Llewellyn's Complete Book of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Read online

  Occultists are explorers by nature. They venture into realms of sacred imagination, scout inner landscapes, and walk between worlds. Occultists use symbol, ritual, and ancient knowledge to traverse into magic, mysticism, and the meaning of life and death. Once the occultist witnesses the journey of emergence via the tree, they find themselves in the middle of the material world. The only option is to turn around and work their way back up. They go up the tree ready to greet divinity on its own terms. This is called the Journey of Return. Initiates, occultists, and seers travel their path alone. Their experiences are as different as the people who have them. I do hope you make an attempt to reach the summit. Treasures, gifts, and uncanny possibilities await.

  Tarot’s gift is that all cultural and spiritual or nonspiritual beliefs, ideas, and dogmas may be placed on top of it. Llewellyn’s Complete Book of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot does not preach, proselytize, or promote any particular worldview. Arthur Waite, author of the deck, was a Christian mystic. Although he was a practicing occultist, he was raised in a Catholic household. Catholicism informed his spiritual life even as it intertwined with alchemy, Freemasonry, and magic. As such, the RWS deck contains multiple Christian allegories, as does his accompanying text.

  Wherever you find the word “Divine” or “God,” feel free to insert your own meaning: Goddess, God, Zeus, Buddha, Yahweh, Allah, Pan, Puck, Ryan Gosling, Elmer Fudd, Chocolate Cake, or Nothingness—whatever you like; whatever makes sense to you. You can use this book with any deck of cards. Tarot decks are like people: it’s what’s inside that counts. The inner landscape of tarot is where its meat and bones lie. That’s the juicy stuff you’ll want to get to. And this book brings you straight to the main course. It doesn’t matter if you don’t use the RWS deck or if it is not your favorite deck. The RWS’s impact is so great, the deck you are using is likely a derivative of it. The archetypes inside tarot remain the same, regardless of what the cards look like.

  Pamela Colman Smith is referred to as “Pamela” throughout the book. Arthur Waite is commonly referred to as “Waite” by cartomancers and tarotists. I have stuck with this tradition. Pamela is also known as “Pixie” in the tarot world. This is due to the affinity we all have for her remarkable illustrations. Pamela’s images have found a permanent residency inside the psyche of tarotists. We find a comfortable, intimate, and familiar relationship with her images. They offer solace and understanding. Pamela offers a sacred space for us to work out our issues and even test our psychic and intuitive abilities.

  Research for this book was done in conjunction with the New York Public Library, specifically the Berg Collection, the Art and Architecture Division, and the General Research Division. U.S. Games Systems, Inc., and Stuart Kaplan gifted me immense guidance, as did the work, research, and support of Mary Greer. Practical tarot matters stemmed from my years of professional tarot education reading and writing in New York City.

  Tarot is a doorway or one might say seventy-eight gates. It is a threshold into other planes of existence. Anything can act as a portal: people, art, architecture, nature, etc. Tarot is a logical tool because it is described as magical, mysterious, and powerful. These words are associated with the deck, and people project these associations to the cards, thus echoing the power of words. Tarot operates on a symbolic level. It moves past linguistics. Like love and compassion, tarot’s symbolism—all symbolism—speaks directly to the soul. The most profound knowledge in the world is usually felt and seen rather than articulated. Conversations around tarot and the supernatural induce words like intense, knowing, and uncanny. You’ll laugh the day you realize every word anyone has ever used to describe the tarot—words like magical, mysterious, and powerful—also describes you. You hold the magic and the knowledge; tarot simply reflects it.

  It was my absolute pleasure to make this book for you. I hope you find it useful in your journey. You will likely discover surprising personal insights as you unravel the story and structure of the RWS deck. Tarot has a funny way of doing that. We think we are reading for others, and we wind up reading for ourselves. We think we are asking about the future, and the cards point us toward our past and inform our present. We encounter the unexpected, the uncanny, every time we turn a card. This is what makes tarot exciting every time we sit down to read.

