I began studying the occult about two years ago, and since then have gone through many permutations in my views of things. When I first started out I was all "meh, RWS," and now, I'm "WOW, the RWS!!" Same goes for the PKT. I used to think it obscure and pompous, and now I find that with a little work, I can glean much information from it. And of course, then there is Waite, against whom I railed even in this thread, but have learned to respect since then. While he could indeed be considered pompous and arrogant, I begin to see the reasoning behind the things he said and did, and from a certain point of view, they even make sense.
Waite set out to design a deck and book for the mass market, and as such there was no possible way for him to reveal everything the deck contained because, as LRichard said, doing so would entail writing an entire Tarot encyclopedia. Whole books could be written about the interchange of Strength and Justice, but that just wasn't what he intended to do, oaths or no oaths. Even saying that doing so would violate his oaths of revealing the attributions of the Trumps is a simplification; it would entail him revealing what correspondences are in the first place, what Kabbalah is, why it is used, why Tarot, why GD... In this day and age when everything is a Google search away, it is easy to explain complicated things in a few words, because everyone has the context. This was not the case then. New Age was in its infancy and Hermetic Kabbalah unknown to all but a few. Seen in the context of its times, and knowing what to look for, the PKT can seem a little
too talkative at times, and even I am surprised by how explicit it can be.
While his remarks could be seen as dismissive, I think he is dismissing the material itself as being too involved for the general reader. To even
begin to explain it would entail writing perhaps hundreds of pages on the rudiments of astrology and Kabbalah which, again, oaths or no oaths, simply weren't in the scope of his intent. Can Waite be blamed for thinking both big, in creating the first visual esoteric deck, and
too small at the same time? I don't think that's fair at all.
I have never been a "joiner", but that in no way makes my search any less valid than those who have the time, money, and connections to devote to it.
Unfortunately, it does, and I say this as a non-member of anything myself. I once complained about the obscurity of a book about the Thoth, and was soundly taken to task by a member here. You and I, we simply aren't the target audience for such things, and while this means that we have far more flexibility on one hand, it also means that in certain things we will always be looking over the fence at a party we weren't invited to. Waite's main concern was his own order, and did not, perhaps, have the scope of thought to imagine laymen being interested in the occult (a pompous Victorian gentleman, of course).
Also, though the question was likely sarcasm, i don't have all the answers, but if i did, I'd damn sure share them -in plain English - with those who want to know.
Like ravenest said, there are certain things that cannot, and should not, be spoonfed. If anyone were to ask
me about the interchange I could tell them in a few words, and they would have gained little by it. However, I would most likely tell them to construct their own reasons for it
experientially, by reading any number of books and meditating on the Tree of Life, as I did, and do, and heaven knows I'm a beginning student in everything here, and am not talking out of pomposity.
It is like the Emperor/Star interchange in the Thoth. I have read
so much about it, texts that do purport to explain it in plain English. I still don't understand it
at all and will probably have to resign myself to that. But still, even simple explanations aren't always that simple, if one does not have the tools with which to understand them. Much of the Book of Thoth is incomprehensible in anything but a shallow understanding, unless one belongs to certain organizations or has spent several years practicing Ceremonial and Sex Magick.
The PKT's purpose is limited, perhaps the first
Tarot for Dummies but one can't find fault with its own inherent purpose, especially as all the answers are in Waite's other writings, just not easily and cheaply paraphrased in one easy-to-read booklet. He
did explain things in plain English, just not in the PKT. I must admit to not having read his books, not being the focus of my study, but even a cursory look at the Wikipedia entry about him shows that his other books do, indeed, treat with subjects the PKT doesn't: "A number of his volumes remain in print, including The Book of Ceremonial Magic (1911), The Holy Kabbalah (1929), A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (1921), and his edited translation of Eliphas Levi's 1896 Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual (1910)." He was under no obligation to include it
all in one volume, even Crowley didn't do that.
Personally I suspect that the problem lies not with him, but with us. The PKT has become the go-to book for all things Tarot, being included in almost every deck and even when it isn't, most texts with divinatory meanings are based on it
anyway, and so fault is found with it when it fails to live up to that role. However, it was probably never meant to be the sole text upon which modern Tarot divination is based on. It's just one book.
