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Arthur Edward Waite
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arthur Edward Waite (October 2, 1857 - May 19, 1942) was a scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. As his biographer, R.A. Gilbert described him, "Waite's name has survived because he was the first to attempt a systematic study of the history of western occultism - viewed as a spiritual tradition rather than as aspects of proto-science or as the pathology of religion."[1]
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Born in the United States, and raised in England, A.E. Waite joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1891, became a Freemason in 1901, and entered the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1902. The Golden Dawn was torn by further internal feuding until Waite's departure in 1914; a year later he formed the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, not to be confused with the Societas Rosicruciana. By that time there existed some half-dozen offshoots from the original Golden Dawn, and as a whole it never recovered.[2]
Waite was a prolific author with many of his works being well received in academic circles. He wrote occult texts on subjects including divination, esotericism, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, black and ceremonial magic, Kabbalism and alchemy; he also translated and reissued several important mystical and alchemical works. His works on the Holy Grail, influenced by his friendship with Arthur Machen, were particularly notable.[3][4] A number of his volumes remain in print, the Book of Ceremonial Magic (1911), The Holy Kabbalah (1929), A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (1921), and his edited translation of Eliphas Levi's Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual (1896) having seen reprints in recent years.
Waite is best known as the co-creator of the popular and widely used Rider-Waite Tarot deck and author of its companion volume, the Key to the Tarot, republished in expanded form the following year, 1911, as the Pictorial Key to the Tarot, a guide to Tarot reading[5]. The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot was notable for being one of the first tarot decks to illustrate all 78 cards fully, in addition to the 22 major arcana cards. Golden Dawn member Pamela Colman Smith illustrated the cards for Waite, and the deck was first published in 1910.
- Waite, Edward, Inner and Outer Order Initiations of the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn, Canada:Burnaby, 2005. ISBN 0-9735931-7-2.
- ^ Gilbert, R.A.A.E. Waite: Magician of Many Parts, Wellingborough, Northhamptonshire, 1987, p.361
- ^ Howe, Ellic,The Magicians of the Golden Dawn, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972
- ^ Waite, A.E., Shadows of Life and Thought: A Retrospective Review in the Form of Memoirs, London: Selwyn and Blount, 1938
- ^ Gilbert, R.A., A.E. Waite: Magician of Many Parts, Wellingborough, Northhamptonshire, 1987
- ^ Waite, A.E., The Key to the Tarot, London, 1910
