| CLASS II § 3 THE FOUR SUITS Otherwise, Lesser Arcana |
The resources of interpretation have been lavished, if not exhausted, on the twenty-two Trumps Major, the symbolism
of which is unquestionable. There remain the four suits, being Wands or Sceptres--ex hypothesi, in the archæology of
the subject, the antecedents of Diamonds in modern cards: Cups, corresponding to Hearts; Swords, which answer to
Clubs, as the weapon of chivalry is in relation to the peasant's quarter-staff or the Alsatian bludgeon; and, finally,
Pentacles--called also Deniers and Money--which are the prototypes of Spades, In the old as in the new suits, there
are ten numbered cards, but in the Tarot there are four Court Cards allocated to each suit, or a Knight in addition to
King, Queen and Knave. The Knave is a page, valet, or damoiseau; most correctly, he is an esquire, presumably in the
service of the Knight; but there are certain rare sets in which the page becomes a maid of honour, thus pairing the
sexes in the tetrad of the court cards. There are naturally distinctive features in respect of the several pictures, by
which I mean that the King of Wands is not exactly the same personage as the King of Cups, even after allowance has
been made for the different emblems that they bear; but the symbolism resides in their rank and in the suit to which
they belong. So also the smaller cards, which--until now--have never been issued pictorially in these our modem days,
depend on the particular meaning attaching to their numbers in connexion with the particular suit. I reserve, therefore,
the details of the Lesser Arcana, till I come to speak in the second part of the rectified and perfected Tarot which
accompanies this work. The consensus of divinatory meanings attached both to the greater and lesser symbols
belongs to the third part.
of which is unquestionable. There remain the four suits, being Wands or Sceptres--ex hypothesi, in the archæology of
the subject, the antecedents of Diamonds in modern cards: Cups, corresponding to Hearts; Swords, which answer to
Clubs, as the weapon of chivalry is in relation to the peasant's quarter-staff or the Alsatian bludgeon; and, finally,
Pentacles--called also Deniers and Money--which are the prototypes of Spades, In the old as in the new suits, there
are ten numbered cards, but in the Tarot there are four Court Cards allocated to each suit, or a Knight in addition to
King, Queen and Knave. The Knave is a page, valet, or damoiseau; most correctly, he is an esquire, presumably in the
service of the Knight; but there are certain rare sets in which the page becomes a maid of honour, thus pairing the
sexes in the tetrad of the court cards. There are naturally distinctive features in respect of the several pictures, by
which I mean that the King of Wands is not exactly the same personage as the King of Cups, even after allowance has
been made for the different emblems that they bear; but the symbolism resides in their rank and in the suit to which
they belong. So also the smaller cards, which--until now--have never been issued pictorially in these our modem days,
depend on the particular meaning attaching to their numbers in connexion with the particular suit. I reserve, therefore,
the details of the Lesser Arcana, till I come to speak in the second part of the rectified and perfected Tarot which
accompanies this work. The consensus of divinatory meanings attached both to the greater and lesser symbols
belongs to the third part.
| § 4 THE TAROT IN HISTORY |
Our immediate next concern is to speak of the cards in their history, so that the speculations and reveries which have
been perpetuated and multiplied in the schools of occult research may be disposed of once and for all, as intimated in
the preface hereto.
Let it be understood at the beginning of this point that there are several sets or sequences of ancient cards which are
only in part of our concern. The Tarot of the Bohemians, by Papus, which I have recently carried through the press,
revising the imperfect rendering, has some useful information in this connexion, and, except for the omission of dates
and other evidences of the archaeological sense, it will serve the purpose of the general reader. I do not propose to
extend it in the present place in any manner that can be called considerable, but certain additions are desirable and
so also is a distinct mode of presentation.
Among ancient cards which are mentioned in connexion with the Tarot, there are firstly those of Baldini, which are the
celebrated set attributed by tradition to Andrea Mantegna, though this view is now generally rejected. Their date is
supposed to be about 1470, and it is thought that there are not more than four collections extant in Europe. A copy or
reproduction referred to 1485 is perhaps equally rare. A complete set contains fifty numbers, divided into five
denaries or sequences of ten cards each. There seems to be no record that they were used for the purposes of a
game, whether of chance or skill; they could scarcely have lent themselves to divination or any form of fortune-telling;
while it would be more than idle to impute a profound symbolical meaning to their obvious emblematic designs. The
first denary embodies Conditions of Life, as follows: (i) The Beggar, (2) the Knave, (3) the Artisan, (4) the Merchant,
(5) the Noble, (6) the Knight, (7) the Doge, (8) the King, (9) the Emperor, (10) the Pope. The second contains the
Muses and their Divine Leader: (11) Calliope, (12) Urania, (13) Terpsichore, (14) Erato, (15) Polyhymnia, (16) Thalia,
(17) Melpomene, (18) Euterpe, (19) Clio, (20) Apollo. The third combines part of the Liberal Arts and Sciences with
other departments of human learning, as follows: (21) Grammar, (22) Logic, (23) Rhetoric, (24) Geometry, (25)
Arithmetic, (26) Music, (27) Poetry,(28) Philosophy, (29) Astrology, (30) Theology. The fourth denary completes the
Liberal Arts and enumerates the Virtues: (31) Astronomy, (32) Chronology, (33) Cosmology, (34) Temperance, (35)
Prudence, (36) Strength, (37) Justice; (38) Charity, (39) Hope, (40) Faith. The fifth and last denary presents the
System of the Heavens (41) Moon, (42) Mercury, (43) Venus, (44) Sun, (45) Mars, (46) Jupiter, (47) Saturn, (48) A
Eighth Sphere, (49) Primum Mobile, (50) First Cause.
