| A. E. Waite |
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Information AboutA. E. Waite |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE | |
| 1857 births | |
| 1942 deaths | |
| english occult writers | |
| freemasonry | |
| golden dawn | |
| tarot | |
| western mystics | |
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Arthur Edward Waite ( October 2 , 1857 - May 19 , 1942 ) was a scholarly Mystic who wrote extensively on Occult and Esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. As his biographer, R.A. Gilbert described him, "Waite's name has survived because he was the first to attempt a systematic study of the history of western occultism - viewed as a spiritual tradition rather than as aspects of proto-science or as the pathology of religion."Gilbert, R.A.''A.E. Waite: Magician of Many Parts'', Wellingborough, Northhamptonshire, 1987, p.361 Born in the United States, and raised in England , A.E. Waite joined the Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn in 1891, became a Freemason in 1901, and entered the '' Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia'' in 1902. The Golden Dawn was torn by further internal feuding until Waite's departure in 1914; a year later he formed the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, not to be confused with the Societas Rosicruciana. By that time there existed some half-dozen offshoots from the original Golden Dawn, and as a whole it never recovered.Howe, Ellic,''The Magicians of the Golden Dawn'', London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972 Waite was a prolific author with many of his works being well received in academic circles. He wrote occult texts on subjects including 's ''Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual'' (1896) having seen reprints in recent years. Waite is best known as the co-creator of the popular and widely used Rider-Waite Tarot deck and author of its companion volume, the ''Key to the Tarot'', republished in expanded form the following year, 1911, as the '' Pictorial Key To The Tarot '', a guide to Tarot Reading Waite, A.E., ''The Key to the Tarot'', London, 1910. The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot was notable for being one of the first tarot decks to illustrate all 78 cards fully, in addition to the 22 Major Arcana cards. Golden Dawn member Pamela Colman Smith illustrated the cards for Waite, and the deck was first published in 1910. OTHER WORKS
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