Smith Waite Tarot
Number of Cards: 78
Recommendation:Use Upright and Reversed
The most widely used tarot deck in the world today is the Rider–Waite Tarot. It was created by former members of the The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, with A. E. Waite responsible for the deck's symbolism and interpretive system, and Pamela Colman Smith responsible for illustrating the card artwork.
Arthur Edward Waite (Arthur Edward Waite, 1857-1942), born in the United States in 1857, was a famous British occult scholar and a member of the renowned occult group 'Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn'. Waite's family background was not good during his childhood; later, the death of his sister pushed him towards the direction of occult studies. At the age of 21, he began frequently visiting the British Museum to study the occult.
His most famous representative work, the Tarot deck, is called 'Rider-Waite', 'Rider', or 'Waite-Smith' Tarot, because the Waite Tarot was initially published by the American Rider Publishing House. This deck was designed and conceived by Pamela Coleman Smith, consisting of seventy-eight cards, including twenty-two Major Arcana cards, forty Minor Arcana cards, and sixteen Court Cards. A.E. Waite also released the user manual for this deck upon its launch ('A Pictorial Key to Tarot').
The 78 Tarot cards are divided into 22 Major Arcana cards (from 0 to 21) and 56 Minor Arcana cards.
The Major Arcana cards (Major Arcana) are also known as the "Book of Secrets" or "Great Mystery Library", providing principled guidance, revelations of life's journey, and main methods for solving problems. These teachings provide an answer to facing current issues, and also give you a lesson that can be widely applied in daily life.
The twenty-two Major Arcana cards symbolize the journey of life, the subjects each person must experience in their lifetime. Starting from Zero card The Fool, leading to Twenty-One card The World as the end. He also swapped the positions of Strength (11) and Justice (8) from tradition, placing Strength at [8] and Justice at [11].
The Minor Arcana cards (Minor Arcana), also known as the "Little Book of Secrets", are divided into two types: Number cards and Court Cards. Number cards are often related to our lives, while Court Cards relate to people in our lives, bringing us revelation and reminding us of what aspects of intelligence we can possess.
The forty Minor Arcana number cards supplement the details of the twenty-two Major Arcana cards. Each card represents events that may occur in our lives. Its innovation lies in the pattern design resembling the meaning of divination, allowing one to associate the surface of the matter and the process of occurrence upon seeing the pattern, without rote memorization. Number cards are divided into four groups, ten cards per group, which are respectively:
Wands (Wands), governed by the Fire element. These cards represent energy, particularly sexual energy (Yang or the masculine side), perception, intuition, insight, activity.
Cups (Cups), governed by the Water element. They reflect the truth of our inner emotions. Their domain includes love, feelings, communication of relationships, and sexual energy (Yin or the feminine side).
Swords (Swords), governed by the Air element. This group of swords usually reflects our mental or spiritual state, including possible changes and the process of contemplation. This level is the most easily disturbed. This group of swords also tells us what kind of energy can shape our lives.
Pentacles (Pentacles), governed by the Earth element. These cards point out our external, material reality. These external manifestations are closely related to the inner heart. The domain of Earth includes health, body, nutrition, clothing, property, and finance.
The sixteen Court Cards describe sixteen different ages and personalities of people. Court Cards play a very important role in the Tarot, telling us exactly what kind of people around us are influencing the development of things, and also telling us our own attitude when handling matters.
This deck can roughly be called the most famous Tarot deck of the 20th century, with versions too numerous to count. About its card meanings interpretation are written in a book written by him, 'The Key to the Tarot' (The Key to the Tarot, 1910).
Nowadays, only the Waite Tarot has the most books, websites, courses, research, and resources written according to its system. Its advantage is that answers tend to be closer to real situations and concrete, but beginners usually need to spend more time and effort to understand and learn relevant reference data (mainly English books); only after absorbing this data can one flexibly apply the Waite Tarot, avoiding distorting the author's original intended meaning data. Some people like to study the Waite Tarot (Rider Waite) hoping to understand some history and development of Western culture through it, while others do so because it is the model of traditional Tarot. Some classic cards people might have some impression of include: Death (Death), The Sun (The Sun), The Emperor (The Emperor), The Hierophant (The Hierophant), The Magician (The Magician), etc.
The patterns within the Waite Tarot hide many hints, including astrology, numerology, and color theory, and the content within the cards is combined with myths or Bible stories, such as Adam and Eve in "6. Lovers" and God's judgment and resurrection of the dead in "20. Judgment". Since the card faces are full of meaning, interpreting the cards allows the reader to flow more smoothly and trigger associations more easily, so after publication, it was chosen by many readers.
Now, most Tarot books and websites also use the Waite Tarot to introduce this long-standing divination tool.
There are many editions of the Waite Tarot, colored by different painters, such as Aquatic Tarot and Albano Waite Tarot, etc. One of the most popular versions now is the Popular Edition Waite Tarot, published by the American game company (US Games Systems, Inc.), colored by American painter Mary Hanson Roberts. It uses the composition of the original cards, but with bright colors and gradient coloring, making the monotonous card face feel richer.