We must set aside the fantastic attempts to extract complete Tarot sequences out of these denaries; we must forbear
from saying, for example, that the Conditions of Life correspond to the Trumps Major, the Muses to Pentacles, the
Arts and Sciences to Cups, the Virtues, etc., to Sceptres, and the conditions of life to Swords. This kind of thing can
be done by a process of mental contortion, but it has no place in reality. At the same time, it is hardly possible that
individual cards should not exhibit certain, and even striking, analogies. The Baldini King, Knight and Knave suggest
the corresponding court cards of the Minor Arcana. The Emperor, Pope, Temperance, Strength, justice, Moon and
Sun are common to the Mantegna and Trumps Major of any Tarot pack. Predisposition has also connected the
Beggar* and Fool, Venus and the Star, Mars and the Chariot, Saturn and the Hermit, even Jupiter, or alternatively
the First Cause, with the Tarot card of the World. But the most salient features of the Trumps Major are wanting in the
Mantegna set, and I do not believe that the ordered sequence in the latter case gave birth, as it has been suggested,
to the others. Romain Merlin maintained this view, and positively assigned the Baldini cards to the end of the
fourteenth century.
If it be agreed that, except accidentally and sporadically, the Baldini emblematic or allegorical pictures have only a
shadowy and occasional connexion with Tarot cards, and, whatever their most probable date, that they can have
supplied no originating motive, it follows that we are still seeking not only an origin in place and time for the symbols
with which we are concerned, but a specific case of their manifestation on the continent of Europe to serve as a point
of departure, whether backward or forward. Now it is well known that in the year 1393 the painter Charles
Gringonneur--who for no reason that I can trace has been termed an occultist and kabalist by one indifferent English
writer--designed and illuminated some kind of cards for the diversion of Charles VI of France when he was in mental
ill-health, and the question arises whether anything can be ascertained of their nature. The only available answer is
that at Paris, in the Bibliothèque du Roi, there are seventeen cards drawn and illuminated on paper. They are very
beautiful, antique and priceless; the figures have a background of gold, and are framed in a silver border; but they
are accompanied by no inscription and no number.
* The beggar is practically naked, and the analogy is constituted by the presence of two dogs, one of which seems to
be flying at his legs. The Mars card depicts a sword-bearing warrior in a canopied chariot, to which, however, no
horses are attached. Of course, if the Baldini cards belong to the close of the fifteenth century, there is no question at
issue, as the Tarot was known in Europe long before that period.
It is certain, however, that they include Tarot Trumps Major, the list of which is as follows: Fool, Emperor, Pope,
Lovers, Wheel of Fortune, Temperance, Fortitude, justice, Moon, Sun, Chariot, Hermit, Hanged Man, Death, Tower
and Last judgment. There are also four Tarot Cards at the Musée Carrer, Venice, and five others elsewhere, making
nine in all. They include two pages or Knaves, three Kings and two Queens, thus illustrating the Minor Arcana. These
collections have all been identified with the set produced by Gringonneur, but the ascription was disputed so far back
as the year 1848, and it is not apparently put forward at the present day, even by those who are anxious to make
evident the antiquity of the Tarot. It is held that they are all of Italian and some at least certainly of Venetian origin. We
have in this manner our requisite point of departure in respect of place at least. It has further been stated with
authority that Venetian Tarots are the old and true form, which is the parent of all others; but I infer that complete sets
of the Major and Minor Arcana belong to much later periods. The pack is thought to have consisted of seventy-eight
cards.
Notwithstanding, however, the preference shewn towards the Venetian Tarot, it is acknowledged that some portions of
a Minchiate or Florentine set must be allocated to the period between 1413 and 1418. These were once in the
possession of Countess Gonzaga, at Milan. A complete Minchiate pack contained ninety-seven cards, and in spite of
these vestiges it is regarded, speaking generally, as a later development. There were forty-one Trumps Major, the
additional numbers being borrowed or reflected from the Baldini emblematic set. In the court cards of the Minor
Arcana, the Knights were monsters of the centaur type, while the Knaves were sometimes warriors and sometimes
serving-men. Another distinction dwelt upon is the prevalence of Chrstian mediæval ideas and the utter absence of
any Oriental suggestion. The question, however, remains whether there are Eastern traces in any Tarot cards.
We come, in fine, to the Bolognese Tarot, sometimes referred to as that of Venice and having the Trumps Major
complete, but numbers 20 and 21 are transposed. In the Minor Arcana the 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the small cards are
omitted, with the result that there are sixty-two cards in all. The termination of the Trumps Major in the representation
of the Last judgment is curious, and a little arresting as a point of symbolism; but this is all that it seems necessary to
remark about the pack of Bologna, except that it is said to have been invented--or, as a Tarot, more correctly,
modified--about the beginning of the fifteenth century by an exiled Prince of Pisa resident in the city. The purpose for
which they were used is made tolerably evident by the fact that, in 1423, St. Bernardin of Sienna preached against
playing cards and other forms of gambling. Forty years later the importation of cards into England was forbidden, the
time being that of King Edward IV. This is the first certain record of the subject in our country.
It is difficult to consult perfect examples of the sets enumerated above, but it is not difficult to meet with detailed and
illustrated descriptions--I should add, provided always that the writer is not an occultist, for accounts emanating from
that source are usually imperfect, vague and preoccupied by considerations which cloud the critical issues. An
instance in point is offered by certain views which have been expressed on the Mantegna codex--if I may continue to
dignify card sequences with a title of this kind. It has been ruled--as we have seen--in occult reverie that Apollo and
the Nine Muses are in correspondence with Pentacles, but the analogy does not obtain in a working state of research;
and reverie must border on nightmare before we can identify Astronomy, Chronology and Cosmology with the suit of
Cups. The Baldini figures which represent these subjects are emblems of their period and not symbols, like the Tarot.
In conclusion as to this part, I observe that there has been a disposition among experts to think that the Trumps Major
were not originally connected with the numbered suits. I do not wish to offer a personal view; I am not an expert in the
history of games of chance, and I hate the profanum vulgus of divinatory devices; but I venture, under all reserves, to
intimate that if later research should justify such a leaning, then--except for the good old art of fortune-telling and its
tamperings with so-called destiny--it will be so much the better for the Greater Arcana.
