Key Takeaway
The Rider-Waite tarot deck is packed with visual symbols that most people scroll past without noticing. Each one was placed deliberately by illustrator Pamela Colman Smith in 1909, and they change how you read the cards once you see them.
Most people look at a Major Arcana card and see the main figure. The Magician in his red robe. The Hermit with his lantern. The dancing figure on The World. But the Rider-Waite deck was designed by Arthur Edward Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909 with layers of visual symbolism that operate below the surface. Smith was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn — a secret society devoted to the study of the occult, metaphysics, and paranormal activities — and she embedded their symbolic vocabulary into every card.
Here are the symbols that change how you see these cards once you know what they mean.
The Lemniscate: An Infinity Sign That Appears Twice
A figure-eight on its side — the lemniscate — floats above The Magician’s head on card I. It represents unlimited potential and the infinite loop between intention and manifestation. The Magician points one hand to the sky and one to the earth: as above, so below. The lemniscate is the bridge between those two realms.
The same symbol reappears on Strength (card VIII), hovering above the woman who gently closes the lion’s mouth. Same infinite energy, different application. The Magician channels it outward through willpower. Strength channels it inward through patience and compassion. Two cards, one symbol, two completely different lessons. On The Magician pendant, the lemniscate is highlighted in brass against oxidized silver — the only element given that two-tone treatment, because it’s the card’s defining symbol.
Four Suits on a Table: The Elements Hidden in Plain Sight
The table in front of The Magician holds four objects: a wand, a cup, a sword, and a pentacle. Most people register them as “tarot suit symbols.” They are — but they’re also the four classical elements that the Hermetic tradition considers the building blocks of reality.
| Object | Suit | Element | Domain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wand | Wands | Fire | Creativity, passion |
| Cup | Cups | Water | Emotion, intuition |
| Sword | Swords | Air | Intellect, conflict |
| Pentacle | Pentacles | Earth | Material, physical |
The Magician’s mastery of all four means he can work in any domain. Below his table, roses (desire) and lilies (purity) grow together — another deliberate pairing by Smith, representing the integration of earthly passion with spiritual aspiration.
The Seal of Solomon Inside The Hermit’s Lantern
Most people see a lantern. Look closer. The light source inside the Hermit’s lantern is a six-pointed star — two interlaced triangles forming the Seal of Solomon (also called the Star of David). In Hermetic tradition, the upward triangle represents spirit ascending toward the divine. The downward triangle represents the divine descending into matter. Together, they symbolize the union of above and below — wisdom that bridges heaven and earth.
The detail matters because it tells you what kind of wisdom the Hermit carries. It’s not intellectual knowledge. It’s experiential truth — the kind you can only earn by walking alone with your own lantern. The light only illuminates the next few steps ahead, never the whole path. That’s not a limitation. It’s the point. The Hermit pendant at 20×48mm preserves the lantern, staff, and Roman numeral IX in sterling silver with the same stippled background texture Smith used in the original illustration.
Four Creatures Guarding Two Different Cards
An angel, an eagle, a bull, and a lion appear in the corners of both the Wheel of Fortune (X) and The World (XXI). Same four creatures. Different context. Different meaning.
These creatures originate from the Book of Ezekiel (1:10) and reappear in the Book of Revelation (4:7) as the four Living Creatures. In Christian iconography, they became symbols of the four Evangelists: the angel (Matthew), the lion (Mark), the bull (Luke), and the eagle (John). In astrology, they represent the four fixed signs of the zodiac: Aquarius, Leo, Taurus, and Scorpio.
On the Wheel of Fortune, the creatures are reading books — studying, learning, trying to understand the forces that spin the wheel. On The World, those same creatures have closed their books. They’re no longer studying. They’ve integrated the knowledge. That shift from the Wheel to The World tells you everything about the difference between understanding change and having actually been through it. The Wheel of Fortune pendant and The World pendant both feature all four creatures carved in sterling silver — the same faces at different stages of the journey.
TORA, ROTA, TARO — The Letters on the Wheel
The Wheel of Fortune contains letters between its spokes that almost nobody mentions. Reading clockwise from the top: T-A-R-O. Rearrange them and you get TARO (the original Italian spelling of tarot), ROTA (Latin for “wheel”), TORA (as in Torah, divine law), or ATOR (Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of fate). One set of four letters, four different words, four layers of meaning — all spinning on the same wheel.
Between these Latin letters sit four Hebrew characters: Yod, Heh, Vau, Heh — the Tetragrammaton, the unpronounceable name of God in Jewish tradition. And at the cardinal points of the wheel itself, alchemical symbols represent mercury (transformation), sulfur (desire), water (emotion), and salt (matter). All of this is packed into a single card. Smith didn’t waste a single stroke.
The Laurel Wreath and Its Red Ribbons
The wreath encircling the dancer on The World card is laurel — the same plant ancient Romans used to crown victorious generals and Olympic champions. It’s a victory symbol, but the victory here isn’t conquest. It’s completion. The cycle that began with the Fool’s first step ends with the dancer inside this wreath, suspended in motion, holding two wands.
Two red ribbons bind the wreath at top and bottom, forming lemniscates — the same infinity symbol from The Magician and Strength. The wreath isn’t a closed circle. It’s an infinite loop. The journey doesn’t end at The World. It cycles. The dancer is already preparing for the Fool’s next step off the cliff, at a higher level of awareness than before.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Pamela Colman Smith design all the symbolism herself?
Not entirely. Arthur Edward Waite provided detailed written instructions for each card’s symbolic content based on Golden Dawn teachings. Smith translated those instructions into visual art, adding her own artistic interpretation. The collaboration produced imagery that neither could have created alone — Waite supplied the esoteric framework, Smith supplied the visual language.
Do other tarot decks use the same symbols?
Many modern decks reference the Rider-Waite symbols, but they aren’t universal. The older Marseille tradition uses different imagery (no scenic Minor Arcana, different compositions). The Thoth deck by Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris uses a completely different symbolic system. Rider-Waite’s imagery became the “default” largely because it was the first widely accessible deck with fully illustrated scenes on every card.
Why do the same four creatures appear on two different cards?
The four creatures represent the fixed signs of the zodiac and the four Evangelists — stable points in a changing universe. On the Wheel of Fortune, they’re reading books (acquiring knowledge mid-journey). On The World, the books are closed (knowledge integrated). The repetition is intentional: same guardians, different stages of understanding.
What’s the significance of the roses and lilies on The Magician?
Roses represent earthly desire and passion. Lilies represent purity and spiritual aspiration. Growing together beneath The Magician’s table, they show that mastery requires integrating both — you can’t manifest effectively from pure intellect or pure desire alone. The garden is wild and abundant, suggesting these forces are natural, not controlled.
These symbols aren’t decoration. They’re a language Pamela Colman Smith encoded into the deck over a century ago, and it still reads clearly today for anyone willing to look past the main figures. If you want the full narrative these cards tell when read in sequence, the Fool’s Journey guide walks through all 22 cards as a single life story. And if any of these symbols connect to your personal birth card, knowing what’s hidden in the art adds another layer to the meaning.