by Sasha Graham
Stuart traveled to the deserts of Algiers for the New Year holiday two months later, oblivious of Pamela’s passing. He was at a crossroads. What next? The yellow desert’s wild landscape allowed his mind to reach natural conclusions about the direction he needed to take. He applied by cable to two schools, Dartmouth and Wharton. Dartmouth said no. Wharton said yes. Stuart packed his bags and headed to school in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Wharton, joined the army, and upon release moved into a small studio on Forty-Second Street and Lexington Avenue with his wife. He managed his Wall Street duties while looking for something he might pioneer. He wrote and published an expansive sourcebook called Mining, Minerals, and Geosciences. He was ready to write another if the public demanded.
Stuart was perusing a German toy fair when he stumbled across a 1JJ Swiss tarot deck. The tarot images captured his imagination, and he thought the public might like it too. He secured the rights to the deck and ordered a small printing. Henry Levy, a buyer for New York City’s tony Fifth Avenue bookshop Brentano’s, suggested Stuart write a book about how to use a deck of tarot cards. Ironically, Brentano’s downtown Union Square location once sold copies of Pamela Colman Smith’s self-published magazine, the Green Sheath. Stuart followed Levy’s advice and wrote Tarot for Fun and Fortune Telling. After twenty printings and 700,000 copies sold, he realized he was onto something. He went on to publish four more books about tarot, cumulatively selling over a million copies.
Stuart went to England and signed a contract for the RWS deck after Weiser suggested he look into it. Stuart had been balancing his publishing with Wall Street for ten years. Stuart took the plunge with a mortgage and four children. He left Wall Street and moved his company, U.S. Games, Inc., to Stamford, Connecticut, near his home and family. Twenty-five dedicated employees work there to this day. The facility acquires, prints, and ships decks, books, and oracle cards. U.S. Games’s buzzing offices create new products each year and is a family affair, employing family members and loyal employees. Stuart even built a luscious outdoor dog run for employees’ dogs, landscaped with fruit trees.
Stuart is a collector and researcher by nature. When asked what he likes to collect, he replies, “What I don’t have,” with a smile. He has amassed the largest private Pamela Colman Smith collection in the world. Pamela was a prolific artist, her tarot deck being one small piece in an enormous career spanning years. An oil painting of Pamela hangs above Stuart’s desk. It is his most prized acquisition and the single Pamela object he says he would rescue from a burning building. Arthur Waite, Alister Crowley, and the Golden Dawn esotericists never resonated for Stuart. For him, Pamela is the pure source. Everything begins and ends with Pamela’s art. Stuart plans to keep the Pamela collection intact and to someday donate it to a library or museum where her legacy will live on.
Stuart is often found at U.S. Games seven days a week, researching, writing, and working. He sees no separation between work and home. Stuart has always stuck to a simple recipe for success. His advice is simple, and it will ensure progress no matter how it is used. It can be applied to a personal life, creativity, or a passion. He advises people to move forward and never allow themselves to get bogged down in minor details, saying, “It’s better to do something and get it wrong than not do it at all.”
The Lesson
These three people are the exclusive reason the RWS deck is the most beloved deck of all time. Their lessons are valuable to each and every soul who shuffles cards to seek answers to life’s most important questions. Pamela, Waite, and Stuart all focused on their passions and abilities. They did not conceive of an end plan or know exactly what it would look like. They trusted in their gifts and followed their instincts. Each knew they held special talents. Each knew they would impact the world. Not one of them realized it would be through tarot.
Pamela wrote about “a big job for little money.” Waite had no idea out of his forty-plus books that his smallest tome, The Pictorial Key, and his rectified tarot would arrest the world’s imagination and become a best seller. Stuart claims he would have happily continued writing about minerals and gems if that was where the market had carried him.
These three figures are a lesson for anyone who asks the tarot, “What should I be doing with my life?” Their lives and stories are the answer to this question. The lesson from each of them remains the same. Stay in the moment. Focus on the task at hand. Work hard at what you like and what you are talented at. Do not anticipate the outcome. Rid yourself of any preconceived ideas and notions. Make room for the unimaginable.
Who ever would have believed that seventy-eight cards would affect the lives of millions of people? Who would have thought tarot would become a legitimate career, enabling female entrepreneurs to create holistic start-up businesses? Who could have imagined the world’s literary giants from T. S. Eliot to Italo Calvino and fashion powerhouses from Dolce and Gabana to Karl Lagerfeld would look to tarot for inspiration? Who could have foreseen ancient tarot cards becoming an important contemporary holistic tool?
Tarot existed before the RWS deck. It will continue to evolve after it. The RWS deck’s popularity, availability, and charm reflect the biggest milestone in tarot’s evolution to date. Stuart Kaplan says, “Tarot is the ultimate book. Every time the deck is shuffled, new stories are formed and possibilities appear.” Stuart’s favorite card is the Fool; its image is his company’s logo. The RWS deck specifically moved the Fool to the front of the pack. Stuart’s birthday is April 1, April Fool’s Day. The signs were there all along.
