Differences between Thoth and Rider Waite

[MystiqueMoonlight]

Again on my path of research I found this comparison to the 2 decks. It's quite interesting. I have done a cut and paste leaving out some of the author's personal narratives for ease of reading.

The writer's name is Yvonne Rathbone

Differences in the Major Arcana

Fool:
The biggest difference, and I believe the most fundamental difference, is in the Fool Card. The Fool is a representation of the path walker. He is the being who walks the path laid out in the other cards. How a deck represents the Fool gives an indication of how the deck represents the individual.

In the Waite-Smith deck, the Sun of Kether is shown above and behind the Fool. In Thoth, the Sun is shown at the Fools genitals. This difference in the location of the divine source indicates the Waite Smith deck as being based on a Christian theology whereby God exists above and outside of the journeyer. Thoth expresses a Pagan view of God being the creative force that exists inherently within us all.

The 8/11 Split:
The next big difference is in the numbering of the Major Arcana, specifically the cards called Strength and Justice. Which card comes after the Wheel shows how the deck represents Karma. In Thoth, Justice is the eighth card, Strength is eleven. In WS this is reversed. This difference can be seen as one of how the Universe and Karma (as shown in the Wheel) interact with the individual.

When Justice follows the Wheel, it shows a view of Karma that is retributive or restitutive. In this model, Karma is paid for through Justice, whether it's punishment or the legitimate taking on of responsibility. In the second model, Karma is followed by Strength and shows a different result of the effect of Karma. In this model, Karma is the vehicle for the integration of the physical, animal nature with the "higher" levels of being.

Differences in the Courts

Waite-Smith and Thoth have different court card configurations and how a new deck structures their courts can tell you something about influence. Waite-Smith has the order King/Queen/Knight/Page. Thoth has the order Knight/Queen/Prince/Princess. I'm more persuaded by the presence of Thoth style Knight/Prince male configuration replacing Waite's King/Knight than I am the presence of Princesses.

In "Pictorial Key To The Tarot," Waite states that the courts serve as a bridge between the Lesser and Greater Arcana, but that the lack of distinction between them and the Majors is shown by their "conventional character". (pg. 165) He doesn't think they have enough symbols to qualify as anything but for mere divination and fortune telling. He indicates that the arrangement of King/Queen/Knight/Page is derived from standard playing cards. This could be a blind.

Crowley, in contrast, states very clearly in "The Book Of Thoth" the important role the courts play in his deck. They are the embodiment of the Tetragrammaton (the most holy name of God.) He uses Knights instead of Kings to denote the active quality of the first letter of the Tetragrammaton. Queens are the fixing nature of the second. Princes are more literally the sons of Queens than Knights are. Finally, the Princesses represent the "re-absortion of the Energy" and "the silence into which all things return." (pg 149-150)

Many decks use princesses instead of pages and do not in the least reflect the complex symbolism Crowley reserved for the courts. Often they do it simply to infuse the deck with more female characters and give a balance of male and female energy. Trust me. Crowley didn't give a damn about doing this. The presence of the princess is not indicative of Thoth influence by itself, but there are other imagistic indicators that we can look for.

In Thoth, the King/Knights are active and they are all shown on horseback. The knights in Waite-Smith are shown on horseback as well, but in that system they are third down on the totem pole. So when the top ranking male court card is the one on horseback, I see Thoth.

The queens in Thoth are seated with different totems; Wands:leopard, Cups:stork, Swords:severed head (ew) and Disks:goat. In contrast, Waite-Smith usually shows images on the queen's thrones; Wands:lions, Cups:cupid & fish, Swords:butterfly, Pentacles:goat. Only the goat is the same. Waite-Smith also adds two other animals to the queens, one of which is commonly copied. That is the black cat in the Queen of wands. The rabbit in the Queen of Pentacles goes largely unnoticed.

Differences in the Minors

The main difference between Waite inspired minors and Thoth inspired minors lays in one of the largest difference between the two decks. Waite put pictures on his minors. Thoth uses stylized pips (arrangements of the suit symbols as in playing cards.) Because of this, I look for Waite influence in the minors differently than I do Thoth influence.

