In the 1800s, many occultists were cashing in on the spiritual and metaphysical interests of that era. Arthur Waite was different from other mystics of his time. He wanted to share his ideas, not keep them within a secret society, or within a closed circle of initiates.

Let me tell you a bit about this man. Apart from producing the Rider-Waite deck, Arthur Waite wrote 46 books, and translated, introduced, or edited another 40 more, and wrote more than 40 rituals for the magical organisations he directed in his time. Some of his subject matter was: divination, Kabbalism, alchemy, the Holy Grail, esotericism, ceremonial magic, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and of course, Tarot. 

In his Tarot deck he placed lots of obvious and hidden symbols to prove to everyone how much he knew about all of these subjects. These symbols gave the cards a bit more potency, and it gave card readers a bit of a thrill when they discovered an extra level of meaning to the card they were looking at.

Waite was a Freemason, Rosicrucian, and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He was around at the time of Aleister Crowley, but they didn’t get along well. If you read Crowley’s book ‘Moonchild’, you’ll find references to Waite. He is portrayed as a villain called Arthwait. He is described in various unflattering ways, such as…

“Arthwait was comically ignorant of the languages in which he boasted scholarship.” This was followed by, “It would be only by an effort that he spoke in English; the least distraction would send him back into Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, none of which languages he understood. He was a peddler of words; his mind was a rag-and-bone shop of worthless and disjointed medievalism.” And… “Arthwait was naturally slow of thought and speech; it took him some time to warm up to real eloquence; and then he became so long-winded, and lost himself so completely in his words and phrases, that he would speak for many hours without conveying a single idea of any kind to his hearers…”

Apart from lampooning him in fiction, Crowley is also quoted as saying this about Waite’s contribution to the study of the occult, “Waite certainly did start a revival of interest in Alchemy, Magic, Mysticism, and all the rest. That his scholarship was so contemptible, his style so over-loaded, and his egomania so outrageous does not kill to the point of extinction, the worth of his contribution.”

However, a biographer of Waite, (R. A. Gilbert) comes to his defence and suggests, “Crowley’s hostility centred on his awareness that Waite had perceived the true nature of magic and pointed to another way — that of the mystic. Unwilling to accept what he knew inwardly to be true; Crowley turned to verbiage and venom, at the same time belittling himself and ensuring that future generations of occultists should know of Waite and be curious.”

In other words, both Crowley and his biographer (R. A. Gilbert) are biased. The truth about Waite’s character and nature is probably somewhere between these two extremes.