365 Tarot Spreads: Revealing the Magic in Each Day - Sasha Graham 2014

A. E. Waite’s Boaz & Jachin Spread

On This Day

The Rider-Waite-Smith deck was the first deck to be produced commercially in Britain. To this date it remains the world’s best-selling tarot deck, setting the standard for the myriad decks to come.

Arthur Edward Waite, mystic, occultist, and writer, was born today in 1857. Waite, in collaboration with Pamela Colman Smith, is responsible for the most widespread deck of tarot cards ever created, the Rider-Waite tarot, sometimes called the Waite-Smith or Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck.

Summation of Spread

The Kabbalistic Tree of Life rests on three pillars. The High Priestess figure can be understood as the middle pillar. The middle pillar represents the integration of the left and the right. The Hierophant and Justice figures also sit between two Kabalistic pillars, thus connecting tarot to the pillars of the Tree of Life.

Waite and illustrator Pamela Colman Smith placed the symbols of Boaz and Jachin on the High Priestess card. The letters B and J stand for Boaz and Jachin, legendary pillars in King Solomon’s temple. These letters have always been used to illustrate the magical concept of polarity.

Cast Your Cards

Cast in a set of pillars:

Jachin

1. Fire: Where is my passion?

2. Air: How do I think?

3. Sun: What do I do?

Boaz

4. Water: Where is my heart?

5. Earth: How do I grow?

6. Moon: What do I see?