It's pretty easy to spot the most apparent influence of Waite in the choice of imagery for the pips. A boat ride on the Six of Cups, a patient gardner on the Seven of Pentacles, a person with swords in his back on the Ten of swords. The use of these images such as these indicates a Waite basis.

The influence of Thoth in the minors is harder to see. It's not enough that a deck just use pips. This could refer back to the Tarot de Marseilles. Instead, in the Thoth minors we must look for specific instances where the given meanings differ radically from Waite.

And one of the surprises I found as I was researching the differences between these decks is that there aren't that many radical differences between the meanings of the minors. The most extreme I found are:


Card Thoth = Waite-Smith
4 of Cups Luxury, Change =Stability Weariness, disgust, aversion
8 of Cups Indolence, stagnation = Leaving something behind
2 of Swords Peace, balance = Indecision, denial
6 of Swords Science = Moving away from difficulty
7 of Disks Failure, blight = Patience

I know it's a long thread but I thought someone here may find this information kinda interesting....

[nina]

Hello,
In the Marseilles deck, and most others before Waite, Strength was 11 and Justice 8. I read that Waite wanted the order changed so that Strength would correspond to Leo and Justice to Libra in his Astrological correlations.
I prefer the old way, it seems fittng to me that Justice comes to lead the overglorying Chariot to the way of The Hermit, and that Strength takes us from The Wheel to The Hanged Man. The balance of the number 8 (as sideways infinity) also, in my opinion, fits better on the justice card.
-Nina

[Minderwiz]

Waite said that he had changed the order of Justice and Strength for 'reasons which satisfy myself' and further added that these reasons would have no significance for the reader and therefore there was no 'cause for an explanation'. The Libra/Leo switch is one (strong) speculation but basically we don't really know why he did it.

There is a good discussion of the differences made by exchanging the places of these two trumps in Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom. I have both the RWS and the Thoth decks but I'm not yet sure which order will be the eventual one I choose. At my early stage of development I tend to use RWS rather than Thoth but this may well change.

Minderwiz

[wavebreaker]

Originally posted by Minderwiz
Waite said that he had changed the order of Justice and Strength for 'reasons which satisfy myself' and further added that these reasons would have no significance for the reader and therefore there was no 'cause for an explanation'. The Libra/Leo switch is one (strong) speculation but basically we don't really know why he did it.During the tarot workshop I did last weekend, the teacher said that Waite's changes were based on the meanings of the numbers in so-called Martinism. She also said that she had tried to find out more about Martinism on the internet, but she found that she actually had to become a Matinist to learn more about it...
Does anyone know more about this?

[Minderwiz]

TarotLady,

I did a Google search on Martinism and there is a fair bit about it - though I haven't found the direct answer to the question. You might look at

http://www.hermetics.org/Martinism.html

and possibly

http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~bill/martinist.html

There is also a Yahoo group dedicated to them

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Martinism/

What is clear is that Waite was linked to them and therefore your tutor may well be on to something.

Minderwiz

[Macavity]

Hi Mystique,

I think that is indeed most useful! For some time now, I have been trying to evolve a more GENERIC way of looking at major properties shared between decks - A sort of "Comparative Tarot"? :)

But I really do find the plethora of decks on the market presents a problem and any attempt to rationalise this MUST be useful! For my part, I have gone through a number of my decks (e.g my much-loved "Nefertari") looking for EITHER Thoth or R/W symbolism. It is possible to see SOME attempts by the Artist to follow a particular scheme (With Nefertari mostly R/W), but I find it amusing (or frustrating?) to see this varies with suite/number. Almost as if the Artist "gave up" - Or maybe some artistic license took over? }) Fair Enough, but (imo) giving the aspiring reader quite a problem!

