Waite and his numerous "veils"

sworm09

This is something that I've been meaning to discuss for a long, long time here. I have to get the opinions and insights of others on this. Hopefully everyone knows that the fundamental difference between the RWS and the Thoth is that Waite hides....nearly everything...and Crowley puts everything out there. When I first began studying the RWS I was convinced that Mr.Waite just threw the public a bone to let us "think" that we were doing Tarot.

A few months later, after studying the Tree of Life and little more, learning more about Astrology, and reading Golden Dawn texts, it becomes clear that Arthur Waite hid about 90% of the deck's meaning behind the pictures. He didn't mean the pictures to be an end to themselves, but as a "tip off".

I want to know, what subtle veils or outright misinformation have you noticed in the RWS? My favorite to talk about is the Two of Swords. I've seen all kinds of intuitive readings on this card meaning "being stuck" or "blocking emotions" which is ok for intuitive readings, but Waite himself said that it was a "suggestion of harmony" and "concord in a state of arms". The image on the card is truly baffling if you don't know what you're looking at i.e. the still waters in the background, the woman herself being similar to Justice (Libra) and the Moon in the background pointing to the Moon ruling this card.

What other ones have you all noticed? I think it's very interesting and a little frustrating what Waite has done here.
 

Richard

This is something that I've been meaning to discuss for a long, long time here. I have to get the opinions and insights of others on this. Hopefully everyone knows that the fundamental difference between the RWS and the Thoth is that Waite hides....nearly everything...and Crowley puts everything out there. When I first began studying the RWS I was convinced that Mr.Waite just threw the public a bone to let us "think" that we were doing Tarot.

A few months later, after studying the Tree of Life and little more, learning more about Astrology, and reading Golden Dawn texts, it becomes clear that Arthur Waite hid about 90% of the deck's meaning behind the pictures. He didn't mean the pictures to be an end to themselves, but as a "tip off".

I want to know, what subtle veils or outright misinformation have you noticed in the RWS? My favorite to talk about is the Two of Swords. I've seen all kinds of intuitive readings on this card meaning "being stuck" or "blocking emotions" which is ok for intuitive readings, but Waite himself said that it was a "suggestion of harmony" and "concord in a state of arms". The image on the card is truly baffling if you don't know what you're looking at i.e. the still waters in the background, the woman herself being similar to Justice (Libra) and the Moon in the background pointing to the Moon ruling this card.

What other ones have you all noticed? I think it's very interesting and a little frustrating what Waite has done here.

Book T was a private document when Waite and Smith designed the deck. I really don't think it is necessary to go over and over the reason for Waite's reticence in violating the Golden Dawn oaths. The fact that Waite felt bound by the oaths and Crowley didn't were personal decisions on their part, and we have no right to criticize either (as some folks have done) for following their own conscience in the matter. I might mention that even after Crowley spilled the beans about the Golden Dawn, The brilliant occultist and writer Dion Fortune felt bound by her initiation vows.

I personally think it's fun to dig out the facts rather than having them handed to me on a silver platter, but that's just me. If I thought the deck was deliberately misleading, I would toss it out and never look back.

BTW, It doesn't take much effort to see that Two of Swords suggests Moon in Libra. I can fairly well understand the esoteric meanings of the Minors, but damned if I can see the reason for some of the divinatory meanings of many of the cards, both Majors and Minors, particularly that the High Priestess means secrets, and the Lovers means choice, but I'm not going to agonize over it. :) Book T is free for anyone who wants to look more deeply into the significance of the Waite pips.
 

Zephyros

I would say neither is actually misleading, but both the deck and the book use codes to convey meaning. Nowhere in the PKT have I seen outright lies, at least when compared to more "open" decks like the Thoth or using Liber Theta as a source.

I can't think of any examples now, but let's take the Priestess. Secrets is actually an apt term, although the word isn't used in the same way laymen would. When occultists use the term, I have found they mean an experiential secret, something that cannot be explained in words but that initiates would understand. The Priestess is that which lies Beyond, loss of conscious control and a direct path to the Nothingness that is Keter (and whatever is beyond that). In order to rise that high up the Tree, one must eschew anything that is not inherent to the Self, and even let go of that, as Keter truly is as Nothing as can be imagined (and it can't really be imagined, either).

As to the Lovers as choice... well... solve et coagula, solution and coagulation. This card is among the most difficult to understand (working on it now, as a matter of fact; twenty pages in my journal and still haven't done yet!), but its main gist is division; the division of different materials from the primordial ooze so that Creation will be possible, in the same way a fertilized egg divides itself exponentially from one to two, then four ad infinitum. The sum potentiality of the universe (God) cannot experience on its own all that can be experienced unless that division is carried out. What do you do when you wish to build something and have infinite materials at your disposal? You choose which to use and which to discard for any given purpose. If the universe were a single equation, the Lovers would be the stage where you define your variables. Incidentally, the Lovers is a card that illustrates how the Fall wasn't really a fall, and it wasn't such a bad thing, either.

The Two of Swords, it relates to Chochma, which mostly contemplates Keter in Yetzirah. The abstract idea contemplates itself; this is why the swords are crossed and the woman is blindfolded. There is no conflict that is so typical of the Swords. Plus the Sword, as a tool of division (the ז of the Lovers), here does what it does best, divides one into two. While I would argue this portrayal isn't the best way to get this idea across (I prefer Crowley's Peace) the idea of perfect balance and harmony is still conveyed here. I don't see this as misleading or a veil.

