RWS

The Rider Waite decks are my favorite! These are so easy to understand and comprehend.

Who else uses RWD? Also what books do you use to look up the meeting of the cards. Does anyone use the Irene Gad and Jana Riley books Thank you!

What is your favourite card in the RWS? And why? Mine is the high priestess. I like her mysterious look.

There is much symbolism in the Rider Waite Deck. Which is your favorite symbol? Or which symbol means the most to you?

A lot of RWS cards are badly explained on the net. Feel free to post about that here! We'll start with the 8 of Pentacles. Andy's mentioned this before, and it's been on my mind: There's a man chiseling pentacles, much the way somebody might create a popular item again and again for their etsy shop. All the pentacles appear to be done correctly. There is no indication of another person on the card. So where are people getting "apprentice"? A google search on "8 of pentacles apprentice" returns 42,100 results. But there is no visual evidence of this. Waite says "An artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of t…

I am always curious why someone has a type they prefer, or only use. I am definitely an RWS Crone. I know the reasons why. * Started with an RWS deck, so now it's just familiar * I'm visual (in other words, I like there are illustrated images that correspond to each card) * TdM decks I find BEAUTIFUL, but the pips don't inspire me to read with them To be honest, I haven't even approached the Thoth, probably for the same reason I didn't pursue the TdM very vigorously. I'm happy with the RWS decks I have and like reading with them. KUDOS to all who are "multi-lingual" when it comes to switching effortlessly between RWS, TdM and Thoth. So...if you are…

I had this idea to start this thread for anyone who is brand new to Tarot and learning from the Rider Waite. If you have any insights on the Rider Waite Smith deck and/or helpful tips for reading and understanding the cards, please share them here? 😊 Welcome all, and here we go.... I love how the more I learn about this deck, the more I also learn about myself. Anyone else experiencing this? I used to feel that my logical mind was causing me to place intuitive blocks on myself. But I'm learning that isn't true at all. Turns out I'm much more intuitive than I thought I was, using it in pretty much every situation.

Personally, I love it because its straight forward. It is a great go to deck for quick and general messages. I haven't connected with them just yet but I sort of get them. I'm not sure if that makes 100% sense.

What do you think about the swords stuck on the deck of the boat? Ive understood it as a positive card, about leaving troubles and moving on to better things, but somehow I'm worried that the swords would pierce through the wood creating holes on the boat, and it might sink. What do you think? Maybe its just my personal view... I've always been somehow afraid of deep water, so being on boats scares me. I cannot look at this card without fearing that it'll sink. But wouldn't the swords create holes on it? Also this card reminds me of having seen news about refugees fleeing war, looking for a better life and then dying in the sea... do you associate this kind of…

This deck was recently recommended but I can’t seem to find it on the MPC website. Has it been deleted/made OOP? I’d really like to purchase a copy. best, Jay

For the last year or so I've been studying Tarot de Marseille and building my particular system for reading the deck. In the process, I realized that I wanted to apply a similar kind of systematizing to my approach to the Rider Waite. I've been working with the Rider Waite almost exclusively since around 2004-2005, and in the ensuing time I've evolved a workable set of meanings and associations for each card. At the same time, in the last few years I've found my readings with the deck to be a bit...immaterial? Broad? In other words, my readings tend toward lots of vague discussions of change, internal qualities of character and such, but not always very useful information…

hey everyone! I hope you're doing good! for the past few months I have tried to dive deeper into Waite's original meanings for the RWS Tarot. so, of course, I decided to start by reading the Pictorial Key to the Tarot... however, I soon ran into two obstacles. first things first, I am not a native English speaker – and Waite's writing style is pretty famous for being complex. so his book is pretty hard to decipher for me in the first place. secondly, I have no knowledge of esoteric subjects such as Kabbalah, astrology, and the like. these things make it really difficult for me to grasp the contents of the PKT. but I also don't want to g…

I saw the Radiant Wise on Amazon, the one published by Llewellyn. But one of the reviews there said to get the Lo Scarabeo published one rather than the Llewellyn and gave an ISBN number. I found it on Amazon, not easily, and it said it was 18 and change, quite a bit less than the Llewellyn published one. An hour later, I looked at it in my orders and the price had gone up to over $40! In an hour. So glad I picked it up the Lo Scarabeo for so much less, timing is everything on Amazon, Anyway, I was wondering for those who have both decks, do you prefer one printing over the other? I'm getting it tomorrow, but I won't have the Llewellyn to compare to, so.…

(I really wasn't sure where to put this, so mods please move it if you see fit.) It's a "whatever happened to...?" blog post with a small reading and some theorizing. I had fun doing it. https://fennario.wordpress.com/2019/06/03/frankie-albano-please-call-home/ But I know a lot of you must have a different pet theory, or maybe you'd just like to post a reading on this. This is the thread for that!

