Esoteric Symbology of the Rider-Waite Tarot Usul Esoteric means hidden or secret knowledge. In the Tarot it refers to the symbology woven into the images by the decks' creators. The focus of this article is the hidden symbology of Dr. Arthur Edward Waite. Dr. Waite was a true scholar of the occult who painstakingly researched and wrote several texts including The Key to the Tarot and The Holy Kabbalah. Waite based his symbolic system on this research. Waite was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an English Rosicrucian society formed in 1888. Miss Pamela Colman Smith created the deck under the supervision of Dr. Waite. Miss Smith was an American and a fellow member of the Golden Dawn. It is far beyond the scope of this article to cover all the hidden symbology of the Rider-Waite deck. In each issue I will cover a small portion of the key elements in the major arcana to try to give a representative overview. What this esoteric symbology means is best stated in Dr. Waite's own words: The true Tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other signs. Given the inward meaning of its emblems, they do become a kind of alphabet that is capable of infinite combinations and makes true sense in all. On the highest plane it offers a key to the Mysteries, in a manner which is not arbitrary and has not been read in. But the wrong symbolic stories have been told concerning it, and the wrong history has been given in every published work that so far has dealt with the subject. The Tarot embodies symbolic presentations of universal ideas. Behind these lie all the implicits of the human mind. It is in this sense that the cards contain secret doctrine—the truths embedded in everyone's consciousness, which ordinary people do not yet recognize. The theory is that this doctrine has always existed—that is to say, has been excogitated in the consciousness of an elect minority. It has been perpetuated in secrecy from one to another and has been recorded in secret literature, like those of Alchemy and Kabbalism. And behind the Secret Doctrine it is held that there is an experience or practice that justifies the Doctrine. Waite speaks of a Secret Doctrine and Mystery. In the most simplified terms, this mystery is that of humanity's fall from the divine state of existence to that of the physical, mortal humans and their reascension back to the state of the spirit. Each card is a stage of that journey. One of the main themes that we find along this journey is that of dualism: female-male, good-evil, yin-yang, positive-negative, light-dark, etc. Humanity's movement is from a spiritual, integrated oneness that contains both aspects of the opposites, down through a separation of the duality on the material plane. Then the progress is one of reintegration and the return to the spiritual body. The Fool The Fool, card 0, is both the first and last of the major arcana. It is the starting point of the circular wheel of events that is Humanity's Tarot journey and its final goal. The Fool and the Magician are the same being, with a very important difference. The Fool combines both poles of duality and does so on the astral or spiritual level. The Fool has reached the level of Godhood but is not yet a God. What still separates him from that final goal is the attraction of the journey itself, the fall back to mortality. This is represented by the cliff, which the Fool is approaching. This is the edge of the abyss—the abyss of the material plane. He blindly walks toward the fall of the spirit into the material and the start of the cycle yet again. There are several symbols that represent the Fool's spiritual attainment. Among them are the twelve zodiacal stars that make up his belt. Another is the single white rose he carries; it is, in essence, a symbol of completion, consummate achievement and perfection. Finally, the Masonic All-Seeing Eye on his wallet is akin to the Egyptian Eye of Horus—enlightened vision transcending the material plane and opening into the light of eternity. The Magician As stated before, the Magician and the Fool are the same being. In both cases the being contains both elements of the duality. The difference is the Fool is pure spirit and the Magician is the spirit descended into matter. The Fool has stepped off the edge and once again fallen into the world of matter, into the form of the Magician. In the Waite Tarot the Fool-Magician is Hermes-Mercury-Thoth. The Magician card is one of the richest in hidden symbolism. The spirit descended is symbolized several ways. First is the most obvious: the wand of transformation that the Magician holds above his head. The symbology most people identify this with is `as above, so below.' They connect this meaning with the working of magick, in that true magick is first manifested in the astral plane, then repeated for the desired effect here on the material. This is a valid interpretation, but there is a deeper esoteric meaning as well. The real meaning is the statement that the Fool and Magician are one, or what was above is now below. The wand, which the Magician holds aloft, is in itself a blind. It is not the true staff of transformation. That is within the Magician himself. The wand descends from the lemniscate () above his head down the path of his spine. When I say the wand is a blind, I mean that the message for the general audience (`as above, so below') is an external message, but for the initiate of the hidden knowledge the Magician himself contains the message. | 