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Recommendation:Use Upright and Reversed
The most widely used tarot deck in the world today is the Rider–Waite Tarot. It was created by former members of the The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, with A. E. Waite responsible for the deck's symbolism and interpretive system, and Pamela Colman Smith responsible for illustrating the card artwork.
Arthur Edward Waite (Arthur Edward Waite, 1857-1942), born in the United States in 1857, was a famous British occult scholar and a member of the renowned occult group 'Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn'. Waite's family background was not good during his childhood; later, the death of his sister pushed him towards the direction of occult studies. At the age of 21, he began frequently visiting the British Museum to study the occult.
His most famous representative work, the Tarot deck, is called 'Rider-Waite', 'Rider', or 'Waite-Smith' Tarot, because the Waite Tarot was initially published by the American Rider Publishing House. This deck was designed and conceived by Pamela Coleman Smith, consisting of seventy-eight cards, including twenty-two Major Arcana cards, forty Minor Arcana cards, and sixteen Court Cards. A.E. Waite also released the user manual for this deck upon its launch ('A Pictorial Key to Tarot').
The 78 Tarot cards are divided into 22 Major Arcana cards (from 0 to 21) and 56 Minor Arcana cards.
The Major Arcana cards (Major Arcana) are also known as the "Book of Secrets" or "Great Mystery Library", providing principled guidance, revelations of life's journey, and main methods for solving problems. These teachings provide an answer to facing current issues, and also give you a lesson that can be widely applied in daily life.
The twenty-two Major Arcana cards symbolize the journey of life, the subjects each person must experience in their lifetime. Starting from Zero card The Fool, leading to Twenty-One card The World as the end. He also swapped the positions of Strength (11) and Justice (8) from tradition, placing Strength at [8] and Justice at [11].
The Minor Arcana cards (Minor Arcana), also known as the "Little Book of Secrets", are divided into two types: Number cards and Court Cards. Number cards are often related to our lives, while Court Cards relate to people in our lives, bringing us revelation and reminding us of what aspects of intelligence we can possess.
The forty Minor Arcana number cards supplement the details of the twenty-two Major Arcana cards. Each card represents events that may occur in our lives. Its innovation lies in the pattern design resembling the meaning of divination, allowing one to associate the surface of the matter and the process of occurrence upon seeing the pattern, without rote memorization. Number cards are divided into four groups, ten cards per group, which are respectively:
Wands (Wands), governed by the Fire element. These cards represent energy, particularly sexual energy (Yang or the masculine side), perception, intuition, insight, activity.
Cups (Cups), governed by the Water element. They reflect the truth of our inner emotions. Their domain includes love, feelings, communication of relationships, and sexual energy (Yin or the feminine side).
Swords (Swords), governed by the Air element. This group of swords usually reflects our mental or spiritual state, including possible changes and the process of contemplation. This level is the most easily disturbed. This group of swords also tells us what kind of energy can shape our lives.
Pentacles (Pentacles), governed by the Earth element. These cards point out our external, material reality. These external manifestations are closely related to the inner heart. The domain of Earth includes health, body, nutrition, clothing, property, and finance.
The sixteen Court Cards describe sixteen different ages and personalities of people. Court Cards play a very important role in the Tarot, telling us exactly what kind of people around us are influencing the development of things, and also telling us our own attitude when handling matters.
This deck can roughly be called the most famous Tarot deck of the 20th century, with versions too numerous to count. About its card meanings interpretation are written in a book written by him, 'The Key to the Tarot' (The Key to the Tarot, 1910).
Nowadays, only the Waite Tarot has the most books, websites, courses, research, and resources written according to its system. Its advantage is that answers tend to be closer to real situations and concrete, but beginners usually need to spend more time and effort to understand and learn relevant reference data (mainly English books); only after absorbing this data can one flexibly apply the Waite Tarot, avoiding distorting the author's original intended meaning data. Some people like to study the Waite Tarot (Rider Waite) hoping to understand some history and development of Western culture through it, while others do so because it is the model of traditional Tarot. Some classic cards people might have some impression of include: Death (Death), The Sun (The Sun), The Emperor (The Emperor), The Hierophant (The Hierophant), The Magician (The Magician), etc.
The patterns within the Waite Tarot hide many hints, including astrology, numerology, and color theory, and the content within the cards is combined with myths or Bible stories, such as Adam and Eve in "6. Lovers" and God's judgment and resurrection of the dead in "20. Judgment". Since the card faces are full of meaning, interpreting the cards allows the reader to flow more smoothly and trigger associations more easily, so after publication, it was chosen by many readers.
Now, most Tarot books and websites also use the Waite Tarot to introduce this long-standing divination tool.
There are many editions of the Waite Tarot, colored by different painters, such as Aquatic Tarot and Albano Waite Tarot, etc. One of the most popular versions now is the Popular Edition Waite Tarot, published by the American game company (US Games Systems, Inc.), colored by American painter Mary Hanson Roberts. It uses the composition of the original cards, but with bright colors and gradient coloring, making the monotonous card face feel richer.