Qabalitic Tarot of A. E. Waite

Abrac

Waite talks about Kabbalah in the PKT, but he doesn't talk about correspondences between Hebrew letters and the cards. He wrote,

"I have also not adopted the prevailing attribution of the cards of the Hebrew alphabet—firstly, because it would serve no purpose in an elementary handbook; secondly, because nearly every attribution is wrong."​

As early as 1902, as noted above, Waite had expressed his belief that all the attributions expounded in books outside the "secret circle" were wrong. He wrote basically the same thing in the PKT in 1910, so one has to assume he saw the GD attributions as wrong. This is further in evidence based on the attributions he later used in the FRC, 99% of which differ from the GD.

In the RWS he uses Hebrew letters as symbols; for example Shin superimposed over the eight-spoked wheel of spirit on the Fool's tunic, associating it with spirit. And Yod-Heh-Vau-Heh on the front of Temperance's robe, a reference to Temperance as Shekinah in her role of Lady of Reconciliation, i.e. reconciler of the four Worlds and three Pillars. But he doesn't give a complete system of correspondences.

A lot of people believe there's a secret system of correspondences concealed in the RWS but I don't see it. To the contrary, everything Waite says about it points in the opposite direction. But if someone believes this or is helped by it, I'm not knocking it or saying they're wrong, I'm just saying I don't see it.

Something happened between 1910 when Waite wrote the PKT and 1916 [maybe before that] when he started writing the FRC rituals that made him decide to develop his own system of correspondences. The reason for this could be, 1) he didn't see his Great Symbols of the Paths as Tarot. He never once refers to them as such in the rituals; 2) he decided to bite the bullet and do it, knowing all the while they might be "wrong"; 3) he felt he had discovered the true secret. I have no idea which one is more likely.