So far as regards what is indispensable as preliminaries to the historical aspects of Tarot cards, and I will now take up
the speculative side of the subject and produce its tests of value. In my preface to The Tarot of the Bohemians I have
mentioned that the first writer who made known the fact of the cards was the archaeologist Court de Gebelin, who, just
prior to the French Revolution, occupied several years in the publication of his Monde Primitif, which extended to nine
quarto volumes. He was a learned man of his epoch, a high-grade Mason, a member of the historical Lodge of the
Philalethes, and a virtuoso with a profound and lifelong interest in the debate on universal antiquities before a science
of the subject existed. Even at this day, his memorials and dissertations, collected under the title which I have quoted,
are worth possessing. By an accident of things, he became acquainted with the Tarot when it was quite unknown in
Paris, and at once conceived that it was the remnants of an Egyptian book. He made inquiries concerning it and
ascertained that it was in circulation over a considerable part of Europe--Spain, Italy, Germany and the South of
France. It was in use as a game of chance or skill, after the ordinary manner of playing-cards; and he ascertained
further how the game was played. But it was in use also for the higher purpose of divination or fortune-telling, and with
the help of a learned friend he discovered the significance attributed to the cards, together with the method of
arrangement adopted for this purpose. In a word, he made a distinct contribution to our knowledge, and he is still a
source of reference--but it is on the question of fact only, and not on the beloved hypothesis that the Tarot contains
pure Egyptian doctrine. However, he set the opinion which is prevalent to this day throughout the occult schools, that
in the mystery and wonder, the strange night of the gods, the unknown tongue and the undeciphered hieroglyphics
which symbolized Egypt at the end of the eighteenth century, the origin of the cards was lost. So dreamed one of the
characteristic literati of France, and one can almost understand and sympathize, for the country about the Delta and
the Nile was beginning to loom largely in the preoccupation of learned thought, and omne ignolum pro Ægyptiaco was
the way of delusion to which many minds tended. It was excusable enough then, but that the madness has continued
and, within the charmed circle of the occult sciences, still passes from mouth to mouth--there is no excuse for this. Let
us see, therefore, the evidence produced by M. Court de Gebelin in support of his thesis, and, that I may deal justly, it
shall be summarized as far as possible in his own words.
(i) The figures and arrangement of the game are manifestly allegorical; (2) the allegories are in conformity with the
civil, philosophical and religious doctrine of ancient Egypt; (3) if the cards were modern, no High Priestess would be
included among the Greater Arcana; (4) the figure in question bears the horns of Isis; (5) the card which is called the
Emperor has a sceptre terminating in a triple cross; (6) the card entitled the Moon, who is Isis, shews drops of rain or
dew in the act of being shed by the luminary and these-as we have seen-are the tears of Isis, which swelled the
waters of the Nile and fertilized the fields of Egypt; (7) the seventeenth card, or Star, is the dog-star, Sirius, which was
consecrated to Isis and symbolized the opening of the year; (8) the game played with the Tarot is founded on the
sacred number seven, which was of great importance in Egypt; (9) the word Tarot is pure Egyptian, in which language
Tar=way or road, and Ro=king or royal--it signifies therefore the Royal Road of Life; (10) alternatively, it is derived
from A=doctrine Rosh= Mercury =Thoth, and the article T; in sum, Tarosh; and therefore the Tarot is the Book of
Thoth, or the Table of the Doctrine of Mercury.
Such is the testimony, it being understood that I have set aside several casual statements, for which no kind of
justification is produced. These, therefore, are ten pillars which support the edifice of the thesis, and the same are
pillars of sand. The Tarot is, of course, allegorical--that is to say, it is symbolism--but allegory and symbol are
catholic---of all countries, nations and times they are not more Egyptian than Mexican they are of Europe and Cathay,
of Tibet beyond the Himalayas and of the London gutters. As allegory and symbol, the cards correspond to many
types of ideas and things; they are universal and not particular; and the fact that they do not especially and peculiarly
respond to Egyptian doctrine--religious, philosophical or civil--is clear from the failure of Court de Gebelin to go
further than the affirmation. The presence of a High Priestess among the Trumps Major is more easily explained as
the memorial of some popular superstition--that worship of Diana, for example, the persistence of which in modern
Italy has been traced with such striking results by Leland. We have also to remember the universality of horns in
every cultus, not excepting that of Tibet. The triple cross is preposterous as an instance of Egyptian symbolism; it is
the cross of the patriarchal see, both Greek and Latin--of Venice, of Jerusalem, for example--and it is the form of
signing used to this day by the priests and laity of the Orthodox Rite. I pass over the idle allusion to the tears of Isis,
because other occult writers have told us that they are Hebrew Jods; as regards the seventeenth card, it is the star
Sirius or another, as predisposition pleases; the number seven was certainly important in Egypt and any treatise on
numerical mysticism will shew that the same statement applies everywhere, even if we elect to ignore the seven
Christian Sacraments and the Gifts of the Divine Spirit. Finally, as regards the etymology of the word Tarot, it is
sufficient to observe that it was offered before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone and when there was no knowledge
of the Egyptian language.
The thesis of Court de Gebelin was not suffered to repose undisturbed in the mind of the age, appealing to the
learned exclusively by means of a quarto volume. It created the opportunity of Tarot cards in Paris, as the centre of
France and all things French in the universe. The suggestion that divination by cards had behind it the unexpected
warrants of ancient hidden science, and that the root of the whole subject was in the wonder and mystery of Egypt,
reflected thereon almost a divine dignity; out of the purlieus of occult practices cartomancy emerged into fashion and
assumed for the moment almost pontifical vestures. The first to undertake the role of bateleur, magician and juggler,
was the illiterate but zealous adventurer, Alliette; the second, as a kind of High Priestess, full of intuitions and
revelations, was Mlle. Lenormand--but she belongs to a later period; while lastly came Julia Orsini, who is referable to
a Queen of Cups rather in the tatters of clairvoyance. I am not concerned with these people as tellers of fortune,
when destiny itself was shuffling and cutting cards for the game of universal revolution, or for such courts and
courtiers as were those of Louis XVIII, Charles IX and Louis Philippe. But under the occult designation of Etteilla, the
transliteration of name, Alliette, that perruquier took himself with high seriousness and posed rather as a priest of the
occult sciences than as an ordinary adept in l'art de tirer les cartes. Even at this day there are people, like Dr. Papus,
who have sought to save some part of his bizarre system from oblivion.
