Two Different Ways of Looking at Tarot and Readings

There are two major schools of thought when it comes to tarot interpretation in today’s tarot community. Two famous tarot decks were conceived by two accomplished members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley and Arthur Edward Waite. Each man introduced his own innovations into the classic occult tarot deck of the Golden Dawn, resulting in the two unique methods of reading we have today. The first deck of the two had a major head start, being created four decades earlier. However, the earlier publication of the Rider-Waite tarot deck also had its drawbacks. Being first to finish by such a long time gave Aleister Crowley a lifetime of experience to advance his own methods far beyond the simplistic machinery of the Rider publication. On the other hand, the Rider-Waite’s simplicity makes it easy for anybody to learn to do tarot reading.