Signs surround us at all times. It is up to us to decipher them. If we are good detectives, if we read the omens and patterns of our life, if we listen to internal whispers, we will cultivate our special gifts and unique talents. We will figure out the mystery of why we are here. Once we embrace the mystery, we can jump inside. The work and play begins as we experiment inside the infinity of it. We realize that uncovering our whole self to the world is the greatest gift of all.
[contents]
1. MacDonald, “The Fairy Faith and Pictured Music of Pamela Colman Smith,” 27, 28.
2. “Representative Women Illustrators,” 527.
3. “Witchery in London Drawing Rooms.”
4. MacDonald, 32.
5. “Witchery in London Drawing Rooms.”
6. Ibid.
7. Tell, “Cleverness, Art and an Artist,” 139.
8. Pamela Colman Smith, handwritten letter to Arthur Stieglitz, November 19, 1909.
9. Tell, “Cleverness, Art and an Artist,” 139.
10. R. R. G., “Pamela Colman Smith, She Believes in Fairies,” 320.
11. “Made Veteran Humorist Laugh.”
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. “Witchery in London Drawing Rooms.”
18. Brush and Pencil, volume VI, 1900.
19. Melinda Boyd Parsons, To All Believers—The Art of Pamela Colman Smith (Delaware Art Museum, 1975).
20. Garrett Caples, Retrievals (Wave Books, 2014).
21. “Made Veteran Humorist Laugh.”
22. MacDonald, “The Fairy Faith and Pictured Music of Pamela Colman Smith.”
23. R. R. G., “Pamela Colman Smith, She Believes in Fairies,” 320.
24. “Made Veteran Humorist Laugh.”
25. Waite, Collected Poems, Volume 1.
26. Gilbert, A. E. Waite.
27. Waite, Shadows of Light and Thought, 194.
28. Ibid.
29. Waite, The Holy Kabbalah.
30. Gilbert, A. E. Waite.
chapter three
Binah (Understanding)
T
he Golden Dawn
What would you consider the most important human invention of all time? What makes life easiest for you? The wheel, the light bulb? The internet, the hairdryer? All inventions, from electricity to computers, have their raw materials already in existence. People figured out how to piece the invention together. From the telephone to the refrigerator, inventions were waiting for the human mind to connect the dots and put them to use. Indispensable future inventions, new technologies, medicines, cures, things we can’t imagine in the present moment—all their base materials exist in the present. We simply haven’t figured out how to put it together yet.
Early people used water and fire for basics. As cultures grew more complex, they refined the use of essentials. A simple campfire was prized for its ability to heat the body and transform hunted meat into savory meals. Through centuries of evolution, people transmuted fire into the energy to power steam ships and trains. Water, initially used for drinking, bathing, and washing, became hydropower and irrigation sources for complex farming. Water is now crafted into backyard lagoons, swimming pools, and water parks. The same process occurred with the tarot deck. Tarot existed for hundreds of years. Europeans used the cards for gaming and fortunetelling, while elite royal families commissioned tarot decks as art objects. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that tarot’s usage would be altered forever as occultists discovered a brand-new way to use the cards.
Occult fascination was brewing in Europe at a fevered pace during the nineteenth century. Egyptian treasures were plundered and brought back to Europe on a daily basis. The public’s interest in Spiritualism, table tipping, séances, fairy lore, and fantasy was at an all-time high. The British Museum’s reading room was a hotbed of esoteric study. The museum’s massive dome housed page after page of ancient manuscripts. Medieval grimoires written by history’s greatest magicians, alchemists, and astrologers such as Queen Elizabeth’s John Dee filled the shelves. These rare, dusty books and pamphlets were a physical source of great research in a pre-internet world. Occultists pored over these works during reading room hours. Intellectuals, writers, and researchers met each other and formed friendships and bonds that took them out of the museum and into local pubs and social clubs.
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was an enterprising group of occultists who would create a secret society the likes of which the world had never known. The Golden Dawn formed in London’s deep shadows. They set off to embrace the outer limits of human consciousness. The club allowed women to join, breaking with the patriarchal tradition of the day. These men and women practiced ceremonial magic, induced out-of-body experiences, astral traveled, studied Jewish mysticism, and made contact with divine entities and spirits. They practiced divination and scrying, and they studied alchemy. The focal point of their work was the active working up and down of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. It incorporated Enochian magic, shamanic journeying, and cartomancy. Tarot operated as a visual workbook for the Golden Dawn. Each of the esoteric practices they worked behind shuttered doors linked perfectly to tarot’s structure. Tarot continued a perfectly crafted archetypal framework through which they would view, understand, and approach the mysterious operations they undertook. The tarot already existed in its original form. The Golden Dawn reinvented what could be accomplished with the deck and made minor readjustments to the deck as needed. They altered the trajectory of tarot forever.
