GUIDE · FOUNDATIONS
Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth and Marseille
Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth and Marseille tarot compared: how the three great decks differ in imagery, pip cards, numbering and names, and which to learn first.
Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth and Marseille are the three great traditions of tarot. The Rider-Waite-Smith deck of 1909 gives every card an illustrated scene and is the model for most modern decks. The Thoth deck, painted from 1938 to 1943, is dense with astrology and renames several trumps. The Marseille pattern, the oldest, leaves its numbered cards unillustrated and keeps Strength and Justice in their earlier places.
What is the difference between Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth and Marseille tarot?
The difference between the three traditions lies in what the cards show and the system behind them, not in the shape of the deck. All three have 78 cards: 22 trumps and four suits of fourteen. They part company on four things: whether the pip cards carry pictures, how two of the trumps are numbered, what several cards are called, and how much astrology and Kabbalah is built into the images.
The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot
The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot was published in London in 1909 by William Rider & Son. A. E. Waite designed it and Pamela Colman Smith drew all 78 cards; both belonged to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Waite’s companion book, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, followed in 1910. The deck is often sold as the “Rider-Waite”, a name that leaves out the artist whose images made it.
Its great change was in the pip cards. Every numbered card of the Minor Arcana shows a scene with people in it, so that the meaning can be read from the picture. In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the Four of Cups shows a young man seated under a tree, arms folded, ignoring a cup offered to him from a cloud. A reader who has never studied the card can still see discontent, and a chance going unnoticed.
The numbering follows the Golden Dawn: Strength is card VIII and Justice is XI, reversing the older order. The trumps keep familiar English names (the Magician, the High Priestess, the Hierophant, Wheel of Fortune, Judgement, the World), and the courts are the Page, Knight, Queen and King of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles. The correspondences sit inside the images rather than printed on them: the ram’s heads on the Emperor’s throne point to Aries.
The Thoth tarot
The Thoth tarot was designed by Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris between 1938 and 1943. Crowley’s book on the deck, The Book of Thoth, appeared in 1944, but the cards themselves were not published as a deck until 1969, after both had died. Crowley called the trumps Atu, and he meant the deck as a full statement of his own occult system.
Several trumps take new names. Strength becomes Lust, Justice becomes Adjustment, Temperance becomes Art, Wheel of Fortune becomes Fortune, Judgement becomes the Aeon and the World becomes the Universe; the Magician is the Magus. The numbering keeps Adjustment at VIII and Lust at XI, as in the older decks, while keeping the Golden Dawn’s astrology. Crowley also exchanged the Hebrew letters of the Emperor and the Star, without changing their numbers.
The pip cards are neither scenes nor plain patterns. Each one arranges its suit emblems in a painted, often geometric design, with a one-word title and the astrological symbols of its decan: the Three of Swords is “Sorrow”, the Four of Cups “Luxury”, the Ten of Wands “Oppression”. The suit of Pentacles becomes Disks, and the courts are the Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess. Readers usually equate the Thoth Knight with the Rider-Waite-Smith King, the Prince with the Knight and the Princess with the Page, though the match is still argued.
The Tarot de Marseille
The Tarot de Marseille is the oldest of the three: a standard French pattern of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, printed from carved woodblocks and coloured through stencils. Its most cited early examples are Jean Noblet’s Paris deck, from around 1650, and Nicolas Conver’s deck, printed in Marseille in 1760. The name “Tarot de Marseille” became common only in the twentieth century, and modern restorations, such as the edition by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin in 1997, have brought it a new readership.
The pip cards carry no scenes. The Seven of Cups is seven cups arranged among stylised flowers; the swords and batons interlace in formal patterns. A Marseille reader works from number and suit, and from the arrangement itself, rather than from a picture of an event. The courts are the Valet, Cavalier, Reine and Roi (page, knight, queen and king), and the suits are batons, cups, swords and coins.
The trumps keep their earlier order and names. Justice is VIII and Strength is XI. The High Priestess and the Hierophant appear as the Popess and the Pope, the Lovers as the Lover, the Tower as the House of God. Death is card XIII, traditionally left without a title, and the Fool carries no number. No astrological or Kabbalistic correspondences are printed: the pattern predates the systems that later attached them.
How do the three decks compare?
The three decks compare most clearly criterion by criterion.
- Imagery. Rider-Waite-Smith is narrative and pictorial; Thoth is symbolic and dense, painted in a modern style; Marseille is simple and heraldic, with flat colour and strong outlines.
- Pip cards. Rider-Waite-Smith gives every pip a scene; Thoth gives each a titled abstract design; Marseille shows only an arrangement of suit symbols.
- Numbering. Rider-Waite-Smith puts Strength at VIII and Justice at XI; Thoth and Marseille keep Justice (or Adjustment) at VIII and Strength (or Lust) at XI.