The long and heterogeneous story of Le Monde Primitif had come to the end of its telling in 1782, and in 1783 the
tracts of Etteilla had begun pouring from the press, testifying that already he had spent thirty, nay, almost forty years
in the study of Egyptian magic, and that he had found the final keys. They were, in fact, the Keys of the Tarot, which
was a book of philosophy and the Book of Thoth, but at the same time it was actually written by seventeen Magi in a
Temple of Fire, on the borders of the Levant, some three leagues from Memphis. It contained the science of the
universe, and the cartomancist proceeded to apply it to Astrology, Alchemy, and fortune-telling, without the slightest
diffidence or reserve as to the fact that he was driving a trade. I have really little doubt that he considered it genuine
as a métier, and that he himself was the first person whom he convinced concerning his system. But the point which
we have to notice is that in this manner was the antiquity of the Tarot generally trumpeted forth. The little books of
Etteilla are proof positive that he did not know even his own language; when in the course of time he produced a
reformed Tarot, even those who think of him tenderly admit that he spoiled its symbolism; and in respect of antiquities
he had only Court de Gebelin as his universal authority.
The cartomancists succeeded one another in the manner which I have mentioned, and of course there were rival
adepts of these less than least mysteries; but the scholarship of the subject, if it can be said to have come into
existence, reposed after all in the quarto of Court de Gebelin for something more than sixty years. On his authority,
there is very little doubt that everyone who became acquainted, by theory or practice, by casual or special concern,
with the question of Tarot cards, accepted their Egyptian character. It is said that people are taken commonly at their
own valuation, and--following as it does the line of least resistance--the unsolicitous general mind assuredly accepts
archæological pretensions in the sense of their own daring and of those who put them forward. The first who
appeared to reconsider the subject with some presumptive titles to a hearing was the French writer Duchesne, but I
am compelled to pass him over with a mere reference, and so also some interesting researches on the general
subject of playing-cards by Singer in England. The latter believed that the old Venetian game called Trappola was the
earliest European form of card-playing, that it was of Arabian origin, and that the fifty-two cards used for the purpose
derived from that region. I do not gather that any importance was ever attached to this view.
Duchesne and Singer were followed by another English writer, W. A. Chatto, who reviewed the available facts and the
cloud of speculations which had already arisen on the subject. This was in 1848, and his work has still a kind of
standard authority, but--after every allowance for a certain righteousness attributable to the independent mind--it
remains an indifferent and even a poor performance. It was, however, characteristic in its way of the approaching
middle night of the nineteenth century. Chatto rejected the Egyptian hypothesis, but as he was at very little pains
concerning it, he would scarcely be held to displace Court de Gebelin if the latter had any firm ground beneath his
hypothesis. In 1854 another French writer, Boiteau, took up the general question, maintaining the oriental origin of
Tarot cards, though without attempting to prove it. I am not certain, but I think that he is the first writer who definitely
identified them with the Gipsies; for him, however, the original Gipsy home was in India, and Egypt did not therefore
enter into his calculation.
In 1860 there arose Éliphas Lévi, a brilliant and profound illuminé whom it is impossible to accept, and with whom it is
even more impossible to dispense. There was never a mouth declaring such great things, of all the western voices
which have proclaimed or interpreted the science called occult and the doctrine called magical. I suppose that,
fundamentally speaking, he cared as much and as little as I do for the phenomenal part, but he explained the
phenomena with the assurance of one who openly regarded charlatanry as a great means to an end, if used in a right
cause. He came unto his own and his own received him, also at his proper valuation, as a man of great
learning--which he never was--and as a revealer of all mysteries without having been received into any. I do not think
that there was ever an instance of a writer with greater gifts, after their particular kind, who put them to such
indifferent uses. After all, he was only Etteilla a second time in the flesh, endowed in his transmutation with a mouth of
gold and a wider casual knowledge. This notwithstanding, he has written the most comprehensive, brilliant,
enchanting History of Magic which has ever been drawn into writing in any language. The Tarot and the de Gebelin
hypothesis he took into his heart of hearts, and all occult France and all esoteric Britain, Martinists, half-instructed
Kabalists, schools of soi disant theosophy--there, here and everywhere--have accepted his judgment about it with the
same confidence as his interpretations of those great classics of Kabalism which he had skimmed rather than read.
The Tarot for him was not only the most perfect instrument of divination and the keystone of occult science, but it was
the primitive book, the sole book of the ancient Magi, the miraculous volume which inspired all the sacred writings of
antiquity. In his first work Lévi was content, however, with accepting the construction of Court de Gebelin and
reproducing the seventh Trump Major with a few Egyptian characteristics. The question of Tarot transmission through
the Gipsies did not occupy him, till J. A. Vaillant, a bizarre writer with great knowledge of the Romany people,
suggested it in his work on those wandering tribes. The two authors were almost coincident and reflected one another
thereafter. It remained for Romain Merlin, in 1869, to point out what should have been obvious, namely, that cards of
some kind were known in Europe prior to the arrival of the Gipsies in or about 1417. But as this was their arrival at
Lüneburg, and as their presence can be traced antecedently, the correction loses a considerable part of its force; it is
safer, therefore, to say that the evidence for the use of the Tarot by Romany tribes was not suggested till after the
year 1840; the fact that some Gipsies before this period were found using cards is quite explicable on the hypothesis
not that they brought them into Europe but found them there already and added them to their stock-in-trade.
