PKT:Secret Trad#1 - Study Group
Richard
Yes, unless perhaps Mathers was deliberately basing that sequence on the Marseille Tarot and the common ordering of that time. He even believed in the Egyptian origin of Tarot, which theory Waite utterly demolished in PKT.
Teheuti
I, too, wish he wrote more like a modern author, so it would be easier for me. In fact, I could be as scathing of Waite as he was of others. Too bad he was who he was. One thing he did in most of his books was to survey the works that had come before him. He was almost the only Tarot author of his time who had any sense of the real history of Tarot and of alchemy, magic, freemasonry, etc. The others just made things up. Like Jung, Waite was an archeologist of human myth and symbolism in this field. He tried to draw from a more solid, lasting substrata of that myth and symbolism.So the sequence isn't supposed to be significant to this progress, or he just didn't like the sequences supplied by others? Why have them reordered or even numbered at all then? I wish he had just focused on his own individual views.
Waite's veiled insults, Crowley's critical review of Waite, etc etc. Imagine if a page in every tarot book today was dedicated to reasons why the last authors were well meaning, but ultimately ignorant?
Imagine if all the internet forum & community wars were published so people could see how nasty we can be to each other. Some of the literary wars have become notable parts of history and biography - Waite and Crowley are not isolated cases but more common than we think - unless you read a lot of 18th and 19th century works. It's just no longer fashionable to do this in print.
Teheuti
And if Waite had never asked PCS to do the cards and directed her in making a deck that consists of more than simply her fancy (since there is no indication she had anything to do with Tarot otherwise) no one would probably remember who she was except via a mention of her friendship with the Yeatses and Alfred Stieglitz.
There's hardly a single record of the second half of her life (once she moved to Cornwall where she lived for over 30 years) except for a letter in which someone mentions that she was part of the Cornish arts community of the time and her name mentioned among contributors to works in an art gallery. Hardly any works survive from this period except for a few pieces for her cousin, William Gillette, and a couple of illustrated stories. A Cornish historical researcher I hired was unable to find her name in local newspapers with two minor exceptions (Stuart Kaplan hasn't found any mention, either). We hope that some cache will still turn up!
See my many posts on PCS on my blog.
Teheuti
I mentioned this earlier. The Golden Dawn was founded in 1888. The booklet was published in 1888 (possibly written the previous year).
Mathers would have known of the reordering as he was translating the cipher manuscript (obtained by Westcott in 1886) and making the materials into workable rituals of what was to become the Golden Dawn. The GD order of the cards and the correspondences were to be one of the major "secrets" revealed to members. The booklet may have been a fishing expedition to draw in people with an interest in Tarot, as well as an opportunity to lay public claim to the mysteries of Tarot in English. Magicians in Paris were, around that time, coming out with several Tarot books that ended up in Waite's bibliography.
BTW, Waite was a major translator of French magical works. A great deal of what he wrote about had previously been unavailable to those who read only English.
Richard
While Pixie's art certainly may have had something to do with the popularity of the deck, I think that fortune tellers eagerly adopted it largely on account of the scenic minors, which clarified the hitherto murky waters of the pips. Apparently, decks such as Sola Busca and Etteilla were not well-known at the time and place of its publication.
Teheuti
I agree about the scenic minors revolutionizing Tarot.
The Sola Busca deck was unknown except as a museum piece — a photographic copy had just arrived at the British Museum prior to the deck being done. Waite, who knew the curators well, would have been notified immediately.
Etteilla's deck was well-known in France but never published in England. Waite incorporated many of Etteilla's Minor Arcana written meanings (as had Mathers).
Waite's meanings for the Minors drew largely from a combination of Robert Chambers' playing card meanings, Etteilla, Mathers, with hints of the GD meanings (from "Book T"). These texts are what he would have asked Pamela to illustrate. He probably gave her direction for only a few of the suit images themselves - like the Ace of Cups. The Court Cards follow the instructions written on the back of Westcott's Court Cards, similar to what's found in "Book T." (I discuss elsewhere the possibility that he also had her illustrate stories for each of the suits - but this is not provable despite the striking similarities.)
Yelell
Either he was hands-on in the creation of the deck, or she did much of it independently since the key doesn't match up in places; she had interest in her own right as a member of the golden dawn, or she was privy to few insights and required "spoon feeding" ... or something in the middle .... Exhausting
but I've said before, my biggest fascination has always been what parts are intentionally symbolic and which are simply her fancy.But yes of course it goes both ways -- even more so since she wasn't really given a top billing spot until fairly recently. Her legacy through this deck is owed to the commission and distribution opportunity provided by Waite as well. I wonder if these people could have imagined at the time that 100 years later groups of people around the world would still be discussing their every word and every drawn line.
Teheuti
Yes, something in the middle. He closely directed the Major Arcana images - some more than others. She would not have had access to "Book T" - so what she knew would have been the images of three cards (relating to her own initiatory level) and the Hebrew letter correspondences (that include number and astrological reference) - material she was tested on in order to advanced in the order. There was no teaching at this level regarding the Minor Arcana except the elemental associations. The only book in English was by Mathers.
The places where PKT doesn't match up with the images are not many. Remember Waite was writing the text while Pixie was working in another part of the country on the images so that they could quickly be printed and boxed together in time for the 1909 Christmas Arts & Crafts fair.
From published descriptions of Pixie by her teachers at the Pratt Institute, it's not surprising that she went her own way with some of the Minor Arcana cards. She was also doing the whole deck extremely rapidly - having traveled to and from the US earlier that year - and then staying in the countryside near Ellen Terry for much of the summer (see the recent book by Katz and Goodwin for details). She was probably left on her own to do the Minors with the notes Waite gave her—card meanings which Waite admits in PKT were often contradictory. What she did was brilliant.
Teheuti
And given a huge boost by Stuart Kaplan who was fascinated by Pixie and who came along with international distribution to outlets that had never been touched by Tarot prior to that and just when the hippies had taken up the Tarot as an expression of their connection with other realities.
