FOREWORD to the iFATE EDITION
To say that this is an important book to the world of Tarot would be an understatement. Here we have one of modern Tarot’s seminal works. For most of us however, it is not our first book on Tarot. It is the book at which we arrive after we have finished more easy-to-read, contemporary books. It’s the book we turn to because not only was it published contemporaneously with the creation of the Rider Waite tarot deck itself, but because it was written by the deck’s co-creator.
Very few would disagree that there are no tarot decks quite as famous as the Rider Waite deck, with its gorgeous illustrations by Pamela Colman Smith. It must be said equally however, that there are no tarot books as famous or as central to the study as this one.
Stitching centuries of mismatched Tarot lore, hermeticism, esotericism, and mysticism into an ambitious whole, A.E. Waite managed to give us one of the earliest glimpses of how Tarot can weave together the unlike threads of humanity’s disparate belief systems. Waite intertwines his Tarot story into a tantalizing tapestry that very nearly explains the mystery of the cards.
But it doesn’t explain the mystery.
Therein lies the principal criticism of Waite and this book: He takes us to the doorway. He tells us what we need to know. But then Waite so often moves-on before finishing his explanations, leaving us wondering if we know anything at all.
As so many students of Tarot know, Waite is fond of painting an almost complete picture; Serving up a basis for understanding and then pointing off into the distance, as if to say: That way lies enlightenment —when you’re ready for it. At other times Waite simply states that prepared minds will understand what he means, while other minds will not. Which are we, we wonder?
Waite has a formidable command of occult lore. It is not by some sleight of hand that he points to enlightenment and then fails to take readers by hand and walk them into the light. Rather, Waite is deeply, often profoundly, cognisant of the process of enlightenment that each of us must endure.
This book is incomplete. It is meant to be incomplete. It offers tastes, ideas, guidance and the occasional promise. But it consistently stops short at the threshold of understanding.
It is in these shards of partial knowledge that we come to understand Waite’s original, and often forgotten, subtitle to the book: Being Fragments of a Secret Tradition Under the Veil of Divination. Indeed, these are but fragments, and divination is but a wrapping for the knowledge herein.
When I first considered the task of writing the preface for this iFate.com edition, it took me back to my first reaction to this book many decades ago: A younger version of me was deeply frustrated by this book. I found it to be too cryptic, disconnected from the cards, and sometimes I found its esteemed writer to be seemingly unaware of his own creation.
The older me realizes that Waite stopped at exactly the point where he wanted to stop. While his long-winded style may be a symptom of a more flowery age, it is not his rococo prose nor his never-ending sentences which invite the most criticism. Instead, it’s the passages where his writing is sometimes infuriatingly unclear; often confoundingly brief - and at other times intentionally terse.
Tarot is a riddle — A gigantic towering riddle of the ages, built out of 78 beautifully composed, self-contained puzzles. Every aspect of Pamela Colman Smith’s iconic artwork from botanical references to elemental symbolism to subtle variations in color palette, convey vital clues about a vast esoteric truth which lies locked within.
While Colman’s artwork is of course the real story, Waite’s Key provides a vital, parallel and irreplaceable companion work. His references are not my references, and likely will not be your references. But it is in Waite’s references that we see new dimensions of the cards unfold before our eyes. Most importantly, Waite’s interpretations point towards a beautiful, mysterious and infinitely larger truth — and encourage us to look harder.
Before closing, I would make a suggestion to new students: Many new readers simply jump to the card definitions portion of this book. The real gems hidden herein come from reading the book in its entirety. There are surprises here which despite hundreds of other books on Tarot, are seldom mentioned anywhere else.
As a beloved and now deceased teacher of Tarot taught me over 3 decades ago, “Don’t come to Tarot looking for answers. Come instead looking for questions”. In addressing that simple piece of wisdom, this amazing book delivers endlessly. Read. Enjoy. Absorb. When you don’t understand something, congratulate yourself for finding the next onion-layer between you and the answers at its core.
Jon Samvere, 2020