  So take my hand. Let’s venture into the Rider-Waite-Smith deck together. I promise you’ll enjoy it. And when we reach the threshold where you continue forth without me, venture wisely. Let the torchlight of authenticity and grace light your way. Shed light where others find darkness. Use your guts, intuitions, and cards to propel you. You will discover the magic you were searching for was inside you all along. Welcome home.

  Believing in you always,

  Sasha Graham

  new york city, 2017

  [contents]

  chapter one

  Kether (Crown)

  The Big Picture Show

  Kether—Crown—Ace

  The RWS deck is the best-selling tarot deck in the world to date. The RWS deck is referenced in literature and used in all forms of media, including film and television. It is often a beginning reader’s first deck. History, evolution, and circumstance created an extraordinary device that people use for fortunetelling, self-knowledge, and art. Tarot decks with new themes are created by the hundreds, maybe thousands, each year. New decks with differing themes are usually called RWS clones. Clone decks’ illustrations are derivative of Pamela’s RWS illustrations. A clone deck’s Eight of Swords will likely have a bound and blindfolded female figure evocative of the image Pamela drew for the RWS deck.

  The RWS deck is an enigma. It is a complex tarot deck filled with esoteric symbols and secret meanings, yet the illustrations are surprisingly simple. A beginner can use the deck as easily and deftly as a professional. The deck is a perfect artifact of the year of its creation, 1909, yet remains shockingly modern and perfectly usable over a hundred years later. The RWS deck is a Modernist art object as important and impactful as Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon or Edward Munch’s The Scream, also painted in 1909, yet the RWS deck does not haunt history by hanging on the wall of a museum. Anyone in the world can buy, borrow, or own a copy. The RWS deck is tucked into backpacks, wrapped in silks, consecrated on alters, stored in college dormitories, and stocked in bookstores around the world.

  The esoteric structure behind the RWS deck is simple yet extremely complex. It is as simple and complex as all the world’s spiritual traditions. Spiritual knowledge, dogma, and teachings can usually be reduced to a small number of basic truths, or tenets essential to each particular system, yet it can take a lifetime of understanding and study to authentically adapt and incorporate such systems into life. A person who approaches the unfolding of a system slowly and with an open mind finds that esoteric and spiritual structure becomes a path instead of a means to an end. The same is true of tarot and the RWS deck.

  Tarot decks existed long before the cards were connected to esoteric or spiritual systems. Hundreds of years transpired before occultists realized they could connect Hebraic letters and the Tree of Life structure to tarot. The numerical structure of a tarot deck and the four suits of tarot make the connections possible. The major arcana, the twenty-two cards separating tarot from an ordinary deck of cards, also represent sacred and profane allegories of life.

  The number three and the concept of a trinity or triad is useful in grasping the significance, emergence, and usage of the RWS deck. A triangle contains three specific points. The concept of three echoes in all facets of RWS usage, its history and its application. Keep the idea of a simple triangle in your mind’s eye as you continue reading. Using the concept of three, we can examine why tarot works, where it comes from, and how the RWS deck became the world’s most infamous tarot.

  RWS Creators

  Pamela Colman Smith—Arthur Waite—Stuart Kaplan

  Illustrator—Author—Businessman

&n
bsp; Pamela Colman Smith (illustrator), Arthur Waite (author), and Stuart Kaplan (author and businessman) are three people directly responsible for the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and its worldwide success. Pamela was a bohemian illustrator, highly gifted colorist, storyteller, folklorist, performer, stage designer, costume designer, and author. Arthur Waite was an occult mystic and prolific author of dozens of books on esoteric subjects. Pamela and Waite both belonged to the most famous and revered magical secret society in the world, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Waite hired Pamela to illustrate his “rectified” tarot deck.

