Eudes Picard: elements and idiosyncracies

[_R_]

3 hours ago, Decan said:

 

For Eudes Picard's book I thought that the spanish translation can even be a better choice than the old book in French (price apart!), because of a possible interesting preface. At times prefaces bring something, but not always.

Who wrote the preface to the Spanish edition? In French, authors such as Jean Paulhan and Roger Caillois wrote prefaces to works by Paul Marteau and Oswald Wirth, which shows the intellectual calibre the Tarot has attracted in that country. In Spanish, the poet Alberto Cousté wrote an interesting book called El tarot o la máquina de imaginar, based on the classic French authors mostly, along with some obscure but intelligent writings as well.
 

Picard - and Piobb's - influence is greater in Spain than in France, that is certain.

[Decan]

32 minutes ago, _R_ said:

Who wrote the preface to the Spanish edition?

It's something I don't know. I just presumed that the preface could be interesting (but it's to check because not every preface is).

[Guest]

15 hours ago, katrinka said:

 

Thank you! Bookmarked.
 

Flaxen mentioned something similar here:

 

 

"Here is the complete celestial alphabet, the heavens in brief, that marvellous pocket universe..."
He certainly didn't lack enthusiasm. 😄

 

 

Essentially, it is elemental dignities — air is moderately strong with fire, neutral with water, and neutralises earth. So if cups and coins fall together, they neutralise each other and cannot express their nature in a constructive manner (i.e., with dignity). Someone with this temperament (melancholic-sanguine) often struggles with reconciling their nature. 
 

10 hours ago, _R_ said:

You didn't miss anything, I just published the piece I said I was going to translate. 🙂

Picard wrote a few books on astrology (medical and judicial) and those books have been reprinted in French so I'm not sure why the Tarot one wasn't. There were other writers at the time who also made a good stab at correlating Tarot and astrology, although not all attempts are convincing. 

To be honest, looking at tables of correspondences of all kinds, and reading the works in question, I am not convinced that there was always a sound rationale for these, other than to differentiate oneself from other authors.

It is odd that the book was not reprinted. If I am honest, the conflation of tarot and astrology is a bugbear and I have never seen evidence that the offer each other anything beneficial...

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Decan said:

Very interesting!

I suspected that the reason behind was astrology, but astrologers can make unusual choices at times (and often).

 

For Eudes Picard's book I thought that the spanish translation can even be a better choice than the old book in French (price apart!), because of a possible interesting preface. At times prefaces bring something, but not always.

I watched a review on the Thomson Leng lately (link below), and there are a few decks based on Eudes Picard Tarot, El Gran Tarot Esoterico is one of them, and it is Spanish, likely the reason why they translated Eudes Picard's book.

(look at 16:45)

 

Very true! 
 

I gave the El Gran Tarot Esoterico away last year. It was just the cards, as I never even had the box. It is a strange deck. I never took to it. 

[Guest]

On looking for information on the publisher, I realised that I own the playing cards they published in a similar promotion. They were published in 1935. I received the cards as a gift and it did not include the box. They are in rather poor condition but all 52 and the joker are present.

 

Thompson Leng did several comic strips including ones illustrated by Dudley Dexter Watkins.
 

 

[katrinka]

7 hours ago, timtoldrum said:

I gave the El Gran Tarot Esoterico away last year. It was just the cards, as I never even had the box. It is a strange deck. I never took to it. 

 

It deviates quite a bit from Picard in places and there doesn't seem to be any good reason for doing that. Here's a comparison (along with yet another FrankenWirth deck, lol). The Thomson Leng sticks much closer to the symbolism Picard used.
 

And there is another, I think it was in the video Decan posted the other day. It's called the Balbi and it's an OOP deck from the 1970's, done in that kind of Peter Max-knockoff style that was everywhere in those days.
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/balbi/

Neither really appeals to me, either. I'd be content with just the Thomson Leng. The Eudes Picard will be icing on the cake.
 

6 hours ago, timtoldrum said:

On looking for information on the publisher, I realised that I own the playing cards they published in a similar promotion. They were published in 1935. I received the cards as a gift and it did not include the box. They are in rather poor condition but all 52 and the joker are present.

