Okay now so I am totally confused

firecatpickles

A while back I bookmarked The Book of T for future reference. So now I go back to compare the symbology, etc. of RWS and the descriptions do not match. Do the descriptions in The Book of T match up with the Thoth deck or what?

KK
 

Lee

Hi KK,

RWS is based to a large extent on Book T, but Waite used other sources as well, so there are differences. For the pip cards, Waite mixed together Book T meanings, as well as meanings from Mathers' pre-Book-T meanings and meanings from Etteilla.

You may want to check out this article from James Revak's site which compares Waite's, Mathers', and Etteilla's meanings, and after reading it, it becomes quite clear that Waite was influenced by the other two, as well as by Book T meanings.

-- Lee
 

firecatpickles

That makes a lot of sense. Now I am wondering why some insist on direct correlates from Book T whereas Smith's deck was clearly designed from several sources.

Another topic another time...

TY | KK
 

Fulgour

Lee said:
RWS is based to a large extent on Book T, but Waite used
other sources as well, so there are differences.
The Pamela Colman Smith Tarot of 1909 bears no resemblence
to anything described in the (mythical-fictional-farce) Book T.
Waite gives no indication in any of his pulp fiction regarding it.
 

MikeTheAltarboy

On the contrary, Waite gives the exact Book T title as a definition for about half the pips (and all the wands), and for almost all the rest he gives a rewording of it as one.
 

Lee

MikeTheAltarboy said:
On the contrary, Waite gives the exact Book T title as a definition for about half the pips (and all the wands), and for almost all the rest he gives a rewording of it as one.
Hi Mike, you are correct. For Fulgour's reading pleasure, I'll copy a few here so people can decide for themselves.

5 of Wands:
Book T: Lord of Strife
PKT (Pictorial Key to the Tarot): A posse of youths, who are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife.

7 of Wands:
Book T: Lord of Valour
PKT: It is a card of valour, for, on the surface, six are attacking one, who has, however, the vantage position.

8 of Cups:
Book T: Lord of Abandoned Success
PKT: A man of dejected aspect is deserting the cups of his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern.

2 of Cups:
Book T: Lord of Love
PKT: Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and--as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination--that desire which is not in Nature, but by which Nature is sanctified.

So, KK, you can see for yourself that there are what I would certainly call direct correlates to Book T.

-- Lee
 

firecatpickles

What deck is described here though?
 

Lee

Yes, that's Book T. It describes the Golden Dawn's system of interpretation. There was actually a Golden Dawn deck, a hand-painted deck by Moina Mathers which members used as a basis to copy their own personal decks. Both the deck and the document predate the RWS. As members of the Golden Dawn, presumably both Waite and Smith would have made their own copies, although I'm not sure about that.

You can get an idea of what the Golden Dawn deck looked like by looking at Robert Wang's modern recreation of the deck:

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/golden-dawn/index.shtml

-- Lee
 

MikeTheAltarboy

The Golden Dawn's tarot. Those *meanings* would be used with any tarot they read with (probably a french or italian playing card deck, for non-order people). The *visual descriptions* refer to the hand-drawn order deck - each member had to make a copy from another member. Since Waite was a member, and since his faction when the order broke used his deck, it's very reasonable to use book T to enlighten his deck - in terms of the meanings and associations though, not the visual descriptions. The images on the Waite deck do often give an illustration of the Book T meanings.

The two decks that use those visual descriptions are The Golden Dawn Tarot - I forget who the artist is, and The New Golden Dawn Tarot - by Sandra Tabatha Cicero. Crowley's deck is *similar* in many ways, but it doesn't follow the descriptions completely.
 

firecatpickles

I really like it!

TY | KK