In 1910, a deck of cards appeared that changed how the West read the future. The figures on the cards were not the usual courtly abstractions: they walked through fields, climbed towers, dropped cups. Arthur Edward Waite’s role in the revival of tarot was to transform it from a game of fortune-telling into a symbolic system of spiritual development, culminating in the 1910 Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck that set the standard for modern esoteric tarot. Before Waite, tarot was either a card game or a collection of enigmatic images used by a handful of French occultists. After Waite, it became a tool for personal introspection that anyone could use.
Arthur Edward Waite (1857–1942) was an occult scholar, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the author of more than seventy books on mysticism, alchemy, and the Kabbalah. He was not an artist. The images on the cards were drawn by Pamela Colman Smith, a stage designer and illustrator who worked from Waite’s detailed instructions. Together they created a deck that would define tarot for the next century.
How the Golden Dawn Shaped Waite’s Vision
Waite joined the Golden Dawn in 1891, a decade after the order was founded. The Golden Dawn’s curriculum was a dense weave of Kabbalistic correspondences, astrological symbols, and ceremonial magic. Members were trained to see the universe as a set of interconnected symbols, each with multiple layers of meaning. This training shaped how Waite understood tarot.
The Golden Dawn’s own tarot deck, the “Order’s Tarot,” was a secret manuscript deck that revised the traditional Marseilles imagery. Waite saw it. He later wrote that the Golden Dawn’s deck was “the only true and complete Tarot.” But the order guarded its secrets. The public knew nothing of the inner symbolism.
The human consequence of this secrecy was that tarot remained a closed book to most practitioners. Waite wanted to change that. He believed that the tarot’s symbols could be understood by anyone who studied them, not just by initiates. The deck he created with Smith was his attempt to open the gate.
The 1910 Deck: A New Kind of Tarot
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck was published by the London publisher William Rider & Son in December 1910. The deck consisted of 78 cards, but the innovation was in the Minor Arcana. Earlier decks, like the Marseilles tradition, showed the numbered cards (Ace through Ten) as simple arrangements of pips: five cups, six swords, and so on. Waite replaced those abstract patterns with full-picture scenes. The Five of Cups showed a figure in a black cloak, head bowed over three spilled cups, with two cups still standing behind. The Three of Swords showed a heart pierced by three swords against a rainy sky. Each card told a story.
This change was not cosmetic. It made the Minor Arcana readable as a narrative, not just a number. A reader no longer had to memorize a list of meanings for each pip card. The image itself conveyed the emotion: loss, conflict, celebration, hope. The deck invited the reader to interpret the scene rather than recall a pre-written fortune.
The Major Arcana also underwent revision. Waite reassigned the traditional sequence of the Fool, the Magician, and the High Priestess, drawing on Golden Dawn correspondences. The Fool became the first card of the Major Arcana, not the last. The High Priestess was placed between the Magician and the Empress, aligning with Kabbalistic paths. The changes were deliberate and argued in his accompanying book, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, published in 1911.
Waite’s Symbolic System, Explained
Waite’s symbols were not invented. They were drawn from a well of sources: the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, astrological signs, alchemical stages, and the symbolism of the Grail legends. Each card in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck is a composite of these traditions.
Take the Magician. Above his head floats the infinity symbol. On his table sit the four suit symbols: cup, wand, sword, pentacle. He raises one hand to the sky and points the other to the earth. The image is a direct quotation of the Hermetic maxim “As above, so below.” The Magician is the channel between the divine and the material.
The Death card, number XIII, shows a skeleton in black armor riding a white horse. The horse tramples a king, a bishop, and a child. In the background, the sun rises between two towers. Waite deliberately softened the image. He wrote that the card represents “transformation” rather than literal death. The skeleton wears armor, indicating that death is impersonal. The white horse suggests purity. The rising sun promises renewal.
The Moon card shows a crayfish emerging from water onto land, between two towers, with a dog and a wolf howling at the moon. Waite associated this card with the “twilight” state between waking and dreaming, a realm of illusion and hidden fears. The crayfish is a creature that lives in water but can crawl onto land, symbolizing the transition between the subconscious and the conscious.
Waite’s system gave each card a fixed meaning, but he also allowed for intuition. The Pictorial Key provides both a “divinatory meaning” and a “reversed meaning” for each card, but Waite insisted that the images themselves were the primary source of insight.