 

I like those. 🙂

Did you turn up anything else on the publisher?

 

Quote

Thompson Leng did several comic strips including ones illustrated by Dudley Dexter Watkins.

 

It would be interesting if Watkins was the artist. The cards don't precisely match anything of his that I could turn up on google images, but he seems to have changed his style a few times over the years - he was chameleon-like. I suspect it was someone else, since Watkins seemed to be totally absorbed in comics. He actually died at the drawing table. I don't think he would have made time for a deep dive into Picard. Still, that's conjecture and I can't rule him out.

What I know about UK publishers could be engraved on the head of a pin with a butter knife, lol. Everything I can find on the publisher says "DC Thomson". "Thomson Leng" only comes up in the context of the deck (and currently, a performing arts group). Who was Leng?

Edited September 27, 2020 by katrinka

[_R_]

5 hours ago, katrinka said:

It deviates quite a bit from Picard in places and there doesn't seem to be any good reason for doing that.

Maritxu de Guler created a number of decks (EGTE, Basque, etc), and the astrological or kabbalistic correspondences are not the same, so she appears to have been fairly fluid in her choice of attributions.

[katrinka]

Ah, OK. It's good to know there were reasons other than artistic license. Thanks!

[Guest]

18 hours ago, katrinka said:

 

It deviates quite a bit from Picard in places and there doesn't seem to be any good reason for doing that. Here's a comparison (along with yet another FrankenWirth deck, lol). The Thomson Leng sticks much closer to the symbolism Picard used.
 

And there is another, I think it was in the video Decan posted the other day. It's called the Balbi and it's an OOP deck from the 1970's, done in that kind of Peter Max-knockoff style that was everywhere in those days.
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/balbi/

Neither really appeals to me, either. I'd be content with just the Thomson Leng. The Eudes Picard will be icing on the cake.
 

 

I like those. 🙂

Did you turn up anything else on the publisher?

 

 

It would be interesting if Watkins was the artist. The cards don't precisely match anything of his that I could turn up on google images, but he seems to have changed his style a few times over the years - he was chameleon-like. I suspect it was someone else, since Watkins seemed to be totally absorbed in comics. He actually died at the drawing table. I don't think he would have made time for a deep dive into Picard. Still, that's conjecture and I can't rule him out.

What I know about UK publishers could be engraved on the head of a pin with a butter knife, lol. Everything I can find on the publisher says "DC Thomson". "Thomson Leng" only comes up in the context of the deck (and currently, a performing arts group). Who was Leng?

Leng was another publishing house and the two merged in c. 1904/5.  In c. 1930, Thomson’s son took over the company and it was he that initiated many of D.C. Thomson successful publications.

 

 I have thus far not even been able to ascertain the “the women’s magazine” in question.

 

Looking at Watkins’ work in the 1930s, he illustrated several picture books such as Treasure Island and Oliver Twist (he also produced several religious works). Some of these picture books echo the cards. But there are differences.

I am not familiar with his work. I have been trying to ascertain some of the other artists on their publications, but also enquiring with his fans to see if they know if he illustrated either cards.

 

Someone compiled the cards’ meanings and I imagine that they might well have given descriptions, similar to Waite and Pixie with the trumps. I did wonder where the archives might be — but looking through info on the company, it’s unlikely to be accessible. 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Guest
Update

[Decan]

The introduction on google book regarding Eudes Picard's Tarot Manual by Christine Payne-Towler (Noreah Press, 14 févr. 2020)

https://books.google.fr/books/about/Eudes_Picard_s_Tarot_Manual.html?id=8URBzQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

 

Quote

Eudes Picard's Tarot Manual is an introduction to the lineage of Spanish Tarots spearheaded by Eudes Picard in the first decade of the 1900's. Picard is one of the published Tarot authors of his times; he cites contemporaries Paul Christian, Eliphas Levi, Papus, Elie Alta, and Pierre Piobb in the course of his explanations. These Tarot images were produced as sketches for his book, Manuel Synthetique et Pratique del Tarot , published in Paris, 1909. Only 50 copies of the black-and-white sketches were printed on cards, these images were scanned from copy #33 and shared with us by Tarot creator Casey Duhamel.The suited cards of this pack have been emulated on several modern Tarots, but never has the full pack been presented on its own terms. Tarot researcher Christine Payne-Towler presents the sparse explanations Picard gave for the individual cards, including historical context and esoteric commentary from past writings as well as personal experience using cards from this Tarot family. The 78 cards have been sensitively and masterfully colored by Tarot artist Michael Dowers.

 

I stressed what interest me particularly, that is, his intellectual influences. I never heard about Christine Payne-Towler but she is is likely well known.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Decan

[_R_]

47 minutes ago, Decan said:

I stressed what interest me particularly, that is, his intellectual influences.

Have you read those authors? Their works are either available online (Gallica, etc) or have been reprinted in recent years.

 

48 minutes ago, Decan said:

I never heard about Christine Payne-Towler but she is is likely well known.

 

Effectively.

[katrinka]

She is. She's the Tarot of the Holy Light lady. She does tons of research and writing, and she's worth reading.
But she's heavily invested in a theory that the Tarot, Hebrew alphabet, numbers and astrology have been connected since ancient times. It's a lovely idea, but there's no solid evidence to back it up. So when you read her, have one of these handy:

 

[katrinka]

32 minutes ago, _R_ said:

Have you read those authors? Their works are either available online (Gallica, etc) or have been reprinted in recent years.

 

And Decan has the advantage of being fluent in French.
As for me, I find blogs like this helpful. 😉
https://traditionaltarot.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/piobb-the-tarot-and-the-22-polygons/

Levi is just one of those guys we all need to read, anyway. Papus, too (even though he gives me a headache with that antithesis of the synthesis talk.)
https://paulhughesbarlow.com/dialectic-papus/

 

[Decan]

3 hours ago, _R_ said:

Have you read those authors? Their works are either available online (Gallica, etc) or have been reprinted in recent years.

I browsed a few old books in the past, but not seriously. Actually, now the interest is there to bookmark some of them!

[Decan]

3 hours ago, katrinka said:

Very important tool! 😄

[_R_]

17 hours ago, katrinka said:

As for me, I find blogs like this helpful. 😉
https://traditionaltarot.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/piobb-the-tarot-and-the-22-polygons/

Thanks for the kind remarks. Piobb’s work could certainly do with being seriously unpacked, and of course it could also do with being fully translated into English as well. At the least, those excerpts give some idea of what he proposed as far as the Tarot is concerned, and the chain of influences becomes a little more clearer.

Having already lined up the future posts until mid-January, I can say that only one of them is ‘occultist’, the rest being either Surrealist, scholarly, or literary in nature. This is not just due to personal preferences, it also depends on the material available to hand, obviously enough. And Picard’s book (for example) is somewhat out of range at $300 or whatever it is going for online, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. I've tried to find a couple of his other articles, but to no avail, unfortunately.

 

15 hours ago, Decan said:

I browsed a few old books in the past, but not seriously. Actually, now the interest is there to bookmark some of them!

It is not uninteresting to browse through them in chronological order, it will help clarify things a lot. Elie Alta's books were published under different titles, but, as far as I know, his 'Tarot de Marseilles' material is also included in the 'Tarot Egyptien' book, though it's been years since I've seen them. Those are not online but the first title was reprinted a few years ago and shouldn't be hard to find. At the time, it was somewhat fashionable to include illustrations or interpretations for both sets of cards (usually TdM + the Falconnier deck or a knock-off.)

[Decan]

5 hours ago, _R_ said:

It is not uninteresting to browse through them in chronological order, it will help clarify things a lot.

Yes I think too! I completed my list of authors (in chronological order) and will begin to read in that order what wikipedia says about each of them, the oldest is Eliphas Lévi (but Paul Christian was born just one year after).

[_R_]

19 hours ago, Decan said:

Yes I think too! I completed my list of authors (in chronological order) and will begin to read in that order what wikipedia says about each of them, the oldest is Eliphas Lévi (but Paul Christian was born just one year after).

