The method Arthur Edward Waite published — and then buried.
In 1909, Waite published a grid-based card reading method in A Manual of Cartomancy. Two years later he replaced it with the Celtic Cross. The grid disappeared. This book brings it back.
Drawing on Waite’s original texts, Golden Dawn source documents, and the unpublished papers of his contemporaries, The Complete Tarot Method reconstructs the full counting method that preceded the Celtic Cross — and shows how the two systems are connected.
The book presents the method in five stages: the historical lineage from Mamluk cards through Renaissance Italy and the French occult revival; the original English Method as Waite published it; the Book of the Secret Word that underlies the count; the Fourfold Count technique; and the Vizcroft Method, a modern synthesis designed for the full 78-card Tarot deck.
Appendix A provides a complete card meanings reference for all 78 cards, drawn directly from Waite’s published writings. Appendix B walks through a full worked example. Appendix C maps the grid positions to their Celtic Cross equivalents.
For readers who want to understand where the Celtic Cross came from, and for practitioners who want a more complete method, this is the missing foundation.
