The Celtic tarot and the secret traditions: a study in modern legend making

Folklore, Annual, 1998 by Juliette Wood

The Creation of the Celtic Tarot

Waite's autobiography suggests that the Order of the Golden Dawn did not sufficiently appreciate tarot mysticism. His new tarot was part of the reforms he introduced around 1904 (Cavendish 1975, 34-5; Gilbert 1987b, 137-9). Waite never described the meaning of this new tarot fully in any one place, though he considered it a channel for the transmission of a secret tradition. The four most important cards were the High Priestess, who signified the Great Mother and the Secret Church; the Magician, who signified the initiate; the Fool, who represented the soul aspiring to a higher life; and the Hanged Man (Waite 1909a, 600-14; 1911a, 81-3). Material in the form of personal ritual books compiled by members of the Order of the Golden Dawn illustrate the idiosyncratic nature of this imagery. It also demonstrates how little continuity there is between any earlier medieval referent in the symbolism and the interpretations suggested by later occultism (Raine 1972, illus. 59ff). Esoteric explanations are given for the Hanged Man which associate the figure with Odin and the Dying God (Huson 1971, 200-2; Levi 1980, 102; Ferguson 1995, 77-8). In the context of J.G. Frazer's reconstruction of the myth of the dying god, the figure might seem a very ancient symbol (Raine 1972, 40-4; Cavendish 1975, 106; Weston 1993, xxi-xxviii); Dummett, however, suggests that it entered the tarot pack quite by accident as a misprint of the image of Prudence (Dummett 1980, 124). The Hanged Man might also be a prominent Renaissance image linked to the public shaming of criminal behaviour (Edgerton 1985, 86-7).

Waite was the first writer to call the four suits of the tarot deck the "Grail Hallows" (Waite 1909a, 600-14; 1933, 572-4). According to him, these, together with the Grail itself, were held in trust by a secret fellowship (Waite 1909a, 626-60; Cavendish 1978, 209-10). For the first time, the mystical interpretations of these cards are linked to speculations about connections between older Irish literature and medieval romance. Though this speculation is intriguing and represents a new direction in tarot theory, it fails to establish a compelling link to Celtic culture. However, this has not prevented it becoming a cornerstone among some New Age Celtic writers.

One source of Waite's idea may have been Nutt, who suggested that the four supernatural objects of the Tuatha De Danann resembled the objects in the Grail procession of medieval romance (Nuts 1888, 124 and 209). Elsewhere, the origin of these ideas has been attributed to Yeats (Matthews 1990b, 128). Waite himself was somewhat resentful that scholars like Jessie Weston and poets like Yeats apparently got the credit for his suggestion (Waite 1933, 574). It is, of course, difficult to sort out the origins for these ideas with absolute clarity, since writers with an interest in the occult read the same material and were influenced by the same ideas (Senior 1959, Introduction). The numerous letters quoted by Ellic Howe in his history of the Order of the Golden Dawn illustrate how many poets, novelists, scholars, critics and journalists were associated with this institution (Howe 1972); Arthur Machen's correspondence, too, is full of references to the literati of the turn of the century and their interest in esoteric matters (Dobson 1988).