The Rider Waite Smith Deck

The Rider Waite Smith deck is the principal influence on all Tarot decks for past 100 years. With all the decks currently available, it is very confusing, and it might help some people to choose a deck if they understood a bit about the history of the Waite Smith deck.

Until Waite designed the deck, the minors weren't illustrated. Nor was the order of the Majors fixed in the way they are now. But since Waite was so secretive about many of the esoteric influences behind his choices, it is not so obvious to the modern Tarot reader just what he had in mind.

For a start, he fixed the position of the Fool, Strength and Justice in such a way that the progression of the Majors is self evident. We can see that they represent the Fool's journey - an apparently obvious thing, but never done before.

What is not so obvious is his intention with the Minors. They seem more random. But recent research indicates is that what he had in mind was illustrating the Grail Quest through the journeys of the four principal Grail Knights. Smith was a successful stage designer - she was illustrating incidents from those Quests. The suit progressions make sense viewed this way.

Subsequent deck designers often change or dilute the underlying sense of the cards. (The Thoth deck was also conceived under the same influences as the Waite Deck, which is why it has also stood the test of time). This is why it is often best to stick as closely to the original deck as possible while learning, before branching out into other interpretations of it.

Some people use Tarot cards as a jumping off point to intuitive impressions. We all do that. But the beauty of the Tarot is that on days when psychic information is not flowing, it is still perfectly possible to give an accurate "technical" reading which is useful and valid if you have a straightforward deck.

I am summarising from several sources here, but I thought it might be useful to beginners to understand why the Waite Smith deck is so often recommended, even though its style of illustration may seem dated. Every step you take away from it, the more you lose.

(Illustration is from The Robin Wood Tarot, published by Llewllyn, a RWS based deck)