- Court names. Rider-Waite-Smith and Marseille use Page, Knight, Queen and King (the Valet in French); Thoth uses Princess, Prince, Queen and Knight.
- Correspondences. Rider-Waite-Smith follows the Golden Dawn quietly, within the pictures; Thoth prints them on the cards and builds on them; Marseille has none of its own.
- Best for. Rider-Waite-Smith suits most readers and most questions; Thoth suits readers drawn to astrology and Kabbalah; Marseille suits readers who like to work from number, suit and structure.
- Learning curve. Rider-Waite-Smith is the gentlest, since the images teach the meanings; Thoth is the steepest, with its own vocabulary and system; Marseille is easy to begin and hard to master, because the pips give you nothing but their number and suit.
Which tarot deck should a beginner choose?
A beginner is usually best served by the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, or by a modern deck that follows its pattern. The reason is practical. Its pictures carry the meanings, so you can learn from the cards as much as from a book, and most guides, card meanings and teachers in English assume it, this Library among them. What you learn with it transfers to the many decks built on its model.
The other two are fine first decks for particular readers. If astrology already means something to you, the Thoth deck can make sense quickly, though it rewards a study of Crowley’s own book. If you prefer structure to pictures, or love the history, a Marseille deck teaches you to read number and suit with great clarity. The guide The 78 cards: Major and Minor Arcana, in this Library, maps the shared structure that all three decks keep.
Can you read one deck with another’s meanings?
You can read a Thoth or Marseille deck with Rider-Waite-Smith meanings for most of the trumps, with care over names and numbers. Lust reads close to Strength, Adjustment close to Justice, and Art close to Temperance. The Aeon departs furthest: Crowley meant it as the dawn of a new age, while Judgement in the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition is an awakening and a sound judgement reached.
The pip cards need more thought. The Thoth titles sometimes lean away from the Rider-Waite-Smith picture: the Four of Cups is apathy and an unseen offer in one, “Luxury” in the other, pleasure grown stale. The Two of Swords is a stalemate in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and “Peace” in the Thoth. Marseille pips have no picture to contradict you, so Rider-Waite-Smith meanings can be laid over them, but you supply them from memory. The guide Numbers in tarot, in this Library, gives a method that works on any deck.
Where the Gilded Garden deck sits
The Gilded Garden, TarotSeeker’s own deck, belongs to the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition in everything but its art. Its meanings follow Rider-Waite-Smith, its correspondences are the Golden Dawn’s, Strength is card 8 and Justice card 11, and its courts are the Page, Knight, Queen and King of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles. The images are entirely its own. Strength is a great lion at rest, its head bowed toward a white dove; Justice has no figure at all, only an upright gold sword with level scales hung from its crossguard.
The companion reads in the same tradition. Shuffle any deck of the Rider-Waite-Smith pattern, enter the cards as they fall, or let the app draw for you, and the reading weighs elements, numbers, positions and the Major Arcana by the Golden Dawn scheme, with the grounds for each connection shown. If you read a Thoth or Marseille deck, enter each card by its Rider-Waite-Smith name and keep in mind where the traditions differ, as set out above.
Questions readers ask
What is the difference between Thoth and Rider-Waite tarot?
The Thoth and Rider-Waite tarot differ chiefly in style, names and system. The Rider-Waite-Smith deck of 1909 shows a scene on every card and keeps familiar names. The Thoth deck, painted by Lady Frieda Harris for Aleister Crowley, uses titled abstract pip cards, renames trumps such as Strength (Lust) and Temperance (Art), calls its courts Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess, and prints astrological symbols on many cards.
Is the Rider-Waite deck the same as the Rider-Waite-Smith deck?
The Rider-Waite deck and the Rider-Waite-Smith deck are the same deck, first published in London in 1909 by William Rider & Son. It was designed by A. E. Waite and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. “Rider-Waite” is the older trade name; many readers now say Rider-Waite-Smith to credit the artist, whose 78 images shaped most modern tarot.
Is the Marseille tarot good for beginners?
The Marseille tarot can suit a beginner who enjoys structure, but most beginners find it harder than a Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Its pip cards show only arrangements of suit symbols, with no scenes to prompt a meaning, so you read them from number and suit. Its trumps are pictorial and simple, and it rewards anyone with an interest in the older history of the cards.
Why are Strength and Justice swapped in some decks?
Strength and Justice are swapped because the Golden Dawn reordered them in the late nineteenth century to fit its astrological scheme, giving Strength (Leo) the eighth place and Justice (Libra) the eleventh. The Rider-Waite-Smith deck adopted the change in 1909. The older Marseille pattern keeps Justice at VIII and Strength at XI, and the Thoth deck keeps that older order.