We have now seen that there is no particle of evidence for the Egyptian origin of Tarot cards. Looking in other
directions, it was once advanced on native authority that cards of some kind were invented in China about the year
A.D. 1120. Court de Gebelin believed in his zeal that he had traced them to a Chinese inscription of great imputed
antiquity which was said to refer to the subsidence of the waters of the Deluge. The characters of this inscription were
contained in seventy-seven compartments, and this constitutes the analogy. India had also its tablets, whether cards
or otherwise, and these have suggested similar slender similitudes. But the existence, for example, of ten suits or
styles, of twelve numbers each, and representing the avatars of Vishnu as a fish, tortoise, boar, lion, monkey,
hatchet, umbrella or bow, as a goat, a boodh and as a horse, in fine, are not going to help us towards the origin of
our own Trumps Major, nor do crowns and harps--nor even the presence of possible coins as a synonym of deniers
and perhaps as an equivalent of pentacles--do much to elucidate the Lesser Arcana. If every tongue and people and
clime and period possessed their cards--if with these also they philosophized, divined and gambled--the fact would be
interesting enough, but unless they were Tarot cards, they would illustrate only the universal tendency of man to be
pursuing the same things in more or less the same way.
I end, therefore, the history of this subject by repeating that it has no history prior to the fourteenth century, when the
first rumours, were heard concerning cards. They may have existed for centuries, but this period would be early
enough, if they were only intended for people to try their luck at gambling or their luck at seeing the future; on the
other hand, if they contain the deep intimations of Secret Doctrine, then the fourteenth century is again early enough,
or at least in this respect we are getting as much as we can.
been perpetuated and multiplied in the schools of occult research may be disposed of once and for all, as intimated in
the preface hereto.
Let it be understood at the beginning of this point that there are several sets or sequences of ancient cards which are
only in part of our concern. The Tarot of the Bohemians, by Papus, which I have recently carried through the press,
revising the imperfect rendering, has some useful information in this connexion, and, except for the omission of dates
and other evidences of the archaeological sense, it will serve the purpose of the general reader. I do not propose to
extend it in the present place in any manner that can be called considerable, but certain additions are desirable and
so also is a distinct mode of presentation.
Among ancient cards which are mentioned in connexion with the Tarot, there are firstly those of Baldini, which are the
celebrated set attributed by tradition to Andrea Mantegna, though this view is now generally rejected. Their date is
supposed to be about 1470, and it is thought that there are not more than four collections extant in Europe. A copy or
reproduction referred to 1485 is perhaps equally rare. A complete set contains fifty numbers, divided into five
denaries or sequences of ten cards each. There seems to be no record that they were used for the purposes of a
game, whether of chance or skill; they could scarcely have lent themselves to divination or any form of fortune-telling;
while it would be more than idle to impute a profound symbolical meaning to their obvious emblematic designs. The
first denary embodies Conditions of Life, as follows: (i) The Beggar, (2) the Knave, (3) the Artisan, (4) the Merchant,
(5) the Noble, (6) the Knight, (7) the Doge, (8) the King, (9) the Emperor, (10) the Pope. The second contains the
Muses and their Divine Leader: (11) Calliope, (12) Urania, (13) Terpsichore, (14) Erato, (15) Polyhymnia, (16) Thalia,
(17) Melpomene, (18) Euterpe, (19) Clio, (20) Apollo. The third combines part of the Liberal Arts and Sciences with
other departments of human learning, as follows: (21) Grammar, (22) Logic, (23) Rhetoric, (24) Geometry, (25)
Arithmetic, (26) Music, (27) Poetry,(28) Philosophy, (29) Astrology, (30) Theology. The fourth denary completes the
Liberal Arts and enumerates the Virtues: (31) Astronomy, (32) Chronology, (33) Cosmology, (34) Temperance, (35)
Prudence, (36) Strength, (37) Justice; (38) Charity, (39) Hope, (40) Faith. The fifth and last denary presents the
System of the Heavens (41) Moon, (42) Mercury, (43) Venus, (44) Sun, (45) Mars, (46) Jupiter, (47) Saturn, (48) A
Eighth Sphere, (49) Primum Mobile, (50) First Cause.
We must set aside the fantastic attempts to extract complete Tarot sequences out of these denaries; we must forbear
from saying, for example, that the Conditions of Life correspond to the Trumps Major, the Muses to Pentacles, the
Arts and Sciences to Cups, the Virtues, etc., to Sceptres, and the conditions of life to Swords. This kind of thing can
be done by a process of mental contortion, but it has no place in reality. At the same time, it is hardly possible that
individual cards should not exhibit certain, and even striking, analogies. The Baldini King, Knight and Knave suggest
the corresponding court cards of the Minor Arcana. The Emperor, Pope, Temperance, Strength, justice, Moon and
Sun are common to the Mantegna and Trumps Major of any Tarot pack. Predisposition has also connected the
Beggar* and Fool, Venus and the Star, Mars and the Chariot, Saturn and the Hermit, even Jupiter, or alternatively
the First Cause, with the Tarot card of the World. But the most salient features of the Trumps Major are wanting in the
Mantegna set, and I do not believe that the ordered sequence in the latter case gave birth, as it has been suggested,
to the others. Romain Merlin maintained this view, and positively assigned the Baldini cards to the end of the
fourteenth century.
If it be agreed that, except accidentally and sporadically, the Baldini emblematic or allegorical pictures have only a
shadowy and occasional connexion with Tarot cards, and, whatever their most probable date, that they can have
supplied no originating motive, it follows that we are still seeking not only an origin in place and time for the symbols
with which we are concerned, but a specific case of their manifestation on the continent of Europe to serve as a point
of departure, whether backward or forward. Now it is well known that in the year 1393 the painter Charles
Gringonneur--who for no reason that I can trace has been termed an occultist and kabalist by one indifferent English
writer--designed and illuminated some kind of cards for the diversion of Charles VI of France when he was in mental
ill-health, and the question arises whether anything can be ascertained of their nature. The only available answer is
that at Paris, in the Bibliothèque du Roi, there are seventeen cards drawn and illuminated on paper. They are very
beautiful, antique and priceless; the figures have a background of gold, and are framed in a silver border; but they
are accompanied by no inscription and no number.
