Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot
Page 33
Shekinah: A (feminine) Hebrew word meaning “dwelling,” used specifically to denote the presence of God in the world. The concept was of significance to Waite who referred to it often in his currently unpublished notes on the Waite-Trinick tarot.
Sephirah (pl. Sephiroth): The ten emanations of the divine as it manifests, drawn usually as the Tree of Life or ten concentric circles. The word means “numeric emanation,” and the ten Sephiroth are seen to correspond to the ten numbered minor cards of the tarot. The four suits correspond to the four worlds in Kabbalah.
Sepher Yetzirah: The Book of Formation, one of the earliest written books on Kabbalah. It describes the creation of the universe from the Hebrew alphabet and was a fundamental source for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn teachings on Kabbalah.
Tree of Life: The primary diagram of Kabbalah, often drawn as ten circles connected by twenty-two lines. There is an obvious numerical and structural correspondence to the tarot deck, which was utilised as a system of correspondences by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. They drew on earlier suggestions of correspondence by Comte de Mellet and Éliphas Lévi.
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Appendix:
Members of the Waite-Smith Birdwatching Society
Honorary Members
We would like to thank the members of our Tarot Association Facebook group for their efforts in spotting birds and bird symbols in the Waite-Smith tarot deck. The honorary members of the newly formed Waite-Smith Birdwatching Club, and their current counts, are:
Arjen Glas: 33
Beth Henry: 24
Bo Dombroski: 20 = 3 (Mj), 2 (Mi), 15 (Ct)
Celia Turner: 25 = 6 (Mj), 2 (Mi), 17 (Ct)
Iliana Adler: First count = 32, second count = 35, ultimate count = 33
Jean Redman: 30
Jillian Healand: 22 (not including winged symbols)
Jim Maher: 27 = 5 (Mj), 2 (Mi), 20 (Ct)
Kirsty Nowakowski Skidmore: 29
Lauren Fein: 70 = 5 (Mj), 32 (Mi), 33 (Ct)
Magia da Vida: 41= 5 (Mj), 2 (Mi), 34 (Ct)
Margaret Letzkus: 38
Michele Rubino-Mccray: 32
Ryan Gary Panzi Edmonds: First count: 34 = 8 (Mj), 2 (Mi), 24 (Ct); additional count: +5 (Mj), +2 (Mi), +2 (Ct) = +8 (Grand Total = 42)
Sarah Perks: 45
Shay Shannon: 33
Tanya Pinky Pineda: 26
Tero Hynynen: 27
We like to think this exercise demonstrates a universal truth of tarot, that even in the simplest question, there is always a wonderful diversity of divination.
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Endnotes
1. You can visit Smallhythe Place and support the work of the National Trust at http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/smallhythe-place/. (Last accessed February 2, 2014.)
2. This version of the Sola Busca deck can be obtained at https://www.facebook.com/pages/SOLA-BUSCA-TAROT/590075044337887. (Last accessed February 1, 2014.)
3. Throughout we adopt the correct spelling of “Colman” and we do not hyphenate the name as Pamela did not, nor did Rider in their first advertising of the deck—although they did misspell her name as “Coleman.”
4. The tarot was not created “from” the Kabbalah per se, but there are useful correspondences between the two systems. The connection between the two systems is relatively recent, being first suggested in De Gébelin’s Le Monde Primitif (1781) by Comte de Mellet. This was taken up by Lévi, then the founders of the Golden Dawn, Waite, and Crowley, amongst others.
5. Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin, Abiding in the Sanctuary (Keswick: Forge Press, 2011).
6. For a general introduction to reading any deck, see Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin, Around the Tarot in 78 Days (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2012) and the bibliography on page 423.
7. www.westernesotericism.com. (Last accessed January 25, 2014).
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rose_Cross_Lamen.svg. (Last accessed January 25, 2014).
9. It was likely eighty designs because print sheets are to even numbers, so it would have been seventy-eight card designs, one back design, and a design for the printer’s “name card” or monogram.
10. Arthur Ransome, Bohemia in London (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1907), 56–57. The whole chapter on Ransome’s initial and subsequent visits to Pamela’s gatherings is truly evocative.
11. Katharine Cockin, Edith Craig (1869–1947): Dramatic Lives (London: Cassell, 1998), 52–53.
12. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/images/detail/western-union-telegram-1907-10208. (Last accessed January 26, 2014.)
