A tarot reader in 1910 had a choice. She could buy the deck designed by Arthur Edward Waite, with its gentle pastoral scenes and a High Priestess who sits veiled between the pillars of Solomon’s Temple. Or she could buy the deck designed by Aleister Crowley, with its electric colors, its androgynous figures, and a High Priestess who holds a bow and stands naked before the moon. She could not buy both and call herself a student of either man. The two decks, like the two men, came from the same root but grew in opposite directions.
Arthur Edward Waite and Aleister Crowley were the two most influential occultists of the early twentieth century, but they disagreed on almost everything: the purpose of magic, the role of Christianity, the meaning of the Tarot, and the proper relationship between the magician and the divine. Waite sought to restore the mystical heart of Western esotericism. Crowley sought to shatter it and rebuild it in his own image.
Where Did Their Conflict Begin?
Arthur Edward Waite and Aleister Crowley were the two most influential occult writers of the English-speaking world, and their conflict began in the Golden Dawn. The conflict came to a head in 1900: Mathers, who had moved to Paris, and the London faction were at war over the leadership of the Order, and Waite took the side of the London rebels while Crowley stood with Mathers. The rivalry was personal and doctrinal: Waite, the mystic and the Christian, and Crowley, the magician and the rebel, read the same tradition in opposite registers, and the conflict of the Order became the conflict of the two men’s lives.
The rupture between Waite and Crowley began inside the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the secret society that shaped both men. The Golden Dawn was founded in 1888 by three Freemasons: William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, and William Robert Woodman. It taught a system of ceremonial magic drawn from Kabbalah, alchemy, astrology, and the grimoire tradition. Waite joined in 1891. He was thirty-three, a devout Christian mystic who believed that magic was a path to union with God. Crowley joined in 1898. He was twenty-three, a Cambridge dropout who believed that magic was a path to the annihilation of the self and the discovery of the True Will. The two men met in the order’s London temple. Crowley later described Waite as “a pompous little man with a beard.” Waite described Crowley as “a man of genius who had sold his soul to the devil.” Neither account is entirely fair. Both are revealing. The conflict came to a head in 1900. Mathers, who had moved to Paris, was losing control of the order. Crowley, his loyal disciple, attempted to seize the London temple by force. Waite sided with the rebels who expelled Crowley. The order never recovered. Waite reformed what remained into the Independent and Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn, stripping it of the more sensational magical practices. Crowley went to Egypt, where he claimed to have received the Book of the Law from a being named Aiwass.
What Did Each Man Believe About Magic?
Waite saw magic as a form of prayer. He called it “the science of the supernatural” but insisted that its true purpose was spiritual purification. The magician did not command spirits. The magician petitioned God. Waite rejected the grimoire tradition of summoning demons and angels through circles and pentacles. He wrote that such practices were “the grossest form of superstition” and that they distracted the soul from its real work: the mystical marriage with the divine. Crowley saw magic as a technology of the will. He defined it as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.” The magician did not pray. The magician commanded. Crowley revived the very grimoire practices that Waite had rejected. He performed the Abramelin operation, a six-month ritual to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. He experimented with sex magic, drugs, and self-mortification. He wrote that “every man and every woman is a star” and that the only moral law was “Do what thou wilt.” The difference is not subtle. Waite’s magic was devotional. Crowley’s magic was revolutionary.
How Did They Read the Tarot Differently?
This is where the conflict becomes visible on the page. Waite’s Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, published in 1909 with art by Pamela Colman Smith, is the most popular deck in the English-speaking world. Crowley’s Thoth Tarot, published in 1969 with art by Frieda Harris, is the second most popular. Both decks are used by millions of readers. They teach opposite lessons. Waite’s Tarot is a picture book of Christian mysticism. The Fool walks toward the edge of a cliff, but he carries a white rose and a small bundle. He is not a fool in the modern sense. He is the soul before incarnation, innocent and trusting. The Magician stands before a table of tools, but his posture is one of blessing, not command. The High Priestess sits between the pillars of the Temple, holding a scroll that reads TORA. She is the hidden wisdom of God. Every card tells a story of the soul’s journey toward redemption. Crowley’s Tarot is a diagram of cosmic forces. The Fool is a green androgynous figure who carries a phallus and a bunch of grapes. He is the god Dionysus, the force of ecstatic dissolution. The Magician is the god Mercury, holding the tools of the elements but also the caduceus of the kundalini. The High Priestess is the goddess Artemis, naked and armed, with a bow drawn. She is not hidden wisdom. She is active power. Waite wrote a guidebook for his deck that emphasized moral interpretation. Crowley wrote a guidebook for his deck that emphasized astrological and alchemical correspondences. Waite wanted the reader to ask “What does this card mean for my soul?” Crowley wanted the reader to ask “What forces are at work in this situation?”
What Was Their Relationship to Christianity?
Waite’s relationship to Christianity was central and devotional: he was the Christian mystic who sought to reconcile the esoteric tradition with the faith, and his writings — the histories of the Holy Grail, the studies of the Kabbalah — read the Christian mysteries as the heart of the occult tradition. But Crowley’s rejection of Christianity was more complex than it appeared: he rebelled against the church and its God, the ‘old man’ of the faith, and he declared the new aeon of the will — yet his system was saturated with the Christian imagery, the Holy Guardian Angel, the crucifixion of the mysteries. Waite kept the faith and the mysticism; Crowley broke the faith and kept the mysteries.