I hope this is the right sub forum for this question. It's something I've actually wondered about for quite some time. For those people who use the RWS tarot deck (or similar) and if you're not into occult practices, or wicca stuff or things like that, do you take into account what pentacles/pentagrams mean and imply, or do you just consider them to be round objects that have a relation to the earth element ? I'm also curious to know how many people who use the RWS deck have studied Golden Dawn stuff so as to deeper their understanding of what Waite was trying to communicate through his deck.

Cliff: rashness, naivety, foolishness Dog: animal helper, guardian of the threshold, obedience, vigilance, fidelity, primitive instincts, unconscious animus, individuation, psychic evolution, trust, faith, guiding the souls of the dead, direction, protection Sun: optimism, primordial divinity, the God, cycles, fertility, the masculine, life versus death White Rose: purity, star, sun, regeneration, initiation, monastic wisdom, reunification of the world, aspiring love, the self, spirit over matter, life & death, secrecy, union of opposites, female energy, innocence Feel free to add other interpretations and symbol discussions as you see fit!

For me, one of the more intriguing Smith-Waite Tarot cards is the High Priestess. Mainly because the card’s iconography is rather a hot mess of Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, and Jewish influences. The depicted female seated figure is popularly thought to be based on the Egyptian goddess Isis. She has two dominant symbols, namely a Greek (i.e., equal-armed) cross on her chest and moon representation (waxing/waning/full) atop her head. The Greek Cross didn’t present until after Constantine shifted the empire to Christianity in the fourth century AD, by which time Isis was outlawed anyway. In Egypt, depictions of Isis would typically show her holding a sistrum (a kind of clan…

Tired of the Fool's Journey, self-discovery, psychological nuance, and Hermetic analysis in your tarot? Come back with me to the days when American tarot was just for fortune-telling. Come with me to a time before the Beatles, before Eden Gray; back to the Kennedy administration, when New York publishers didn't blink at saying to hell with British copyright. I'm talking about 1961-63, when the Merrimack Publishing Corp. hoisted the skull and crossbones and released a swipe of the (already pirated) University Books RWS deck. Squeezing their pennies till they gasped, Merrimack condensed Waite’s Pictorial Key to the Tarot into 5 columns of tiny type on 11 inches …

Okay, the Pictorial Key To The Tarot seems to wedge 0 - (the fool), between XX(last judgement) and XXI(The World). Wedging the Fool in that place seems... I don't know... it's not arbitrary, I mean the idea that the fool is caught between Judgement and The World seems quite poetic on some level, but it just feels 'forced'. Does anyone have any thoughts why he did this?

Hey y'all! I was curious to what some of your interpretations of this mural/painting in the card is. It looks like a castle/lighthouse on a shore. The border is like a black and white chess board pattern. It's also located behind the old man's head, as well as by the three pentacles that would represents the Pillar of Severity on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Personally, one way I saw it was all the established wealth in this card was just originally a dream or fantasy. The older man had to have drive and patience to get his desired outcome. It's possible that his original idea of wealth and legacy didn't play out or manifest in the way he thought it would, but r…

Greetings! I was recently fortunate enough to acquire a 1968 mini Albano Waite. I almost didn't. It looked too clean, too new, the price was too low - IOW, too good to be true. I wasn't looking for an investment ("Accurate color tones!") just a good 1968 Albano ("NewColor Deluxe Edition"). When I saw this deck on ebay, I immediately jeered it as a bootleg. So much gratitude to @Rodney for giving me *just* enough encouragement to roll the dice: It arrived this morning. As new-looking as the photos on ebay. Go through the deck - check. Cards are all there. Colors - check. Box, check. But is it a scanned bootleg? One thing really bugged me: the sides are n…

I am assuming its some kind of sign representing a blessing. Is there a name for it? Thanks.

Greetings. I acquired this edition of the deck. Does the flower on the back of the card have any meaning according to Pixie or RW?

I'm really interested in the symbolism in tarot and my readings come from the symbols in the cards. For my reference library, I wanted some great books about the symbolism in RWS, to refer to if I ever need to research symbols. Something more meaty and for reference than books about reading the tarot. So, do you have a fave or best RWS book like this? From looking on google, I know there is..... The Ultimate Guide to the Rider Waite Tarot by Evelin Burger and Johannes Fiebig (this seems to be from a quite Christian perspective according to reviews) Llewellyn's Complete Book of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot by Sasha Graham…

Can any one assist with most reliable resources that define the history and meaning of the back of this card? Deck is Centennial edition Waite Smith.