Arthur Edward Waite

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Arthur Edward Waite

Arthur Edward Waite (born October 2, 1857 in Brooklyn , New York , NY , USA , † May 19, 1942 in London ) was an Anglo-American occult author . He was a leading member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn secret society . He became famous for his Waite Tarot - Deck , whose pictures were made according to his specifications.

Life

Waite attended several small private schools in London before moving to St. Charles College at the age of thirteen. After graduating from school, Waite worked as a clerk and wrote poetry in his spare time.

When his little sister died unexpectedly in 1874, Waite had an occult and spiritual tendency and developed a keen interest in "psychological" research, later parapsychology , and at 21 he began to study all sorts of esoteric literature in the library of the British Museum. He maintained contacts with the Theosophical Association .

Waite spent many years of his life in England before returning to the United States. He was always in contact with various publishing houses and from 1894 to 1895 published his own little magazine, The Unknown World . Before long Waite was able to earn a living by writing various esoteric books. He endeavored (unlike other occultists before him) to study historical and critical studies in order to be taken seriously with his speculative writings, and translated several works by the French occultists Éliphas Lévi and Papus . Waite's book on Kabbalah is counted by Horst E. Miers among the best standard works in this genre ; Gershom Scholem points to Waite's “deep understanding of the world of Kabbalah” that “it is all the more regrettable that he is misled by his uncritical attitude towards historical and philological facts and by the incorrect and inadequate French translation of the Zohar by Jean de Pauly which he was forced to use because of his ignorance of Hebrew and Aramaic ”.

Waite temporarily practiced the healing profession, but it is not known whether he did so as a medical doctor or as a naturopath.

Waite in London, 1921.

Waite became known as an occultist and a mystic. In 1891, after Waite's first application for membership was rejected, he was accepted into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn , in which he rose to Gradus Philosophus , the highest rank of the outer order. On Waite's recommendation, Aleister Crowley was included in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He left the Golden Dawn in 1893 but rejoined in 1896 and gained access to the second order in 1899.

In the quarrels in the Golden Dawn around 1900, Waite took sides with the rebel faction, whose spokesman he became with the intention of taking over the leadership of the entire order. When this venture failed, Waite resigned from the Golden Dawn in 1903 and founded his own organization with his faction, the Independent and Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn , which rejected most of the magical content of the original order in order to support it through Christosophical considerations supplemented with Kabbalistic ideas. With this work he intended to show the connection between the classical secret teachings and Christianity . The remaining branch of the Golden Dawn was called Stella Matutina under the leadership of Felkins .

In 1914 there were disagreements within Waite's order, so Waite founded another order, the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross , which Waite led until his death. This order still exists today. (As of 2019).

Together with Pamela Colman Smith , Waite designed the now world-famous tarot deck , the Rider-Waite Tarot , which was published in 1910. This tarot is based on the hitherto rather unknown Sola-Busca-Tarot , and like this one, the small Arcana are completely illustrated. The Rider Waite Tarot is the most famous tarot deck.

Between 1920 and 1921, Waite and his colleague John Brahms Trinick designed another tarot, which was never published as a card set. It “only” consists of the 22 major arcana. Black and white reproductions of poor quality can be found in The History of the Occult Tarot by Ron Decker and Michael Dummett (2002).

Works (selection)

  • Arthur Edward Waite's Quest of the Golden Stairs . Kessinger Publication, 2003, ISBN 0-7661-4473-9 .
  • Collected Poems of Arthur Edward Waite . Kessinger Publication, 2003, ISBN 0-7661-7676-2 .
  • The Book of Ceremonial Magic: The Secret Tradition in Goetia, Including the Rites and Mysteries of Goetic Theurgy, Sorcery and Infernal Necromancy . 2005, ISBN 0-7103-1153-2 .
  • Steps to the Crown . 2005, ISBN 0-7661-9135-4 .
  • The Pictorial Key to the Tarot . Dover Publication, 2005, ISBN 0-486-44255-1 .
  • Inner and Outer Order Initiations of the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn . Canada: Burnaby, 2005, ISBN 0-9735931-7-2 .
  • Emblematic freemasonry and the evolution of its deeper issues. D. M'Kay ​​Co., Philadelphia 1925.
  • The alchemical papers of Arthur Edward Waite . Nocalore Press, 1938, OCLC 27153506 .

literature

  • John Michael Greer: Encyclopedia of Secret Doctrines. edited and supplemented by Frater V. D. Ansata-Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7787-7270-8 .
  • RA Gilbert: AE Waite, Magician of Many Parts. Crucible, Wellingborough (Northamptonshire) 1987, ISBN 1-85274-023-X .
  • Ronald Decker, Michael Dummett : A History of the Occult Tarot 1870-1970. Duckworth, London 2002, ISBN 0-7156-3122-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke : The Western Esoteric Traditions . A Historical Introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-532099-2 , pp. 204 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ^ Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century. Volume II, Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-044-7 , pp. 380-381.
  3. ^ Wouter J. Hanegraaff: Esotericism and the Academy . Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2012, ISBN 978-0-521-19621-5 , pp. 248 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ Horst E. Miers: Lexicon of secret knowledge. Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-442-12179-5 , p. 649.
  5. ↑ Gershom Scholem : The Jewish mysticism in their main currents (=  Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft . Volume 330 ). 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, p. 232 (English: Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism . Translated by Gershom Scholem and Nettie Katzenstein-Sutro).
  6. ^ Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century. Volume II, Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-044-7 , p. 381.
  7. ^ Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century. Volume II, Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-044-7 , p. 381.
  8. ↑ Horst E. Miers: Lexicon of secret knowledge. Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-442-12179-5 , p. 649.
  9. ↑ controverscial.com
  10. ^ Everything2.com
  11. ↑ ghostvillage.com
personal data
SURNAME Waite, Arthur Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American occultist
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York , United States
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1942
Place of death London