How Waite is the RWS?

In several reviews of it I read that while Waite game Coleman details about the Majors, she had to make up the Minors on her own. While I don't know if that's accurate or not, I don't know enough to say, it seems that even a cursory glance at the cards show that they seem to have "occultist" written all over them. If Coleman did invent them on her own, does it matter as to the attributions? What did she base the pictures on, i.e., did she know what she was doing? For those of you who study the deck as opposed to intuitive readers, does in matter? Did Waite mean the deck to be Majors-only?

I know the history of the Thoth, as that has been my main interest, but I know very little of how the RWS came to be.

closrapexa said:

In several reviews of it I read that while Waite game Coleman details about the Majors, she had to make up the Minors on her own. While I don't know if that's accurate or not, I don't know enough to say, it seems that even a cursory glance at the cards show that they seem to have "occultist" written all over them. If Coleman did invent them on her own, does it matter as to the attributions? What did she base the pictures on, i.e., did she know what she was doing? For those of you who study the deck as opposed to intuitive readers, does in matter? Did Waite mean the deck to be Majors-only?

I know the history of the Thoth, as that has been my main interest, but I know very little of how the RWS came to be.

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Take a look at Part III of The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, The Outer Method of the Oracles, "Distinction between the Greater and Lesser Arcana." Waite has quite a bit to say on this subject. He mainly relates the Minor Arcana to use in "fortune-telling." Perhaps he was trying to distance himself from Smith's contribution? But Smith was also a member of the Golden Dawn, so she was well situated to invest the minors with meaningful imagery. At any rate, Waite clearly thought that only the Major Arcana were worthy of his serious attention.

BTW, Richard Cavendish, in his excellent and eminently readable 1975 book, "The Tarot," had this to say about The Pictorial Key: "The book is impatient and contemptuous in tone, conceals far more than it conveys and on some points is deliberately misleading." I guess that means we should approach anything Waite says in it with caution.

PCS also was a GD initiate and may have had access to Book T. In any event, the pip cards apparently illustrate the Decan attributions of Book T. While PCS created the images, Waite may have had significant influence on the scenes depicted. According to Mary K. Greer, there are two story plots underlying the images: the legend of the Holy Grail, and the Masonic legend of Hiram Abiff. It must have been quite a difficult chore for PCS to devise images which illustrate these legends (prescribed by Waite) as well as the Book T Decans.

The Minors apparently had more significance for Waite than is indicated by the short shrift they get in PKT. I wonder if he was trying to divert attention away from them for some reason. (Or maybe he was trying somehow to ease his conscience about underpaying PCS.)

closrapexa said:

In several reviews of it I read that while Waite game Coleman details about the Majors, she had to make up the Minors on her own. While I don't know if that's accurate or not, I don't know enough to say, it seems that even a cursory glance at the cards show that they seem to have "occultist" written all over them. If Coleman did invent them on her own, does it matter as to the attributions? What did she base the pictures on, i.e., did she know what she was doing? For those of you who study the deck as opposed to intuitive readers, does in matter? Did Waite mean the deck to be Majors-only?

I know the history of the Thoth, as that has been my main interest, but I know very little of how the RWS came to be.

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Greer is an extremely patient and thorough researcher. She has discovered important information pertaining to the deck in other writings besides PKT, such as The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail. In a way, PKT is an enigma. While it is true that Waite was restrained by oaths, he revealed more than he concealed. (Oaths in secret societies can be rather gruesome, such as having your tongue torn out by the roots by demons of the deep if you dare reveal any secrets.) If he writes something like, "This will not be of interest here," it refers to information from Book T or other GD (or Masonic) literature which was unavailable to non-initiates. In a way, therefore, his apparent dismissal of the importance of the the Minors may actually indicate the opposite. Anyhow, I suspect that many (most?) readers of PKT skipped over the historical and philosophical sections and went on to the "less important" divinatory material.

I must admit I read the PKT but... to say the least, didn't conduct a thorough study of it; there are far better books for learning about the GD. Does the concealment still work today, though? When Waite says oaths forbid him, and we have Book T, is the mask unveiled? Not to disparage Coleman, and I see the decans in the cards, obviously, but it seems strange Waite would put his name on something he had done only half of, he was too much of a pedant for that.

By the legend of the Holy Grail, do you mean the Parzival story? I know it pretty well, perhaps not in Waite's version, but I don't see Montsalvatch or anything else that could give me a foothold to it in in the RWS. Is the Four of Swords, for example, Amfortas wounded? What card could symbolize Parzival's Question? Or was he perhaps referring to the Arthurian version, which is a mix of the other stories?

Is the RWS arrangement that Coleman did the Minors the source of the obsequious New Age reverence for Harris, saying that she made the Thoth while Crowley provided "interpretations?"

I recently listened to a podcast by Robert Place and it has left me wondering what is really in those cards. It seems that the deck is really the work of Pamela Colman Smith with minimal input by Waite-a bit of guidance on three of the major arcana was about it. The deck was done in quite a short period of time-6 to 7 months-while she probably also had to do other work to eat. She painted the images more from feeling, so I don't know how much she thought about symbolism (or knew about symbolism for that matter). Place also says that when waite wrote the book he didn't even look at the cards, there are things he would have noticed if he had looked at them.

Also, several of PCS's pip card designs were based on the pip cards of the 15th century Sola Busca Tarot. Some cards are directly analogous, such as the 3 of Swords. In others, she uses a similar image but moves it do a different card, such as the Sola Busca 10 of Swords.

Of course the Sola Busca deck wasn't available as a published deck at that time, so Pamela probably visited the British Museum to view the cards and perhaps sketched them there. We can speculate that Waite probably directed/suggested that she do so, since he was the tarot historian of the team.

I've noticed the Sola Busca comparison as well, especially with the 3 of swords. But when you compare it with the Thoth, of which there is no argument as to its origins, it shows definite GD influence. This may be because of PCS's GD membership, but it is (at least, I think it is) apparent that she at least knew of Book T when constructing the cards, although Book T doesn't describe images. At least in several of the cards (the 6 of Swords comes to mind) she did know what she was doing, and what to base the images on.

It may very well have been that he was the "inspiration" behind the cards, leaving her a free hand. But how high up was she in the Golden Dawn? Did she have the proper knowledge to create the cards? Obviously she did, but would she be at the level in which adepts created their own decks?

(As an aside, it really is sad what became of the Golden Dawn. I get that it splintered, but it splintered to... Las Vegas: http://hermetic-golden-dawn.blogspot.co.il/2012/01/2012-international-golden-dawn-rr-et-ac.html )

I think the Swords (and possibly Pentacles) have to do with the Hiram legend; Cups and Wands, the Grail. Also, I think the Grail story which Waite used may have been the Galahad version, or a Galahad-Parzival conflation.

PCS did not advance very far in the GD degrees, but I don't know anything else about that. It is obvious only that some Book T material somehow made its way into the Minors.

It is undeniable that Sola-Busca provided inspiration for the RWS Minors.

Robert Place is entitled to his well-publicized opinions. It is amazing how much he knows about the unknowable nooks and crannies of Tarot history.

closrapexa said:

......(As an aside, it really is sad what became of the Golden Dawn. I get that it splintered, but it splintered to... Las Vegas: http://hermetic-golden-dawn.blogspot.co.il/2012/01/2012-international-golden-dawn-rr-et-ac.html )

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The original GD had a short life: 1888-1903.