13. R. A. Gilbert, The Golden Dawn Companion (Wellingborough, UK: Aquarian, 1986), 161.
14. Kathleen Pyne, Modernism and the Feminine Voice: O’Keefe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), 48.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid., 52.
18. Head of Archive, RSA, private correspondence, March 3, 2014.
19. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Flower_Book_by_Edward_Burne-Jones. (Last accessed January 26, 2014.)
20. Pamela Colman Smith, “Should the Art Student Think?” in Gustav Stickley, ed., The Craftsman, vol. XIV, no. 4, July 1908. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/DLDecArts.hdv14n04. (Last accessed January 26, 2014.
21. Ibid., 418.
22. Ibid., 417.
23. Ibid., 418.
24. Ibid.
25. http://www.blaketarot.com. (Last accessed January 28, 2014).
26. From Adam McLean, “Study Course on the Artwork and Symbolism of Modern Tarot,” http://www.alchemywebsite.com/tarot/tarot_course.html. (Last accessed January 26, 2014.)
27. Letters to Albert Bigelow Paine, 1901, reproduced in Coldwell, 1977.
28. All newspaper references were gained from the Newspaper Archive in the British Library.
29. http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/pamela-Colman Smith-polish-relief-poster. (Last accessed January 26, 2014.)
30. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A05E0D7103EE033A2575AC1A9679D946697D6CF. (Last accessed January 26, 2014.)
31. At the time of writing we are waiting to receive a copy of this magazine. We believe it was in the June or July issue, and it will be made available on an update page at http://www.tarotassociation.net.
32. Platinotypes were a form of photography being pioneered at the time, particularly by Stieglitz. Unfortunately, the cost of platinum skyrocketed prior to the war, and during the war all platinum was diverted to the war effort, so the method was halted during that time, although it continues to this day.
33. http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3584506. (Last accessed January 26, 2014.)
34. R. A. Gilbert, A. E. Waite: Magician of Many Parts (Wellingborough, UK: Crucible, 1987), 197, f.n. 15.3.
35. See Stuart Kaplan, The Artwork & Times of Pamela Colman Smith (Stamford, CT: U.S. Games Systems, 2009), 64.
36. Ransome describes leaving the rooms, having helped Pamela “shut them up” and “dowse the lights,” before waving farewells as “we saw her disappear into the house next door where she lodged.” He then describes turning a corner into Fulham Road, which indeed is around the corner from Milbourne Grove (Bohemia in London, 65).
37. See the biographical work on the members of the Golden Dawn by Sally Davis at http://www.wrighrp.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/GD/DAVIDSONAG.htm. (Last accessed February 23, 2014.)
38. Golden Dawn, 128.
39. Ibid., 147.
40. Ibid., 66.
41. Ibid., 151.
42. http://solabuscatarot1998mayer.wordpress.com/sola-busca-waite-smith-tarot/.
43. http://images.brera.beniculturali.it//f/Documenti/so/solabusca_english2 (Last accessed January 12, 2013.)
44.
Golden Dawn, 545.
45. Moina Mathers and W. W. Westcott (ed. Darcy Küntz), The Golden Dawn Court Cards (Sequim, WA: Holmes Publishing Group, 2006), 8.
46. Eden Gray, Mastering the Tarot (New York: Signet, 1971), 82.
47. Sally Gearhart and Susan Rennie, A Feminist Tarot (Watertown, MA: Persephone Press, 1977), 89.
48. http://www.norahuszka.com. (Last accessed January 23, 2014.)
49. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Casu1yaobY. (Last accessed January 23, 2014.)
50. Joan Coldwell, “Pamela Colman Smith and the Yeats Family,” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, vol. 3, no. 2 (November 1977), 33. The original reference in that article refers to Hone, J. B. Yeats, Letters, 162 but this appears incorrect or a reference to another similar title.
51. See “Pamela Colman Smith timeline” blog entry at http://www.tarotassociation.net.
52.Artwork & Times, 88.
53. Advert in the Exeter & Plymouth Gazette, September 18, 1931, 8.
54.Artwork & Times, 95.
