What was Arthur thinking?

Feretian

My first tarot experience was thirty years ago...a RWS deck and a tiny pamphlet listing meanings. I could never memorize them all because they didn't seem to match the cards.

Looking back, I thought perhaps I was too naive and impatient to understand what I was seeing, but now, having just looked at another list of Arthur's meanings, I STILL can't make sense of them.

Since I have been reading quite nicely for myself these past few months, and just the past few days discovering I can do a respectable "blind" reading, I am thinking that it's not me, it's him!

I understand that he attempted to squeeze as much symbolism into each card as was comfortably possible to illustrate on such a small canvas, but why do his interpretations seem not in line with the images? What was he thinking?
 

fyreflye

It's less a question of what he was thinking than of what Pamela was doing. The old boy was too lazy to bother with supervising his talented "assistant," especially in the design of the minors, or even to compare her images with his descriptions. After all, he was basically a hack writer out to make a quick buck with a minor project. The result of his carelessness was one of the greatest tarots of all time and one of the worst companion books ever conceived.
Get this book: http://www.tarotstudies.org/WaiteSmithBook.html
 

Abrac

Feretian said:
I am thinking that it's not me, it's him!
I totally agree, it's not you but him. I've tried and tried to read Waite and figure out what the hell he's talking about but it's almost as if he's writing a different language. I've read other authors from the same time period and I know they didn't all write that way. He said he had to be careful and not break his oath of secrecy, but even the stuff he supposedly revealed doesn't make any sense. The RWS Tarot is a very well thought out deck in my opinion, and Smith's artwork is exceptional, but as for Waite as a writer I've given up. I've read he hit the sauce pretty hard, that's probably as good an explanation as any.
 

Debra

I felt a lot better about my deck--which I've had since oh man! 1971--once I tossed the book.

Last week I found an old hardback version cheap in the used book shop and bought it just for old times' sake.

It still sucks.
 

BodhiSeed

Abrac said:
The RWS Tarot is a very well thought out deck in my opinion, and Smith's artwork is exceptional, but as for Waite as a writer I've given up.
AMEN! :D
 

gregory

Debra said:
I felt a lot better about my deck--which I've had since oh man! 1971--once I tossed the book.

Last week I found an old hardback version cheap in the used book shop and bought it just for old times' sake.

It still sucks.
Thank goodness. I thought it was all in my distaste for generic meanings.....
 

Feretian

fyreflye said:
It's less a question of what he was thinking than of what Pamela was doing.

So, Fyreflye, do you think the "genius" of this deck is due more to Pamela's interpretations? Where did her inspirations come from? I know she was an educated woman, but where in her studies did she find the symbols and archetypes? She certainly put it together in a powerful manner judging by the decks' ease of use and consistently "on-target" outcomes.

(The book looks fascinating, but out of my price range at this time, so I am relying on your knowledge and patience to find out more!)
 

Texas Tarot

I think A.E. Waite deliberately obfuscated his descriptions of tarot. Please understand that Waite was under vow to not reveal any of the deeper mysteries he had gleamed from the Golden Dawn. He knew more than he was letting on.

Looking at the history of the deck, we know from letters that Waite directed Pamela "Pixie" Coleman Smith to go to the British Museum and study the Mantegna deck, which they had a copy of. I disagree with the notion that exists that he didn't act as an art director of the deck, and let Pixie do anything she wanted. I point to Pixie's relative youth and inexperience as an illustrator, her real back ground was in stage design which really comes off with her penchant for putting her figures on stage, check your deck to see what I mean!, and as a Golden Dawn member. For those who want to look, her deck is full of esoteric meaning that is most assuredly from A.E. Waite directly or indirectly from her involvement in the Golden Dawn.
 

Crescent

Quote- It still sucks. UnQuote.

Yes it sure does!!
I always thought it was ME, maybe I had a deficit in my reading ability, not just the cards but the book!! I really can't imagine where he came up with the meanings.
When I first wanted to learn tarot, the Pictorial Key to the Tarot, really put me off...... I dropped my studies and let it ride, till I decided to pick them up and get far far away from that book, and his little white book too! (think Dorothy and her dog toto, the witch telling her " Ill get you my pretty and your little dog too!)
 

Abrac

My first Tarot was the Waite-Smith and luckily when I went to look for a book I found one of Eden Gray's books before Waite's. It was actually a long time before I even realized there was a companion book by Waite. Even Gray's book was a little over my head at the time, but nothing compared to Waite's. :laugh: