Historical Tarot

Last night, I did a reading on myself. I cleansed my room, my aura, and the cards. I asked Spirit to reveal my shadows energy. While shuffling for about 1 minute, 5 cards plopped out of the deck at once. As I flipped them over, the 1st card is the six of wands in reversed. The next 4 are major arcana cards. 1. THE HIGH PRIESTESS. 2. JUDGEMENT. 3. THE HIEROPHANT. 4. THE WORLD. I WOULD LOVE SOME CLARITY ON THIS MESSAGE, IF THE COMMUNITY WOULD BE SO KIND AND OFFER YOUR FEEDBACK. SEnding Love and Light to all!!!

Just reconditioned and reproduced my second historical deck. I know that you were saying you wanted to see it @FindYourSovereignty, I also figured you'd like a sneak peak @Merrick , @pacificwaters , @Flaxen @iMoodyCrab & @Aldor44 😉 I got it from the French site you linked in your thread @Morsoth and I can't thank you enough for that! It is the Tarot Italien 1860. It was in quite a bad condition and I had to use some PS skillz to get it back in order lol. In some cards half the text image was missing and I had to rebuild it up as you can see here below. Before:~ After:~ It took time and effort but…

Recently, I've been seeing a lot of readers say that The Hierophant and the High Priestess are counterparts (similar to the Empress and the Emperor) but that doesn't make any sense to me. When I first started reading tarot I assumed that the High Priestess and The Magician were counterparts seeing as how they come right after one another and the High Priestess deals with spirituality, intuition, psychic abilities while the Magician deals with manifestation, creation in the physical world, beginnings. To me those two just seem to go together. I'm wondering if there is any history behind the Hierophant and High Priestess being considered counterparts…

I'm trying to translate these cards with Google translate from images online. I've looked for an english version but everything that says there is one links to a 404 or some weird website where you get all the books you want for free but you have to give them your credit card info. Does anyone have an english translation? If not, does anyone (who has at least a little bit of familiarity with french) want to help? 😅

I got my copy of J-M David's Reading the Marseille Tarot yesterday. Haven't read much of it yet, but just came across this in the chapter on Le Batteleur: "... possibly the first description of an actual performance of the cups and balls that has survived is from Alciphron of Athens, who, in the second century C.E., described a performance of the cups and balls by a man using 'a three-legged table, upon which he placed three small dishes, under which he concealed some small white pebbles.'" (p. 32, emphasis in the original) There’s that three-legged table! I have long been skeptical about how much influence “ancient sources”…

I have been collecting for, ahem, a minute or two. And yet still, to this day, I get these "What the heck?!" moments- or, as I like to think of them "What the heck?! decks". These are the decks you somehow missed out on- no idea they were even out there, and you stumble across through some weird portal and, ta-dah, there it is. Sometimes in print or sometimes not. I have had two recently: the Peterson Noblet and the Golden Renaissance (I literally had no idea there were decks out there that had a majority of the Charles VI imagery, sadly missed on the early two limited print ones that were better). Make that three actually- I missed the…

This N. Conver deck was published by Camoin between 1890 and 1900. It is from the Paul Marteau collection. What is of interest to me are the inscriptions on the Majors cards. What are your thoughts about these? For instance, on frame 147, the Moon card, you can see the words "ombre, or, reflet," or "shadow, gold, reflection." https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10539497f/f147.item.r=camoin tarot Others are simpler (and more positive than I'm used to) such as a meaning for the Tower (f143): "balance" (équilibre) https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10539497f/f143.item.r=camoin tarot Ho…

I was wondering if there is a Lismon Etteilla (Etteilla II) facsimile-deck currently available to purchase anywhere? I’m also looking for a facsimile of Jeu de la Princesse. I have managed to order Lo Scarabeo’s 1996 Ancient Esoteric Tarot. It is described as a ‘modified’ version of Princesse but I’m unsure as to how/if it differs from the earlier Dusserre edition. Any information would be great!

Following on from the earlier article on the translations of the founding documents of the occult Tarot by Court de Gébelin and Etteilla, I have published a study on the origins of the Egyptian myth of the Tarot, which may interest those who enjoy history, myth and other enigmas. The article may be read here.

I just got a notification via email that Mr. Berti has re-released the Milanese Tarocco of Edoardo Dotti, 1862 ! For fans of the Sopraffino style deck, this might be a fun alternate. Berti says his edition is also environmanetally freindly: non plastic, safe inks etc. Looks lovely.. ❤️

First, I will preface this by saying I am NOT a TdM reader, but got this deck because I liked it visually. I had had some of the trad primary colored TdM's and thought were very lovely, but wasn't connecting with them. Do you see the Ancient Italian as just TdM style, not really TdM? Does it appeal to you if you read with more the trad TdM's? For someone not really that familiar with TdM's, was just wondering your thoughts.

I read that Arthur Waite had a daughter called Sybil. But I can't find any information about her at all. Does anyone know what happened to her ? Her life and when she died and all ? I only found one photo of her with her father. There doesn't seem to be a thorough biography of Arthur Waite written. It's odd. Would be a fascinating endeavour for a biographer.

@_R_ For the general forum reader: _R_ published the translated to English essay that Roger Caillois wrote as a preface to Wirth's Tarot of The Magicians last November. Below are my notes and comments about that preface. Reading it first or having it open in another browser window will provide the right context. I feel like I should have been more familiar with Roger Caillos than I was before reading your article, from my years of studying game theory if nothing else. I am sure he was cited and quoted in things I read, but that is the problem of being an eclectic who knows a little about a lot of different topics, master of none. Based on what I re…

It might interest some readers to know that a period manuscript translation of the essays by Court de Gébelin, the Comte de Mellet, along with most of Etteilla’s Cahiers has recently been digitised and placed online on a library website. For those interested in these historical texts (or Etteilla’s reading methods), please see here. In passing, I will note that Donald Tyson has also just published his version of the first two essays, along with some other texts, but no Etteilla, in his “Essential Tarot Writings.”

Hello everyone, I've been searching for "historic" spreads aside from the Celtic Cross and the Opening of the Key. I have used the CC so far and I am very interested in learning the OOTK but that's for later considering the amount of work required. So, I was looking for an alternative to the CC that would have some historical/influential origin but I haven't found anything... Do you have any recommendations?

https://rinascimentoitalianartenglish.wordpress.com/2020/02/27/the-oldest-method-of-reading-the-tarot/ I'd ask Mr. Berti - he's very nice - but every time I engage him in conversation, I end up buying something. And I just CAN'T right now. 😁

I decided to make my own facsimile version of the Etteilla Deck - Type I! You can see that Etteilla I tarot deck at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Since the deck has no copyright, and fall into the public domain, the task was fairly simple; you can freely download each image and print your own version of it. To make it more professional and authentic, I have polished the scans in Photoshop, fixed the border and made sure they are all formatted by the same template (size, color, sharpness, etc). It’s a fairly long process, but it is rewarding at the end. There is variations of patterns in the backs of the Etteilla I (and also diff…

Hi Guys Not too sure if this is the right place for this but it is a very historical account of all types of playing cards. It is (some of you may well have heard of it that I do not doubt) "The Devils Picturebook" and it is free to download, without any copyright issues (I think). Anyway I think @katrinka and @gregory would have an interest in it maybe @Flaxen too. I know you guys love a little bit of history when it comes to the cards 😉

... as suggested by Lynyrd Narciso who posts here as BlueToy. This is another follow-up to a thread on ATF, the beloved forum that closed down a year ago. It is meant to deal with everything that is related to the Mamluk pattern in general, also in particular to discuss the possible extension of the mamluk pattern to a full tarot deck, however of course not exclusively. I'll start with something my daughter came up with recently (already posted that on my Facebook page): When she looked over my shoulder while I was paying attention to the mamluk cards (more than paying attention to her, terrible injustice that is), she got me to talk about all the patterns, and we …

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Hello tarot fam! So at the end of last month, I ordered a bundle pack from Editions SIVILIXI containing the Vieville Tarot and book as well as the Tarot de Paris (at the time, CollecTarot was out of stock of the latter). Shipping from France to the US wasn't cheap. but the total cost came close to what buying the two decks and Vieville book would have been had I purchased from CollecTarot, and I had my package exactly seven days after I placed the order, which I thought was pretty righteous. Anyway! I've been working with the Tarot de Paris this month, and I'm finding it to be so fascinating. Most of the pips and several of the majors are quite a b…

Who knows the origin of the Celtic Cross and why it seems to be as abundant as it is? I've been doing a lot of reading teaching back to the origin of tarot, the Kabala beginings and I've found some unique geometric designs all based on numerology that I feel make power spreads and I've been using them. Very energized. I also found a spread in the Brotherhood Of Light Book that seems to have been forgotten about using 7 cards. I just wonder if 7 questions are necessary for it.

(Not sure if this is the right place to put this thread but it seemed appropriate) I posted this over in another forum but thought I would see what other information I could get... I don't know much when it comes to tarot. In fact I don't know much about a lot of things, but I am working to remedy that I am curious to learn about the differences between deck styles (is that the right word?) such as Thoth, TdM, RWS, and any others that may be out there that I am unaware of. Are they read differently? In what way? How does the symbolism differ? Do card meanings change? Do they have different card orders? Why? Sorry if I have gone really wide with m…

Does anybody here have the Limited Edition of the Sola Busca Tarot recently released by Lo Scarabeo? How was it? It seems that a fly card there stated that to recreate the original physical look of the ancient deck, they decided to ditch the card varnish so that it may not be ideal for shuffling. Given this, do you even read with it? I ordered this online through my source, and since it is to be exported from half a world away, it might take weeks before it gets here. I just hope I'd have it in my hands before the month ends. I'm so excited!

Many people who know me as a Tarot historian asked me to explain why, after having worked for 30 years with great publishing houses, like Lo Scarabeo in turin and Dal Negro in Treviso, taking care of the re-edition of about 20 ancient Tarots and the project of about 25 modern decks of Tarots and Sibyls, I decided to start the "RINASCIMENTO PROJECT", which seems to follow the same editorial lines already started by other publishers. The answer is that the big publishing houses, wanting to be competitive on the global market, have to print large quantities of low price decks. To do this, they must print Tarot capable of being appreciated by a large audience. This choice…