I would like to become better versed in the Waite Tarot deck but find Arthur Edward Waite's book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot obtuse and difficult to read. The descriptions of the individual cards are coherent but his preface and introduction is unreadable. Its possible the introductory texts are slights and criticisms to other scholars/participants of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn that I am missing. I suppose like most scholarly texts Waite is addressing a very specific audience who would recognize the references he is making to various occult groups of the time and their various beliefs and digressions from each other.

In the introduction on page one, he speaks about the inconsistencies in the texts written about the cards, "I do not think that there is a pathology of the occult dedications, but about their extravagances no one can question..."

He describes the cards as "the true Tarot is symbolism; its speaks no other language and offers no other signs. Given the inward meaning of its emblems, they do become a kind of alphabet which is capable of indefinite combinations and make true sense in all."

Its the connection of the cards to each other I find difficult to decipher. The relationship of the cards to each other is what confuses me.

Here is a very early Tarot card of The Fool. This card might have been intended for playing games rather then telling a person's fortune. Wikipedia says it is from Yale University. Comfortably out of copyright. Oddly enough, the Waite cards are still under copyright through U.S. Games Systems.