A. E. Waite
Arthur Edward Waite | |
---|---|
Waite in the early 1880s | |
Born | Brooklyn, New York, United States | 2 October 1857
Died | 19 May 1942 London, England | (aged 84)
Resting place | Bishopsbourne Village, in the county of Kent, England |
Nationality | British |
Known for | Rider-Waite Tarot deck |
Spouse(s) | Ada Lakeman, Mary Broadbent Schofield |
Children | Sybil Waite |
Parent(s) | Captain Charles F. Waite, Emma Lovell |
Relatives | Frederika Waite |
Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942) was an American-born British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider-Waite tarot deck (also called the Rider-Waite-Smith or Waite-Smith 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."[1]
Early life
Waite was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States.[2] Waite's father, Capt. Charles F. Waite, died when he was very young, and his widowed mother, Emma Lovell, returned to her home country of England, where he was then raised.[3] They were well enough off to educate Waite at a small private school in North London. When he was 13, he was educated at St. Charles' College.[4] When he left school to become a clerk he wrote verse in his spare time. In 1863 Waite's mother converted to Catholicism. The death of his sister Frederika Waite in 1874 soon attracted him into psychical research. At 21, he began to read regularly in the Library of the British Museum, studying many branches of esotericism. In 1881 Waite discovered the writings of Eliphas Levi.
When Waite was almost 30 he married Ada Lakeman (also called "Lucasta"), and they had one daughter, Sybil. Some time after Lucasta's death in 1924, Waite married Mary Broadbent Schofield. He spent most of his life in or near London, connected to various publishing houses and editing a magazine, The Unknown World.
Career
Golden Dawn
Waite joined the Outer Order of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in January 1891 after being introduced by E.W. Berridge.[5] In 1893 he withdrew from the Golden Dawn. In 1896 he rejoined the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn. In 1899 he entered the Second order of the Golden Dawn. He became a Freemason in 1901,[6][7] and entered the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1902. In 1903 Waite founded the Independent and Rectified Order R. R. et A. C. This Order was disbanded in 1914. The Golden Dawn was torn by internal feuding until Waite's departure in 1914; in July 1915 he formed the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross,[8] 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.[9]
Aleister Crowley, Waite's foe, referred to him as the villainous "Arthwate" in his novel Moonchild and referred to him as "Dead Waite" in his magazine Equinox. Lovecraft has a villainous wizard in his short story "The Thing on the Doorstep" called Ephraim Waite; according to Robert M. Price, this character was based on Waite.[10]
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Author and scholar
Waite was a prolific author and many of his works were well received in academic circles.[citation needed] He wrote occult texts on subjects including divination, esotericism, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, and ceremonial magic, Kabbalism and alchemy; he also translated and reissued several mystical and alchemical works. He wrote about the Holy Grail, influenced by his friendship with Arthur Machen.[11][12] A number of his volumes remain in print, including The Book of Ceremonial Magic (1911), The Holy Kabbalah (1929), A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (1921), and his edited translation of Eliphas Levi's 1896 Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual (1910), having seen reprints in recent years. Waite also wrote two allegorical fantasy novels, Prince Starbeam (1889) and The Quest of the Golden Stairs (1893), and edited Elfin Music, an anthology of poetry based on English fairy folklore.[13]
Tarot deck
Waite is best known for his involvement with the Rider-Waite tarot deck, first published in 1909, with illustrations by Golden Dawn member Pamela Colman Smith. Waite authored the deck's companion volume, the Key to the Tarot, republished in expanded form in 1911 as the Pictorial Key to the Tarot, a guide to Tarot reading.[14] The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot was notable for illustrating all 78 cards fully, at a time when only the 22 major arcana were typically illustrated. (The Sola Busca tarot, 1491, being a notable historical exception.)
Publications
- Israfel: Letters, Visions and Poems, London: Allen, 1886.
- The Mysteries of Magic: A Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Levi, London: George Redway, 1886.
- Alchemists Through the Ages, 1888
- Songs and Poems of Fairyland: An Anthology of English Fairy Poetry, London, 1888
- The Occult Sciences: A Compendium of Transcendental Doctrine and Experiment, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1891.