You may as well start with the person responsible: Court de Gébelin, and perhaps dip into Etteilla (and see why everyone criticises his command of French). 

Many of these authors are verbose, but going direct to the source rather than Wikipedia is always advisable, if time permits.

Also, you can still find copies of the 1970s edition of Christian's "homme rouge des Tuileries" - it's a nice book!

[Decan]

2 hours ago, _R_ said:

You may as well start with the person responsible: Court de Gébelin, and perhaps dip into Etteilla (and see why everyone criticises his command of French). 

Many of these authors are verbose, but going direct to the source rather than Wikipedia is always advisable, if time permits.

Also, you can still find copies of the 1970s edition of Christian's "homme rouge des Tuileries" - it's a nice book!

I added Court de Gebelin and Etteilla, indeed! Wikipedia is just a start for an overview, as well because I saw that most of them wrote many many books.

"L'homme en rouge des Tuileries" is well known, I already heard about it. Thanks again @_R_

[_R_]

17 minutes ago, Decan said:

"L'homme en rouge des Tuileries" is well known, I already heard about it.

Yes, of course. It is also now on Gallica, if you are not a bibliophile or eager to acquire a piece of Tarot memorabilia. Christian's weird ideas are easier to digest in fictional form, in my experience (as opposed to his Histoire de la magie), but keep a pencil and a piece of paper handy when you read it once he gets into the calculations, and you too may be able to crack his "Da Vinci Code" !

[Decan]

I take note of that! 🙂

[_R_]

23 minutes ago, Decan said:

Wikipedia is just a start for an overview, as well because I saw that most of them wrote many many books.

Bear in mind some of those books were reprinted under different titles (e.g. Elie Alta, etc), so perhaps not so many as you might think. This is still the case today: Tchalaï and Claude de Milleville’s books were reprinted with different titles too.

 

So, Court de Gébelin: 2 x essays (inc. de Mellet);
Etteilla: the less said the better;
E. Lévi: 2 books - Dogme et Rituel and Histoire de la Magie (that’s about it really, unless you want to look at his Sanctum Regnum in English);
P. Christian: 2 books (some overlap);
Papus: 2 books (1 theory, 1 practice);
Elie Alta: (same book, 2-3 different titles);
O. Wirth: 2 books (a lot of overlap).

 

That's about it for the 19th century as far as that type of literature is concerned. In terms of pure cartomancy rather than theory, Bourgeat's little book is worth getting , it's still in print. A good summary of a lot of these authors can be found in this book by Robert Ambelain: https://www.scribd.com/doc/288298550/Robert-Ambelain-Les-Tarots

[_R_]

To return to the original topic, without having found a couple of other articles by Eudes Picard (presumably badly referenced), I have earmarked the article formed of excerpts from his book for translation, although it probably won't be ready until close to the end of the year. Here is the original:

[Decan]

4 hours ago, _R_ said:

Bear in mind some of those books were reprinted under different titles (e.g. Elie Alta, etc), so perhaps not so many as you might think. This is still the case today: Tchalaï and Claude de Milleville’s books were reprinted with different titles too.

 

So, Court de Gébelin: 2 x essays (inc. de Mellet);
Etteilla: the less said the better;
E. Lévi: 2 books - Dogme et Rituel and Histoire de la Magie (that’s about it really, unless you want to look at his Sanctum Regnum in English);
P. Christian: 2 books (some overlap);
Papus: 2 books (1 theory, 1 practice);
Elie Alta: (same book, 2-3 different titles);
O. Wirth: 2 books (a lot of overlap).

 

That's about it for the 19th century as far as that type of literature is concerned. In terms of pure cartomancy rather than theory, Bourgeat's little book is worth getting , it's still in print. A good summary of a lot of these authors can be found in this book by Robert Ambelain: https://www.scribd.com/doc/288298550/Robert-Ambelain-Les-Tarots

Thanks again it's duly noted on the little document I started!

[Decan]

When the thread was created I found online the Manual by Eudes Picard for about $200 if I remember properly (from Switzerland), but I don't find it anymore, maybe sold in between (while pricey!!)

Edited October 15, 2020 by Decan