I'm not apologizing for Waite, but there is a lot more to the PKT than, as Crowley put it, a book for "servant-girls." Nowhere have I seen outright lies (although I must admit that I haven't spent much time with it), which only adds to how genius the deck is. He could have been an admirable cryptographer. There is, of course, a difference between a wise person, and a wise person who knows how to teach. Dion Fortune, that LRichard mentioned, is a good example of one who stuck to her oaths, yet was still a good teacher. Waite, unfortunately, probably wasn't, or at least, teaching was not his aim when writing the book. This raises the question of why he wrote the book at all.
 

Rosanne

This raises the question of why he wrote the book at all.
Well he needed the money- and people love the mysterious.
~Rosanne
 

Richard

I suppose the ambiguities of language can be used to justify almost any short description of a card's meaning. Sophistry takes advantage of the fact that a particular word or entity means different things to different people.

There indeed may be a touch of sophistry in PKT, such as placing the Fool between Judgement and World, which was the Levi ordering, apparently generally accepted by pre Golden Dawn occultists. In a different part of the book, Waite states that the Levi ordering doesn't make any sense and (in still another section) states that almost all of the usual Hebrew letter attributions are wrong. He also expresses doubt about placing the Fool after the World. Waite never lied. Careful reading and a little experimentation makes it pretty clear that Waite means for the Fool to go before the Magician, but a careless reading would give the (false) impression that the order in which he discusses the Majors is the "correct" one.

I still don't see why the Priestess means "secret," such as, "Well, Louise, the Priestess indicates that your partner may be keeping a secret from you." Or, "The Lovers means that your partner may be seeing someone else on the sly. S/he must eventually make a choice between you and this other person," or alternatively, "You must make a choice about whether to confront your partner about this." There seems to be nothing in the cards to suggest such a reading.

Maybe it just means that I am not a card reader, which is fine, because if that's what is involved, I definitely don't want to be. It's distasteful to me somehow.

Whatever PKT may be "guilty" of, the RWS deck does not lie about itself anywhere, as far as I can tell. And even if a card such as Judgement seems a bit over the top with Bible symbolism (from the book of Daniel, and/or the Apocalypse of John), a reading of Waite's description in PKT (and an understanding that he tended to ape traditional imagery in the interest of continuity with older decks), clears it up nicely. In this case, he makes it quite clear that the traditional interpretion is okay, but it is not what he intended.
 

re-pete-a

We're all aware of Waite's ways on the physical level .

But not too many are aware of his connections to the natural intelligence and how it becomes the key and the path to forever growing understandings. He knew this well.

My understanding is that when things like this are presented, the first thing is that the thinking mind tries to logically resolve the purpose. The intellect runs through it's stores of rememberings until it too fails. This leaves space for the intuitions to spring forth at whatever level of it's understanding is available to it, at that moment. Because moment by moment the natural born intelligence leaps foreward as the previous unknown spaces become illumened.

I feel that what he required is that one should do all the thinking available to it ....then release it.

I feel he knew that to think is to block. Thus another "veil " becomes discarded.
 

re-pete-a

It is also quite possible that he was out maneuvering the book slapping churches of the time.
 

Zephyros

This... is possible, but at the same time, partial information is also detrimental. I remember when I was younger, someone told me the Two of Swords was a card of fear, of being trapped between choices with partial information. Although I can't tell anyone how to read or understand the deck, I can't help feeling that that kind of misinformation stops initiation and personal development, if one believes those things about Chochma in Yetzirah. I really don't believe that to think is to block, and the GD didn't either. Initiates were expected to learn the system intellectually and then assimilate the information through meditation.

Not everything can be written off as intuition or natural intelligence; sometimes people need guidance. Waite should have known better, and in fact, did.
 

Richard

When I was teaching, whenever I introduced a new concept, I would imagine myself in the place of the students and try to think of what might have helped me when I was first introduced to the topic. This approach is where Dion Fortune shines, but Waite cannot do it. Mary K. Greer hypothesizes that Waite had Asperger's syndrome. If so, this approach to teaching would probably not have occurred to him. I do believe that he was trying to convey as much of the truth as he felt that he could, but he ends up giving us a puzzle to solve, such as his preference for the ordering of the Majors. For many people, if the truth is to be revealed in this circuitous fashion, then the effort to convey it might as well not have been made at all. I do think that Greer is on the right track about Waite.
 

sworm09

Book T was a private document when Waite and Smith designed the deck. I really don't think it is necessary to go over and over the reason for Waite's reticence in violating the Golden Dawn oaths. The fact that Waite felt bound by the oaths and Crowley didn't were personal decisions on their part, and we have no right to criticize either (as some folks have done) for following their own conscience in the matter. I might mention that even after Crowley spilled the beans about the Golden Dawn, The brilliant occultist and writer Dion Fortune felt bound by her initiation vows.

I personally think it's fun to dig out the facts rather than having them handed to me on a silver platter, but that's just me. If I thought the deck was deliberately misleading, I would toss it out and never look back.

BTW, It doesn't take much effort to see that Two of Swords suggests Moon in Libra. I can fairly well understand the esoteric meanings of the Minors, but damned if I can see the reason for some of the divinatory meanings of many of the cards, both Majors and Minors, particularly that the High Priestess means secrets, and the Lovers means choice, but I'm not going to agonize over it. :) Book T is free for anyone who wants to look more deeply into the significance of the Waite pips.

Don't get me wrong, I DO value Waite's and Smith's veiled tendencies, but this whole comparison came from comparing the RWS to the Thoth. People are convinced that the Thoth is much more complex than the RWS when it comes to occult decks. I would actually argue that the RWS is MORE difficult that the Thoth if you're into using occult symbols in your readings. Where the Thoth shows you all of the correspondences on the card, the RWS doesn't even hint at any correspondences, it just gives you a picture. I truly think that it takes a special sort of skill to create a deck that a regular person with no occult knowledge can pick up and use well while at the same time basically being a pictorial textbook of Western Occultism.