Teheuti
I've been discussing Waite's correspondences between the Grail material and the Minor Arcana of the Tarot at TarotL.
I wrote an article about it for Llewellyn's 2006 Tarot Reader, and have since amassed more evidence to substantiate my theory that there is a deliberate connection. I continue to add to the following list as I discover more evidence.
1) Waite published a major book on the Grail (Hidden Church of the Holy Graal) the same year as the deck was published (1909).
2) In HCHG is a chapter entitled, "THE HALLOWS OF THE GRAAL MYSTERY REDISCOVERED IN THE TALISMANS OF THE TAROT" (Chapter 9) http://www.sacred-texts.com/sro/hchg/hchg83.htm.
3) Waite unambiguously says the Tarot suits ARE the Grail Hallows. He describes this realization as a major illumination: "a spark from heaven . . . to open another horizon,” and the connection made as “the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound"(HCHG).
4) Waite says, “the correspondence of certain Tarot symbols with those of the Holy Graal . . . [have a] consequence [i.e., import]” that he won’t discuss in HCHG.
5) Waite only refers in the Grail book to the Lesser Arcana (never the Majors), saying, for instance, that “the Sephirotic attributions [number cards] . . . are especially remarkable . . . [and] certain secret schools have developed their scheme of symbolic interpretation to a very high point."
6) Waite says that the Ace of Cups is "an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana” (PKT).
7) Waite says that the Knight of Swords is Galahad (PKT).
8) The King of Cups is depicted with a fish around his neck [Fisher King].
9) The suit of Cups contains many scenic elements specific to Waite’s short retelling of Robert de Boron’s Grail story (HCHG).
10) Some of the same descriptive wording appears in both the story and in Waite’s description of the cards (PKT), referring to similar elements in both.
11) The order of cards & sequence of scenes in the story are very similar.
12) Pamela Colman Smith's art, in the Minor Arcana especially, uses the faux-medieval style and other conventions found among other late 19th & early 20th century British Grail and Arthurian illustrators—marking these works as their own easily-recognizable genre. See The Camelot Project:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/artmenu.htm
13) In the 1933 revision, The Holy Grail, the second half of Waite's chapter on the Grail & Tarot (Ch. 9) becomes the Summary chapter of a new 60 page section, Book XI: "Further Critical Apparatus: The Ritual Hypothesis." Waite here speculates about the Grail myths as the basis for ritual pageants that, he tells us, he is well-qualified to devise. Pageant is defined as "a public entertainment consisting of a procession of people in elaborate, colorful costumes, or an outdoor performance of a historical scene." I propose that he envisioned the Minor Arcana as rough outlines for a quaternity of ritual pageants depicting the "Loss" (including moments of grace & happiness), while the Major Arcana represented the path to Attainment.
14) In an article, "The Tarot and the Secret Tradition," in The Occult Review Vol. XXIX, No. 3; March, 1919, Waite wrote:
"I have said, now long ago, (1) that there are vague rumours concerning a higher meaning in the minor cards but (2) they have never yet been translated into another language than that of fortune- telling. . . . In any case, the four suits of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles have two strange connexions in folk-lore, to one of which I drew attention briefly in The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal. So far as my recollection goes, I have not mentioned the other in any published work. The four Hallows of the Holy Graal are (1) the Graal itself, understood as a Cup or Chalice, being the first Cup of the Eucharist; (2) the Spear, traditionally that of Longinus; (3) the Sword, which was made and broken under strange circumstances of allegory; and (4) the Dish of Plenty, about which the Graal tradition is composed, but it is understood generally as the Paschal Dish. The correspondence of these Hallows or Tokens with the Tarot sults will be noted, and the point is that albeit three out of the four belong to the Christian history of relics they have an antecedent folklore history belonging to the world of Celtlc myth. This is a subject which I shall hope to carry farther one of these days."
It seems to me that these points make this theory not only worth considering but practically indisputable.