* The beggar is practically naked, and the analogy is constituted by the presence of two dogs, one of which seems to
be flying at his legs. The Mars card depicts a sword-bearing warrior in a canopied chariot, to which, however, no
horses are attached. Of course, if the Baldini cards belong to the close of the fifteenth century, there is no question at
issue, as the Tarot was known in Europe long before that period.
It is certain, however, that they include Tarot Trumps Major, the list of which is as follows: Fool, Emperor, Pope,
Lovers, Wheel of Fortune, Temperance, Fortitude, justice, Moon, Sun, Chariot, Hermit, Hanged Man, Death, Tower
and Last judgment. There are also four Tarot Cards at the Musée Carrer, Venice, and five others elsewhere, making
nine in all. They include two pages or Knaves, three Kings and two Queens, thus illustrating the Minor Arcana. These
collections have all been identified with the set produced by Gringonneur, but the ascription was disputed so far back
as the year 1848, and it is not apparently put forward at the present day, even by those who are anxious to make
evident the antiquity of the Tarot. It is held that they are all of Italian and some at least certainly of Venetian origin. We
have in this manner our requisite point of departure in respect of place at least. It has further been stated with
authority that Venetian Tarots are the old and true form, which is the parent of all others; but I infer that complete sets
of the Major and Minor Arcana belong to much later periods. The pack is thought to have consisted of seventy-eight
cards.
Notwithstanding, however, the preference shewn towards the Venetian Tarot, it is acknowledged that some portions of
a Minchiate or Florentine set must be allocated to the period between 1413 and 1418. These were once in the
possession of Countess Gonzaga, at Milan. A complete Minchiate pack contained ninety-seven cards, and in spite of
these vestiges it is regarded, speaking generally, as a later development. There were forty-one Trumps Major, the
additional numbers being borrowed or reflected from the Baldini emblematic set. In the court cards of the Minor
Arcana, the Knights were monsters of the centaur type, while the Knaves were sometimes warriors and sometimes
serving-men. Another distinction dwelt upon is the prevalence of Chrstian mediæval ideas and the utter absence of
any Oriental suggestion. The question, however, remains whether there are Eastern traces in any Tarot cards.
We come, in fine, to the Bolognese Tarot, sometimes referred to as that of Venice and having the Trumps Major
complete, but numbers 20 and 21 are transposed. In the Minor Arcana the 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the small cards are
omitted, with the result that there are sixty-two cards in all. The termination of the Trumps Major in the representation
of the Last judgment is curious, and a little arresting as a point of symbolism; but this is all that it seems necessary to
remark about the pack of Bologna, except that it is said to have been invented--or, as a Tarot, more correctly,
modified--about the beginning of the fifteenth century by an exiled Prince of Pisa resident in the city. The purpose for
which they were used is made tolerably evident by the fact that, in 1423, St. Bernardin of Sienna preached against
playing cards and other forms of gambling. Forty years later the importation of cards into England was forbidden, the
time being that of King Edward IV. This is the first certain record of the subject in our country.
It is difficult to consult perfect examples of the sets enumerated above, but it is not difficult to meet with detailed and
illustrated descriptions--I should add, provided always that the writer is not an occultist, for accounts emanating from
that source are usually imperfect, vague and preoccupied by considerations which cloud the critical issues. An
instance in point is offered by certain views which have been expressed on the Mantegna codex--if I may continue to
dignify card sequences with a title of this kind. It has been ruled--as we have seen--in occult reverie that Apollo and
the Nine Muses are in correspondence with Pentacles, but the analogy does not obtain in a working state of research;
and reverie must border on nightmare before we can identify Astronomy, Chronology and Cosmology with the suit of
Cups. The Baldini figures which represent these subjects are emblems of their period and not symbols, like the Tarot.
In conclusion as to this part, I observe that there has been a disposition among experts to think that the Trumps Major
were not originally connected with the numbered suits. I do not wish to offer a personal view; I am not an expert in the
history of games of chance, and I hate the profanum vulgus of divinatory devices; but I venture, under all reserves, to
intimate that if later research should justify such a leaning, then--except for the good old art of fortune-telling and its
tamperings with so-called destiny--it will be so much the better for the Greater Arcana.
So far as regards what is indispensable as preliminaries to the historical aspects of Tarot cards, and I will now take up
the speculative side of the subject and produce its tests of value. In my preface to The Tarot of the Bohemians I have
mentioned that the first writer who made known the fact of the cards was the archaeologist Court de Gebelin, who, just
prior to the French Revolution, occupied several years in the publication of his Monde Primitif, which extended to nine
quarto volumes. He was a learned man of his epoch, a high-grade Mason, a member of the historical Lodge of the
Philalethes, and a virtuoso with a profound and lifelong interest in the debate on universal antiquities before a science
of the subject existed. Even at this day, his memorials and dissertations, collected under the title which I have quoted,
are worth possessing. By an accident of things, he became acquainted with the Tarot when it was quite unknown in
Paris, and at once conceived that it was the remnants of an Egyptian book. He made inquiries concerning it and
ascertained that it was in circulation over a considerable part of Europe--Spain, Italy, Germany and the South of
France. It was in use as a game of chance or skill, after the ordinary manner of playing-cards; and he ascertained
further how the game was played. But it was in use also for the higher purpose of divination or fortune-telling, and with
the help of a learned friend he discovered the significance attributed to the cards, together with the method of
arrangement adopted for this purpose. In a word, he made a distinct contribution to our knowledge, and he is still a
source of reference--but it is on the question of fact only, and not on the beloved hypothesis that the Tarot contains
pure Egyptian doctrine. However, he set the opinion which is prevalent to this day throughout the occult schools, that
in the mystery and wonder, the strange night of the gods, the unknown tongue and the undeciphered hieroglyphics
which symbolized Egypt at the end of the eighteenth century, the origin of the cards was lost. So dreamed one of the
characteristic literati of France, and one can almost understand and sympathize, for the country about the Delta and
the Nile was beginning to loom largely in the preoccupation of learned thought, and omne ignolum pro Ægyptiaco was
the way of delusion to which many minds tended. It was excusable enough then, but that the madness has continued
and, within the charmed circle of the occult sciences, still passes from mouth to mouth--there is no excuse for this. Let
us see, therefore, the evidence produced by M. Court de Gebelin in support of his thesis, and, that I may deal justly, it
shall be summarized as far as possible in his own words.
