Numerology and stuff

Tarot History

No one is quite sure when and where the Tarot Cards originated but it is safe to say that they have been around for centuries. The Chinese were using a form of Oracle Card for a long time before Tarot was ever heard of. The actual Tarot as we know it today dates back to fourteenth-century Italy. A wealthy aristocrat commissioned a hand painted deck as a present for his daughter on the occasion of her marriage. Little did he know what he had started. Yet, even though this man was responsible for launching the form of Tarot we are now familiar with, the story begins many thousands of years beforehand. Long before reading the cards became trendy, symbols for divination have been used for thousands of years. The alphabet originated from these symbols and each had a particular meaning. The Rune Stones for example date back much further than the Tarot.

From the beginning of time, man has always sought a way to foretell the future. Divination was a valuable tool used for very different reasons than it is used for today. Back in the days when humans lived by the cycles of nature, survival from year to year was a constant source of concern and foremost in the minds of all. Would the coming winter be hard? Would there be enough fodder to feed their livestock if conditions deteriorated? Would there be enough supplies to sustain the tribe? Would the land yield well? Would the rains come in time?

These early forms of early divination consisted of carved out symbols, shapes and lines on sticks or stones. These lines or symbols related to the basic needs of the people, such as weather, harvest, war, protection, fertility etc. During the long cold days of winter much time was spent throwing stones or sticks on the ground to see how the year ahead would augur. Sticks or stones with letters or symbols engraved on them would be cast on the ground and various meanings were attached to the order they fell in, the area where they landed and the distance apart from each other. The local wise woman/man would be able to interpret the symbols and spread to decipher their meanings. It was a widely held belief that such messages came from the Gods and any information received was taken very seriously. There are many specialised books and excellent websites which document the history of the Tarot and Divination. Students who wish to learn more are advised to do extra reading in this subject.

Up until the publication of the Rider-Waite-Smith Deck in 1909 most Tarot cards were quite simplistic in design. The Major Arcana got the most attention and were considered to be vastly more important than the Minor Arcana. As a result, the imagery on the Minor Arcana was sadly neglected. Traditionally the Minor Arcana imagery consisted of repetitive emblems of their Suit e.g. 3 Cups for the Three of Cups or 5 Swords to represent the Five of Swords. The emblems were usually drawn on a blank background and the reader would have nothing to go on except their knowledge of the associated card meaning. The Minor Arcana were similar in appearance to an ordinary deck of playing cards.

Arthur Edward Waite, born in 1857 was a mystic and occultist who was extensively involved in the study of all esoteric matter. Waite joined the order of the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn and became a Freemason in 1891. Waite was a respected author and wrote several books and texts on esoteric and metaphysical studies. He was greatly interested in The Kabbalah, alchemy and Ceremonial Magick.

In 1901, William Butler Yeats, the writer, introduced a young woman by the name of Pamela Colman-Smith (Pixie to her friends) to the Order of The Golden Dawn where she was introduced to Arthur Waite. Pamela was an artist, illustrator and writer. She also had considerable experience of theatre costume and set design. She had got to know Yeats after doing illustration work for him and his brother Jack Yeats.

Personality conflicts created rifts within the Order and as a result Waite left the Order and set up The Holy Order of The Golden Dawn. Smith joined him and in 1909 he commissioned her to draw the imagery for a deck of Tarot that would be very different from previous decks.

Armed with his in-depth knowledge of the occult, kabbalah and esoteric symbolism, Waite instructed Smith on his exact requirements for each card. It is believed that Waite provided Smith with detailed design themes for the Major Arcana as they were his main concern. For the Minor Arcana she received a list of simple meanings from which she was to intuitively design the imagery herself. Smith drew on her own imagination and background experience in theatre to create the wonderfully detailed and descriptive images of The Four Suits that we know so well today.

The Tarot Deck has 78 cards but Smith claimed to have produced 80. However, Waite had commissioned the deck so possibly discarded a couple in his final selection. It took Smith 6 months to complete the project which were probably drawn in ink and then coloured in later. The original drawings are lost so unless they turn up at some time in the future we shall never know how they originally looked. Pamela was paid very little for her services.

The finished deck was published by the Rider Company in December 1909 and were simply called Tarot Cards. The cards were accompanied by a guide written by Waite called 'The Key to The Tarot'. The following year he added simple black and white drawings of Smith's illustrations and renamed the guide 'Pictorial Key to The Tarot'.

When the US Games Company bought the rights to publish the deck in 1971 they called it The Rider Tarot Deck and then changed it to Rider Waite Tarot. Although Waite had commissioned the cards and had instructed Smith on their design, it was Smith who did all the artwork and most certainly deserves credit for her incredible work and contribution to the continued popularity of the Tarot. In recent years, Smith has been included and is recognised as being a very important and essential part of the design team of this famous Tarot Deck. Today we refer to this deck as the Rider-Waite-Smith or simply the RWS.

Printing techniques at the time of publishing were still very crude and the original version of the decks were quite harsh. Since then they have been re-coloured to make them brighter and clearer. Slight changes have been introduced here and there but in general they have stayed true to Smith's original creations.

Many decks have been influenced by the RWS and when you come across a deck that is referred to as following the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition then the imagery of the cards will be instantly recognisable to you. Once you understand the RWS, you can easily pick up any of these other decks and read with confidence. Most certainly, the designer will have introduced their own slant on the imagery interpretation making them more relevant to the world we live in today. As a result, there is a RWS style deck to suit all.

When you first start to learn the Tarot and simply do not know where to start with all the Tarot Decks, you will find on enquiring that it is best to start with The Rider-Waite-Smith deck and take it from there. As a result you will find that the majority of classes or courses teaching Tarot Reading will require you to purchase a deck of these cards.

It is sad to think that Pamela never found much commercial success except for a brief period in New York between 1907 and 1909 where her work was exhibited. She was incredibly talented and today her work is highly treasured and much sought after by collectors. In 1911 she converted to Catholicism. After inheriting a sum of money from an uncle, enough to buy a house, she moved to Cornwall where she ran a vacation home for priests. She died penniless and single in 1951 aged 73 years. All her artwork and paintings were sold at auction to pay her debts.

Arthur Edward Waite continued to write successfully and a number of his publications remain in print today. He married twice and had one child, a girl named Sybil. He died in 1942 in London aged 84 years of age.