55. A. E. Waite, Steps to the Crown (Kessinger Legacy, d.d., originally 1907), 22.
56. Waite, Obermann, Introduction, xxi (New York: Brentano, 1903).
57. If you have a stiff beverage and several hours to spare, it’s worth it to read Waite’s seventy-eight-page “brief introduction” to his translation of Obermann. It is Waite at his repetitive best—whilst decrying Senancour’s bulked-out writing style, it contains gems of insight into Waite’s views on the mystical path.
58. Kabbalah, 112.
59. A. E. Waite, The Quest of the Golden Stairs (Hollywood, CA: Newcastle Publishing Company, 1906), 7.
60. Grand Orient (A. E. Waite), A Manual of Cartomancy, vol. I (New York: University Books, 1971), 128–129.
61. Paul J. Gaunt, Psypioneer Journal, vol. 6, no. 8, August 2010, “The Honourable Ralph Shirley 30th December 1865—29th December 1946,” 209.
62. Shadows of Light and Thought (SLT), 208.
63.Psychic Science—Quarterly Transactions of the British College of Psychic Science (BCPS), vol. IV no. 4. January 1926, 252–256.
64.SLT, 188.
65.The Golden Dawn Tarot, 16.
66.Ibid., 14. The article was originally published by Waite as “The Tarot: A Wheel of Fortune” in The Occult Review, vol. X, no. 12 (London: William Rider & Son, Ltd., December 1909), 307–317.
67. See A. E. Waite, The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal (London: Rebman, Ltd., 1909), 550.
68. http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~elfindog/ocrvRWSads.htm. (Last accessed January 26, 2014.)
69. We reveal the original documents and images of the Golden Dawn tarot in A New Dawn for Tarot by Marcus Katz, Tali Goodwin, and Derek Bain (London: Forge Press, 2014) with photographs of newly discovered cards held by W. W. Westcott, a founder of the Order.
70. http://grimoire.blog.ocn.ne.jp/doll/files/westcott1922tarot.pdf.
71. Frank K. Jensen, The Story of the Waite-Smith Tarot (Melbourne, AU: ATS, 2006). See also Jensen, “The Early Waite-Smith Tarot Editions” at http://www.manteia-online.dk/waite-smith/tpc-article.pdf. (Last accessed January 27, 2014.)
72. http://www.aughty.org/pdf/song_of_killeadan.pdf. (Last accessed April 14, 2014).
73. Folk-lore–A Quarterly Review, vol. 25, (London: The Folklore Society, 1914), 337.
74. Artwork and Times, 55.
75. The National Trust, Ellen Terry and Smallhythe Place (Warrington, UK: History Press, Ltd., 1997), 3.
76. Katharine Cockin, Edith Craig (1869–1947): Dramatic Lives (London: Cassell, 1998), 178.
77. Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin, Abiding in the Sanctuary (Keswick, UK: Forge Press, 2011).
78. This will be discussed more in Marcus Katz’s upcoming The Magister in 2014.
79. Johannes Fiebig and Evelin Burger, The Ultimate Guide to the Rider Waite Tarot (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2013), 66.
80. Emily Auger, Tarot and Other Meditation Decks (Jefferson, NC: MacFarland & Company, 2004), 24.
81. Robert Wang, An Introduction to the Golden Dawn Tarot (New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1978), 135–136. See also A New Dawn For Tarot.
82. See also Morandir Armson, “The Transitory Tarot: An Examination of Tarot Cards, the 21st Century New Age and Theosophical Thought” in Literature & Aesthetics 21, 1, June 2011, which associates the mountain with the Theosophical notion of the Ascended Masters: http://ojs-prod.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/LA/article/viewFile/5056/5761. (Last accessed January 29, 2014.)
83. It is entirely coincidental that in the Golden Dawn system of correspondences to Hebrew letters, the letters for the Sun and the Fool are Resh and Aleph, spelling “Ra,” the English transliteration of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs for the sun-god. We would not read too much into this, other than it is neat!
84. J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 362.
85. For a study of the tradition of negativity in Christian mysticism in which Waite was well-versed, see Denys Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995) particularly 140–148 on “Eckhart: God and the Self.”
86.Golden Dawn Tarot, 21.
87. It is possible the kimono was given to Edy, not Ellen, or they each received one. There are photos of Edy wearing one and Teddy also, likely the same one.
88. It has been suggested that this scene reflects a reading of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, translated in 1897 by S. L. MacGregor Mathers. The book contains a description of a sacred space created outdoors. We have found no evidence or specific indication that Pamela would have been aware of this description, although Waite would certainly have known of it and may have directed Pamela in the card design.
