpacked

  Six: The Minors and Courts Unpacked

  Intermission:

  Q & A

  Seven: The Kabbalah of the Minors

  Eight: The Colour of the Cards

  Nine: Pamela’s Music

  Ten: Spreads & Reading Methods

  Eleven: Waite Reads the Tarot

  Conclusion

  Afterword

  Q & A Key

  Bibliography

  Glossary

  Appendix:

  Members of the Waite-Smith Birdwatching Society

  Endnotes

  Art Credit List

  Foreword

  Mystery Begets Mystery

  In this book you will discover a revolutionary new appreciation of the world’s most popular tarot deck, the Waite-Smith tarot, which became the template of the majority of tarot decks presently available. We will use this appreciation to provide you—even if you are a beginner—a new way of reading this deck and all tarot decks. This is based as closely as possible upon the intentions of the original designers of the deck, Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith.3

  You will learn how it was that in just five months in the summer of 1909, an artist who had never read tarot, at the request of a Catholic mystic who had little interest in their use for fortune-telling, created the deck that became the standard model of tarot decks for a century. You will also be introduced for the first time to the real-world people, scenes, stories, and events that inspired the images and have been forever immortalised in the deck—and consequently, all decks using this design.

  Whilst nothing is ever certain, we have applied the simplest explanations and conducted our research with primary source material wherever possible, attempting to reset a century of speculation. We believe you will at the very least be challenged to see in a new light the snail on the 9 of Pentacles, the decorations on the Fool’s costume, and many of the other symbols of the tarot. You will learn the names of the Queen of Swords, the Fool’s dog, and even the name of the cat in the Queen of Wands. You will also see for the first time in a century the reason why one of the characters in the deck has mismatched footwear, and why an upside-down letter “M” is on the Ace of Cups.

  In every case where we say “X is Y,” such as “The Hermit is a card of solitude,” we mean, “To us, at present, and as may be useful to you, whilst recalling that all symbols are multivalent and the oracular moment is sacrosanct, the Hermit is the name of a tarot card that under those understandings we can associate with solitude.” It is for obvious reasons we state this here once so we do not need to repeat that long-winded explanation throughout the book!

  We have also applied this research and our experience to provide practical reading methods, so that you can use this book to read the tarot in as close a way as possible to the intended symbolism and meaning of the original Waite-Smith tarot deck. We have utilised the words of A. E. Waite wherever possible, and explained some of the more esoteric meanings which—at the time—he was keeping secret.

  We have also lived in 1909 for the past three years and followed in the daily life and footsteps of Pamela Colman Smith to see the deck through her eyes—which proved to be the eyes of a theatre lover and intimate of Shakespeare, not an occultist.

  We refer to Pamela Colman Smith throughout as Pamela, for the sake of abbreviation, however could not bring ourselves to refer to A. E. Waite as “Arthur,” so adopted the surname usage of Waite.

  The two works by Waite referenced most frequently as we unpack them are the Pictorial Key to the Tarot (PKT) (in different versions but we use the Rider & Company second impression, June 1974) and the original Key to the Tarot (Key), published by Rider in the 1910 PAM-A boxed set in our collection. We have also abbreviated the commonly occurring references to Waite’s biography, Shadows of Life and Thought (published originally in 1938) to SLT.

  As we open this book, we recall that “mystery begets mystery,” and it is fitting this work should present new mysteries whilst answering those already present. At the moment we have so little on Pamela’s life after her conversion to Catholicism and later. We also here reveal a mystery of the High Priestess—something of which we were so certain—that required us to change our minds in the face of evidence.

  We hope you enjoy this new journey into the tarot as much as we enjoyed creating it. We trust that it will cast some of Waite and Pamela’s work in a new light.

  All research in this book is considered ongoing and as a further resource, you can visit www.waitesmithtarot.com to receive updates and additional insights into this deck.

  Marcus and Tali

  Keswick, the Lake District, 2014

  1. “Once, in a dream, I saw a great church …” Pamela Colman Smith, 1903. (The

  Green Sheaf, issue 2, illustration courtesy of Koretaka Eguchi, private collection.)

  [contents]

  Prologue

  Marcus: The Scholar and the Pixie

  It was two nights before the opening of our first TarotCon tarot convention in 2009. The cottage was alive with tarot; with author Rachel Pollack visiting, every moment was dancing with discussion, insight, and exploration of the subject. Rachel had gifted me a title for a short story, one she felt I might consider writing at some point; “The Scholar and the Pixie,” she said, “a fictionalised account of the creation of the Waite-Smith Tarot.” It was such a wonderful idea and a perfect title, I was still turning it over when I fell asleep that night.

  This was exactly what I dreamt and relayed to everybody the following morning:

  I had entered a sitting room in which classical music was playing on an old gramophone. I could see several easels stood up in the room, maybe three or four, on two of which were small canvases. I saw that painting or sketching had commenced on at least one of them. In the room was a small woman I immediately recognised as Pamela Colman Smith. She was very distracted and moving around, picking up various objects and placing them back down again in a slightly agitated but not manic manner.

  I turned my head and saw that there was also a man in the room who looked uncomfortable, as if he would rather not be there. It was Arthur Edward Waite. I looked at his feet—there were several rugs in the room—and saw that he was just in his socks; his shoes were removed. It was about this, I sensed, that he felt most uncomfortable. I immediately received the impression that Pixie had mischievously insisted on this act in part to put Arthur in an awkward position.

  She turned to face him, and said, “Shall we begin?”

  A while later, I became aware that I was now in another place, sat outside this time, in a sunny but cool courtyard, upon stone stairs abutting the wall of a farmhouse or barn. Sat with me was Pamela. I saw with some surprise and amusement she was smoking a cigarette, as if we were on a short work break. As I looked at her, she smiled, and I bec
ame very aware that I was dreaming.

  I told her I was distracted a little because “my head is full of Kabbalah” due to a project I was working on at the time. She tilted her head in an almost birdlike fashion and murmured, “Oh, you poor dear,” as if I was afflicted by some mental condition.

  I began to think, quite consciously and deliberately, “This is such a rare opportunity, I have Pamela here herself, I can ask her anything, this is really important.” I marshalled my thoughts as quickly as I could, and let a question arise. It was this: “When you were painting, I guess it is like writing. You can create anything, but how do you know when it is right? How did you decide when each card image was right for you?”

  She looked at me with some bemusement, as if she hardly understood the question.

  “Why, silly,” said she, “when they looked exactly like the real ones.”

  On this I awoke, with that cool summer evening of 1909 still gathered about me, and an intense and aching nostalgia. I could still taste the air, smell the roughness of the cigarette smoke, and hear the distant church bells of an English twilight. In my memory now, I could see Pamela’s smile as it began to rapidly fade; I wrote down notes as fast as I could by my bedside.

  It was four years later that I found myself—for real—in the very place I had visited in a dream. On that day the dream became reality, and reality was fashioned into a dream: the dream of the real tarot—Pamela’s tarot. This book was created from a dream, fashioned into reality through music and art, and as such draws from the same place as does all tarot—somewhere real.

  Tali: A Day in the Eternal Garden

  In 2011, Marcus and I published Abiding in the Sanctuary, containing the images and history of A. E. Waite’s second tarot images, The Great Symbol of the Paths, executed by the artist John B. Trinick from 1917 to 1923. I discovered these images almost by chance. Marcus had asked me to look for a photograph of Wilfred Pippet, an Ecclesiastical artist and book illustrator whose work was also in the Waite-Trinick images. Marcus’s feeling was that it was a yet-unturned stone that might uncover some of the mystery of the images.