  The Golden Dawn’s monumental impact is still felt today though it existed for only a brief period at the turn of the twentieth century. The Golden Dawn is considered one of the greatest influences of Western magical tradition and subsequently modern New Age thought. The organization studied and experimented in all areas of magic and the paranormal in a systematic and purposeful way. The Golden Dawn used tarot as a way to visualize, understand, and execute their magical workings, which were deeply grounded in symbolic work. It attracted artists and intellectuals alike, including W. B. Yeats, Florence Farr, Bram Stoker, and Aleister Crowley. The society was prone to wild internal disputes. Purposeful magic is a source of intense power. Wielded in irresponsible and egocentric ways, power is bound to create disagreements and squabbles between members and leaders. Waite formed his own offshoot of the group in 1903. He brought Pamela with him.

  Waite had a personal and idealized vision of his own tarot deck. Pamela was the perfect candidate to illustrate a deck to Waite’s specifications. Tarot was required study for all Golden Dawn members, and she was well versed in the group’s esoteric secrets. Pamela was a rising star in the art world outside of the Golden Dawn. Personal letters and articles show Pamela was highly gifted, hungry for work, and eager for money. Waite enjoyed a close working relationship with the Rider Publishing Company. Rider published a regular stream of occult literature, including early works of Waite’s and an array of horror fiction, including works by Bram Stoker. They published the deck under a title combining their own and Waite’s name: the Rider-Waite tarot.

  The original Rider-Waite tarot and its accompanying book, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, was published in 1909 to very little fanfare. The RWS deck kicked around for decades and through two world wars. The Rider-Waite and a few other tarot decks lingered in the back of dusty bookstores and hidden occult shops. Stuart Kaplan, a Wall Street businessman and author with a deep passion for research, wrote a book called Tarot Cards for Fun and Fortune Telling in 1970. The fate of the RWS deck took a rapid turn at this point. Stuart couldn’t keep his book in stock. It flew off the shelves, and after printing 700,000 copies, he knew he was onto something. He followed the advice of Don Weiser and licensed a little-known Rider-Waite tarot deck. It would go on to sell millions of copies, becoming the most beloved tarot of all time.

  Creators’ Talents

  Creativity—Occultism—Business Acumen

  Each party brought a particular and unique quality to the table, paving the way for the deck’s success. Pamela was a creative genius who crafted thousands of art pieces during her career. Artists are mystics who make invisible worlds visible to the public through their works. Pamela was known for her otherworldly visions and vivid use of color. Pamela’s theater background profoundly influenced the RWS deck. Each card appears like a scene from a play. She created androgynous figures, perfect for the projection of issues, questions, and concerns from readers. Pamela’s body of work reveals a world of castles, rising mountains, and evocative oceans. Pamela’s mix of playful and theatrical, deeply grounded in symbolic reference, made for the perfect tarot deck. It speaks today as brightly as it did over a hundred years ago.

  Waite published forty-six books and edited, translated, or introduced forty others in the course of his life. His tomes, as per the style of the day, are heavily worded and challenging to read. Additionally, Waite published The Pictorial Key after taking a vow never to reveal Golden Dawn secrets, so his vision is coded into his writing, making it doubly hard to ingest. Through Waite’s writing and research and through his exploration of the tarot and subsequent rectification, he created a deck grounded in profoundly spiritual structure. Raised as a Catholic, his education could not be cast aside but was incorporated into his works, so many of the RWS deck’s images feel familiar to the Western Anglo-Saxon person looking at the cards. His descriptions, words, and cards evoke an experiential spiritual experience akin to an initiation. The deeper the reader moves, the more they uncover. Waite imagined and experienced the lessons of the RWS deck, and Pamela brought the vision to life.

  Stuart Kaplan is a driven businessman and passionate writer/researcher. He set out to make his mark on the world through research and commerce. Like a detective, Stuart sought to discover something the public would devour. He successfully uncovered an interest in tarot, fed the public’s desire, and proceeded to publish an anthology of tarot books and make the RWS deck available to the world. His singular focus, stellar instincts, and Ivy League education combined with a righteous work ethic ensured his success. He elevated himself out of the Bronx and created a multimillion-dollar company. U.S. Games Systems, Inc., distributes new tarot and oracle decks and books each year alongside the RWS deck. He is also the world’s premier collector of Pamela Colman Smith art objects.