- The Hermetic Museum, in two volumes. London, 1893.
- The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly, London, 1893.
- Turba Philsophorum (translator), 1894
- Devil-Worship in France. London: George Redway, 1896.
- The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, 1898.
- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: William Ryder & Son, Ltd., 1911.
- The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry, in two volumes. London: Rebman, 1911.
- The Book of Destiny and The Art of Reading Therein, London: William Rider & Son Ltd., 1912.
- The Book of Ceremonial Magic, London: 1913.
- A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, 1921.
- Saint-Martin: The French Mystic and the Story of Modern Martinism, 1922.
- The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross: Being Records of the House of the Holy Spirit in its Inward and Outward History, London: William Rider & Son Ltd., 1924.
- The Secret Tradition in Alchemy: Its Development and Records, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926.
- The Holy Kabbalah, 1929.
- The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite, in two volumes, London: William Rider & Son Ltd.
- A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry (Ars Magna Latomorum) and of Cognate Instituted Mysteries: Their Rites, Literature, and History, New York: Wings Books, 1994. ISBN 0517191482.
- The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail: Its Legends and Symbolism Considered in Their Affinity with Certain Mysteries of Initiation and Other Traces of a Secret Tradition in Christian Times], Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Fredonia Books, 2002. ISBN 1-58963-905-7.
- Inner and Outer Order Initiations of the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn, Canada: Burnaby, 2005. ISBN 0-9735931-7-2.
- Theories As to the Authorship of the Rosicrucian Manifestos, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-4253-3290-0.
References
- ^ Gilbert, 1987, p. 361.
- ^ "Arthur Edward Waite". Kheper.
- ^ "Arthur Edward Waite". Controverscial.
- ^ "Arthur Edward Waite". Everything2.com.
- ^ King, p. 52.
- ^ "Arthur E. Waite". Freemasonry.bcy.ca. Retrieved 31 March 2012.
- ^ Gilbert, R. A. "The Masonic Career of A. E. Waite". Ars Quatuor Coronatorum. QCCC Correspondence Circle Limited. Archived from the original on 5 September 2010. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
- ^ "Arthur Edward Waite by Lee Prosser". Ghostvillage.com. Retrieved 31 March 2012.
- ^ Howe, Ellic,The Magicians of the Golden Dawn, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972
- ^ Price, Robert M., ed. (1995). The Azathoth Cycle: tales of the blind idiot god. Oakland, California: Chaosium. p. vi. ISBN 978-1-56882-040-8.
- ^ Waite, A. E., Shadows of Life and Thought: A Retrospective Review in the Form of Memoirs, London: Selwyn and Blount, 1938
- ^ Gilbert, 1987.
- ^ Brian Stableford, "Waite, A. E.", The A to Z of Fantasy Literature, (pp. 420–21). ISBN 0-8108-6829-6
- ^ Waite, A. E., The Key to the Tarot, London, 1910
- Citations
- Gilbert, R. A. A. E. Waite: Magician of Many Parts. Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. 1987.
- King, Francis X. Modern Ritual Magic: The Rise of Western Occultism (2nd ed.).
External links
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- Short Biography
- Works by Arthur Edward Waite at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about A. E. Waite at the Internet Archive
- Works by A. E. Waite at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- "The Masonic Career of A. E. Waite", AQC Vol 99 1986
- Works by Arthur Edward Waite at sacred-texts.com (plain text and HTML)
- Bibliography of A. E. Waite
- Arthur Edward Waite at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Arthur Edward Waite at Library of Congress, with 97 library catalogue records
- 1857 births
- 1942 deaths
- People from Brooklyn
- American emigrants to England
- English occult writers
- Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
- Mystics
- Tarot readers
- Freemasons of the United Grand Lodge of England
- Victorian writers
- English fantasy writers
- 19th-century British writers
- 20th-century British writers
- Converts to Roman Catholicism
- 19th-century British short story writers
- Tarotologists
- 19th-century occultists