Barbelith Underground > Temple > Tarot pack of choice

It's Pamela Coleman Smith all the way as far as I'm concerned. Refuse to call it the "Rider Waite" as I reckon it should be named after the artist who drew it, not the publishing company and the guy who commissioned it. Despite being possibly the world's most popular deck and widely considered the "classic" tarot, so few people seem to be aware of the personage who actually painted it.

I find "Pixie" Smith quite an interesting character. One of the few (only?) black members of the Golden Dawn, artist and set designer, who died unknown and forgotten in a paupers grave. Whilst her work has since gone on to achieve international renown almost independently of her.

Waite gave her fairly detailed instructions for designing the Major Arcana, which are elucidated at length (and slightly tedously) in his book The Key to the Tarot. But basically left her to her own devices in designing the Minor Arcana, which is without a doubt the best part of the deck. Waite barely even mentions the minor cards in his book, limiting his discussion to a couple of dismissive lines per card. But it's in the minor arcana that Smith's deck comes alive. Apparently drawing on Caribbean folklore to dramatise the concepts of the minor cards, hers was the first deck to actually represent the minor arcana figuratively.

All previous decks had shown pips like a normal pack of playing cards. The practice of painting representative designs on the minor cards was hugely influenced, if not invented, by Smith in her designs for the minor arcana.

And it's the minor cards with their haunting ambiguous imagery that, to my mind, makes the deck so effective for divination. It speaks in a very immediate visual language that is really instinctive to work with, and if you're approaching tarot for divinatory as opposed to meditative purposes, that's pretty much what you want.

The Thoth deck is an extraordinary modernist work of art and a beautiful synthesis of Crowley's ideas and influences, but I don't personally rate it for divination. Too much going on. If you ask it whether you're going to get a job, it'll have you looking up the gemetria of the turtle and the planetary attributions of the thistle leaf before you get an answer.

I see the Thoth deck as an excellent visual tool for gaining a close understanding of the Quabbala (and other systems) in terms of Thelema, rather than an Oracle. I think this is why it's often considered an "advanced" deck, not because its somehow a superior tool for divination. If you don't really work specifically within a western trad/Thelemic system, and you're just looking for a good deck of cards to use as an oracle, the Thoth deck might be innapropriate. Pictures look great, but can be difficult to relate to the kind of everyday concerns that an oracle is often concerned with. Unlike the Pamela Smith deck, which absolutely excels at addressing the minuteia of everyday life.