Waite remained a Christian his entire life. He was not a conventional Christian. He rejected the literal interpretation of the Bible, the authority of the Church, and the doctrine of eternal damnation. But he believed that Jesus Christ was a real historical figure who embodied the divine principle, and that the goal of the mystic was to achieve union with Christ. He wrote extensively on the Holy Grail, which he interpreted as a symbol of the inner Christ. He translated and edited the works of Jacob Boehme, the German Christian mystic. He saw the Kabbalah as a Christian tradition, not a Jewish one. Crowley rejected Christianity with theatrical violence. He called himself the Great Beast 666, a reference to the Book of Revelation. He wrote a parody of the Nicene Creed that began “I believe in one Devil, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth.” He performed a Black Mass in 1913 that involved a naked woman as the altar and a host consecrated with urine. He did not believe in the devil as a literal being. He used the symbolism of evil to shock the pious and to break the chains of Christian morality. But Crowley’s rejection of Christianity was more complex than it appears. He was raised in the Plymouth Brethren, a strict Protestant sect. His father was a preacher. The God he rejected was his father’s God. The magic he practiced was a rebellion against the religion of his childhood. Waite, who had been raised Catholic, never felt the need to rebel. He simply deepened his faith.
How Did They Write About the Same Subjects?
Both men were prolific authors. Waite published over seventy books. Crowley published over fifty. They wrote about the same subjects: the Tarot, the Kabbalah, alchemy, the Holy Grail, the history of magic. The difference is in the tone. Waite wrote as a scholar. His books are dense, careful, and footnoted. He cited his sources. He admitted when he was uncertain. His “The Holy Kabbalah” (1929) is still cited by academic scholars. His “The Book of Ceremonial Magic” (1911) is a critical edition of the grimoire texts, not a manual for practice. He was a documentalist before he was a magician. Crowley wrote as a prophet. His books are passionate, sloppy, and self-aggrandizing. He did not cite his sources. He claimed that his knowledge came from direct revelation. His “Magick in Theory and Practice” (1929) is a manual for practice, not a scholarly edition. He was a magician before he was a documentalist. The difference in style reflects the difference in purpose. Waite wanted to preserve and interpret the Western esoteric tradition. Crowley wanted to transform it.
What Did They Think of Each Other?
They thought of each other with the contempt of the opposite temperaments. Waite saw Crowley as the charlatan and the blasphemer — the man who had taken the sacred tradition and twisted it into the cult of the self, and he wrote of Crowley with the disdain of the mystic for the mountebank. Crowley saw Waite as the mystic and the fool — the man who had taken the magical tradition and diluted it into the piety, and he wrote of Waite with the scorn of the magician for the dreamer. Yes, Crowley defined the magic as the science of the supernatural, and he insisted on the rigor that Waite’s devotional reading lacked — the two judgments the two poles of the tradition’s self-understanding.
Their mutual contempt was public and enduring. Waite called Crowley “a man of genius who was also a man of the most unbridled license.” He wrote that Crowley’s system was “a parody of the true magical tradition” and that his character was “a warning to all who would seek power without wisdom.” Crowley called Waite “a pompous ass” and “a fraud.” He wrote that Waite’s Tarot was “a travesty of the true symbolism” and that his version of the Golden Dawn was “a nursery for old women of both sexes.” Neither man was entirely wrong. Waite’s caution kept him from the excesses that destroyed Crowley’s reputation. Crowley’s courage allowed him to explore territories that Waite refused to enter. The two men needed each other as foils. The Western occult tradition needed both of them.
FAQ
Did Waite and Crowley ever work together? They were both members of the Golden Dawn in the late 1890s, but they never collaborated. Crowley described Waite as “a pompous little man” and Waite helped expel Crowley from the order in 1900. Which Tarot deck is more authentic? Neither. Both decks are original creations that depart from earlier Tarot traditions. Waite’s deck emphasizes Christian mysticism. Crowley’s deck emphasizes Thelemic philosophy. Choose the one that speaks to you. Was Crowley actually evil? Crowley was not a Satanist in the modern sense. He rejected the concept of evil as a Christian invention. He believed that every act of will was sacred. His reputation as “the wickedest man in the world” was largely self-created and exaggerated by the press. Did Waite believe in magic? Yes, but he defined magic as “the science of the supernatural” and insisted that its purpose was spiritual purification. He rejected the grimoire tradition of summoning spirits and condemned Crowley’s practices as dangerous.
The Legacy of Their Rivalry
The legacy of their rivalry is the shape of the modern occult tradition. Waite gave the tradition its most famous artifact — the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, the deck that carried the mystical reading into the world, the images that the modern practice reads. Crowley gave the tradition its most powerful system — the Thelema, the Thoth deck, the magical philosophy that redefined the practice. The rivalry divided the inheritance: the devotional line that descends from Waite and the magical line that descends from Crowley, the two streams of the modern occultism. The legacy is the division and the wealth: the two men fought, and the tradition inherited the two readings.
The conflict between Waite and Crowley shaped the Western occult tradition more than any other single dispute. Every modern practitioner inherits their division. Do you approach magic as a path to union with God, or as a technology of the will? Do you read the Tarot as a book of moral instruction, or as a diagram of cosmic forces? Do you seek to preserve the tradition, or to transform it? Waite died in 1942, a respected but obscure figure. Crowley died in 1947, a notorious but impoverished one. Both men have been vindicated by history. Waite’s Tarot is the most popular deck in the world. Crowley’s Thoth Tarot is the second most popular. Their books are still in print. Their followers still argue. The argument will not be settled. It is not meant to be. The tension between the mystic and the magician is the engine that drives the occult tradition forward. For a deeper look at the tradition they both inherited, see our guide to the history of Western occultism. To understand the symbols they fought over, explore our glossary entry on the Tarot’s major arcana. And for the full story of the order that brought them together and tore them apart, read our guide to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.