The Pictorial Key to the Tarot

A. E. Waite · 1911

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About the book

The book standing behind the deck almost everyone learns on — Waite explaining, card by card, what he had Pamela Colman Smith draw. He is secretive, prickly and occasionally rude about rival tarotists, and this is still the source.

Try the short course

Part 1 · Why Waite Picked a Fight. The first six slides, free.

Why Waite Picked a Fight

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Waite opens defensively because Tarot looks like an embarrassing subject for a serious mystic: a familiar instrument of fortune-telling. He expects readers to wonder why someone concerned with “the higher mystic schools” would touch it at all.

His answer is deliberately paradoxical. Humble work may stand near the entrance to wisdom, just as an initiate might serve as a door-keeper. Tarot’s common use does not settle its value. Lowly use can conceal higher symbolism-but lowliness alone proves nothing sacred.

Inside the course

12 parts

Waite's quarrel with the fortune-tellers who came before himFree above
The Fool and the Magician: the two cards everything starts from
The early trumps, and the education of the Fool
Strength, the Hermit, the Wheel — the middle of the journey
Death, Temperance, the Devil: reading the cards people fear
The Tower, the Star, the Moon, and the deck's darkest stretch
The Sun, Judgement and the World: how the story closes
What Waite meant by the doctrine behind the veil
The four suits, and what each element is for
The court cards as people, moods and moments
Divinatory meanings, and why Waite gave them grudgingly
The Celtic Cross, and reading a spread as one sentence

Questions

Is The Pictorial Key to the Tarot free to read in Astra Trainer?

Yes. The full book opens free in the app’s reader, in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian.

What is the short course?

12 short parts that walk through the book’s key ideas in slides, each with a quick quiz. The first six slides are free to try on this page.

Where do I get the app?

Astra Trainer is free on the App Store and Google Play. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot is waiting in the app’s library.