To use a linguistic analogy: I don't mind learning to speak French (Thoth) AND Italian (R/W), and to be conversant with their similarities and differences. These differences are usually sufficient that I don't get so confused as to start speaking French and end the sentence Italian! BUT this doesn't mean I want to learn every dialect that existed in Italy before linguistic unification! :( Sadly I suspect that this is indeed the task of readers of R/W clone decks? I *DO* think some kind of subset "Lingua Franca" might be needed in Tarot

This also highlights particularly (my) problem for minor arcana - Do I "override" Artwork with an arbitrary Thoth or R/W assignment? The UN-illustrated minor arcana are less of a distraction! OR do I read, based on what the cards "say" to me - So often different from (insert author)'s convention! Doubtless ANY method is valid, but I have to remark that, for this aspiring Tarot reader (Heretic) this can be uhm... slightly frustrating! ;)

Overall I think ANY method of looking at things in a "quantitative" way must be worth pursuing, thought perhaps a lifetime's project! Thanks for attempting to highlight/relieve this "uncertainty factor" somewhat! :)

Mac. (sorry to ramble!)

[Lovelace]

I've always favored Strength at 11 and Justice at 8 for reasons pretty much similar to what nina said - besides, isn't Strength what you need to have before going through the wrenching transition of the Hanged Man and Death? Which way to go on the minors and the court cards has caused me more questions, though. For the minors I've tried to stick with using numerology + connections to the appropriate majors for the most part, which is probably the closest we can get to the lingua franca Macavity spoke of. Any other ideas?

:TEMPS

[jmd]

Though Waite may have written in his book that he swapped the order of Strength and Justice for reasons best known to himself, it isn't 'just' a conjecture that behind this lies astrological considerations: he came through the Golden Dawn (rather than Martinism), and this group, as since published, makes this change.

Martinism is connected to - amongst others, but especially with regards to Tarot - Papus and Wirth (and thus not just Martinism in its 'pure' form, but also the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose Cross, an order formed in the same year as the Golden Dawn - 1888).

In case you are interested, there are also other threads which discuss these two decks in the Tarot Decks Forum.

[Minderwiz]

jmd,

I agree that the swap being based on the Astrological sequence of Leo and Libra is very much the most likely reason why Waite exchanged Strength and Justice. As circumstantial evidence goes theres is an awful lot pointing in this direction. Nevertheless as Waite did not state this as his reason, the evidence remains circumstantial.

Clearly later published material from the Golden Dawn shows Strength at 8 and Justice at 11 and makes the justification on the basis of Astrolgical sequence. However McGregor Mathers in 1888 wrote an essay on the Tarot which used the Eliphas Levi sequence of Justice at 8 and Strength at 11. As Mathers was one of the founders of the Golden Dawn in 1888 it is a possibility that the Golden Dawn in its early years kept to the traditional sequence, until Waite overturned it. The idea may therefore have come from outside the Golden Dawn. I stress 'may' Again this is specualtion and rather 'flimsy' at that.

I do not know enough about Waite and Martinism to say if this played any role - however he clearly was a member and it had some influence on him. I just don't have any evidence to suggest a link to the Trumps swap - but Waite's link to it is certainly worthy of inverstigation and that's as far as I would go.

Personally I hold to the sequence of Strength and then Justice both for Astrological reasons but also because I find Pollack's reasons convincing. I do recognise that it is perfectly legitimate though to hold to the traditional sequence. Again it is a matter of what feels right to the Tarotist.

best wishes

Minderwiz

[Macavity]

On minors, I think I found what *I* wanted re. my remarks about a possible comparitive tarot with: "Three parallel traditions" from Jim Revak's website at: http://www.villarevak.org/td/td_1.htm (Indirect) Thanks to ihcoyc for the parent link on the "minor meanings" thread -You can guarantee someone will have thought of these things before - Dagnabbit! :)

Mac

[jmd]

Macavity, glad to see you found what you were after at villarevak (http://www.villarevak.org). It has managed to remain a very useful and very good site over the years - albeit a little negative in tone at times.

Minderwiz, thanks very much for that input - it has certainly made me reflect - and realise that I need to at some stage brush up on turn-of-the-twentieth century esoteric-order history...

