bloodygranuaile (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bloodygranuaile) wrote2022-05-24 10:48 am
bloodygranuaile) wrote2022-05-24 10:48 am
What's the symbology there
So while I am generally intending to read all the books I’ve borrowed from other people in the next four weeks or so, I decided to take a quick detour to get (or stay) in the occult mood and read A. E. Waite’s The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, which I picked up at the gift shop at the PEM last year.
All my tarot decks are based on the Rider-Waite-Smith in terms of what cards are what, but I don’t have an actual copy of the classic RWS deck, so I’m not super familiar with Pamela Colman Smith’s iconic illustrations, or at least not as much as I probably should be after reading tarot on and off for like 20 years now. Fortunately, Pictorial Key contains black-and-white versions of all of Smith’s cards, so the reader can more easily follow along with Waite’s discussion.
The book is structured a little oddly and is definitely most valuable as a historical document and foundational text (™) more than as a primer for new readers. Waite spends a lot of time dunking on earlier occult writers, especially French ones. (I find this extremely funny; YMMV.) The Major Arcana are covered in two separate sections, one of which discusses the illustrations and their symbolism (and is accompanied by pictures of the cards), and then a separate section gives their divinatory meanings in a simple list. The Minor Arcana give the divinatory meanings right alongside the illustrations and discussions thereof, in a section that sits between the two Major Arcana sections, and also for some reason goes in reverse order (King, Queen, Knight, etc. down to Ace). Major Arcana card 0, the Fool, sits in between card XX (The Last Judgment) and card XXI (The World), with no reason given other than that Waite decided “not to rectify” it. There are also some spreads, including the famous Celtic Cross, and a hilarious bibliography that seems to be mostly about how much Waite hates nearly everything else that had ever been written about the occult as of 1910.
This will probably not become my go-to reference on card reading anytime soon, however, it’s an invaluable document all the same, and I’m glad I read it and will be keeping it.
All my tarot decks are based on the Rider-Waite-Smith in terms of what cards are what, but I don’t have an actual copy of the classic RWS deck, so I’m not super familiar with Pamela Colman Smith’s iconic illustrations, or at least not as much as I probably should be after reading tarot on and off for like 20 years now. Fortunately, Pictorial Key contains black-and-white versions of all of Smith’s cards, so the reader can more easily follow along with Waite’s discussion.
The book is structured a little oddly and is definitely most valuable as a historical document and foundational text (™) more than as a primer for new readers. Waite spends a lot of time dunking on earlier occult writers, especially French ones. (I find this extremely funny; YMMV.) The Major Arcana are covered in two separate sections, one of which discusses the illustrations and their symbolism (and is accompanied by pictures of the cards), and then a separate section gives their divinatory meanings in a simple list. The Minor Arcana give the divinatory meanings right alongside the illustrations and discussions thereof, in a section that sits between the two Major Arcana sections, and also for some reason goes in reverse order (King, Queen, Knight, etc. down to Ace). Major Arcana card 0, the Fool, sits in between card XX (The Last Judgment) and card XXI (The World), with no reason given other than that Waite decided “not to rectify” it. There are also some spreads, including the famous Celtic Cross, and a hilarious bibliography that seems to be mostly about how much Waite hates nearly everything else that had ever been written about the occult as of 1910.
This will probably not become my go-to reference on card reading anytime soon, however, it’s an invaluable document all the same, and I’m glad I read it and will be keeping it.