The conventional explanations say that the Fool signifies the flesh, the sensitive life, and by a peculiar satire its subsidiary name was at one time the alchemist, as depicting folly at the most insensate stage.

—A.E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1909

We begin our tarot symbolism exploration following the Fool as they begin their journey through the Major Arcana [1]. According to Arthur Edward Waite, author of The Pictorial Key to the Tarot and co-creator of the Rider Smith-Waite iconic deck, the Fool here lacks all sense. And, according to every guide on the tarot I’ve read I have yet to come across one that doesn’t, in some way, make this the new beginnings card.

And I do not disagree. But that identification isn’t necessarily as straightforward as I assumed when I was first learning the tarot.

In fact, upon my most recent dive into researching this figure, a few new questions came up. Or more like, I began to be more intentional in searching for answers to the questions I’d had all along.

Starting with, is this person perhaps daydreaming as they venture forth unaware that they are about to step off the edge of a cliff? Or, are they blissfully ready to bound into their fresh start, all the while having blind faith that something awaits them below to break their fall?

Then I ask myself, does it make a difference?

Because after all, isn’t that the case with new beginnings? Sometimes we’re just strolling along in life only to have some unexpected turn of events plunge us into something new. Other times, we are headed from point-A to point-B only to consciously detour off our intended path. We’re not sure where the new direction will lead us, but we’re curious and all we can do is follow it and hope we’ll end up somewhere we want to be.

In my video series on tarot symbolism, I reviewed the overall meaning of The Fool card as the new beginnings card in my inaugural post. That was about as deep as I went. Then, I decided to begin a written blog to accompany the series and give a little more structure to my studies, and my old art history background kicked in and dusted off some of my rusty research skills.

In doing so, I gained new knowledge about Pamela Colman Smith—the artist (and true genius, if you ask me) of the iconic deck. And everything beyond this point are new discoveries to me, and have opened my eyes deeper layers for understanding the cards.

That dusty old BA wouldn’t allow me to move forward without considering Smith’s images she created to be the primary source, and Waite’s book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot as the secondary. Which is why all my installments, be them video or written, start with her deck, her depictions.

It’s not that I don’t believe Waite to be a co-creator. In fact, I believe he might have been quite heavy handed in his art direction. But what my eyes tell me when comparing her artwork to his descriptions, is that Smith had more to say with her pictorial scenes than he with his “Pictorial Key.”

There’s already been cases in the three cards I’ve researched to re-analyze in this series—The Fool, Magician, and High Priestess—in which Waite overlooks completely or barely mentions significant symbolism included by Smith. By diving into those, I am amazed all over again at the wonders of how many ways there are to interpret tarot cards.

For instance, outside of my research—just through pure consumerism and adding to my collection—I learned that some decks do not number the Fool as zero. When I bought the Cosmic Vibrations deck by Moonly, the creators noted in their information guide that their Fool is numbered as “XXI (0)” because they follow the French school of Tarot in the lineage of Dr. Papus.

This led me down that all-to-fun Google rabbit hole. French school of tarot?!?! I knew the Tarot de Marseille predated the RSW deck. I felt I was confidently familiar with the subtle differences between the decks. And I was clear by the name that it originated in France.

I knew that not long after Waite & Smith printed their deck with Rider & Son Ltd. that Aleister Crowley created his Thoth tarot and that there are some similarities but also some major differences. So I thought I was also confidently familiar with the idea that there were different lineages, sure. But I had never heard of this Dr. Papus before.

I enjoyed my brief sojourn into learning all the ways the varying traditions/lineages/schools are similar yet unique, and I’m still figuring that all out. Which is why I’m not going to break off onto one of my tangents here to explain. If you, like me, are learning about this for the first time, I highly recommend researching the topic. It’s illuminating.

Ultimately, I still find myself a follower of the RSW tradition. So alas, I move back to our original discussion.

Because it is numbered zero I’ve always considered the placement of the Fool as both coming at the beginning of the Major Arcana cycle and after the end, XXI – The World. Meaning it is both indicative of a completely fresh start, something totally new, and also the fresh beginning we get after we’ve closed the chapter on something else in our lives.

But, this distinction begged the question, can any new beginning truly come from nothing? Or aren’t all new cycles begun out of one that is ending? Think of the age-old quandary, which came first—the chicken or the egg?