But for now, let me add just a few words. You are correct that, as Waite did not write himself that the reason for the 11-8 interchange was for astrological reasons, then it is conjecture. Also, Mathers's essay on Tarot correctly identifies the Marseilles ordering (except that he numeralises the Fool as zero - please correct me if I'm mistaken on this).

From memory, however, Mathers's essay is more a descriptive one of the Marseilles deck. Within the order, which Waite joined a few years after its formation - and never left - the astrological interposition seems to have been clear.

That Waite himself may have suggested the interchange is an interesting proposition, though given the post-1900 factions, one would have expected the Felkin and Mathers groups to stick to non-Waite material (which they did - as it was only later that Waite re-formed the already splinter Golden Dawn group 'Independent and Rectified Rite' to the 'Fellowship of the Rosy Cross', removing its more magical ceremonial aspects).

With regards to Eliphas Levi, it was, after all, his influence upon both the Golden Dawn and the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose Cross which 'enabled' these orders to incorporate usage of the Tarot. Levi identified, of course, the Marseilles sequence, but probably did not use the cards for magical ceremonies, and thus no interchange based on astrological consideration was necessary.

Could the idea for interchanging have come from outside the Golden Dawn? In an indirect way, certainly, for Justice had already been linked to Maat, which itself had already been connected to Libra. These connections and their ordering, however, only becomes significant hurdles when wanting to use these sequentially within magical ceremonies. If this is the case, an interchange within the Golden Dawn becomes very likely - a change which, very probably, would have been made prior Waite going through the rituals as a candidate.

But as mentioned, this remains, no matter how corroborated, speculation - but speculation which seems, to me at least, more reasonable than proposing that Waite proposed the interchange: whereas Waite sought very much to work within traditions given him, it was Mathers who had the temerity to make brilliant 'corrections' to whichever aspect needed modification for the purposes of creating effective magical rituals - changes which remain, however, unfortunate to my eyes.

[DeLani]

[Differences in the Minors

The main difference between Waite inspired minors and Thoth inspired minors lays in one of the largest difference between the two decks. Waite put pictures on his minors. Thoth uses stylized pips (arrangements of the suit symbols as in playing cards.) Because of this, I look for Waite influence in the minors differently than I do Thoth influence.

It's pretty easy to spot the most apparent influence of Waite in the choice of imagery for the pips. A boat ride on the Six of Cups, a patient gardner on the Seven of Pentacles, a person with swords in his back on the Ten of swords. The use of these images such as these indicates a Waite basis.

Just being a little anal retentive...forgive me!
The minors in the Waite deck were really Pamela Coleman Smiths. I believe that Waite didn't really direct the artwork, just kind of gave Smith the meaning and let her do her own thing. So we should more accurately say, "the Smith-inspired minors," and "the Smith influence on the minors," etc. That woman literally revolutionized Tarot, and her name isn't even on the deck! That really chaps my hide...
Kind of like how even though Sacagawea led Louis & Clark across most of the continent, translated several languages, found and cooked all their food, and had a baby on the trail...and her husband was the one that got paid for it.
OK, I'm done with my feminist rant... :)

[ihcoyc]

Originally posted by DeLani
The minors in the Waite deck were really Pamela Coleman Smiths. I believe that Waite didn't really direct the artwork, just kind of gave Smith the meaning and let her do her own thing. So we should more accurately say, "the Smith-inspired minors," and "the Smith influence on the minors," etc. That woman literally revolutionized Tarot, and her name isn't even on the deck!I agree: the minors are the best thing about the Waite-Smith deck. While I have "issues" with them myself, it's mostly about questioning the tradition they came out of. As illustrations of that tradition, they succeed about as well as they possibly could.

Where the RWS deck fails, the heavy hand of Waite is obvious. That hand is heaviest in the majors, like for instance the Wheel of Fortune. Turned one of the most straightforward symbols in the deck into. . . well, decent words fail me. But the minors almost always exhibit sensible design and layout, and get the job done.

