Most Noted For:

• Waite’s lasting legacy is through his creation of the Rider Waite Tarot Deck. 
• In his earlier years, while working as a clerk, he wrote poetry and romantic fiction. 
• Being an English mystic, occultist, and prolific writer on Masonic and esoteric subjects. 
• Waite's first published work was ‘An Ode to Astronomy’ (1877). 
• In 1886 Waite's first major work on the occult appeared: ‘The Mysteries of Magic, a Digest of the writings of Eliphas Levi’ (Redway 1886). 
• Waite was one of the leading figures in the Golden Dawn. (He joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in January of 1891. The Golden Dawn was torn by further internal feuding until Waite's departure in 1914). 
• A.E. Waite became a Freemason in 1901. 
• He entered the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1902. 
• Waite cooperated with Pamela Colman Smith ca. 1908 in the production of the Rider Waite Tarot deck published in 1910. It became the most successful Tarot deck of 20th century. (Also he authored a 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 made popular the Tarot spread known as the Celtic Cross. 
• He formed the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. (Not to be confused with the Societas Rosicruciana). 
• He edited a small magazine known as The Unknown World. 
• Waite found the Theosophical Society fascinating, but disapproved of the anti-Christian bias he found in the works of H. P. Blavatsky, its leading, driving force. 
• Waite was always biased in favor of the path of the Mystic rather than that of the Occultist. 
• Waite's distaste for magic moved him to replace it with mysticism. 
• Waite formulated the theory that all esoteric practices and traditions, whether Alchemy, Hebrew Kabbalah, Legends of the Holy Grail, Rosicrucianism, Christian Mysticism or Freemasonry, were secret paths to a direct experience of God. (He was convinced that the symbolism in each of these traditions had a common root and a common end, and that their correct interpretation would lead to a revelation of concealed ways to spiritual illumination). 
• Waite was a prolific author with many of his works being well received in academic circles. He wrote occult texts on subjects including divination, esotericism, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, black and ceremonial magic, Kabbalism and alchemy; he also translated and reissued several important mystical and alchemical works. His works on the Holy Grail, influenced by his friendship with Arthur Machen, were particularly notable. 

• Some of Arthur Waite's 70+ volumes include: 
• • An Ode to Astronomy 
  • The Book of Ceremonial Magic 
  • The Holy Kabbalah 
  • A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry 
  • Edited Translation of Eliphas Levi's Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual 
  • Digest of the writings of Eliphas Levi’ 
  • The Mysteries of Magic 
  • Handbook of Cartomancy 
  • The Occult Sciences 
  • Devil-Worship in France 
  • Louis Claude de Saint-Martin 
  • Studies in Mysticism 
  • The Key to the Tarot 
  • The Pictorial Key to the Tarot 
  • A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry 
  • Emblematic Freemasonry 
  • The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry 
  • Book of the Holy Grail 
  • Quest of the Golden Stairs 
  • Belle and the Dragon 
  • Unknown World 
  • Works of Thomas Vaughan 
  • The Way of Divine Union 
  • Strange Houses of Sleep 
  • Azoth or the Star in the East 
  • Book of Spells 
  • Collected Poems of Arthur Edward Waite 
  • The Golden Dawn Tarot 
  • Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus 
  • Hidden Church of the Holy Grail 
  • Raymond Lully 
  • Illuminated Doctor 
  • Alchemist and Christian Mystic 
  • Secret Doctrine in Israel 
  • Three Famous Mystics 
  • Turba Philosophorum 
  • Understanding the Tarot Deck 
  • The Way of Divine Union 
  • Autobiographical Shadows of Life and Though 
  • Other books, magazines, and lecture texts 

 

 

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