Ha! Isn’t that fun? In a world where we’re used to answers being available instantaneously at our fingertips, there’s still room for ambiguity.

It’s always the same. As with anything and everything else magical about these cards—the answers are infinitely fluid.

But, I digress…

Let’s ask ourselves another question. What do we see when we look at this card?[2] Is the figure truly the “insensate” youth wandering aimlessly and possibly about to fall off that cliff insensibly? Or did they set out deliberately—albeit naively—and we are witnessing the moment before that leap-of-faith?

Then, because I’m a pedantic pain-in-the-ass, I can’t help but notice that Waite’s written description—and the countless subsequent excerpts from I don’t know how many guidebooks thereafter—distinguish this figure as a ‘he.’ But do our eyes deceive us? Is that figure indeed male? Waite says yes. He claims we’re seeing “a young man” in his Pictorial Key.

But, again—not to further your opinion of me as being a pompous purist who needs to mention her degree every chance she gets—my art history background will not allow for me to ignore Smith’s process, influence, and intention as she created her deck. It’s what we do. We look at the artwork, we consider the historical context along with the subject matter, we review the artist and anything they may have said or written about their work, and we analyze and hypothesize from there.

And I just happen to agree with the analysis and the hypothesis of art historian Frances Osborn Robb who, in the 1970’s, proposed to know what, or who, inspired Smith’s Fool figure. Robb believed that Smith’s Fool was modeled after a promotional card advertising Maude Adams in her role as Peter Pan in the Broadway production of the same name that had been running since 1906. [3]

Pamela, who was born in New York and had been involved in theater most of her life, visited her home country frequently, attending the theater as often as possible both there and back in London. Running in the theater circles, working in that industry and in magazine publication, along with Maude Adams being a popular artist’s model, Pamela would’ve been familiar with the promotion of this well-known and long running production. And when you compare the representations of Maude Adams as Peter, the costume she wore, and the pose she is shown, the comparisons are undeniable.[4]

Smith is even quoted in a letter saying, “the stage has taught me almost all I know of clothes, of action, and of pictorial gestures.”^⁠[5]

It’s also known she used illustrative references in the absense of models for other cards as well. For instance, her Queen of Cups is almost a direct copy of the Renaissance Sola-Busca Tarot deck’s Queen of the same suit. This deck happened to be on display at the British Museum from 1907 on.^⁠[7] Even today when we can pull up examples of masterpieces at the touch of a few keystrokes, and you will still find students and working artists sketching live as you walk the halls of the major homes to the physical works. It’s no giant leap that Smith, a prolific working illustrator at the time, would’ve gone to see these real-life examples for inspiration.

And from there, it’s no more of a reach that with the same direct similarities between her Fool and Maude “Peter Pan” Adams was likely her inspiration. Even more fun, as we peel away another layer to the depth of her further interweaving with theater as an influence, we learn that the character Peter Pan is a fictional descendent from the mythological Pan. The god-figure Pan is said to represent “the mystical fullness and absolute novelty of life itself.”^⁠[8] In other words, The Fool as the fresh start, the novice, a new beginning.

One then has to wonder if Smith, who was a Woman Suffragette, intend^⁠ed for men and women to see themselves in the characters she created for her deck. Perhaps Smith was equating The Fool’s Journey[8] to the social and political journey the women suffragists were making that she was participating in herself. If so, her individual interpretation mirrors the universal experience we as human beings all go through traveling the never-ending cycles of life.

But then, there’s the possibility that the contradictions in Waite’s interpretation as a young man personifying folly and Smith’s gender-fluid Fool who is taking a leap of faith point to the divine nature of the tarot in and of itself—the meaning is in the hidden meaning which will be collective and at the same time personal to each individual who reads the tarot.

And at this point, we are still discussing the meaning of The Fool card only as it relates to the individual representing the archetype. Beyond that, we can examine even further the question of, are they new beginnings personified? Or are they suggesting the only way to begin anew is to be daring and not know what will befall you?

We can also choose to ask, does that even matter?

Because either way, we’re witnessing the moment before the unconscious/unknown becomes the conscious/known.

But wait a minute, didn’t I mention that Smith gave us more to work with than Waite? I thought you’d never ask.

Within each card there are countless deeply-rooted symbolic references that I find both reinforce the overall meaning and challenge readers to look beyond the most obvious.