You will find de Boron's Joseph of Arimathea story (as retold by Waite) delineated with the cards from the Suit of Cups at:
http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/grail-myths-in-the-minor-arcana-cups/
Mary K. Greer
I wrote an article about it for Llewellyn's 2006 Tarot Reader, and have since amassed more evidence to substantiate my theory that there is a deliberate connection. I continue to add to the following list as I discover more evidence.
1) Waite published a major book on the Grail (Hidden Church of the Holy Graal) the same year as the deck was published (1909).
2) In HCHG is a chapter entitled, "THE HALLOWS OF THE GRAAL MYSTERY REDISCOVERED IN THE TALISMANS OF THE TAROT" (Chapter 9) http://www.sacred-texts.com/sro/hchg/hchg83.htm.
3) Waite unambiguously says the Tarot suits ARE the Grail Hallows. He describes this realization as a major illumination: "a spark from heaven . . . to open another horizon,” and the connection made as “the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound"(HCHG).
4) Waite says, “the correspondence of certain Tarot symbols with those of the Holy Graal . . . [have a] consequence [i.e., import]” that he won’t discuss in HCHG.
5) Waite only refers in the Grail book to the Lesser Arcana (never the Majors), saying, for instance, that “the Sephirotic attributions [number cards] . . . are especially remarkable . . . [and] certain secret schools have developed their scheme of symbolic interpretation to a very high point."
6) Waite says that the Ace of Cups is "an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana” (PKT).
7) Waite says that the Knight of Swords is Galahad (PKT).
8) The King of Cups is depicted with a fish around his neck [Fisher King].
9) The suit of Cups contains many scenic elements specific to Waite’s short retelling of Robert de Boron’s Grail story (HCHG).
10) Some of the same descriptive wording appears in both the story and in Waite’s description of the cards (PKT), referring to similar elements in both.
11) The order of cards & sequence of scenes in the story are very similar.
12) Pamela Colman Smith's art, in the Minor Arcana especially, uses the faux-medieval style and other conventions found among other late 19th & early 20th century British Grail and Arthurian illustrators—marking these works as their own easily-recognizable genre. See The Camelot Project:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/artmenu.htm
13) In the 1933 revision, The Holy Grail, the second half of Waite's chapter on the Grail & Tarot (Ch. 9) becomes the Summary chapter of a new 60 page section, Book XI: "Further Critical Apparatus: The Ritual Hypothesis." Waite here speculates about the Grail myths as the basis for ritual pageants that, he tells us, he is well-qualified to devise. Pageant is defined as "a public entertainment consisting of a procession of people in elaborate, colorful costumes, or an outdoor performance of a historical scene." I propose that he envisioned the Minor Arcana as rough outlines for a quaternity of ritual pageants depicting the "Loss" (including moments of grace & happiness), while the Major Arcana represented the path to Attainment.
14) In an article, "The Tarot and the Secret Tradition," in The Occult Review Vol. XXIX, No. 3; March, 1919, Waite wrote:
"I have said, now long ago, (1) that there are vague rumours concerning a higher meaning in the minor cards but (2) they have never yet been translated into another language than that of fortune- telling. . . . In any case, the four suits of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles have two strange connexions in folk-lore, to one of which I drew attention briefly in The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal. So far as my recollection goes, I have not mentioned the other in any published work. The four Hallows of the Holy Graal are (1) the Graal itself, understood as a Cup or Chalice, being the first Cup of the Eucharist; (2) the Spear, traditionally that of Longinus; (3) the Sword, which was made and broken under strange circumstances of allegory; and (4) the Dish of Plenty, about which the Graal tradition is composed, but it is understood generally as the Paschal Dish. The correspondence of these Hallows or Tokens with the Tarot sults will be noted, and the point is that albeit three out of the four belong to the Christian history of relics they have an antecedent folklore history belonging to the world of Celtlc myth. This is a subject which I shall hope to carry farther one of these days."
It seems to me that these points make this theory not only worth considering but practically indisputable.
You will find de Boron's Joseph of Arimathea story (as retold by Waite) delineated with the cards from the Suit of Cups at:
http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/grail-myths-in-the-minor-arcana-cups/
Mary K. Greer