(i) The figures and arrangement of the game are manifestly allegorical; (2) the allegories are in conformity with the
civil, philosophical and religious doctrine of ancient Egypt; (3) if the cards were modern, no High Priestess would be
included among the Greater Arcana; (4) the figure in question bears the horns of Isis; (5) the card which is called the
Emperor has a sceptre terminating in a triple cross; (6) the card entitled the Moon, who is Isis, shews drops of rain or
dew in the act of being shed by the luminary and these-as we have seen-are the tears of Isis, which swelled the
waters of the Nile and fertilized the fields of Egypt; (7) the seventeenth card, or Star, is the dog-star, Sirius, which was
consecrated to Isis and symbolized the opening of the year; (8) the game played with the Tarot is founded on the
sacred number seven, which was of great importance in Egypt; (9) the word Tarot is pure Egyptian, in which language
Tar=way or road, and Ro=king or royal--it signifies therefore the Royal Road of Life; (10) alternatively, it is derived
from A=doctrine Rosh= Mercury =Thoth, and the article T; in sum, Tarosh; and therefore the Tarot is the Book of
Thoth, or the Table of the Doctrine of Mercury.
Such is the testimony, it being understood that I have set aside several casual statements, for which no kind of
justification is produced. These, therefore, are ten pillars which support the edifice of the thesis, and the same are
pillars of sand. The Tarot is, of course, allegorical--that is to say, it is symbolism--but allegory and symbol are
catholic---of all countries, nations and times they are not more Egyptian than Mexican they are of Europe and Cathay,
of Tibet beyond the Himalayas and of the London gutters. As allegory and symbol, the cards correspond to many
types of ideas and things; they are universal and not particular; and the fact that they do not especially and peculiarly
respond to Egyptian doctrine--religious, philosophical or civil--is clear from the failure of Court de Gebelin to go
further than the affirmation. The presence of a High Priestess among the Trumps Major is more easily explained as
the memorial of some popular superstition--that worship of Diana, for example, the persistence of which in modern
Italy has been traced with such striking results by Leland. We have also to remember the universality of horns in
every cultus, not excepting that of Tibet. The triple cross is preposterous as an instance of Egyptian symbolism; it is
the cross of the patriarchal see, both Greek and Latin--of Venice, of Jerusalem, for example--and it is the form of
signing used to this day by the priests and laity of the Orthodox Rite. I pass over the idle allusion to the tears of Isis,
because other occult writers have told us that they are Hebrew Jods; as regards the seventeenth card, it is the star
Sirius or another, as predisposition pleases; the number seven was certainly important in Egypt and any treatise on
numerical mysticism will shew that the same statement applies everywhere, even if we elect to ignore the seven
Christian Sacraments and the Gifts of the Divine Spirit. Finally, as regards the etymology of the word Tarot, it is
sufficient to observe that it was offered before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone and when there was no knowledge
of the Egyptian language.
The thesis of Court de Gebelin was not suffered to repose undisturbed in the mind of the age, appealing to the
learned exclusively by means of a quarto volume. It created the opportunity of Tarot cards in Paris, as the centre of
France and all things French in the universe. The suggestion that divination by cards had behind it the unexpected
warrants of ancient hidden science, and that the root of the whole subject was in the wonder and mystery of Egypt,
reflected thereon almost a divine dignity; out of the purlieus of occult practices cartomancy emerged into fashion and
assumed for the moment almost pontifical vestures. The first to undertake the role of bateleur, magician and juggler,
was the illiterate but zealous adventurer, Alliette; the second, as a kind of High Priestess, full of intuitions and
revelations, was Mlle. Lenormand--but she belongs to a later period; while lastly came Julia Orsini, who is referable to
a Queen of Cups rather in the tatters of clairvoyance. I am not concerned with these people as tellers of fortune,
when destiny itself was shuffling and cutting cards for the game of universal revolution, or for such courts and
courtiers as were those of Louis XVIII, Charles IX and Louis Philippe. But under the occult designation of Etteilla, the
transliteration of name, Alliette, that perruquier took himself with high seriousness and posed rather as a priest of the
occult sciences than as an ordinary adept in l'art de tirer les cartes. Even at this day there are people, like Dr. Papus,
who have sought to save some part of his bizarre system from oblivion.
The long and heterogeneous story of Le Monde Primitif had come to the end of its telling in 1782, and in 1783 the
tracts of Etteilla had begun pouring from the press, testifying that already he had spent thirty, nay, almost forty years
in the study of Egyptian magic, and that he had found the final keys. They were, in fact, the Keys of the Tarot, which
was a book of philosophy and the Book of Thoth, but at the same time it was actually written by seventeen Magi in a
Temple of Fire, on the borders of the Levant, some three leagues from Memphis. It contained the science of the
universe, and the cartomancist proceeded to apply it to Astrology, Alchemy, and fortune-telling, without the slightest
diffidence or reserve as to the fact that he was driving a trade. I have really little doubt that he considered it genuine
as a métier, and that he himself was the first person whom he convinced concerning his system. But the point which
we have to notice is that in this manner was the antiquity of the Tarot generally trumpeted forth. The little books of
Etteilla are proof positive that he did not know even his own language; when in the course of time he produced a
reformed Tarot, even those who think of him tenderly admit that he spoiled its symbolism; and in respect of antiquities
he had only Court de Gebelin as his universal authority.
