re-rete-a,
I liked what you wrote. It is more like my feelings. Don't think I consider my every extrapolation authoritative. But alot of evidence shows what Waite was like, and what inspired him. I wrote another wall of text, alot of which you or others know, but it completes the thought for me and might be of use to someone searching this forum. So here goes:
I was just expressing a feeling of what A.E. Waite might have thought, in the spirit of A.E. Waite, who had no love for divination, and felt it was a waste as an Adept of the Golden Dawn. Tarot "reading" was exactly the kind of thing he disdained, and so it fits into his description of the card.
To him, The Major Arcanum were a map of Initiation to be produced, in accordance with guidelines created by Moina and Samuel Mathers. He took a fellow Initiate, and fueled his desire to create a deck with her ablities as an artist. He is clear he "had" to "monitor" her, and in some cased specifically direct her art directly to make the Major Arcanum as structured as it is. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume he would have approved the images personally, to the detail, as these were done for HIS PERSONAL USE, which he later hoped to standardize.
The Minor Arcanum is Pixie's brainchild and love for Tarot but it pulls a LOT from Book T, which in turn pulls alot from other Tarot reading conventions. The general joy she got from beign an Artist in the greatest and most tragic senses of the word. The Major is the brainchild of Moina Mathers, and her husband who was a gentle guide not as controlling as Waite was to Smith. More like a gruff cheerleader and eager study buddy. Waite was more like an employer and instructor. Of the two, neither seemed to be concerned with "reading". These were conduits or an Active force, not surveying tools.
His words represent his view, not mine. He was a superiorist. He believed Initiation *magics* you, by your own will, into more than other people. I outlined and commented on them according to some rather obvious allusions in his writing on the card according to the Initiation path he was on in regards to this work.
My path was through the Golden Dawn, but I found the ecclectic past and heritage that I have and the independent spirit I foster is different. Conforming is not quite my path. I am more about trail blazing. Please do not mistake me for a superiorist. I seek in lectures to constantly liberate their work from the mindset that imagines this to be true of the whole Order but was in fact mostly only a myth kept alive by misunderstanding of heavy speech and masonic rhetoric.
A.E. Waite LOVED this. He was an exception to the fact most Adepts of the G.D. regarded others not in their order as Masters and Adepts of note to be learned from and shared with. He was an Adept who refused to support , for example, Aleister Crowley in becoming an Adept, because of his personal life. All Adepts of a Temple have to agree to the progress of an Initiate. Waite firmly denied another that right. I would never do that, say another is not an Adept, or not ready. He was a bigot in a bigotted time. It may have been from default, because though studious and entrepenurial, he was far from independent of mind or will. Though he was *strong* of will.
When Crowely was taken through the Portal and raised as an Adept, even oversees in France, Waite was furious, and started to strengthen his plans of mutiny from Mathers. We have no idea how Pixie felt about this, but she went with Mathers, and then basically becamed disillusioned with him. He lacked the calibur of a man like Westcott, or the Passion of a man like Mathers. By default she became Catholic, the only religion SPECIFICALLY the Golden Dawn ciphers are instructed to not allow. It breaks my heart to think of her life of optimism and beauty crushed under the boot of conflict, but she left of her own accord. She was not an Adept when she left with Waite. He may have never Raised her from what he says of her in his Bio. That is a GODDAMN tragedy.
My path is far more complex that one allowing a moralist from Victorian England to define it, and in general holds that ALL of us (every man and every woman) are at the point of Realization in our own time, and by no efforts of anyone else. Maybe not even our own. I am not here to be the Master, I am here to share. I am still learning what people here have, and what to share. I am new here. If I overshare, it is my hope, people get what they need, or at least something they can use. There is nothing to instruct people in unless they seek to use a common language. This language is inherent but not required of Tarot Diviniation. Tarot is akin to the modern Senet in my Tradition. It is a game that can be played with the "Dead" or one's ancestors or passed or extraplanar teachers. This is its Key Purpose.
This tarot is the deck of those who use that common language. Moina Mathers and her husband were the ultimate guides of the Tarot Imagery and the guide that guided Waite. It also the most popular deck on the planet and not everyone reads it the same way. There is also all kinds of stream of consciousness Pamela Coleman Smith added as she excellently rendered the images in her own brilliant light. Most of these were "allowed" by Waite in the Minor Arcanum, not so in the Majors. His wording of HER efforts in his autobiography, with his guidance and near criminal patronage (IMHO), is key to understanding how haughty he really was.
It's not the entirety of Tarot for everyone, but it is the KEY of TARO, and I share less than I see in this regard. I do this for people who might look for this KEY. I didn't study [edit: "just learn this key by reading."] this key, it was given me by mentors who I studied with and are now gone, people who studied the works before they were published and their students.
We approach Tarot as an oracle that can lie, if improperly approached. It can also reveal the Key of TARO. Fix the variables, get the answers, and test them for truth, without reinterpretation. This is "testing" a spirit. This is generally the way people approach Ouija, for example, but not Tarot. As cards become letters with meanings and interrelations in Tarot imagery, sometimes it helps to just a letter based oracle.
It is amazing how people believe that the Ouija board can connect you to a lying Spirit, but Tarot cannot. My Tradition teaches ways to connect to Mentors through Tarot, and Test them. With no limits on their physical form, it allows the immortal component of their self in the "Azoth" to compel other components of their self to be the Oracle that Tarot accesses. IF they be adept in using their will to focus their Body of Light. The test is EXPLICIT, not interpretative. If the test is not passed, the reading doesn't continue unless the spirit correctly identifies what it actually is. The question of "Isn't it your angel or higher self?" is moot. Those are exactly what brought your mentors into your life, and are the key to your ancestry. So the answer is yes, but they need a "Kerux" - one to appear first living, and then past, to become the one who gives you the truth from the Other Side. This is the Hermit. Solomon in Exile. The bearer of the Lamp of "Hermetic Science" and the Staff of "Directing Power."
Intuition becomes key in seeing what overlapping meanings are relevant in the interrelation of the cards. ONCE you have connected to the Spirit you hope to seek out. There are other oracles for more surreal meaning, like stream of conscious drawing. Alot of decks include this kind of element, which is generally only prominent in the Minor Arcanum of Smith's images. Waite pretty much dismissed these. But stream of conscious is more prominent in other decks, and not all have a same focus:
It is why I don't go all Qabala and G.D. in threads about the Shadowscapes or Tarot of the Wacky Grandmother, even if these are RWS variants such as Deviant Moon. "Omg the Fool is in his pajamas and chased by fish instead of a dog!," doesn't really help until it matters to the people who speak "the language of TARO" to see why the artist chooses to make the difference. The question is does the symbol set you see hold true with the spirits you connect to. If not, usually I abandon it. The deck may hold truth, but it is not in a language I see by instruction. It is mystical, but not applicable by other things TARO is used for. *SOMETIMES*, I adopt it, and make it part of my own language, which is not the same as the G.D. in every regard.
But in general, if I permanently adopt something new, it is something I produce, not someone else. Not always. I am not the mother of invention or innovation, and other people do cool things all the time. For example, Koxari cards hold a VERY useful addition to this which is alluded to in Tarot, but awkwardly. It adds a means by which the cards allow a spirit to direct you to specific measuring and equipment they will use to convey their message besides in the deck. AWESOME! I therefore ordered these, and am looking to use them for some quality assurance.
BTW - I do not write walls of text to people I don't like. I love to read. Giving someone something to read is my greatest expression of friendship or Respect!