this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
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but it's the canonical one
Tarot existed for ages before the Rider-Waite deck. In fact, the common playing cards descended from tarot.
Plus, there are multiple popular-ish decks from about the same time, owing to the boom of occultism in the couple decades around 1900. The Aleister Crowley deck is a famous one that has pretty much no influence from Rider-Waite.
ok. It's kinda why I chose "canonical" instead of "first". As in, the ones people "reading fortunes" are using.
Ehhh, I think people are mostly kinda aware of the existence of the various tarot decks. I'd say rather that the Marseilles tarot is the major precursor to them all, having influenced both the playing cards and the Rider-Waite art.
ok, now this is the discussion that's worthwhile. What word would you say the Rider-Waite deck represents? I feel that since it's the one that Aleister Crowley is involved with, it feels like the point of reference for using the tarot deck for the occult instead of historical game playing reasons, which many sources use as a point of inspiration and reference?
What word would you use for Marseilles tarot and the Rider-Waite in these contexts?