The cartomancists succeeded one another in the manner which I have mentioned, and of course there were rival
adepts of these less than least mysteries; but the scholarship of the subject, if it can be said to have come into
existence, reposed after all in the quarto of Court de Gebelin for something more than sixty years. On his authority,
there is very little doubt that everyone who became acquainted, by theory or practice, by casual or special concern,
with the question of Tarot cards, accepted their Egyptian character. It is said that people are taken commonly at their
own valuation, and--following as it does the line of least resistance--the unsolicitous general mind assuredly accepts
archæological pretensions in the sense of their own daring and of those who put them forward. The first who
appeared to reconsider the subject with some presumptive titles to a hearing was the French writer Duchesne, but I
am compelled to pass him over with a mere reference, and so also some interesting researches on the general
subject of playing-cards by Singer in England. The latter believed that the old Venetian game called Trappola was the
earliest European form of card-playing, that it was of Arabian origin, and that the fifty-two cards used for the purpose
derived from that region. I do not gather that any importance was ever attached to this view.
Duchesne and Singer were followed by another English writer, W. A. Chatto, who reviewed the available facts and the
cloud of speculations which had already arisen on the subject. This was in 1848, and his work has still a kind of
standard authority, but--after every allowance for a certain righteousness attributable to the independent mind--it
remains an indifferent and even a poor performance. It was, however, characteristic in its way of the approaching
middle night of the nineteenth century. Chatto rejected the Egyptian hypothesis, but as he was at very little pains
concerning it, he would scarcely be held to displace Court de Gebelin if the latter had any firm ground beneath his
hypothesis. In 1854 another French writer, Boiteau, took up the general question, maintaining the oriental origin of
Tarot cards, though without attempting to prove it. I am not certain, but I think that he is the first writer who definitely
identified them with the Gipsies; for him, however, the original Gipsy home was in India, and Egypt did not therefore
enter into his calculation.
In 1860 there arose Éliphas Lévi, a brilliant and profound illuminé whom it is impossible to accept, and with whom it is
even more impossible to dispense. There was never a mouth declaring such great things, of all the western voices
which have proclaimed or interpreted the science called occult and the doctrine called magical. I suppose that,
fundamentally speaking, he cared as much and as little as I do for the phenomenal part, but he explained the
phenomena with the assurance of one who openly regarded charlatanry as a great means to an end, if used in a right
cause. He came unto his own and his own received him, also at his proper valuation, as a man of great
learning--which he never was--and as a revealer of all mysteries without having been received into any. I do not think
that there was ever an instance of a writer with greater gifts, after their particular kind, who put them to such
indifferent uses. After all, he was only Etteilla a second time in the flesh, endowed in his transmutation with a mouth of
gold and a wider casual knowledge. This notwithstanding, he has written the most comprehensive, brilliant,
enchanting History of Magic which has ever been drawn into writing in any language. The Tarot and the de Gebelin
hypothesis he took into his heart of hearts, and all occult France and all esoteric Britain, Martinists, half-instructed
Kabalists, schools of soi disant theosophy--there, here and everywhere--have accepted his judgment about it with the
same confidence as his interpretations of those great classics of Kabalism which he had skimmed rather than read.
The Tarot for him was not only the most perfect instrument of divination and the keystone of occult science, but it was
the primitive book, the sole book of the ancient Magi, the miraculous volume which inspired all the sacred writings of
antiquity. In his first work Lévi was content, however, with accepting the construction of Court de Gebelin and
reproducing the seventh Trump Major with a few Egyptian characteristics. The question of Tarot transmission through
the Gipsies did not occupy him, till J. A. Vaillant, a bizarre writer with great knowledge of the Romany people,
suggested it in his work on those wandering tribes. The two authors were almost coincident and reflected one another
thereafter. It remained for Romain Merlin, in 1869, to point out what should have been obvious, namely, that cards of
some kind were known in Europe prior to the arrival of the Gipsies in or about 1417. But as this was their arrival at
Lüneburg, and as their presence can be traced antecedently, the correction loses a considerable part of its force; it is
safer, therefore, to say that the evidence for the use of the Tarot by Romany tribes was not suggested till after the
year 1840; the fact that some Gipsies before this period were found using cards is quite explicable on the hypothesis
not that they brought them into Europe but found them there already and added them to their stock-in-trade.
We have now seen that there is no particle of evidence for the Egyptian origin of Tarot cards. Looking in other
directions, it was once advanced on native authority that cards of some kind were invented in China about the year
A.D. 1120. Court de Gebelin believed in his zeal that he had traced them to a Chinese inscription of great imputed
antiquity which was said to refer to the subsidence of the waters of the Deluge. The characters of this inscription were
contained in seventy-seven compartments, and this constitutes the analogy. India had also its tablets, whether cards
or otherwise, and these have suggested similar slender similitudes. But the existence, for example, of ten suits or
styles, of twelve numbers each, and representing the avatars of Vishnu as a fish, tortoise, boar, lion, monkey,
hatchet, umbrella or bow, as a goat, a boodh and as a horse, in fine, are not going to help us towards the origin of
our own Trumps Major, nor do crowns and harps--nor even the presence of possible coins as a synonym of deniers
and perhaps as an equivalent of pentacles--do much to elucidate the Lesser Arcana. If every tongue and people and
clime and period possessed their cards--if with these also they philosophized, divined and gambled--the fact would be
interesting enough, but unless they were Tarot cards, they would illustrate only the universal tendency of man to be
pursuing the same things in more or less the same way.
I end, therefore, the history of this subject by repeating that it has no history prior to the fourteenth century, when the
first rumours, were heard concerning cards. They may have existed for centuries, but this period would be early
enough, if they were only intended for people to try their luck at gambling or their luck at seeing the future; on the
other hand, if they contain the deep intimations of Secret Doctrine, then the fourteenth century is again early enough,
or at least in this respect we are getting as much as we can.
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The Pictorial Key To The Tarot: Part 1, Class 2