Arthur Edward Waite, born in America, raised in England, was obsessed with the occult. He became Grand Master of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, one of whose members included the infamous magician Aleister Crowley.

Pamela Colman Smith was also a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and she is the artist who designed, under Waite’s guidance, the tarot deck known today as the Rider-Waite tarot. (Why not Waite-Smith? Rider & Co., London. published the deck.)

Historically, the Rider-Waite tarot deck is unique in that it was the first deck to individually illustrate all of the 78 cards, not just the 22 Major Arcana cards.