[Diana]

edited

[ihcoyc]

Originally posted by Diana
ihcoyc: I'm sure if you try really hard, perhaps with the help of a thesaurus or dictionary of synonyms, you could find some words that would be suitable for a forum like this, and give us some more indications as to your objections about this card? I'm sure I'm not the only one whose interest has been piqued by your post. }) The Wheel of Fortune was and ought to be a straightforward mediæval icon that underlines the large role of chance in your fortune in life. It's a hell of a lot more comforting image compared to the wicked and perverse notion that hard work gets you ahead. Sometimes you are up and sometimes you are down.

The traditional inscriptions, starting with the ascending character, go: Regnabo (I will reign), Regno (I reign), Regnavi (I used to reign), and Sum sine regno (I am without a kingdom). The idea it wished to emphasize was that the turn of the wheel carried some people to fame and power, others to poverty and suffering. But those who are fortunate should take care, not fancy themselves better than those less fortunate, and treat them with charity, because you never can tell when you may suffer a reverse of fortune.

This is one of the cleanest, clearest, best attested, and most straightforward symbols from the inherited decks.

Two questions are at the bottom of my objection to the RWS design:

     How much of this traditional image do you recognise from the RWS card?

     What's the rest of that Egyptian and Hebrew stuff doing there?

Apparently the rising of (I assume) Anubis, the placing of the Sphinx at the top, and the descent of (I assume) Typhon are meant to suggest the triumph of Good over Evil. By putting them on the Wheel of Fortune, Waite suggests that the triumph of Good over Evil is a temporary thing, subject to sudden and unexpected setbacks, and Typhon's eventual triumph is also assured. I'm not at all sure that was intended, but that's the mixed message I get.

The Tetragrammaton just does not belong. The point of the allegory of the Wheel of Fortune is that earthly power is not necessarily the reward of divine favour. Nor does the ROTA/TARO/TORA punning, which sounds like something a loopy literary academic from the last century might have made up in any case.

[MystiqueMoonlight]

Well to break down the RW Wheel of Fortune:-

The four figures in each corner of the card appear in Revelations 4:7. Originally they represented Leo, Scorpio, Taurus and Aquarius. The Christians saw them a the four evangelist or "heaven's guardians".

The "Egyptian and Hebrew stuff" is as follows:-
The four letter Hebrew name of God "Yod He Vav He" which begins at the upper right hand corner going in an anti-clockwise direction. Because this word is made up of no vowels at all, as it appears in the Torah, it is considered unpronouncable and therefore meant to be secret and magickal. For Qaballists these are the very symbols of the mysteries of the world.

The Roman letters which appear between the Hebrew text are infact an anagram and spell out the various combinations of the word "Tora", "Rota" etc. The sentence Rota Taro Orat Tora Ator is actually what is states which means "The Wheel of Taro speaks the law of Ator"

On the spokes we have four alchemical symbols. From the top going clockwise is Mercury, Sulphur, Water and Salt. Which all relates to "transformation".

On the Wheel itself we have the snake Set, the Egyptian God of death, then under the wheel, travelling upward, is Anubis who is guide to the dead souls. The shpinx at the top of the wheel represents the God of resurrection. You may read this as Life triumphing over death. These figures don't necessarily represent the triumph of good over evil, but perhaps one may apply the Karmic Law here.

I would just like to say everything in our mundane world is temporary. We collect that which cannot be consumed by our Soul. Therefore our Soul has learnt nothing through the aquisition of 'stuff". It is by letting go of the "desire" and discovering the true "need' that our spiritual selves can move one step closer to the Divine.

Blessed be....

[Laurel]

In both sets of attributions, there's a definate sense of the revolution of the wheel, but I have to agree with Ihcoyc about the elegant simplicity of the traditional design as opposed to the RW.

The RW design asks more of you. Its an "occult" card, perhaps one of the most "occult" cards in the RW major Arcana. Waite wanted to take the context of fortune away from the individual and apply it to the secret workings of the universe- but not explain what those secret workings were, veiling it instead in symbols.

Laurel

[Rhiannon]

This deserves to be resurrected. I found the information very helpful and I'm SO thankful for the archives! :)