Sloppy, Sloppy, Sloppy
Further up the thread someone mentioned Katz's and Goodwin's hurry to get *The Secrets of the Waite-Smith Traot* out. I've seen that mentioned several other places around the net. They should have taken the time to have the copy gone through by a good editor (not to mention a good layout artist). There are plenty of minor, and some not so minor, errors that add up and have the effect of causing a reader to wonder just how much their overall information can be trusted. A couple of examples:
- On page 40 they write "Pamela had both her own personal experience and knowledge of the theatre and also through Irving, Gillette, Terry, and..." Terry we know from earlier in the chapter, but Irving and Gillette? I knew who Gillette was only because of the time period in question and because Gillette Castle is not far from where I grew up. Not until page 50 do they introduce Gillette and explain who he was and his relationship to Smith. Irving is also finally introduced on the same page.
- On page 126 they write "Whilst it is apparent that the famous tomb in the church served as a model for the 6 of Swords..." It's pretty clear they meant the 4 of Swords, since on page 106 they write "The local church of St. Thomas the Martyr contains a famous tomb underneath a stained glass window, the model for the 4 of Swords." Furthermore, there is a picture of the actual tomb on page 310 in the section about the 4 of Swords (the six is the boat being poled away from the viewer).
While the book is not an academic tome, the scholar in me cringes at Katz's and Goodwin's inconsistent methods of documenting their sources--something that is important even if it isn't meant to be a formal, academic study of the deck and its creators. In some places they use end notes and in others parentheticals. In at least one place there's no citation at all! On pages 93-95 are two of Crowley's reviews of the deck. The first is clearly attributed, but the second is not, even though they state that these are reviews (plural) not from quotes from a single review. In the sections that describe the cards there is no documentation as to which pieces come from Waite's work, both published and unpublished. They do say on page 113 "Where quotes are given in this chapter without further reference, they are from their appropriate card descriptions in *The Pictorial Key to the Tarot*. Waite's description is usually given as the first paragraph underneath the card image..." Usually does not equal always, and that makes it difficult for the average reader to sort through whose words are whose.
Not having an index is really annoying when trying to find things.
In terms of layout there are numerous places where pictures and diagrams are not anywhere near the text that refers to them. In some places it's more of a convenience. In Chapter Seven, "The Kabbalah of the Minors" they introduce the Tree of Life on page 321 with two tables of correspondences on page 322. Yet the diagram of the tree is on page 339 in the middle of the section on the Tree of Cups.
All sloppiness aside, a lot of what Katz and Goodwin have to say, especially where Smith is concerned, is pure conjecture. That doesn't necessarily detract from what they're attempting to do. Their theoretical framework does provide a fresh lens for looking at the Waite-Smith deck. But it's still theory.