Rider-Waite tarot
The Rider-Waite tarot (or Rider-Waite-Smith, RWS) is the most influential tarot deck of the 20th century. Created in 1909 by the British occultist Arthur Edward Waite and the artist Pamela Colman Smith, published by the Rider company. It revolutionised tarot by adding figurative scenes to all 78 cards.
Origin and history
In 1909, A.E. Waite — a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the most influential British esoteric society of the time — commissioned Pamela Colman Smith, illustrator and also member of the Order, to create a new tarot deck that integrated his teachings on Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy and Christian symbolism. The result was published by the Rider company, hence its name.
The truly revolutionary innovation was in the minor arcana: while the Marseille tarot only showed elements (X cups, X swords), Smith painted full figurative scenes on all 78 cards. The 5 of cups shows a hooded figure looking at three spilt cups. The 8 of swords, a bound and blindfolded woman. Each scene narrates archetypal situations that helped popularise the tarot enormously.
Influence and legacy
The Rider-Waite-Smith became the visual standard of the modern Western tarot. The vast majority of new tarot decks created from the 1960s onwards (Druids, Witches, Mythical, Crowley's Thoth — though this one diverges considerably, the modern Universal Marseille, the Hanson-Roberts, etc.) are based on the iconography of the cards established by Smith. A reader who masters the Rider-Waite recognises archetypes in almost any modern deck.
For decades the role of Pamela Colman Smith was forgotten: she was credited only as Waite's illustrator, despite many of the symbolic decisions of the cards being hers. Today (especially since the 2000s) her contribution is duly recognised, and many editions speak of "Waite-Smith tarot" or "RWS". She died poor and forgotten in 1951; today her artistic work is widely considered the heart of the deck.
Why it is the most popular
The figurative scenes of Smith make the RWS the most accessible deck for beginners: they read almost like comics. You see the situation, you intuit the meaning, you confirm it with the symbolism. Most modern manuals, online courses and tarot apps use this deck as visual standard. If you start in the tarot today, almost certainly your first deck is Rider-Waite or any of its endless visual descendants.
Also known as
- Rider-Waite tarot
- Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS)
- Waite tarot
- Smith-Waite