  RWS Uniqueness

  Illustrated Minors—Gender Ambiguity—Esoteric Symbolism

  Hundreds of tarot decks predated and postdated the RWS deck. What makes the RWS different? What makes it so darn special? Three variables set this deck apart from all other decks created at the time. The biggest difference is the minor arcana of the RWS is fully illustrated, which was the first time this had occurred since the Sola Busca deck (Italy, circa 1491). Every other tarot deck, with the exception of the Sola Busca, had fifty-six minor cards like traditional playing cards. No images, just symbols and numbers. Once Pamela illustrated the minor arcana with scenes, the RWS deck’s colorful and evocative visuals became easily readable. Pamela used the Sola Busca illustrations for inspiration. They happened to be on display at the British Museum at the same time she was commissioned to create the deck.

  Pamela’s tarot figures are infused with gender ambiguity. Many characters appear to be both masculine and feminine. The characters are soft, open, and inviting. Her characters’ abstract expressions can be colored by anyone’s experience. Additionally, Pamela’s theatrical costume design experience came in handy. The characters are dressed in Shakespearean clothing that feels timeless and evocative. The clothing is faintly ceremonial yet grounded in Elizabethan realism. The costuming is true to its time period yet abstract enough for anyone to encounter it. It acts like Waite’s underlying mysticism, grounded in the truth of experience and available for anyone to consume. Ultimately, any experience can easily be projected onto the cards.

  Pamela and Waite encoded clever Western esoteric symbolism into the cards. Astrology and mythology, Christian and Hebraic symbols fill the images. Symbols rich with meaning can be unraveled and explored to provide new discoveries. The cards can be aligned with multiple schools of study. The esoteric symbols merge seamlessly with Pamela’s clothing and theatrical setting. It is as if a great performance unfolds before our eyes. Infinite possibility exists.

  Triple Threat Threefold Examination

  Hindsight—Insight—Foresight

  Past—Present—Future

  Fate—Fortune—Destiny

  Tarot has always involved the examination of the forces at play in our lives (except when it was used for gaming in ancient Italy and France). Ancient tarot was predictive. Modern tarot leans toward empowerment. It puts power squarely in the reader’s hands. Tarot, no matter whose hands it is in and how it is used, has always been tied to a threefold quality inherent to everyone’s life. What was once fate, fortune, and destiny became past, present, and future and has evolved to hindsight, insight, an
d foresight.

  Hindsight is the ability to look at past events to gain clarity. Hindsight makes our lessons and mistakes worth learning so we don’t repeat them in the future. We glean understanding from an event after it has unfolded. This equates to the “past” space in a past/present/future spread. A “past” card is flipped to express an event that has already unfolded. It also aligns with fate. Fate is the situation, life circumstance, and family we were born into.

  Insight is understanding the context of the circumstances surrounding and enveloping you. Insight is the ability to peer directly into the present moment and see the root of any issue at hand. Grasping the root allows you to sustain it or pull it free. Insight provides a grounded place from which to make decisions. Insight provides self-knowledge and knowing who you are. It aligns with the “present” space of a past/present/future spread. This card suggests what is happening in the present moment. It aligns with fortune, which reflects what a person has going for them in the present moment. Fortune is all the gifts, talents, and sensitivities each and every one of us is born with.

  Foresight is having a sense of what has the highest probability of happening based on past and present events. Colleges use foresight to shape their admission policies. They believe examining the past and present habits and achievements of students will give them the highest degree of foresight into the future achievements of their students. Personal foresight allows you to make good and sound decisions based on the information in front of you. This aligns with the “future” section of a past/present/future spread and describes potential future events. Destiny is how an individual makes use of their fate and fortune.