Masonic Structure
The Golden Dawn’s structural forefather is Freemasonry. Freemasonry and tarot’s common denominator is a perfectly designed structure. Freemasonry’s elegant organization was a core reason the Golden Dawn existed with ease. Freemasonry provided a workable structure for the group to organize itself, while tarot provided a workable tool to support and examine all esoteric and occult arts. The Golden Dawn peeled away the Masonic symbolism and replaced it with magical symbolism.
Tarot does not contain all occult arts, nor was the Golden Dawn a Masonic organization. Each system was used as a blueprint. The Golden Dawn’s core contingency was a group of artistic, imaginative, and fiercely intellectual people. They approached their work with the utmost seriousness. Their experiments and explorations required discipline and structure. Tarot and Freemasonry provided the dual pillars that would enhance their profound influence on the Western magical tradition. The Golden Dawn’s effects are still felt in modern New Age practices, magical circles, and power of attraction principles.
Freemasonry is a secret society. It contains two specific and separate groups, operative and speculative. Operative masons are the stoneworkers, architects, and builders. These workers organized themselves into trade guilds in feudal Europe. They used secret signs and rituals to safeguard their profession. Masons held highly specialized skills. They were able to move freely through a society full of serfs and peasants. Masons traveled to where the work was. They often spent years constructing grand cathedrals, chapels, and castles.
Masons are in the business of creating sacred space. As builders of holy places and houses of divine presence, it wasn’t surprising the group moved toward spiritual pursuits. They used principles of science and logic and aligned them with spiritual enlightenment. Freemasonry evolved past trade unions and into social clubs engaging in a spiritual practice. The Grand Architect became a metaphor for god. The builder became a metaphor for a man who crafts his life though actions, choices, and deeds.
Speculative Masons are Masonic organizations whose members are not actually builders and stoneworkers. Drive through any sizable American town and you’ll notice a local Freemason lodge. They are usually marked with a Masonic square and compass with a “G” in the center. The “G” stands for Grand Architect. The square and compass, a symbolic circle and cube, contain multiple spiritual lessons. They additionally correlate to the Empress and Emperor cards of the tarot deck. Speculative Masonry spread like wildfire in pre-twentieth-century Europe and America. Members used them as fashionable social clubs. Speculative Masons created a path of moral and spiritual development based on preexisting Masonic rituals. Famous Masons include American founding fathers George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton. Masonic imagery and symbols appear on US currency, most pointedly the pyramid with the all-seeing eye on the American dollar bill.
Initiation served an essential quality of Masonic operation. It played a key role in the Golden Dawn, and it operates in modern tarot usage. Initiation serves the same purpose in any fraternal organization, from indigenous tribes to Greek mystery schools to fraternities. Initiation is a global and cross-cultural practice. The spiritual lessons of these groups were more than stories and parables in a book. They are not taught or orated. It was essential that the lessons be experienced by the practitioner. The individual meets the experience at a personal level, through their unique viewpoint. The process is immersive.
A boy on the threshold of adulthood can’t understand what it means to fend for his life until he actually does it. He is trained, given survival tools, and sent on a multi-day adventure into the wild. His experience occurs alone. He quests to find himself. He returns and is declared a man. Each of us must meet life on our own terms and experience certain key moments for ourselves. We don’t know what it means to fall in love until lightning strikes our heart and we tremble in passion’s wake. A woman can anticipate and imagine childbirth yet never know what contractions feel like until she experiences them. Tarot is initiatory because our experience colors the card’s meanings. Events unfold as each card is encountered. Each of us brings our own unique experience to the cards. Our past/present/future experiences can be held against the cards for further understanding.
Tribal initiations are extreme, external, and physical in nature. Masonic and mystery initiations seek to transform via symbol. It is an interior transformation. The initiate is blindfolded. The blindfold represents darkness and the former life of the initiate. The initiate moves through an ordeal. Down is up and up is down. The ego breaks
and the soul is reborn. The blindfold is removed. The initiate sees the world with a new set of eyes. The initiate is accepted by the tribe and recognized as one of their own. The same system is used in fraternities and sororities on college campuses.
Freemasonry and occultism gained momentum among buttoned-down Victorian societies who held strict moral and ethical codes. Their behavior reflects a universal human desire for archetypal, primal experience. Victorians sought the tribal experience inside the parameters of their “proper” and colonialist culture. They embraced the initiatory experience, an essential step for the mystical and magical practitioner, inside their lodges. The Worshipful Grandmaster would rattle chains, make strange noises, and create an intense sensory experience for his blindfolded initiate, all the while dressed in a three-piece suit decorated with medals and medallions. The initiatory experience, rooted in indigenous cultures, played out in Masonic halls across Europe and the United States. The fact that millions of European and American men participated in such rituals, even if its aims were social rather than spiritual, is a startling and interesting commentary on human nature’s primal desires.
Masonic grades marked the Mason as he rose to higher levels. The Golden Dawn used these grades, but instead of applying Masonic ideals, they placed occult and magical philosophy inside their systems. The Masonic framework gave them structure. They filled the structure with their own unique blend of magic and mystery. The Masonic structure gave the Golden Dawn the building blocks for their magical organization.