The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by A.E. Waite

The designer's own key. Waite's meanings for all 78 cards, upright and reversed.

The classic images. Pamela Colman Smith's card illustrations reproduced throughout.

The reading method. Includes the Celtic Cross spread that became the standard.

• Title: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot; author: Arthur Edward Waite
• First published 1910-1911 as the companion to the Rider-Waite-Smith deck
• Covers major and minor arcana with divinatory meanings and spread instruction
• SKU: BPICKEY0TA

Nearly every tarot book on the modern shelf descends from this one, because nearly every modern deck descends from the cards it describes. Waite's great innovation, executed by Smith's brush, was giving the minor arcana full pictorial scenes rather than mere suit markers, which made the deck readable by image and turned tarot from an occultist's cipher into a practice anyone could learn. The Pictorial Key is Waite explaining his own design: sometimes plainspoken, sometimes deliberately veiled in the Golden Dawn manner, always the closest thing to authorial intent the tradition possesses. Students read it for the meanings; longtime readers reread it to notice what Waite chose not to say.

1. Read it alongside a Rider-Waite-Smith deck, card in hand, image against Waite's text.
2. Learn the divinatory meanings, upright and reversed, as the base layer of study.
3. Practice the Celtic Cross as Waite presents it, the spread's original instruction.
4. Return to it as you grow; Waite's veiled passages reward the second reading.

• Tarot of Pagan Cats: a Rider-Waite-Smith-based deck to read against the text.
• Pentagram Pendulum Mat, 8 x 12 Inches: the divination table's other furniture.
• Pendulum Magic by Fortuna Noir (Pocket Spell Books 6): a companion divination method in pocket form.

Is this the book for the Rider-Waite deck?

Yes, it is the original companion: Waite designed the deck and wrote this key to it, with Pamela Colman Smith's illustrations reproduced within.

Is it beginner friendly?

Yes with patience: the card meanings and spread instruction are clear, while some symbolic passages are deliberately veiled in the period's occult style, which is part of its charm.

Does it cover reversals?

Yes, Waite gives divinatory meanings for cards upright and reversed across all 78.