History of The Rider Waite Tarot Card Deck
If you are familiar with Tarot readings, then are most likely familiar with the imagery of the Rider Waite Tarot Deck. The Rider Waite Tarot Deck is the most popular Tarot Deck in use today. Its imagery is imbued with rich symbolic references that are loosely associated to early Christian motifs that were depicted in earlier Tarot decks, such as the Versailles Tarot Deck and the Tarot de Marseilles.
The Rider Waite Tarot deck was created by the artists Pamela Cole Smith under the direction of the famous mystic, A.E. Waite. Together, they collaborated on the first Tarot deck that incorporated detailed imagery on all 78 Tarot Cards. Prior to the Rider Waite Tarot deck, Tarot imagery and symbolism was only depicted in the 22 major arcana cards, known as trump cards. The Court cards also represented imagery, however, they were primarily associated to the four suits and did not necessarily include symbolic imagery. The remaining cards, known as the minor arcana, depicted numbers and suits which are very similar to modern playing cards.
A.E. Waite was influenced by the French occultist Eliphas Levi. Levi is most noted for his influence on the Spiritualist movement (1840’s – 1920’s). Levi was an author and considered to be a practitioner of magic. He wrote a number of books that related to occultism, symbolism and magic. Like A.E. Waite, Levi developed his own symbolic interpretations of Tarot Cards. His version, however, is mainly associated to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a Britain based movement that practiced magical rituals associated to spiritualism. Although the Rider Waite Tarot Deck is influenced by the earlier work of Eliphas Levi, Waite continued to develop his own interpretation of Tarot cards.
The Rider Waite Tarot deck became mainstream in the early 1900’s. Although the Spiritualist movement did contribute to its popularity, A.E. Waite authored a book entitled, “A Pictorial Key to the Tarot,” which explained his interpretations of the Tarot card. Waite’s book also included the history, origins and symbolism reflected in the Tarot. This made the art of tarot reading accessible to everyone.
C. J. Jung would later discuss the significance of the imagery within the Tarot and applied it to archetypal associations. Jung’s influence further increased the Rider Waite Tarot deck’s popularity. Modern Jungians and psychoanalysts associate the tarot cards as a metaphor for psychological development.
Today there are a number a Tarot decks that are based on A.E. Waite’s Tarot deck. The most notable are Universal Waite Tarot deck, Coleman-Smith Tarot Deck and the Aquarian Tarot Deck. Most publications and reference guides also uitlize similar A.E. Waite’s symbolism and imagery. For the beginning tarot reader, the A.E. Waite Tarot deck remains the easiest and most accessible tarot deck to learn from.
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