Five by Five—Magic series focuses on the story of tarot

Susan Wands

By Max Bowen 

Susan Wands’ Arcana Oracle Series was inspired by the story of Pamela Colman Smith, who co-created her tarot deck in 1909, and would go on to become the best-selling deck worldwide. Now three books in, the story is set in Gothic London and has its own system of magic. In this Five by Five, Susan talks about Smith’s story, her own experience in tarot and how she built the series around this.

Let’s begin with who Pamela Colman Smith is and how she inspired the book.
Pamela was born in London to American parents in 1878, and lived in Manchester, Jamaica and New York City, and returned to London at the age of 20 to work at the Lyceum Theatre. Pamela was a child prodigy, a natural artist, storyteller, and published author before the age of 19, and the first artist exhibited by Stieglitz in NYC. Mentored by Bram Stoker, she was introduced to the Golden Dawn, a magician’s group. With member A.E. Waite, she co-created her tarot deck in 1909, which eventually went on to become the best-selling deck in the world.

What is your interest/experience in tarot and how does this factor into the book?
I was a tarot reader for decades, and when I first started researching, Pamela’s name wasn’t even on her tarot deck! For 100 years, it was known as the Rider Waite tarot, not the Waite Smith. But I started researching her before the advent of the internet, so finding out about Pamela’s background required requesting materials through libraries and handwritten letters to museums. I finally tracked down a number of Pamela’s artworks and celebrated Pamela’s name on her tarot deck in 2009, 100 years post-publication of her first deck.

I love the idea of Gothic London as a setting. Have you been to London before? What kind of research did you do need to do?
I lived in several London neighborhoods when my husband was acting on the West End. Since Pamela was first hired by Bram Stoker to work at the Lyceum Theatre, I spent a lot of time there and took the tube to her different residences. Two bookstores, Watkins and the Atlantis, feature heavily in my books, as she was a patron at both shops, and I went there frequently as well as to the British Museum, where she researched tarot cards. I also walked Pamela’s paths from Chelsea to the Lyceum Theatre and across the Thames to last known addresses.

How did you develop the system of magic used in this book?
I studied the Golden Dawn’s degrees of study, Pamela’s group, to understand what kind of magic they practiced and why. The Golden Dawn had two women leaders, Annie Horniman and Florence Farr. Florence developed a secret method of astral projection, outside the auspices of the Golden Dawn, and W.B. Yeats and others were not in favor of her methods of channeling magical resources. The idea that women could belong to a club in the Victorian Era was challenging enough, but that women presidents and leaders insisted on their own formulas for magical practice was a huge inspiration for my series.

What can we expect in the rest of the series?
Each book pairs Pamela with tarot muses. In the first book, “Magician and Fool,” Pamela bases the Magician on the owner of the Lyceum Theatre, Sir Henry Irving, and the Fool on William Terriss, a matinee idol. “High Priestess and Empress” brings in Florence Farr and Dame Ellen Terry, to guide her to own her cards, and the third book, “Emperor and Hierophant,” has Bram Stoker and Ahmed Kamal help her battle ownership for her magic. The next books will follow the 22 card archetypes of the Major Arcana in Pamela’s tarot deck. Next up: Lovers and Chariot!