How the Deck Was Used in Practice
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck was marketed as a “fortune-telling” deck, but Waite’s intention was more ambitious. He saw tarot as a tool for meditation and spiritual development. In the Golden Dawn, members used the tarot to map the Tree of Life, to perform pathworkings, and to explore the symbolic correspondences of the universe. Waite brought this practice to the public.
The deck’s layout, the Celtic Cross, became the standard spread for tarot readers. Waite described it in The Pictorial Key. Ten positions, each with a specific meaning: the present, the obstacle, the past, the future, the seeker’s hopes, and the outcome. The spread was designed to be read as a narrative, not as a static list of cards.
The human consequence of this was that tarot reading became a skill that could be learned by anyone with a deck and a book. Before Waite, tarot reading was often a parlor trick or a guarded secret of occult societies. After Waite, it became a democratic practice.
Waite vs. Crowley: Two Roads Diverged
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck was not the only tarot revival of the early twentieth century. Aleister Crowley, another former member of the Golden Dawn, produced his own deck with artist Lady Frieda Harris: the Thoth Tarot, published in 1969, long after both men were dead. The two decks share a common root in the Golden Dawn, but they diverge in philosophy.
Crowley’s Thoth deck is dense with astrological and alchemical symbols, often requiring a deep knowledge of the occult to interpret. The images are abstract, sometimes jarring. The Magician in Thoth wears a crown of snakes and holds a wand that is a phallus. The card is titled “The Magus.” Crowley’s intent was to compress as much esoteric meaning as possible into a single image.
Waite’s deck, by contrast, is narrative and accessible. The images are naturalistic, even quaint by modern standards. The figures wear medieval robes, not Egyptian headdresses. The scenes are recognizable as human situations: a family gathered around a table (the Ten of Cups), a child stepping off a cliff (the Fool). Waite wanted the deck to be read by the “common reader,” not just the initiate.
The difference reflects a fundamental split in the occult revival. Crowley believed in elitism and secrecy. Waite believed in democratization and clarity. The Rider-Waite-Smith deck won the popular vote. It remains the most widely used tarot deck in the English-speaking world.
Common Misconceptions About Waite’s Role
That Waite drew the cards himself. He did not. The illustrations are the work of Pamela Colman Smith, an artist and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Waite directed her, but the visual style is hers. She was paid a flat fee for the work and received no royalties.
That the deck is purely “Rider-Waite.” The correct name is Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, or RWS. The name “Rider-Waite” elides Smith’s contribution. Recent scholarship has restored her credit.
That Waite invented tarot symbolism. He synthesized existing traditions, primarily from the Golden Dawn’s inner teachings, which themselves drew on Éliphas Lévi, the Comte de Saint-Germain, and the Kabbalistic tradition. His innovation was the pictorial Minor Arcana, not the symbolic content of the Major Arcana.
That the deck is Christian. Waite was a Christian mystic, and some cards (the Judgment card, the World card) carry Christian imagery. But the deck is a hybrid, drawing equally on Pagan and Hermetic symbols. The Sun card shows a child on a white horse, not a solar deity. The Star card shows a naked woman pouring water, a figure from the Grail legends.
FAQ
Did A.E. Waite draw the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck?
No. The illustrations were drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. Waite provided the symbolic instructions.
What is The Pictorial Key to the Tarot?
It is Waite’s 1911 guidebook to the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, containing his interpretations of each card and instructions for reading spreads.
How did the Golden Dawn influence Waite’s tarot?
The Golden Dawn’s secret teachings on Kabbalah, astrology, and the Tree of Life provided the symbolic framework for the deck’s Major and Minor Arcana.
Why is the deck called “Rider-Waite-Smith”?
It was published by William Rider & Son, designed by Arthur Edward Waite, and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. The full name honors all three contributors.
Waite’s revival of tarot was not a restoration of an ancient tradition. It was a reimagining. He took a disjointed set of cards, bound them to a coherent symbolic system, and made them readable to the public. The deck he created with Smith remains the lens through which most modern tarot readers see the cards. Whether you read the Fool as a beginning or a leap of faith, you are reading through Waite’s eyes.
For a deeper look at how tarot evolved from Renaissance playing cards to modern oracle, see our guide to the history of tarot. To understand the symbols that Waite adapted, consult the glossary entry on the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot. And for the full scope of Waite’s influence, visit our tarot hub.