Abrac
In Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot, the authors suggest the upside-down M on the Ace of Cups is related to the so-called Miraculous Medal which is related to the Virgin Mary and depicts a cross with the letter M below it. I'm not quite sure though.
1. It doesn't explain why the M on the card is upside down.
2. They use Waite's comment in PKT, "House of the true heart" as further evidence that he means the Immaculate Heart of Mary which is represented twice on the Miraculous Medal. If you look at the IHM compared with the Sacred Heart of Jesus you can see something interesting.
Hearts
The Immaculate Heart of Mary on the left and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the right. The SHJ looks very much like the design on the AoC. There's a cross above and a heart below in the same position where the chalice is on the card.
Waite's comment "House of the true heart" could just as easily refer to the SHJ as it could the IHM.
3. There's a picture in the book showing a shrine to Mary at Ellen Terry's house, with a woman offering flowers to it. It doesn't say if the woman is Pamela and I can't tell, it's a side view. It doesn't really look like her though and if it is I'm sure they would've said something. The whole point is to show that within Ellen Terry's circle (which included Pamela), reverence was being paid to Mary. But according to the authors' own timeline, Pamela didn't convert to Catholicism until around 1913. A lot of the book makes references to Pamela's use of Catholic ideas in her illustrations of the cards. She could have been familiar with Catholic symbolism and imagery before her conversion, but we know Waite was a hardcore Catholic so it seems much more likely that any Catholic symbolism that appears in the deck came from him.
1. It doesn't explain why the M on the card is upside down.
2. They use Waite's comment in PKT, "House of the true heart" as further evidence that he means the Immaculate Heart of Mary which is represented twice on the Miraculous Medal. If you look at the IHM compared with the Sacred Heart of Jesus you can see something interesting.
Hearts
The Immaculate Heart of Mary on the left and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the right. The SHJ looks very much like the design on the AoC. There's a cross above and a heart below in the same position where the chalice is on the card.
Waite's comment "House of the true heart" could just as easily refer to the SHJ as it could the IHM.
3. There's a picture in the book showing a shrine to Mary at Ellen Terry's house, with a woman offering flowers to it. It doesn't say if the woman is Pamela and I can't tell, it's a side view. It doesn't really look like her though and if it is I'm sure they would've said something. The whole point is to show that within Ellen Terry's circle (which included Pamela), reverence was being paid to Mary. But according to the authors' own timeline, Pamela didn't convert to Catholicism until around 1913. A lot of the book makes references to Pamela's use of Catholic ideas in her illustrations of the cards. She could have been familiar with Catholic symbolism and imagery before her conversion, but we know Waite was a hardcore Catholic so it seems much more likely that any Catholic symbolism that appears in the deck came from him.