The Rider–Waite Tarot is a popular deck for tarot card reading, first published by William Rider & Son in 1909, based on the instructions of academic and mystic A. E. Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith, both members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Also known as the Waite–Smith, Rider–Waite–Smith (RWS), or Rider Tarot, Estimates suggest over 100 million copies of the deck circulate across over 20 countries.

Overview

The Rider–Waite tarot deck has 78 cards: 56 Minor Arcana, and 22 Major Arcana. The Minor Arcana generally correspond to the suits of Spanish or Italian playing cards. The Major Arcana, corresponding to the trump cards of gaming tarot, have unique designs numbered from 0 (The Fool) to 21 (The World).

While the images are simple, the details and backgrounds feature abundant symbolism. Some imagery remains similar to that found in earlier decks, but overall the Waite–Smith card designs are substantially different from their predecessors. Christian imagery was removed from some cards, and added to others. For example, The Papess became The High Priestess, and no longer features a Papal tiara. The Lovers, previously depicting a medieval scene of a clothed man and woman receiving a blessing from a noble or cleric was changed to a depiction of the naked Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the ace of cups featuring a dove carrying Sacramental bread. The Minor Arcana are illustrated with allegorical scenes by Smith, where earlier decks, with a few rare exceptions, had simple designs for the Minor Arcana.

The symbols and imagery used in the deck were influenced by the 19th-century magician and occultist Eliphas Levi, as well as by the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In order to accommodate the astrological correspondences taught by the Golden Dawn, Waite introduced several innovations to the deck. He switched the order of the Strength and Justice cards so that Strength corresponded with Leo and Justice corresponded with Libra. The medieval Sola Busca tarot also has Strength on the same position. He based The Lovers on Italian tarot decks, which have two persons and an angel, to reinforce its correspondence with Gemini. This deck notably places Smith's name first and omits the publisher's name (Rider). In this vein, some contemporary tarot readers call the original deck and its various iterations the "Smith-Waite deck" in order to give proper credit to Smith's contribution to the deck.

The original version of the Rider–Waite Tarot is in the public domain in all countries that have a copyright term of 70 years or fewer after the death of the last co-author. This includes the United Kingdom, where the deck was originally published.

In the United States, the deck became part of the public domain in 1966 (publication + 28 years + renewed 28 years). U.S. Games Systems has a copyright claim on their updated version of the deck published in 1971, but this only applies to new material added to the pre-existing work (e.g. designs on the card backs and the box).

See also

  • Tarot of Marseilles
  • Thoth Tarot

References