The seventy-eight cards
A. E. Waite wrote The Pictorial Key to the Tarot in 1911 to accompany the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith — the deck nearly every modern one descends from. Every word below is his, taken from the copy this library publishes, with the page cited.
- IThe MagicianGreater Arcana
- IIThe High PriestessGreater Arcana
- IIIThe EmpressGreater Arcana
- IVThe EmperorGreater Arcana
- VThe HierophantGreater Arcana
- VIThe LoversGreater Arcana
- VIIThe ChariotGreater Arcana
- VIIIStrength, or FortitudeGreater Arcana
- IXThe HermitGreater Arcana
- XWheel of FortuneGreater Arcana
- XIJusticeGreater Arcana
- XIIThe Hanged ManGreater Arcana
- XIIIDeathGreater Arcana
- XIVTemperanceGreater Arcana
- XVThe DevilGreater Arcana
- XVIThe TowerGreater Arcana
- XVIIThe StarGreater Arcana
- XVIIIThe MoonGreater Arcana
- XIXThe SunGreater Arcana
- XXThe Last JudgmentGreater Arcana
- 0The FoolGreater Arcana
- XXIThe WorldGreater Arcana
- King of WandsWands
- Queen of WandsWands
- Knight of WandsWands
- Page of WandsWands
- Ten of WandsWands
- Nine of WandsWands
- Eight of WandsWands
- Seven of WandsWands
- Six of WandsWands
- Five of WandsWands
- Four of WandsWands
- Three of WandsWands
- Two of WandsWands
- Ace of WandsWands
- King of CupsCups
- Queen of CupsCups
- Knight of CupsCups
- Page of CupsCups
- Ten of CupsCups
- Nine of CupsCups
- Eight of CupsCups
- Seven of CupsCups
- Six of CupsCups
- Five of CupsCups
- Four of CupsCups
- Three of CupsCups
- Two of CupsCups
- Ace of CupsCups
- King of SwordsSwords
- Queen of SwordsSwords
- Knight of SwordsSwords
- Page of SwordsSwords
- Ten of SwordsSwords
- Nine of SwordsSwords
- Eight of SwordsSwords
- Seven of SwordsSwords
- Six of SwordsSwords
- Five of SwordsSwords
- Four of SwordsSwords
- Three of SwordsSwords
- Two of SwordsSwords
- Ace of SwordsSwords
- King of PentaclesPentacles
- Queen of PentaclesPentacles
- Knight of PentaclesPentacles
- Page of PentaclesPentacles
- Ten of PentaclesPentacles
- Nine of PentaclesPentacles
- Eight of PentaclesPentacles
- Seven of PentaclesPentacles
- Six of PentaclesPentacles
- Five of PentaclesPentacles
- Four of PentaclesPentacles
- Three of PentaclesPentacles
- Two of PentaclesPentacles
- Ace of PentaclesPentacles
The trap in this book
Waite's plates sit a page ahead of the text they belong to, so the file reads [Illustration: THE MAGICIAN.] and then, immediately underneath, TWO. THE HIGH PRIESTESS and the High Priestess's description. There are twenty-two plates and twenty-two trumps, so taking the captions as the index is the obvious thing to do — and it would have published the Magician with the High Priestess's words, and every other trump one place out, with nothing about the result looking wrong.
What rules it out is that Waite lists the trumps twice: once to describe them, and again under The Greater Arcana and their Divinatory Meanings to give their fortunes. Two independent orderings of the same twenty-two names in one book. They are extracted separately and compared, and they agree. The headings are the index here; the captions are ignored.
What is missing, and why
The Fool has no entry in Waite's numbered list of meanings. He treats it apart from the sequence, remarking that it “in most of the arrangements is the cipher card, number nothing”. That gap is his and it is left as it is.
The library holds three printings of this book. Only one came through scanning with its structure intact, so the text is taken from that one; the other two survive as running prose and are useful for reading rather than for indexing.
What this is not
These are the meanings one man assigned in 1911, published because they are public domain and because a great many later books copy them without saying so. The library takes no position on whether cards predict anything, and this page tells no fortunes.
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