89. See Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin, Tarot Flip (Keswick, UK: Forge Press, 2010), 39.
90. See Abiding in the Sanctuary.
91. “Hints for the Home Dressmaker, 1909” at http://clickamericana.com/topics/beauty-fashion/tips-for-choosing-maternity-wear-1909. (Last accessed January 30, 2014.)
92. There are several points at which we may read sexual symbolism and sexual magick interpretations of Waite’s writings. This is a complex subject, particularly when regarding Waite’s own allusions to the subject throughout his writings; it is beyond the scope of this book.
93.The Golden Dawn, 224.
94.Dictionary of Symbols, 72.
95. We are indebted for this quote from visionary author and astrologer Lyn Birkbeck, http://www.lynbirkbeck.com. (Last accessed February 2, 2014.)
96. Dictionary of Symbols, 309.
97. Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: The Open Reading (Createspace, 2013), 127.
98. See A. E. Waite, The Way of Divine Union (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Reprint, 1993. Originally published 1905), 160–162 for Waite’s consideration of the schools of contemplation.
99. Key, 18.
100. http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesOetaeus.html#14. (Last accessed January 30, 2014.)
101. British and American Playwrights 15 Volume Paperback Set: Plays by Henry Arthur Jones, Russell Jackson (Cambridge: University Press, 1982).
102. See the Self-Relations work of Stephen Gilligan, in Walking in Two Worlds (Phoenix, AZ: Zeig, Tucker & Theisen, 2004), xv—xxix.
103. Robert Place, The Tarot: History, Symbolism & Divination (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2005), 141–142.
104. Éliphas Lévi, The Key to the Mysteries (London: Rider & Company, 1984), 85.
105. Kathleen Pyne, Modernism and the Feminine Voice (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008), 51, and Charles C. Eldredge, American Imagination and Symbolist Painting (New York: Grey Art Galllery, 1979), 86.
106. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NzGIvzsEfA. (Last accessed January 30, 2014.)
107. The notion of the card as sacrifice was evident from early writers
following Waite such as Madeline Montalban, who wrote an article called “The Magic of Sacrifice” on this card in Prediction magazine, November, 1966. She wrote, “Sacrifice implies no self-interest. To be able to forget oneself, if only for a time, is good. We are all the prisoners of our own natures and self-centredness. To get away from self occasionally acts on the soul as water does on a drooping flower. It revives us.”
108. Éliphas Lévi, The History of Magic (London: Rider & Company, 1982), 179.
109. Éliphas Lévi used the tarot as a structure for his book, Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual (1910). Each chapter has a corresponding tarot card, and in chapter IX (the Hermit), Lévi speaks of Reason (Temperance), Liberty (Justice), and Strength (Fortitude)—three of these four classical virtues, leaving the reader to assume that the Hermit is Prudence.
110. Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual (Chicago: The Occult Publishing House, 1910), 180; description in index, xxii.
111. PKT, 25.
112. Alice Bailey, A Treatise on White Magic (New York: Lucis Publishing, 1951), 184.
113. Éliphas Lévi, The Magical Ritual of the Sanctum Regnum (Berwick: Ibis Press, 2004), 58–59.
114. It is of note that the two most favourite cards of tarot readers are the High Priestess (by far) and the Star.
115. The whole poem is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_de_Lune_(poem). (Last accessed April 12, 2014.)
116. The Jacques Vieville Tarot, http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Jacques_Vieville_Tarot. (Last accessed March 17, 2014.)
117. Pietro Alligo, Twenty Years of Tarot: The Lo Scarabeo Story (Torino, IT: Lo Scarabeo, 2007), 40–41.
118. PKT, 156.
119. Ibid., 31.
120. The significance of the World card as showing “beginning” was determined by surveying hundreds of tarot readers and asking them what each major arcana did “not” (or “never”) do, in one word. We then reversed the meaning of the words given to discover the unconscious and actual meaning the readers used for the cards. The majority of readers for the World card told us that “the World never ends.” So the actual word for what it does do is “begin” and this is how it is seen by experienced readers in their hundreds of thousands of real-world readings. The other unconscious key words for the majors are provided in Tarot Flip by Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin (Keswick, UK: Forge Press, 2010).