For instance, would we recognize the “insensate” nature of the Fool without the other visual indicators of innocence, purity, and fresh starts? The ones that catch my eye are the white rose, white dog, and the blue sky with the prominent presence of the risen sun. All of these symbols mean something individually and tie-in together to carry on the narrative that this card is an image of a new beginning.

Broken down quickly:

• By colors: white most often will refer to purity, and therefore, innocence.
• Blue as associated with the sky will reference heaven, i.e. purity again, and therefore we’re back to innocence but with more of an angelic connotation.
• And yellow, associated with the sun and here in the Fool’s tunic and the actual presence of the sun often references light, and therefore consciousness, but also yang/masculine/active energy being associated with the daylight and daytime when we are actively being productive.
• The yellow in the tunic likely represents the vitality and brightness of The Fool’s soul, the action in his wanderings down his path, and as he has his back to and is currently walking away from the sun this tells us he is currently walking without consciousness.
• As to be compared with The Magician who is surrounded by yellow rather than the sun being depicted by its shape it is present in the color itself and therefore suggesting The Magician is surrounded by consciousness and acting in full awareness.
  
• Roses of different colors, especially red roses, will symbolize something different.
• With most botanical symbols, the color is often very important to the meaning.
• White rose specifically speaks again to innocence and purity.
  
• The white dog also references innocence.
• Dogs, in and of themselves, are symbols of loyalty and companionship, and therefore when we see a white one it tells us the presence of pure loyalty and love through companionship.
• In contrast, a black dog will mean something very different, usually representing the shadow side of relationships.
• While Waite barely gives the dog mention, only that he is “still bounding”^⁠  and “is attacking him from behind,”^⁠[9] Other tarot readers and writers on the subject have interpreted the actively barking dog as symbolizing the internal voice of their inner critic or the external voice of society,^⁠ that The Fool is either ignoring blindly or choosing to walk away from and take their life in their own direction.[10]
• Others think the dog is there to act as that guide often present along the closely related Hero’s Journey as seen in so many fictional works^⁠.[11]
• I think it’s both and how the dog chooses to show up depends on the reader, the querent, and the question.

To learn more about the symbolism in both the Rose and the Dog, check out my YouTube videos on each.

For now, that brings us to a conclusion on a not-so-brief overview of how the symbolism ties together to contribute to the overall meaning in The Fool card. Until next time, please join me on Patreon for early sneak peeks at future research findings.

Notes:

[1] Gender neutral pronouns intentional.

[2] It should be noted here that all basis for symbolic and iconographical reference is begun with the Pamela Smith deck, while at times mentioning variations when relevant. Though, this will usually be included more in posts about individual symbols than in these that give overview to the card meanings.

[3] Stuart R. Kaplan et al., Pamela Colman Smith: The Untold Story (Stamford , CT: U.S. Games Systems, Inc., 2018), 360.

[4] Ibid. 352.

[5] Kaplan, 364.

[6] The only deck predating the RSW edition that had pictorial scenes on all 78 cards. See Kaplan, pp. 360-364.

[7] Ibid. 366.

[8] The cycle completed by The Fool from their allegorical leap of faith and/or naively walking right off the edge of the cliff to the end of the cycle with The World card.

[9] Waite, A. E. Pictorial key to the tarot (version The Dover Edition). Dover Edition Made Available through Orange County Public Library via Hoopla. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications Inc, 2005.

[10] Cunningfolk, Alexis J. n.d. “Featured Card 0. The Fool.” Accessed January 26, 2024. https://wortsandcunning.teachable.com/courses/91410/lectures/4198779.

[11] My favorite is to think of the dog as acting in the same role as Mushu and the Cricket in Disney’s Mulan. There to be a guide and support but not do the work for Mulan.

References:

Cunningfolk, Alexis J. n.d. “Featured Card 0. The Fool.” Accessed January 26, 2024. https://wortsandcunning.teachable.com/courses/91410/lectures/4198779.

Kaplan, Stuart R., Mary Katherine Greer, Elizabeth Foley O’Connor, and Melinda Boyd Parsons. Pamela Colman Smith: The untold story. Stamford , CT: U.S. Games Systems, Inc., 2018.

“Maude Adams.” Wikipedia, January 12, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maude_Adams.

Waite, A.E. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot: Pamela Colman Smith commemorative set by Stuart Kaplan. stamford, CT: U S Games Systems, 2009.